My Busy Craft Life

As promised, here is the recipe for Dutch Apple Sauce. Dutch apple sauce is usually eaten cold and very different from English (and thus horrible) apple sauce which is eaten warm. One of the typical uses of apple sauce in Holland is to eat it with fries and chicken. May sounds bizarre but it is oh so yummy! So get your kitchen ready, because here we go: You will need: 1 kg cooking apples 100 grams sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon water Instructions: Wash the apples, peel them, and remove the cores. Cut them into parts. Put the apple pieces in a pan and add some water. The amount of water depends on your pan, for my pan which is about 15cm in diameter I add about 3cm of water. Cook the apple pieces for about 10 mins on a small flame until soft. See the pictures below for the progress. It looks more like sauce already! Once you have the consistency as shown above, add the cinnamon and the sugar Stir well while adding the cinnamon and sugar The colour will change a bit because of the cinnamon. C...

It has been an eventful week to say the least... As you may have noticed, I have only made the jeans since Sunday which is really not a lot for me considering my usual schedule and passion for creating. So I wanted to share my week with you, a week in which both good things and bad things happened. As seems to be the usual way to go, let's start with the bad things first. Here we go... *takes deep breath* Not only am I currently undergoing some stressful and seriously demotivating moments at work with regard some much needed recognition and all that goes with that (this started at the end of last week and is still ongoing), I have also been diagnosed with MS last Tuesday. Yes really... after months of tests and uncertainty, I finally have a result. Not quite the one I have been hoping for but nonetheless. I am still waiting for a second opinion and stuff but I have been told that it is 98.6% certain. Normally I wouldnt post about this, but on the other hand this is something that i...

There once was a pair of jeans, super comfy and cool-looking with a flared 70s style look. Oh how I loved them! I bought them in China in 2003 and they were just the best: Due to our dress code at work I could only wear them once a week and even then I kept tripping over the flared legs. Then, I had an idea :) The legs were wide enough to make a skirt and I also needed some new shorts. So I cut them up. Yes, I cut up my favourite jeans! But check out what I did with them. Remember my trip to Surrey Farm Market ? The lovely Libby Rose gave me some fabric scraps of this fantastic skull/rose cotton that I really wanted to use on these jeans. Of course the scraps would look better in black... mmm, what to do! Oh yes, jeans are cotton so jeans can be dyed! :) Enter DYLON. The Dylon story is a whole story on its own as I could only get it in one store which closes 30 mins after I finish work and I had to hurry. With my busy schedule from last week there was no way I could make that but luck...

Blogging before work might not be the best idea LOL. But I really wanted to blog about this fabric swap I organised yesterday. As you might know, I am a member of the sewing meetup group and sometimes (this was my 2nd time) I organise a meetup as well. Last time everything went great, not so much this time... I had it all planned out, a lovely meetup in the park with a picnic and sunshine and happy people, the lot. Then someone asked me what to do when it rains. Good point, especially as it's London and nothing ever works weather-wise. So I checked the forecast daily since Saturday and every time: pouring rain on Wednesday, just when I wanted to do my lovely meetup. Contingency plan created, a bit last minute as I really didnt think about indoor locations, I moved the whole thing indoors. Sadly, due to some administrative issues with the website and the actual owner of the group being on holidays and forgetting to give me organiser rights to this particular meetup, I couldnt change...

Yes yes, the post says Sunday but I pre-blogged so all I had to do was 'post' during the week when I would be really busy. Little did I know that all the posts would have their original date of Sunday?? Anyway, it is now Tuesday and yesterday was the birthday of my lovely big sis :) I couldnt post this yesterday however, as her presents were still in the mail... Remember the teaser blog post of a few days ago? Well, I she has them today because I really want to post this :) I made three presents for her, all of which I hope have arrived safely and in one piece. First, I made her one of the clutch bags as I still had all this 'sister fabric' leftover from some quilted pillows I made for her one Christmas. Of course decorated with my trademark yoyo-rosettes: I also made her arm warmers as she works in a store and it can get really cold in winter there. My friend from work has given me some fabric that her mother wasnt using anymore and this was just perfect for...

Today I wore the cardigan (it only took my 2 days to remember this word rather than 'vest' which is actually the Dutch word for it *hastily changes the word in yday's blog*) from yesterday's knit sweater makeover to work and everyone loved it *huge happy smile*. They said it looked very officey :) And it was so comfy and the perfect warmth for our extremely airconditioned office. So it is definitely a hit! Am so pleased! I had some lovely comments on my pictures of the ClownCon , thank you so much! For most people who know me IRL, this was not the first time they had seem the outfit, and I do hope I didnt post too many pics of myself, or rather of 'Bubbles the Clown' as is my name for this day only ;) So I thought I'd post some more pictures of the outfit itself, so you can see the actual details etc. I came up with the idea for this outfit while surfing the net for 'girly clowns'. I drew inspiration from one particular website, sadly of which I ...

It is Wednesday evening and I just got back from the Fabric Swap I organised for sewing group. Due to some administrative difficulties it a LOT more stressful than it should have been but it all worked out and I got some nice new fabrics. I have photos of my new goodies but it's late and I want to go to bed soon. Instead, I will share my HRC T-shirt makeover with you that I pre-blogged about last Sunday (so it will show up dates Sunday rather than Wednesday, stupid blog...). So here we go: Last weekend was supposed to be a creative weekend. I had basically planned to work on my steampunk outfit since I only have time until mid September which is only about 2 months away. OMG just thinking about it makes me panicky... But somehow actually starting something from scratch really didnt feel right so I decided to revamp some things I had stashed in a great big pile with 'to mend/change' glowing all around it. Not literally of course *grin*. In October last year, I finally booke...

I have enjoyed this weekend so much!! After weeks of hard work (super stressful times at work), people visiting and things like ClownCon 2010 , I have had zero creative time. So instead of going to the Festival of History as we had planned (while secretly hoping for rain so we had an excuse to stay home), we spent a wonderful weekend at home. Even if it didnt rain ;) Last night, after having to watch many many hours of Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Epic Series, we watched Julie & Julia which the bf had just given me on DVD :) Maybe some of you remember my first ever blog and will remember that this movie was actually my inspiration for starting a blog. It sadly also made me realise that instead of blogging about my own stuff, I have become addicted to blogland and am creating things that have been shared on other people's blog. There are just so many wonderful things out there! This does result in the fact that my list of projects has about doubled and my steampunk out...

It's my sister's birthday on Monday and due to the extremely busy week I had two weeks ago and my friend D. visiting last week for a few days (while I also had to work so was super busy trying to combine the two) I didnt really have much time to focus on her presents. I am trying to make presents as much as I can and I knew exactly what I was going to make for her :) As she also reads this blog, I cant give away too much, especially as I have only finished them today and they wont reach her until at least Tuesday (always late, me). But I took a couple of sneeky picture to give you an idea. Present #1, extremely cute idea I found in blogland. Link will follow of course when I can post the full pictures. Present #2, one of my previous projects. Of course decorated with my trademark rosette :) I hope she'll like it! Present #3, also something I made once or twice before. But this time in my sister's favourite colours :) More pics on Tuesday when I know she has received the...

It was warm, oh so warm... And Clown was on! To be honest, I nearly didnt go but in the end I decided that clowning about was too good to miss LOL. I joined the Fancy Dress Group for the first time in 2008 , of course with a brand new costume that I spent a few days making with lots of leftovers: I actually won 'Cutest Clown' that year :) The weather was perfect and in the end we ended up in Trafalgar Square with a ton of clowns which was a hoot. In 2009 , the weather was worse, we arrived when it was cloudy and in the end it actually started raining which made us all move to the pub... Luckily at the time there were a few photographers who took some really nice pictures, one of which is this one that I love: The hair and the makeup had changed from the previous year but the costume was of course the same. I mean, how many times does one get the wear a clown outfit? LOL And then it was 2010 , last Saturday, yesterday... OMG it was hot... some of the costume had to go as the wh...