Ribbon & Rosti.

Today was a working day - a 7 hour working day at Hobbycraft.  I always start of the day wondering how I am gonna manage to stay on my feet for that long, but they fly by.

Today I was sorting ribbon.  I got so engrossed in sorting ribbon that I forgot to go for my afternoon tea break!  Me, forgetting TEA !!  How?

The job was to tidy, count, stock adjust.  Laura was my working buddy today - see what a happy chappy she is, always smiling.

Have your kids moved away from home yet?  Only one of mine has flown the nest - Adam, but I get a text, just casually asking what we are having for tea, then asking if there is a spare place at the table.  Well of course there is, always.

When the kids were little each of them had two nights on "Tea Duty". This meant that they chose a meal to make, helped me prepare & cook it, serve it, then tidy up.  They then had 4 nights being served the others meal choices. On Sundays we had a take-away.

Adam (9)  Iain (10) Shona (7)

Adam always had a great interested in cooking and would want to experiment each and every time.  We had some fantastic concoctions.

Tonight, he wanted to make a Rosti for the first time. "How do I do it Mum?" he asked.

Simples, peel a spud, grate the spud, squash all the moisture out of it really well, then cook it like an omelette.

One rosti, going down while I cook him a stir-fry  :)

Silloth & The Hobbit.

Sunday, day of rest.

Rest, to us, is not sitting on the sofa watching TV, that bores the life out of me. No.... 'rest' is blowing away the cobwebs, spending quality time with loved ones, that kind of thing.

We like to walk the "Wainwrights" which is a range of Lakeland fells walked by Alfred Wainwright. So far we have walked 16 out of 214, so we have quite a few to complete. We would have normally planned a Wainwright, but I have had a bit of a cold and my lung capacity is not as healthy as it should be at the moment.

So we decided to have a nice walk along the sea front at Silloth.

Silloth is our "sea-side",only 23 miles from Carlisle, it's where you took the kids for a picnic when they were young, car packed up with buckets, spades, sandwiches and old tatty towels.  At this time of year the one amusement arcade is closed down, and the only people around are dog walkers.

Nowadays, when we visit, it's just us, a Springer Spaniel and a pocket full of poop bags.  But a nice walk all the same.

I love the sea. I love the sea when it's sparkling and blue, I also love it when it's grey and dismal.  Today it was mucky brown and dull, but it's still enchanting.

We had a lovely 50 minute brisk walk which made our eyes water, our noses run and our ears flap (well, Dotty Dog's ears flapped).

This afternoon we popped along to the local cinema to watch 'The Hobbit', what a fantastic film, superb effects and I was really frustrated to find it was 'Part 1' and that 'Part 2' would not be along until July  :(

After the cinema we were walking back to where we had parked the car, having to pass an Indian restaurant named Rafiks.

Just before Christmas Shona (my daughter), Lezley (my friend) and I had been invited to this restaurants 1st Birthday Party (we are regular attendees of their 'Bollywood Night' events - a meal and Indian film) and I had made them a birthday cake, which I took in my cake dome.  I needed to pick up the dome as I have made a few cakes since and had nothing to transport them in.  Oh.... this is a photograph from our "Carlisle Living" magazine from the night (Lezley refused to have hers taken, wish I had!!)

Anyway, I digress, as we were passing the restaurant on the way to the car, we thought we should pop in and pick up the cake dome, only we ended up staying for a meal   :)  Tut Tut.  We had all the stuff at home for a stir-fry too !!

I feel really full and rotund now, and tired.  Need to sleep.  Got a 7 hour shift at work tomorrow.

Let me show you how far the crocheting has come along since last night.....

Getting there.

Kitchen Cupboards.

You know when you cannot find that tin of treacle to make a cake, but you KNOW it's in there somewhere? What do you do?  You go to the supermarket and buy more treacle.  Sick of buying treacle, and knowing that there is some hidden in the depths of the cupboard along with the lentils, spice jars and packets of lasagne verdi, I decided today was "cupboard clean out day".

So, out it all came onto the worktop, sorted, date checked, thrown out, put back away neatly.  And that tin of treacle was there  :)

Now, having packed cupboard can be a useful thing.  A few weeks ago we were invited to a party and not wanting to go empty handed I said I would take a couple of bits for the buffet.  I bashed up a quiche (chicken tikka) but needed something veggie to go along with it.

I threw open the cupboard and found a packet of mediterranean couscous - what could I do with that?  How about.....

I do like to experiment with food, I often put flavours together that you might think strange, but they work.  The best flavour I tasted was balsamic syrup with hummus - trust me, it's delightful.  As I had a tub of hummus in the fridge and some balsamic syrup in the cupboard, the idea of little tarts was formed.

To make the tart bases I took some slightly stale brown bread that needed used. I rolled out a slice (this compacts the bread and make it firmer).

Then cut a round out with a cookie cutter that was slightly larger than the bun tin I was going to use. (The birds enjoyed the crusts)

Lightly brush the bread with a little olive oil.

Press firmly into the bun tin.

Put in the oven at around Gas 5 for 10 mins or so, then take them out of the bun tin and place them upside down on a baking tray and pop them back in for 5 mins to ensure the bottoms are cooked nice and crisp - no one wants a soggy bottom.

Leave to cool.

These tarts can be used for a lot of fillings as long as the fillings are not too liquidy.  They are great with garlic mushrooms.

While they were cooking I prepared the couscous according to the packed instructions.

I filled each tart pressing the couscous down (but don't press too hard or you might crack the tart).

I topped with a splat of hummus, a small chunk of cucumber and a blob of balsamic syrup.

Look good don't they?  And they were utterly yummy in my tummy.



Yesterday I made a birthday cake for my good friend Lezley, I couldn't show it to you then in case she read the blog before she got the cake (which she did)  so here is is today.

A lemon sponge, filled with lemon curd and lemon buttercream, then iced with lemon buttercream and decorated with sugar flowers and bumblebees.

The icing was way too soft for my liking and I needed to pop it in the fridge for an hour to stiffen up enough to pipe, but I was working against the clock and needed to just get on with it.  I was aiming for defined swirls, like a beehive, but it all squelched in together.  Grrrrrrrr.  Still, hope it tasted good.

And finally, that jumper I started yesterday and got 10 rows done?  It has been pushed to one side now while I work on something for a new display at work.

I am now crocheting this...

In this....

Which now looks like this.

Watch this space  :)

Soup!

As many of you may know I like to spent a considerable amount of money on craft stuff, but my other passion is cooking and I also spend a good few pennies on kitchen gadgets.  I just cannot seem to resist!

You know when you have an "Ooooh I NEED one of those" moments?  Well I had one when an advert came on TV for a Cuisinart Soup Maker.  It is a little cheaper now at £119 than it was when I bought it at £149  (Grrrrrr)  Having said that I have had it about 2 years now and use it a lot, so I think it was worth every penny   :)

A few people thought I was nuts  - you can make soup in a pan!  Well, yeah, you can, but this baby does it all.  Let me show you.

First stick a little drop of oil in and some onions and garlic and press the 'sauté' button for a couple of mins.

(Now, if you know me really well you will know I have an onion phobia so click HERE if you want to know the story  :) )  If I can't see 'em, I can eat 'em.

While it is busy sautéing away (is that a word?) you can chop up some carrots and some coriander.

Coriander has to be one of my most favourite things to chop up - the smell just bursts out the second you attack it with a knife.

Chuck the carrots and coriander in the jug with a pint or so of veggie stock - oh, and in my case a sprinkle of chilli flakes. I put chilli flakes in everything, I like a bit of a kick  :)

Then set the clock for 20 mins, press the button and leave.

While we are waiting for that to cook do you want to see my lovely Spice Rack?  Daddy L built me the rack, and I slowly collect the pots - I say slowly as the ones I am missing can be really tricky to track down, so while I do I also have a cupboard full of spice jars.

20 mins later you pop back, turn the dial and blend.  Voila!  SOUP !

Pour and eat.

The second best thing about this soup maker is that it has a self cleaning mode.  You just put water and a small drop of washing-up liquid in and run it through a programme.  This is good as the one time I tried to clean the blades as I didn't wash it immediately and it dried up a bit, I cut my finger really bad.  Ouch!

I had some for lunch with some gorgeous seeded bread.  I LOVE this bread, it's so yummy toasted with butter.

Well, today's blog was all about the food, what about some crafts do I hear you cry? 

Well, I have just started a jumper for myself, I am making this...

In this....

Watch this space  :)

Mental block!

Well, this is no good is it?  The first day of my blog (that is supposed to last a month) and I have a mental block - don't know what to write.

Usually when I sit down to blog I have something to specifically write about, usually it is about something I have made, but today I have made nothing.

So, what have I done?  Well I have been to work at Hobbycraft  (did I tell you I love my job?)  Luckily it was only a four hour shift, I say 'luckily' because I am stuffed full of cold and struggling to find any energy.  The staircase to the upper floor, which I can usually jog up, looks like Everest and seems to take ages to climb.

I did a two hour till shift, I normally don't tend to do till shifts as I like to be moving about the floor, filling up shelves, chatting to people, but was quite pleased to do it today as I needed to finish off a little project that was on the go.

I took on a project within Hobbycraft called "Outreach".  Outreach basically means inviting groups into the store to do some little crafty sessions.  As we are a new store nothing is yet in place to offer crafters so I am working on putting together a little booklet with ideas in it.  I am asking each of my colleagues to put forward a little project to pop into my little book :)

I had an idea though the other day of a sequinned bauble, I asked one of my collegues to start it off as she was doing a Christmas Deco demo in the store.  Little did I realise how long it would take to stick all those little sequins onto a Styrofoam ball with pins! Anyway....... I finished it off tonight, a joint project.

BEJEWELLED BAUBLE

(Oh bum, just noticed a couple of sequins have come off!)

Let me also show you this, made by Lauren - she offered to do a "felt doll", I don't know what I was expecting, but certainly not this little cutie - everyone fell in love with it, isnt it fab?

Shelley also made two little deopatch boxes which are great fun to do, I am sure these will be a popular choice.

Before I left work though I had to buy a little something.  This seems to be a naughty little habit that I have acquired   Sometimes I manage to spend more than I earn!

I bought this fabulous book, the patterns in it are so cute.  Keep an eye out for me making some bits out of it in hopefully the near future.

You can find it HERE.

Well this is me settling down for the evening, catching up with Dallas on Sky+ and enjoying a glass of wine while waiting for Andrew to come home from his shift.

(Wasn't such a mental block after all!!)

Bead Buddies Artist Of The Month

In April 2008 I became the first "Artist Of The Month" for the Bead Buddies Forum.  This simply means that one person gets to blog and let the other members into their lives for a month.  It can be quite hard work if you have nothing much to talk about!

Anyway, as so much time has passed I was asked if I would do it again, so for those not on the Bead Buddies forum you can also follow my ATOM blog here.

•  How and when did your interest in beading/jewellery making/lampworking first begin?

When I was expecting my first child, Iain, I left work with no chance of return. Having lost a part-time wage I needed to make some money, but how?

I decided to make jewellery (and other things like toilet roll holders) and sell them party plan with my friend Helen - we called the partnership "Allinberry Crafts"  (I was Allinson, she was Berry)

It went very well and we earned a decent amount of money over the time we did it.

Time passed, jobs came and went, husbands came and went, fast forward a lot and I found myself in "Michaels" a HUGE craft store in Florida.  When I say HUGE, this place is HOOOGE !  And in the first two aisles I found BEADS, lots of beads, lots and lots of beads.  Enough beads for me to spent 2 hours looking at and getting kicked out as the store was closing.  Needless to say, we went back the next day and spend all morning in there buying beads (and stuff).  Luckily for us the scales were broken at the check-in desk so our bags sailed through, having previously weighed them we knew that not one of them was under the allowed limit!

After a year playing with beads again, we returned to Florida.  At the point I had started to question how beads were made, the main one being glass ones.  So while there this time I looked up a bead shop called Flame Tree Glass  (they have now relocated) that sold Lampworking equipment and bought myself a kit and a load of glass.  (Oh, and we revisited Michaels and bought loads more beads and stuff)

Back at home I was already selling loads of stuff on eBay (my house was never tidier than in this period) so it seemed only natural to sell off some beads I wasn't  using.  They sold like hot cakes, so I did a little research and bought some more.

The first week of July 2005 I did a business course and in September of that year launched THE BEAD SHED.  A hobby had now turned into a business......

•   How has your work developed?

I am self taught in most, in not all, crafts.  I start, see if I like, then perhaps take lessons to advance my knowledge.  I find I am very sponge like for crafts, wanting to have a go at everything.  Papercraft seems to be the only one I have managed to avoid - so far!

The most classes I have taken are in Lampworking - I treat myself to one each year, usually at the Flame Off (a big glass-working event held in the UK)

•   Have you taken any classes and if so, with whom?

Kate Drew Wilkinson  (Lampwork Beads)
Dora Schubert  (Lampwork Beads)
Laura Sparling  (Lampwork Beads)
Patti Walton  (Lampwork Beads)
Michi Suzuki  (Lampwork Beads)
Sharon Peters  (Goblin & Critter Beads)
Bob Martin (Off Mandrel Animals)
Diana East (Class Casting)
Jan Ridgen-Clay (Marble making)
And I have a class booked for this year with Michou Pascale Anderson (Lampwork Beads)

•   Do you favour a particular colour, shape, styles? 

Nope, anything goes.

•   What is your favourite piece of work, and can you tell us your inspiration behind it?

My favourite pieces change as my abilities grow.  At the moment, and for quite a while, it has been this set of beads.  I can't quite believe I made them, and I certainly cannot bring myself to sell them....... yet.

•   Whose work do you admire?

There are way too many to even mention, and all for different reasons.  I admire the perfectionists and I admire the "have-a-go's".  I feel I am somewhere in the middle :)

But I will share just a couple of artists I love so you too can have a drool.

Mark Dally - I bought one of his clocks.
A Little Catty - I am lusting  ;)

•   What advice would you pass on to other beaders/jewellery makers/lampworkers (recommended reading, DVD's, a tool you wouldn't be without for instance)?

The only thing I would recommend is talking to other crafts people, you cannot pay for the advice (often not what you want to hear) and pointers they can give you.

•   Away from beads, do you have any other hobbies or how do you spend your time?

I work in Hobbycraft (could there be a more perfect job for a crafter) and I also try and work in my shed at home selling beads - but this is becoming a little neglected these days.  As for 'other hobbies' I have loads - knitting, crocheting, felting, lampwork, stained glass, fusing, and up-cycling to mention but a few.

•   Tell us your favourite book, movie/TV show and what music you listen to?

Anything with David Jason in it   ;D ::)  (Yeah, yeah, I know, what can I say?  He rocks my boat!!)

•   Where can the Bead Buddies view more of your work?

The best place would be my Facebook page or here in my blog.


Oh... and HERE is the original 2008 post should you wish to read it  :)

SpongeBob Sock Monkeys.

A friend took a fancy to my sock monkeys and asked me if I would make some for her family if she supplied the socks.

No problem.

But what I failed to mention was that when you use socks for sock monkeys you need to choose a pattern that looks as good upside down as right way up, as that is the way the socks are used.

She brought me a couple of pairs of SpongeBob SquarePants socks.  Ahhhh..... wrong way round.

Nevertheless, she wanted them made up so I duly obliged, and to be honest they didn't look too bad at all!

I found some pineapple buttons and because SpongeBob lives in a pineapple under the sea, I sewed one into each monkey's ear  :)

A Beaded Pen.

This is a little present I made for my lovely Mother-In-Law - a beaded pen.

She loves green, so I mixed up about 7 different shades of green Japanese Miyuki Delica beads and just beaded them at random.

The pen comes blank, with a pattern sheet so you can draw your own design if you like, but as I was just doing random colours I only needed the row amounts and how many beads to put on.

The panels are made flat, then "zipped up" to close into a tube, the pen then comes apart and you slide the beaded tubes in place.

Makes for an unusual pen to have in your handbag, don't you think?