As always busy living and being...

Oops...it’s again been a long time since posting.  I guess with work and home and just trying to do what has to be done I get caught up in the moments and forget to post something here for posterity.  I’ll try to be better but cannot promise – life is for living.  I admire those who dedicate time to make or create and then post weekly or even daily.  I don’t know how you do it as I know I find it difficult.

 

I have been busy with work and being on-call one weekend a month does mean less time doing what I want cooking/shopping wise but such is life.  I spent a good portion of the winter months rolling roses – to decorate my packages.  I know I’m onto a good thing – I can at least make them and they come out so cute!  Here are a few different pictures that I took of ones I did recently.

I then tried a new recipe for crab meat cannelloni – yes, I did get the tin of crab meat reduced and had been keeping for just such a dish.  I made my own pasta for this one and the rest was quite easy to whip up.  

I think the only difference I would do is use single cream instead of double cream – I found that the original recipe was too rich as well as too thick – it needed to be a bit thinner in consistency for me.  However, something that I’d make again and I would probably use more herbs in addition to the chives as I didn’t use the rocket on top – I just served with a small salad in one meal and the other was broccoli as it made two meals for us.  Also since I used home made pasta I’d freeze it instead of keeping in the fridge (although it was OK it did get a bit ‘wet’).

That's it for the moment.  I have a few other projects I'm working on and I finally got to go out with a friend of mine charity shopping for a day.  We went from one end of Rayleigh to Shoeburyness - it was pouring down but we didn't care.  I got loads of items and it's probably been the best charity shopping I've done in ages.  Stay tuned - more to come yet!

Being crafty in a new way!

Well I know I have many interests – who doesn’t?  I love vintage things and have seen for absolute age, up-cycled clothing and love most of what I see (well you will always find something that you think to yourself – what were you thinking!?!).  I’m one of those who get’s something without a particular purpose in mind but saves for that special something – this isn’t always the case but you know what I mean.

So ages ago when trawling eBay I found this rather plain blue jean dress.  It went for a silly price – something like £5.00 for the dress and shipping – so I figured why not?  Then it sat in the closet for a long time.  I pulled it out last winter and thought – right I’m going to do something with it over the winter.  Well that plan went to pot but there it sat teasing me.  I then got a whole bunch of sewing supplies from a friend who was getting rid of them.  In this goody bag was some lovely glass bugle beads along with a load of pearls.  I instantly saw in my mind what I would do with them and this dress.  

 

As you can see from the pictures above I just added a bit at the collar along with two glass buttons (yes, I’m still stock piled with them – gotta use them up!).  I then had a vintage doily and put that on there and then decked it out with the pearls and bugle beads.  I then had a few other buttons that I wanted to use and that was it.  I looked at the rather plain blue buttons on there and well you know by now they went and yes, the glass ones came out and went onto it as well.

I think it came out pretty cute and I can guarantee no one will have anything like this.  I rather like that idea – a single one off creation that incorporates my love of vintage.  I'm now on the trek to making a cheesecloth rose - that one will be pinned to the dress in some fashion but I'll follow that up with a posting later.

I then was decorating a present for a friend and just wanted something different so brought out my crafting books stash and saw some roses in paper and thought - yeah that would be cute and different rather just the usual bow or ribbon.

So I did a search and you got to love You Tube – because at times they really do have some good videos.  So found a few and then began attempting to make them with my old dictionary that was falling apart.  Well in no time I had some very lovely little items as you can see below.

Then not I just had to bling them up a bit – they were after all plain (but plain is nice if that’s what you want) it was jus this was a special birthday so had to add a few pearls.  I think they came out great and when people saw the present they all asked where did I buy those?  I think they all knew the answer as I just smiled and said I made them.  They were so easy – and if you are interested in doing your own this is the video I used to make them.

Go forth and get crafty!