Scrapbooking: L is for London and I is for Ireland

The Alphabet Adventure continues! True to form, we've not been going in order. Where's the fun in that??

L is for London

In February half term (weeks before the terrorist attack), Bren and I took a trip into Central London. We used to spend lots of time in London while he was going to university there, but I'd never seen the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben or Westminster Cathedral. We also had to rescue Bren's bag that he'd left in Kensington the night before after a few too many drinks...!
This was an easy page to scrapbook once I'd chosen the backing paper and label materials, and I had a packet of London themed embellishments from which I chose the flag, bus and tube sign.

L is for London

I is for Ireland

I is for Ireland was far harder to scrapbook. We actually went to Ireland in October half term (it's taken me this long to get the photos printed!) and did a 5 days tour of Dublin, Galway, Killarney and Cork. Long story short, I had 100+ photos to choose from - so I had to edit. Even as I was making the pages I was editing based on lack of space!
I chose the baking paper from a "Wild Flower" scrapbook backgrounds pad that I bought from Hobbycraft on Friday. I like to use the same background for the same event, and there were only 3 of these in the pack so I'd challenged myself to fit the photos onto 3 pages. (All of the other letters so far only have 1 page by the way!)

"Wild Flower" background paper

Then, after A LOT of experimenting, I settled on these pages.

I is for Ireland: Dublin

I is for Ireland: Dublin to Galway to Killarney

I is for Ireland: Killarney to Cork to Dublin again.

Stickers that I found by chance in Hobbycraft - seemed appropriate!

These pages almost don't do it justice because of the number of pages I left out, but I'm still pretty happy with the results.
Also, I took that photo of the sheep as it was standing on a grass verge next to our car, and it wasn't zoomed in at all. We think it was hitchhiking!

I'm not sure what the next Alphabet Adventure will be yet - we still need letters A, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, M, N, O, P, Q, R, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Post your suggestions please!

Stitch a Photo - Week 1

It's been a week since I started my wedding Stitch a Photo kit. So far, I've got as far as stitching the very edge of Bren's side and my neck and top part of my dress. There are lots of colour changes!

The photo I'm Stitching.

The first few stitches of Bren's suit.

The start of my veil.

More veil!

Such a huge chart for a small piece of fabric!

The start of my dress

Start of my shoulder

Starting to look a bit more like me!

The chart - Page 5 of 9

There's a lot of fiddly stitches at the bottom of the page which I'll tackle this week - I think that's where my bouquet starts. Bren's suit is a lot more straight forward, but I may decide to change the colour of his tie, as it was more blue in the photograph than the purple that it was.

Overall, I'm pleased with my first week's progress! This week is Activity week in school (less marking so more stitching opportunities) and then 2 weeks for Easter holidays (more stitching opportunities!) so I may get this page finished. After that, progress will most likely be slow. I think the original finishing estimate of *years* may still be accurate!

1st Wedding Anniversary Baking

Today is my 1st wedding anniversary - crazy! This time a year ago, we'd literally just been pronounced husband and wife.
So, to mark the occasion, I made butterfly fairy cakes. Aside from the fact that my Nan used to make wonderful butterfly cake, our wedding theme was Butterfly Garden.

Despite the fact that it's a simple recipe, I've never managed to successfully make butterfly cakes. Until today!

 I mixed 110g of self-raising flour, 110g caster sugar and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, then added 110g butter, 2 eggs and 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract and mixed it all together. Then, I spooned the mixture into cupcake cases and baked for 20 min at 180°C. While they were cooling, I made the icing with 220g of icing sugar and 110g butter - mix half the icing sugar with the butter, then add the other half of icing sugar with a splash of milk and more vanilla extract.

 Once the cakes cooled, I cut off the tops, spooned some icing into the middle, cut the tops in half to make wings and put them in the icing. Finally, I dusted them with icing sugar and added sugar pearls - purple to match our wedding theme, of course!

Bren and I have sampled the cakes and agree they taste yummy!

My 14th Love Quilts Square

This square is for a little girl called Olivia who has autism, ADHD and minor heart defects. The chosen theme for her quilt was Tatty Teddy, which I've never seen as a quilt theme before!

I already had this Tatty Teddy kit at home called "Three Little Sailors" so I decided to use that. Because of the size limit, I decided to use one and then add a border.

I googled for the bunting border and found another border that had anchors at the corner, so I merged them together. It looks pretty darn cute if I do say so myself, but the backstitch was a bit extreme. It's all made up of tiny stitches and they're all in between stitches, rather than in the corners that would allow you to use the pre-made holes in the fabric! All in all though, the whole square only took 3 days in half term - and that wasn't 3 full days either!

Love Quilts Square no. 14

 

DMC Kit: Tatty Tatty - Three Little Sailors

So, naturally, I've decided to start the whole kit now - I was going to leave it for a while to have a break from the backstitch, but in the end I decided to do it while my memory on how I did it was relatively fresh. I think I'll leave the lighthouse bear for last though! 

I think now's a good time to share my next ongoing sewing project with you. I say "ongoing" because it is going to be a mammoth task. 

Some of you may know I recently celebrated my 30th birthday. *insert your own age joke here* My mum bought me the most amazing gift. She's had a cross stitch chart made of a photo from my wedding day!

Almost a year ago!

She said she was originally just looking for a photo of my bouquet on its own, but - unbelievably - there wasn't one. Mum's suggested that I keep it as on ongoing project and do other things on the side as well. 

My super organised mummy!

8 pages for the chart and umpteen different colours - think she might be onto something there! Lots of Stitch and Bitch meetings will be needed I feel! I'm excited to get started though 😄 

Macaroon or Macaron?

So today, my husband woke up with a burning desire to bake French Macarons for the first time. I've no idea why, but we tried it anyway. Now, bearing in mind that I don't have any macaron recipes so Bren amalgamated several recipes he found on the internet. Also consider that I've never even tasted a macaron, let alone made one.

All things considered: what's the worst that could happen?? 

Well, they turned out ok in the end. Well, that's what Bren says. I have nothing to compare it to but they do taste pretty good! 

First we made the meringue from egg whites and caster sugar. Then, we added some red food colouring to turn the mixture pink. We made the main mixture from ground almonds and sifted icing sugar, then folded that into the meringue. After that, we piped the mixture into circular discs onto baking trays (covered in baking paper) and banged the trays in the surface to release air bubbles. Of course, the discs are all different sizes, so let's say that's part of the charm! Then, we left them to rest on the side for half an hour before putting them in the oven for 15-20 minutes. 

Soft Peaks!

While they were baking in the oven, we made some strawberry buttercream filling from butter, caster sugar, milk and strawberry jam. Finally, Bren sandwiched the filling between two macaron discs and voilá! 

Bon Appetit! 

 Bren says that as far as macarons go, the mixture is good but the meringue is usually crispier. Again, I wouldn't know! Either way, was a pretty good experiment for a Saturday afternoon!

A Crafty Update

I realised the other day that I hadn't shared any of my creations for a while. Mainly because I was working on a surprise gift for Christmas and then forgot to share the pictures! I know you were all missing me...lol =D

The surprise Christmas gift was a cross stitch picture for Bren. His favourite console game as a child was Final Fantasy VII (yes, you could argue we're a pair of geeks...lol). So when I found this chart on Cloud Factory I thought of him!

It was quick and fun to stitch - even though I only know one of these characters, and that's because he was voiced by David Boreanaz in the Kingdom Hearts game !! I bought hand dyed fabric from Crafty Kitten - it was a cloud effect. I'm happy with how it turned out, and I think Bren liked it too! It's framed and sitting next to our computer now.

Final Fantasy VII: Cloud aka David Boreanaz and a bunch of other characters. lol

On the subject of Christmas, I managed to do different crafty projects. Most importantly, I FINALLY managed to finish that stocking hat I started 3 or 4 years ago! A truly momentous occasion! Of course, I suppose I could have finished it sooner if it wasn't for the fact that I would only work on it in the months of November or December. Otherwise, it didn't feel very Christmassy!! 

The stocking was made on a "sewing by numbers" basis. It consists of different numbered pieces of felt. After you cut out each piece, you may have to embroider, sequin or stuff it before you applique it to the main stocking. It's a completely different skill to cross stitching or dress making and my mum made several of these when I was younger so I wanted to try myself. I'm pretty darn pleased with how it turned out!

3 years in the making!

Aside from that, there's the traditional Christmas baking...

Christmas cake - fruit based covered in icing.

Homemade Mince Pies

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, courtesy of my trusty Primrose Bakery Book

One of my favourite Christmas gifts this year was a breadmaking machine from my Mum. Sounds like the most random gift ever, but I find it hard to buy bread and pastries in the shops because I have to check the ingredients carefully for vinegar (which I'm allergic to). When you make your own bread, the vinegar is unnecessary! You can make so many things in a breadmaker -it's truly marvellous! So far, I've made Buttery Brioche bread, sandwich bread, pizza bases and iced buns. All you do is follow the recipe - put all the ingredients in the bread pan, set the machine and press start. If you're making a dough for pizzas or buns then you'll have to work the dough after, but if you're making a loaf of bread it's pretty much ready to eat once the machine bleeps.

Iced Buns. Not the most finessed of icing, but the buns lasted all of 4 hours before they were eaten!

Homemade Pizza: A lot bigger than it looks in the picture. Almost defeated me!

Buttery Brioche Bread: my favourite loaf (even if it has got lots of butter lol)

The last complete project I can show you is a decopatch mannequin that I've had for a while. I had a weekend where I was going down with the flu so I stayed in bed to rest, so I figured a bit of decopatch would be good, especially as you don't have to especially focus your eyes to do it - ideal when you're ill!
After a lot of consideration, I chose these patterned papers to create an effect of a cool skirt. If you've ever watched the Great British Sewing Bee, you'll know on the opening credits that girl swooshes that blue stripy skirt around...that's what I was thinking of!

I'm hoping to make a purple skirt similar to this soon! Although not in stripes. Stripes make me look weird.

As for my current ongoing projects: I'm working on a Tatty Teddy cross stitch for a Love Quilts square - that should be finished very soon so I'll be able to post pictures of that soon. I'm also working on another secret surprise gift, so I can't post that yet. I'm also updating my Alphabet Adventures Scrapbook - I need to add I is for Ireland and now L is for London (which we just did today!). My mum also gave me a mammoth cross stitch kit which I'll share in another blog post - I'm hoping to start soon after I've finished the secret surprise gift!  

The Luck of the Irish

On a family holiday 15 years ago, we found a craft shop on a highway in Florida (much to my dad's dismay!). They were selling these cross stitch kits by Victoria sampler. They have a collection for the American states and also an International Hearts range, the idea being you collect them as you visit the places (or places that have a particular meaning for you). A few years ago, they discontinued the International Hearts range, so I bought a load of the places that I was most likely to visit as a future investment. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I went to Ireland which meant I could finally stitch this one!

Each heart has pictures that symbolises that country/state - this one has the shamrock, leprechaun, pot of gold and the harp - and each one also has it's own specialty stitch (in this case, the red and green crosses, which is supposed to represent the River Shannon). 

All in all, was a very quick stitch, except I ran out of gold thread so I had to order some more. These kits are also on 18 count evenweave, which means that every cross goes over 9 holes instead of the usual 4. 

While I was ordering the gold thread, I also came across this nice little cross stitch kit - just thought it was cute! I would have loved this as a little girl when I was an aspiring ballerina!