My Busy Craft Life

Hi everyone! It's the last day of January and do you know what that means? It's nearly time for my big February project! It's going to be creative yet practical. I can tell you this: it's not a costume for a change and has to do with this: Curious? Come back tomorrow and read all about it!

Hi all! I'm working hard for February's themed month but for some reason this weekend is a bit of a washout and I've been mainly cleaning. So far, I've cleaned the drains, done several loads of laundry, the dishes, AND baked this wonderful peasant bread that I found via Pinterest on this website . It is amazing!!! I do own a breadmachine, a gift from the bf many years ago, but for some reason the bread is never really yummy, so I wanted to try if I can bake bread without it. I can never get the bread to rise properly and I either over or under knead it. But this bread is a no-knead bread and it is super simple and just so yummy!  The recipe is for two loaves and uses 1L pyrex bowls for baking. I thought that the two relatively small pyrex bowls I own were way too small, so I used a larger one and also a relatively large glass oven dish. I still divided the dough to make two loaves so no harm done, except that one of the loaves was a lot more flat than it was suppos...

Good morning everyone! Time is flying at the moment and work and life are both extremely busy. But that does not stop the crafting :) I'm having a huge themed February planned so a lot of stuff will be posted then. Makes me look a tad lazy in January though hihi... This post is actually about our first trip in the new year, can you believe that after a looooong time of hinting, the bf took me on a romantic trip to Paris? It was lovely :) And COLD! When we planned this, the weather was cold but nice. Of course once we got there it got REALLY cold and it even snowed! The Parisians we spoke to ensured us that in Paris the snow never stays. Boy were they wrong... But it was quite magical really, plus I got to visit a few places I never managed to see before: As you may know, I love movie locations and I always wanted to visit the Louvre, so the first thing on the list was that. It was a weekday still, so not too crowded. Check me out, I saw the two pyramids (Da Vinci Code)!  ...

Hi all! I've been so busy making stuff that I actually ran out of time to blog about it too... Lots of stuff to share for next month's project, but first I need to share that I have finished my new craft for the year! I actually finished it last week, but taking a decent picture of myself all wrapped up and comfy turned out to be quite difficult. So I had to wait for someone else to be around outside of work to take pics.  This is it! Doesn't it look comfy? I am so in love with this, it's my first ever knitted creation (other than a badge I made a few years back). I'm so proud of myself about this :) Remember how it got started? With this lovely ball of pompom yarn I bought for a fiver at the Olympia Stitch & Craft Show, and FINALLY started this year as my new craft for the year.  A few days later I was here. It was getting there :) I then started knitting like mad, I had to have it done by that Saturday, and as it turned out casting off was a ...

Hi again everyone! I am so busy at the moment and it is feeling great :) Lots of projects are not yet done or done but not yet uploaded here, but I really wanted to do some baking this week and as we had lots of bananas left I really needed to use them. Enter the recipe for healthy banana cookies. These are amazing! Just to clarify, it's not my recipe, I found them on Allrecipes here a long time ago and they are just so good that I just had to share these with you. They contain only bananas, oats, raisins, and vanilla. I added some nuts as well but you can easily make these without those. Ready? Here we go: You need: 3 ripe bananas 2 cups of rolled oats 1 cup of raisins (the recipe called for dates but I didn't have any) 1/3 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon vanilla extract handful of nuts (optional) Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Stir in oats, dates, oil, and vanilla. Mix well, and allow to sit for ...

Hi all, I just had the BEST weekend of the year! I did so much! I have this huge pile of stuff to mend/change/adjust/finally finish/use for other stuff, and I've been trying to get through it all of 2012 but sadly without success. 2013 is the year of action and so I started on 1 January and I have to admit I'm getting there. I'm waiting to have enough done to have another mending week so I can keep it all together. At this rate it may need to be a mending month ;) I also just realised that I already mention this with picture even in one of my last blog posts. Sorry! Just so pleased on how much I got done! When you read the title of this blog post, you may have thought 'Christmassing in January? That's early!' Well, there is a reason for it really. Do you remember the new Christmas stockings I made for the bf and me? I loved mine (it has sparkles! Although normally I'm not a fan, but this fabric was just perfect), but the bf's one was really annoying m...

Hi everyone, Yes I am blogging and crafting again, and enjoying every minute of it! Well, maybe not the last 10 mins when I painstakingly had to undo two rows of knitting because I dropped a stitch, but otherwise yes :) Good thing it was only 12 stitches long!  I am so close to finishing my shiny new (purple of course) scarf, but as I seem to be dropping stitches, I figured it's better to give it a rest and finish tomorrow. I was going to have it done by the time I meet some of the sewing girls for a fabric shopping trip (I'm now on a budget so will only have a look and maybe buy some polycotton to line some projects) and show it off, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. On the other hand, it's 12 degrees here at the moment during the day so not really much need for a lovely warm scarf. 12 degrees (that's Celsius), that's the same as we had in August! It's crazy...  Anyway, I took some piccies just to show you my progress. This will be the first ev...

Hi everyone! Oh boy the first day back at work was tricky. I really needed a snooze about halfway through so it was good that I had packed a piece of yummy apple pie to have with my afternoon tea :) After work we had the very first craft meet of 2013 where we all started a new project. Perfect time for me to finally use up the pompom wool I bought back in March. It wasn't easy and after many youtube videos I still didnt understand the casting on bit, but luckily one lovely lady from the group came to the rescue and after three hours I was well on the way to having a shiny new purple scarf.  Isn't it just wonderful? The colour is actually much more purple than it shows on the photo. Must be one of those colours that is really hard to photograph. But I couldn't stop touching this gorgeous wool :) OK, gorgeous microfiber polyester but you know what I mean. ;) It is straight at the bottom, it was just hanging off the table as I took this picture. I have to finish it ...

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful evening and a great start of the new year. I actually managed to sleep until about 1pm and the most constructive thing I have done today is to take down the Christmas tree. Let's hope that's not the standard of the new year hihi! For a change I actually have a ton of resolutions for this year and even more projects planned. Some of my rather long-term projects are to be finished this year. In the mean time I am also hoping to finish some instant-gratification creations as spending months on a project is fun but the result takes forever... It is a little demotivating sometimes really.  Except for the quilt (latest pictures will follow this weekend I hope), I have two projects that I MUST finish this year. One of them is of course my Halloween cross stitch. I'm getting quite far with it actually, have nearly managed one part of the never-ending tree...  I still have a lot to do of course, but it's getting t...