Wedding Card Album Pin.013

Me and the hubster will have been married 6 years this July (which feels a little bit mad!). Soon after we got married I decided to make a wedding scrapbook of all our favourite photographs, including things like our order of service, nameplaces and table cards. So off I went to Hobbycraft and splashed out on craft paper, ribbon, decals etc.

5 1/2 years later I am sorry to say that we still don't have a wedding scrapbook, or a photo album! I told myself that it was because I was too busy and didn't have the time to just sit down and get it done. Weekends and holidays came and went and I realised it wasn't that I didn't have the time. I just didn't want to do it! It held no appeal for me at all!

Anyway, while forcing myself to start putting it together, I came across all our wedding cards, which are such a lovely reminder of our day. I realised I wasn't going to be able to put them all in the scrapbook and I didn't want to throw them away either.

Then I remembered something I'd seen on Pinterest a while ago - a wedding card album! Desperate to avoid working on my scrapbook I decided to give it a go.

This is the pin below. Click on it to go to the tutorial:

Here's my version:

A couple of tips if you want to try this:

• Use cardboard for the covers (stronger the better). I didn't have any so I used heavyweight painting paper but it is not as sturdy.
• You don't need to use a 'croc-a-dile' hole punch as described. Instead draw a dot where you want the hole to be, take the bottom cover/tray off of a normal sturdy hole punch. Turn hole punch over and line up the dot so it is in the middle of the hole. However make sure you don't hole punch another piece of your work by accident (like I did!).
• The 'brads' described are paper fasteners. I couldn't be bothered with this so used glue dots instead to fix on the ribbon. It worked fine, though you can see the glue dots through the ribbon, depends how fussy you are!
• Consider using hole re-inforcers (whsmiths or similar)

Verdict: A good tutorial and a nice way to keep all your wedding cards. Because my wedding cards were all different sizes it doesn't 'sit' as nicely as the original but I'm still happy enough with the way it turned out!

I suppose I better get on with that wedding album now...

Ripple Baby Blanket Pin.012

I have finished my second crochet project! Hurrah! And you'll be pleased to hear that it didn't take the 9 months or so that the first one did (although it is a fair bit smaller!).

A rippled baby blanket (sorry not a great picture).

Unfortunately it did take a bit longer than it should have as I hit a few problems along the way, resulting in unpicking hours of work.. sob sob.. I literally was finishing it off in the car on the way to see my friend for her baby shower! It took about a month altogether, though the pattern asked for 55 rows and I was a few short.

You get the ripple effect by using increasing and decreasing stitches that sort of force your crochet into a wave like pattern. It's a very cool effect!

In the end it wasn't really much of a surprise for my friend had seen my half a dozen 'ripple crochet blanket' pins on pinterest!

I used a tutorial from Daisy Cottage Designs (Pin below). However as a beginner crocheter(?) I found it really difficult to make heads or tails of. I'm still not quite sure where I went wrong with interpreting her instructions, as I had lots of chain stitch left over, and an odd amount of stitches. In the end I sort of improvised and fortunately it worked!

If you want to give the ripple blanket a go I would recommend following the pattern from Very Pink Knits. There's a video so you can see how to the stitches and do it along with her. I wish I had found this pattern before I started with the one above, I would have saved myself a lot of stress! Be aware than in any American tutorials they use the term 'double crochet' for what we in the UK would call a 'Treble'. It's also important to maintain the same tension throughout, I tend to crochet quite tightly (something I need to work on) but I got a bit lazy towards the end and was crocheting looser. This resulted in a very wonky blanket, and I had to unpick about 8 rows and redo them all!

For anyone wanting to learn how to crochet, check out Girlybunches tutorials on youtube. It's much easier to get head round it by seeing someone do it than looking at pictures etc. And she goes through all the basics as well as more advanced stitches and projects.

Hmm.. what shall I crochet next? Keep posted for the furniture upcycling me and the hubster are currently working on...

A Message to You Photo Frame! Pin.010

Hello all! Time for another pin post! Clicking on the pin took me to Jill Ruth & Co. This pin (like all the others) is super easy peasy. All you need is:


A fairly large photo frame, the one I used was 15cm x 20cm.
Scrapbook paper
Dry erase marker pen


And that is it!



Take a piece of scrapbook paper and trim as necessary. Plain or lightly patterned paper like this one works best.

Put the scrapbook paper into the frame..

And write your chosen message! You can't get easier than this! Here are some possible uses for the Message Photo Frame:

So there you have it. One Message Photo Frame. Wipe off and change the message as often as you like, use as a reminder, shopping list, message to a loved one etc etc! Also change the background whenever you like, just change the scrapbook paper!

I love it, SO ridiculously easy to do, both cute and practical! What more could you want from a pin?

Origami Paper Stars! Pin.009

Hello all! so I was considering which pin to do this week when I came across this tutorial for origami stars by Minna May. The great thing about this pin is that all you need is a piece of paper! the stars can be used for loads of things... cards, decorations... um.. cards and decorations??

Okay so I'm feeling particularly unimaginative right now but I'm sure you can think of lots of things to use them for... right?

Anyways... They were quite fun to do, quite quick and not too tricky after a bit of practice. I practised with plain white A4 paper then used the pretty patterned paper afterwards.

Got an A4 piece of paper? Then you're ready to rumble!

The tutorial asks for strips of paper 8.5" x 0.5". However, the shorter side of A4 is 8.3" so I used that measurement and it worked fine :)

Make a ribbon shape with the paper, fiddle around with it until it looks like this:

Poke the short tab inside the hole and gently pull through

You then need to flattern the paper a bit and fold over the excess tab:

Then begin folding the long strip of paper over the base of the star:

 And fold it over the back of the star:

And keep going. You will find that the paper sits comfortably in one direction so you don't have to worry too much about folding it in the wrong angle. Eventually you'll get to the end of the strip of paper and have something that looks like this:

You then need to tuck the tab inside the folds so it's hidden. Like this:

And you should have something like this:

The next bit required two hands so I couldn't take a picture, so I have borrowed one from Minna May. Holding the star, push your nail into each side of the star, forcing it into a star shape.

And Ta Da! You are finished!

Like I said before, it takes a bit of patience and practice, but they came out really nice! It's trickier with thicker paper, but I think the trick is to make sure the stars are folded quite tight - though take care not to tear them!

It took a couple of attempts, but I soon got the hang of making these stars. To do it properly it's not super quick but it doesn't take ages either! I think they look best on pretty patterned paper. I have yet to use them for anything but I'm impressed with how well these came out. I am by no means a seasoned origami maker! Please let me know if my instructions need clarifying - it's a hard thing to describe!

Sixty-Second Chocolate Chip Cookie! Pin.008

I originally wanted to try out the Nutella cookies that I had pinned a little while ago (love Nutella!). However, the recipe required an entire jar and we only had a 1/3 of a jar left. Also all the Nutella recipes I came across were American, and it gets really tricky to calculate cups into metric measurements, especially for things like Nutella.. I will attempt these at some point but for now I settled on this pin: Microwave Chocolate Chip Cookie.

The pin I posted led me to.. surprise surprise.. nowhere! This seems to be a common theme with my pinterest pins.

I googled the recipe and found two possibilities. One was from 'Zoomyummy' and the other, from 'No. 2 pencil'. I decided to go with the latter as it made less cookie and suggested using only egg yolk rather than whole egg to avoid a 'cakey' consistency.

                                               
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Granulated White Sugar*
1 Tbsp of firmly packed Dark Brown Sugar*
3 Drops of Vanilla Extract
Small Pinch of Salt
1 Egg Yolk (discard the egg white)
1/4 cup (that's about 37g) of All Purpose Flour
2 Tbsp of Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
*I didn't have any brown sugar so just used 1.5 tbsp of granulated white sugar.


1. Put the butter in your cup and melt in the microwave on a low heat.

2. Add the sugars, vanilla and salt and stir to combine. 

3. Separate the egg and add only the yolk to your cup. Stir to combine. Add flour, then stir again. Add the chocolate chips, and give a final stir.

4. The cookie will need to microwaved for anywhere between 40-60 seconds. Cook in the microwave on full power for about 40 seconds and see if the cookie is done. Depending on your microwave, it may need longer, but be careful not to overcook.

I really wanted to like this.. especially after the success of my Microwave Mug Brownie post. But.. it failed to impress. I mean it was full of butter, sugar and chocolate so believe me, it didn't taste bad... But the problem was the consistency. I was very aware of over-cooking it so it was only in the microwave for 40 seconds. As you can see from the pics, the cookie was undercooked on the top but was well cooked at the bottom. Any longer in the microwave and the cookie would have been too dry. On the upside it was quick and easy to do, and used ingredients from the cupboard.

I think next time I will try the recipe from 'Zoomyummy' and compare the two. I may also use brown sugar next time and see if it makes a difference. Ah well, you win some, you lose some!

Next up.. Another crafty post! But it's a surprise so you'll have to wait and see! ;) 

Microwave Chocolate Mug Brownie! Pin.003

Time for pin number three.. I've been looking forward to trying this for ages as it looks yum! The recipe asks for ingredients that most people have already. You'll be pleased to hear that I kept to the instructions this time.. well... pretty much.. bit of a theme here!

This pin is originally from Food.com. The recipe says "Total Time: 2 mins". Hmmm... that's optimistic! Well, we shall see!

Microwave Chocolate Mug Brownie:
Ingredients:
2 tbsp melted butter (I used 'Utterly Butterly')
2 tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract or double the amount (1/2 tsp) if using vanilla essence.
1 dash of salt
4 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tbsp all-purpose flour

UPDATE: You HAVE to try this with chocolate chips! Heavenly!

You'll need a microwave and a fairly big mug to put your ingredients in. I used the biggest one I had:

But in reality one half the size probably would have been fine. Because you cook the brownie in the microwave and the mixture doesn't contain baking powder the brownie doesn't rise very much.

1. "In a 12 oz coffee mug, add water, butter, vanilla and dash of salt. Whisk well."
You need to melt the butter first, so weigh out the butter then put in the microwave on a low heat for about 5 seconds. I put mine on for too long and got butter all over the top of the microwave.. woopsie.

Then add all the other ingredients. I did this brownie twice (Lucky Hungry Husband!), the second time I used 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence, because I found 1/4tsp wasn't enough. If you're using vanilla essence, you need to double the amount. I wasn't sure how much a 'dash' of salt was so I just put in a sprinkle. I whisked it with a fork.

2. "Add cocoa powder, whisk well. Add sugar, whisk well. Add flour, whisk well."

It uses quite a bit of cocoa powder which is a downside to the recipe. With a standard size (125g) pot of cocoa powder you'd only get 8 microwave chocolate mug brownies... I very rarely use cocoa powder so maybe this isn't so unusual? I find flour very messy, I always get it everywhere... as you can see! If you are going to use chocolate chips, add them now!

Stir well and you should get a stodgy consistency that looks something like this: 

3. "Microwave for 60 to 90 seconds. Center should be slightly molten. Careful not to overcook." This is where it went a bit pear shaped... 

There's a note on the webpage that says that they used a 1500 watt microwave and put it in for 60 seconds. I have an 800 watt microwave so I figured I'd try 40 seconds. This is what it looked like:

It's difficult to see from the picture but it really was not cooked. So I put it in for another 30 seconds...

Oh dear. One very overcooked brownie. It was edible, but it was pretty dried out in the middle and there definitely wasn't a molten centre!

I did the second brownie for 60 seconds and it looked like this:

It was much better! The middle was all gooey and yum. As there isn't a big margin for error, I suggest putting the brownie in the microwave for 40 seconds and then doing 10 second increments, checking it each time, but you probably won't need more than 60 seconds.

4. "Enjoy with a spoon. Careful brownie will be hot." 
(In case you were considering trying to drink it!) that did make me laugh!

UPDATE: Having done this recipe more times than I'd like to admit.. I definitely recommend the addition of chocolate chips... *drool*...

It is easypeasy, microwaving times aside, you can't go wrong. Just remember, 40 seconds in the microwave and increments of 10 seconds 'till it's done. It's best when it's all gooey. Don't cook it 'till it has the consistency of cotton wool like I did.

It was tasty! Especially the second time. However I would call it more a chocolate pudding than a brownie. It didn't have that sugary fudgy texture that a brownie has. Timing wise.. 2 minutes was optimistic, the quickest I managed was 6 mins, 45 secs! (including microwave time). I reckon that's still pretty quick though. Can any of you do it quicker? It's a great recipe when you're craving something sweet, don't have any chocolate in the cupboard and you don't have a lot of time.

Hungry husband was feeling a bit camera shy but let me get his moosetache in the pic. He's doing Movember by the way!

'It doesn't have quite the 'wow' factor' that the nutella cupcakes had. However, It's an extremely tasty dessert, to give it four stars, it needs chunks of chocolate chips or marshmallows.' 


Cor! He doesn't ask for much does he? ; ) Hungry Husband will need to go on a diet at this rate, teehee!

Hungry Husband and I are getting in the Christmassy mood, we don't have space for a tree but here's our efforts so far:

Have you got your Christmas decorations up yet? Click on the image below to see my first Christmassy Pin Post. 004: 'Ribbon Christmas Card Holder!'... Exciting! I love Christmas!