PinAddicts Pinterest challenge- Another Personalised Christening Gift

Well it was James' youngest two brothers' Christening this Sunday and for weeks I have been struggling to think of what we could buy them.

Me and James were the Godparent's to one of his brothers too so wanted to get something nice.

With E being 8 and T being 5 we couldn't get the normal sort of Christening gifts that you would be likely to buy for a baby's Christening.

After making this Christening gift a couple of months ago I thought about doing something similar...but then though that might be a bit babyish. So instead I decided to look up their name meanings.

Bingo! Both religious meanings which was the icing on the cake for me and gave me the kick up the bum to figure out what to do (and get pinning)!

I found these ideas:

Both pins are originally from Not on the highstreet where I did a LOT of browsing (but left too late to order anything as per usual)!

I knew I wanted to use box frames and was quite excited and annoyed to find out that The range were half the price than Hobbycraft who I have used many times before now (I know where I will be going from now on)!!

I have loads of paper stock, but had no good sized alphabet stamps so also got some in The range for about £8 and a pack of 3 ink pads for a few pounds, (again bargain)!

I recently bought a scoring board at a Stampin' Up party so wanted to get to use that, so for the background paper simply scored straight lines all along it. Then I stamped the names with blue ink and then their meanings underneath. 

I felt it was missing something so I searched high and low until I found the clip I'd found weeks ago and forgotten to pin to make scored 3D stars. I loved this! So after a few practices made some with some silver card and  stuck them with double sided sticky foam. 

Quite pleased with the results and so were James' parents even if the boys weren't too fussed! And the day was beautiful the sun made it all the more perfect too. 

I've been told I could make these to sell, and to be honest I'd love to, would you buy things like this if so how much would you be prepared to pay? I'd really love to set up my own craft business instead of going back to part time retail work, but am I just being silly? Would really appreciate some opinions on that :)

Don't forget to check out the other entries at pinaddictschallenge.com

Pinaddicts Pinterest Challenge-personalised letter box frame Christening gift

It was my best friends little girl's Christening today and I wanted to make a nice keepsake gift for her. I knew it my head what I wanted to do so looked for some things in Pinterest for a bit of help.

Source

One Sunday recently I managed a lovely browse around Hobbycraft and bought a white box frame and some lovely coloured felts. Typically I left it to the last minute to make the present so the last few days I've been sewing fast, and typically the first box frame back wouldn't come out so it was another trip to Hobbycraft to change it (also came back with a huge Swiss roll tin for £3-bargain)!

I cut the E out of pink felt and stitched around it, and glued this onto the cream square of backing felt. Then backstitched 'is for', and then satin stitched the name 'Ella' - this is the first time I have used this stitch and I wish I'd come across it before! Then I cut a heart out of the pink felt and sewed that onto the backing. 

My friend loved it, I think it is so nice to be able to make something personalised and handmade for occasions like this-and no risk of doubling up on gifts!

                                   

When Pinterest gives false hope!

I admit I have spent many hours of my life looking through Pinterest pages, and I often pin things that I know I will never really get around to do, but when I saw these cute looking bunny buns I couldn't resist trying them for Easter.

Source

 Now I have never had luck when it comes to bread making, I am impatient, I don't like baking when you have to wait around, so waiting for for things to prove isn't something I'm usually prepared to wait the recommended time for! I thought I'd try to day though, just bought some bread flour that only needed water added to it, and left it covered in the airing cupboard. I didn't have a choice about giving in to putting it in the oven too early as Sam needed feeding so that worked out quite well, and for once the bread dough had doubled in size. 

I used scissors to snip the ears into the dough, and a cocktail stick to prick the eyes. Already they didn't exactly look great...

More like road kill bunnies!

I thoguht hoped something magical might happen in the oven...umm it didn't happen

Attack of the zombie bunnies!

So not all Pinterest makes are a success, especially in my case when it comes to bread!

Still they tasted nice and it was lovely to have warm rolls for lunch!

I thought Alex might have liked to have made these with me, but he wasn't interested as Daddy was home and had got his old scalextric set out of the garage so that was much more fun!

Hope you don't mind but linking up with PinAddicts as not all pins turn out nice and thought it might give you all a laugh!

PinAddicts Challenge: Chocolate and cinnamon meringues

Hello I am back *waves* it's been a while since I joined in the PinAddicts challenge due to all sorts of things, the main one being having Sam :)

Since buying my new, massive Jamie Oliver mixing bowl (I have an unusual fetish with cookware, I already had a perfectly good mixing bowl...)  the other day at a party I have been desperate to get some use out of it, and for a while I have wanted to to make meringues, so I had a quick browse for some ideas on Pinterest.

I found these:

Chocolate and cinnamon meringues

It links to a French site here but if you are lucky enough your browser should be able to translate it for you. Now chocolate and cinnamon are two things that I LOVE so it was a no brainer. These were incredibly easy to make, 2 egg whites, 120g sugar, 3tsp cocoa powder, 0.5tsp of cinnamon. Whisk the egg whites gradually add the sugar (I think really you are only supposed to whisk in half the sugar and then fold in the rest after but I didn't realise that until after), sift in the powder and spice and fold it in. Bake in a preheated oven at 130C for 30-45 minutes. Sprinkle some cocoa powder on top once cooled. 

These went down really well on Sunday when my Grandparents were down at my parent's house, they were very moreish and being small meant you could have a few without feeling too guilty! Sorry for the rubbish photo though I was rushing around and had a cake to bake after this to be ready for lunch at Mum's and Dad's! I don't know why I have always felt so afraid to make meringues before as they were incredibly easy to make and will definitely be trying out some different flavour combos or maybe even a pavlova! Watch this space...

Linking up with the PinAddicts click on the linky to view the other makes. 

Turning 3

On Tuesday it was Alex's 3rd birthday (where on earth did that time go)! He goes to preschool on Tuesday mornings which was a bit gutting but at the same time quite nice too, they sang to him and another girl at the end with a cake and he came out so happy and excited. We purposely didn't give him his presents before preschool as I don't think we would have got him there otherwise! I had a midwife appointment and blood test in the morning and the weather was pretty awful so we wouldn't have been able to get up to much had he not been at preschool anyway.

This year Alex has really got into Toy Story, probably helped along a bit with our trip to Disney Land earlier in the year-especially coming back with a big Buzz and Woody!

I had asked him quite a few times what he would like for his Birthday cake, but I never really got much of an answer so just sort of went with a Toy Story theme for it. James bought Alex the RC racer car and Rex anyway for birthday presents (obviously the car was for Alex and not him to play with...so he tells me anyway but who played it first ;)!

As always I had a good look on Google and Pinterest for ideas and only pinned a few as most were amazing and well out of my budget/skill level/time & effort needed, but here are a few: cakes and party ideas.

I made two Victoria sponges (each a 3 egg recipe) sandwiched them together with vanilla butter icing and then used the same icing to cover the whole cake but added blue food colouring to it. 

I then spent about an hour trying to make the royal icing the right colours for the top of the cake-especially trying to make the red and blue dark enough!  Eventually I got to a place where I was happy enough to stop/was getting fed up and tired. I copied the style of the Toy Story writing on the front on the DVD case but changed the words to 'Alex is 3', and placed these on top without stressing out/throwing things when it went wrong.* I had borrowed some Toy Story figures that James' Mum has used many times for decorating the boy's cakes and placed them around the edge too. 

Here's the finished result:

Alex was very pleased and excited about the cake which made all the hard work worth it, and I have been told that it was very nice too...I'd have to agree as I have probably eaten the most of it ;)

 I had a really good idea to make all the food themed for his party too, I had even made the signs up like these on the computer:

Unfortunately our printer seems to be playing up with the wireless at the moment and the colour ink seems to have faded even though we have barely used it so didn't end up using them, and to be honest with my low energy levels I thought it was a bit of a wasted task for a family party (perhaps next year)?! I was also going to do a pin the tail on Bullseye or Sheriff badge on Woody but I did just run out of time on that one too!

As it was only family and only 3 youngsters I did sort of use that as an excuse not to have to do those things a bit (oops) but at 8 months pregnant I don't think anyone was going to complain about it!

The ideas I did have for the food (just in case you wanted to do something similar) were:

-Pizza planets (in a pizza box with the pizza planet logos)

- Slinky hot dogs

-Al's Cheesy puffs

-Hamm's bacon crisps or Hamm's rolls (sausage rolls)

-Stuffed potato heads

-Sheriif sandwiches (shaped as stars)

-Lime jelly in clear cups (stick 3 eyes on front and draw mouth with pen to make the aliens)

-Buzz's planets (popcorn and/or rainbow drops)

-Rex's biscuits (the dinosaur chocolate animals)

*I totally got stressy and threw things after 2 hours of cake decorating!

Linking up with the PinAddicts challenge this month too-it's been a while since I have joined in!

Check out all the links over on the blog. 

PinAddicts Pinterest Challenge-Jazzing up a quote

Apologies as this isn't really 100% finished but it is something I have had pinned for a while (I think) if not it is certainly a quote I came across during my A level art course.

This is the pin which has a quote I like:

http://pinterest.com/pin/175921929164754164/

This is another pin which I also like but also I really like the typography:

I wanted to try and write the Walt Disney quote with a similar font, so found this font online.
I got some of my watercolour pencils out which I haven't used for years, typically they weren't the sharpest and could I find a sharpener anywhere but hey ho I made do (sort of). Tonight I got a fab brush out, (it's one that's plastic and can hold water that you squeeze through to the brush nib which means no pots of water anywhere-perfect for this piece) and went over the writing. I think I may do this in some ink to make it s bit more permanent, I was just too scared to go straight to the ink!

Just the pencil

Water colour after being painted

It's not my neatest work, and I hate that it isn't finished, but this can be my work in progress...I am planning to try and make a collection of quotes and small artwork that I can put into similar frames, maybe paint them up different colours etc. But I haven't the money at the moment after being signed off work for a month and about 2 weeks of sickness so have two lousy pay cheques (I really mean lousy I mean I only work 4 hours a week anyway)! I may add something to the background once I have painted it with ink, but I am not sure if that will just ruin it, so wait and see. We have to get our house painted first anyway!

Head on over to Kerry at mylovebumps to her's and other's entries and perhaps add your own too!

Pinaddicts Pinterest Challenge- Wedding card embroidery

As my readers will know we had a wedding to attend on Saturday, it was James' cousin (who I have met only once about 4 years ago)! I like to make a small keepsake for wedding day's but wanted to try something a little different this time around, they are both well off so it was hard to think of what to do in such a short space of time, and I don't know either of their styles, so I decided to make a card with a little bit of a difference.

This is probably the nearest thing I had pinned for this project, even though it's not really alike:

Via

Here is the card I made:

I had a scrap of the backing fabric (admittedly an old pair of shorts) cut around with pinking shears, then using embroidery thread sewed their names and their wedding date. The 2 hearts are made from felt, I used cotton thread to slowly thread each bead on (typically the beads were too small to pass through the needle)! Then sewed these onto to the backing fabric. Admittedly it was done in a bit of a rush, and that's why I only have the one rushed photo too! The morning of the wedding I cut the white piece of card and glued that on to the card and the fabric onto that-I used fabric glue for this bit so that it wouldn't show through- hopefully it was dry by the time they opened it ;)

To join in or check out the other entries head over to simplyoutnumbered :)

Pinaddicts Pinterest Challenge- Chalkboard Table

Click on link and then the image to go to the original page.

This month I FINALLY got around to buying some chalkboard paint, I have been wanting to get some for ages, Pinterest just made me want to buy it some more as I keep seeing cool ideas. 

As much as I' like a chalkboard painted wall in my house I don't think my partner would be too happy with me actually doing it. And I didn't get around to finding a nice frame to paint either...however I did remember I had a cheap Ikea Lack table in the garage that we had bought for about £2 in one of their sales. 

So I turned this coffee table into a chalkboard table for Alex. 

1. You need a table, chalkboard paint & a brush. 

2. Paint 2 coats. 

3. Use a chalk on it's side & cover the surface. 

4. Have some fun!

I know pass me the sick bucket, but it made my partner smile after a day of working 2 jobs!

And Alex loved it...

Although next time I think I may take it outside to save all the chalk dust all over the carpet!

Pinaddicts Pinterest Challenge

For my second Pinterest make I found this:

Click on the link and then the photo to go to the original page.

I found this tutorial way before I got Pinterest and had copied it into word with the link (thank God Pinterest was made, makes it SO much easier)!

My parents had an extension a few years ago now, but had some left over tiles and had some cut up once all the floor was finished (I say some...the Polish builder didn't understand my Mums sarcasm when she said to cut 100, she felt mean when she came back from work to find a HUGE pile) they are lovely limestone tiles that would look great alone, however when I varnished them a few months back they went all streaky so had affectively ruined them, they would have stayed in one of my many craft boxes for months if it wasn't for this challenge!

Instead of Mod Podge I used glue and water (as I will be varnishing them properly at the end anyway) make sure the mixture is about 1/2 PVA and 1/2 water. I had some origami paper I found on offer the other month so used some of that, then once I had taken these photos I thought I could try it with some wall paper samples (not that I take these without ever intending to wallpaper my house...)!

I placed the tiles top side down on the paper I was using and used a scalpel to cut around the paper. Then I spread a layer of the glue mixture on the tiles and squared up the paper and pressed down (easier said than done, stupid air bubbles)! Then gave another coat of the glue mixture, let it completely dry and repeat once or twice more. 

For the bottom of the tiles on two I used a square of felt, simply glued to the surface. For the other two I had some double sided foam dots (didn't realise they were double sided until I'd stuck them on) so then cut a small circle of the same felt used for the other two tiles and stuck to the foam dot. This will be a bit of a tester to see which works best. 

Sorry the photos aren't the best, the lights not great in this place. I still have to varnish them but thought I would do that after taking the photos as it takes a quite a while to dry. They will make a nice change from my smart price coasters!

This is part of the Pinaddicts Pinterest challenge, to enter or follow the rest of the entries please pop over to melksham mum. 

PinAddicts Pinterest Challenge

I decided that I would join in on this as I had the perfect reason to make something this month and also have only recently discovered Pinterest (seriously don't know what I did with my life before that)!

I decided to make something along these lines, which I pinned here.

I have liked these type of things for a while now, but never really had the reason to make one. James' cousin is getting married next week so thought this would make a nice keepsake gift. 

I got the medium sized box frame and paper materials from Hobbycraft, which all came to about a tenner. 

I set up, cut the backing paper (after much deliberation as to which colour paper to use from my selection) to size. Then messed about cutting hearts in different ways, my blunt scalpel had seen better days and left a rubbish cut so decided I'd just use scissors instead. This bit would be loads easier if you had a heart cutter but they were £10 each so couldn't afford that just for one project!

I settled on a layout with rough paper first-because knowing me I would have done it completely wrong if I had used the nice stuff first time round!

I stuck them down so that alternate halves of heart were stuck. With the heart that holds the wedding date on I chose the purple card to stand out (I have a feeling the wedding colour is purple too but don't actually know for certain), just wrote the date on with a marker pen, unfortunately my silver marker was too fat!

Here's what it ended up like...not the best photo as it was a nightmare to not get glare or reflections in the glass! The paper's have a pearl/shimmery effect on them which the photo doesn't do justice too either! Here's hoping the happy couple like their keepsake next week.

This is my entry on the PinAddicts Pinterest Challenge, why not see the other entries too...