The Hot Chocolate Dippers Post...

I love making things with chocolate, people find it difficult to work with, but as long as you are careful, its a great little ingredient that is so versatile.

Here is a lovely little thing to make for friends and super duper easy too!

Ingredients:

Milk Chocolate

White Chocolate

Marshmallows

Utensils:

Plastic Spoons

Silicone Spatulas

Teaspoons

Cocktail Sticks

Silicone Cupcake moulds

Ribbon scraps

Plastic cake pop bags for bagging

Here we go!

First of all, break up your chocolate into chunks. Now you may get annoyed with me for not giving you measurements and not being very exact, but i do just like to "wing it" and see how it goes, nine times out of ten it usually turns out ok, so you will just have to trust me!

Anyway, now you have broken up your chocolate, put it in a heatproof bowl or jug and pop it in the microwave on high for 30 seconds. take it out and stir and then  put back ion for another 30 seconds, take out and stir again and no doubt at this point it will be at the stage of getting quite "melty" so just stir it like a banshee until everything melts and it runs off the back of your spoon.

Once you are at that stage you can start filling your cases! Obviously at the same time you must get your glamorous assistant to melt the white chocolate for you. Once all your cases are filled with milk chocolate, then let you assistant put a teaspoon full of white chocolate in each case

Here comes the fun bit! Take your cocktail stick and start to delicately swirl the two chocolates together........very pretty eh!

Pop your mini Marshmallows on top now

And now stick your spoons in! By this time the chocolate will have cooled slightly so i found that my spoons stood up on their own which was v handy!

Pop in the fridge for a couple of hours to set

Then pop off the silicone cases and pop into your bag and tie with pretty ribbon!

The Chocolate Truffle Post....

Urgh.....winter is coming....urgh there is about 100 days left until Christmas ....urgh I feel miserable on a Monday morning.....What on earth could cheer me up? Hmmmmmm..........

CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!! (Dur!)

And voila, here is an easy peasy recipe for chocolate truffles. I shall be munching these bad boys all day!

You Will Need:

• 300 grams of Plain Chocolate

• 300 grams  ofDouble Cream
• 50 grams Butter

Simply melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave, then add the double cream and butter to give it a lovely gloss. 

Simply melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave, then add the double cream and butter to give it a lovely gloss. Put in the fridge for 2 hours then scoop into balls using two spoons. Then decorate with nuts, cocoa powder or white chocolate as illustrated in the pictures. 

The Shabby Chic Photo Frame Post......

After staring at an empty frame for long enough, you kinda feel the need to fill it. But not with a boring old photo ..oh no! I'm going to show you how to make a really sweet little frame with nothing but pretty card and some scrabble letters!

 Step 1

 Remove all the components from your shadow box and measure the inside of the frame.

Step 2

Lay out some pretty papers and glue them down

Step 3

Lay out your tiles and once you are happy with them glue them down with strong glue.

Step 4

Put it all together and stand back and admire your work!

Birds Nest Pearl Necklace Post...

Well since I have been neglecting this blog for a wee while I am in no doubt that it is high time for that tutorial that I promised. And voila, here it is in all its glory!

Step 1

Gather your items and tools. Measure 1 metre of silver wire and cut

Step 2

Starting at one end, thread your three pearls onto the wire, securing at one end. 

I just twist the wire back through the firs bead to secure

Step 3

Push the pearl beads into shape, so they look like eggs nestled inside the nest

 Step 4

Take the remainder of the wire and twist tightly around the beads, Loop in and out every so often to secure and make sure it doesn't unravel.

 Step 5

 Looking good! now attach a jump ring in a suitable place. the nest naturally has a front and a back, so you will see where to pop the jump ring, I normally try to hide it in the wire as much as I can. 

Tuck the remaining wire inside the nest

 Step 6

Run your chain through the loop and you are done!

Well done and let me know if you manage to make one too!

The Decoupage Post...

God I love decoupage. I love that you can take literally anything, slather it in glue and slap on some pretty papers....then it looks gorgeous! That's what I like about crafts, I love that the simplest things can look so amazing, sometimes it’s best not to over think or overwork your product. The more you mess around with it, the more of a disaster it becomes. A simple case of less is more. I wanted to show you a few images of things I have done in the past. Feel free to do with them what you will, but most of all I hope they inspire you!

The Vinyl Butterfly Post...

Now, plenty has been going on over the summer so I am surprised that I have had much time at all for crafting! But I wanted to share a sure little tutorial with you. You will find a lot of my links lead to a site called cut out and keep. This is where I upload all my tutorials with the cut out community. Now in all fairness, a lot of things I do don't really need to much of an explanation, but if you do need more then please feel free to click on the link for more information!

So anyway, back to the tutorial. After going to a car boot sale and having a huge stack old old records thrust into my hands for a pound (I think the lady was desperate to get rid of them!) I have been playing around with different ways of using them. Now there is the obvious route of the record bowl but hats been overdone a bit now. So after a few hours of browsing inspiration here is what I ended up with.

There are sooo sweet and really do look like they are flying up the wall. the best thing is I used the holes in the centre of the record to hook on to the pins I put into the wall, so I didn't even have to worry about wall fixings. Perfect!

I love that its so simple too, all you have to do is warm them in a moderate over for about 3 minutes, then take them out (wearing oven gloves please  and cut with kitchen scissors  I was doing it freehand, but a great idea is to sue a piece of chalk as a template to sketch out your butterfly wings. The record can get a bit floppy when warm so sketching a template is probably a really good idea!

I hope you like it and do let me know how you get on!

A Fresh Start.......

About two years ago I started a blog and flirted with it occasionally but mainly ignored it. So today in a fit of energy and renewed invigoration, here I am...writing to you and hoping that this time I have the motivation to keep going.

Stay with me guys, it may be a journey but I'll be glad of the company!