How to be creative when you don’t have your stuff.

Or, how to be creative when all your crafty tools  & materials are not only packed up in boxes, but interstate?

Well, I had this bag. I got it from Bunnings (you can probably tell) and it’s a great size and shape, the handles are the right length to put over your shoulder, and it’s made from nice heavy canvas.

But it’s got this bloody great logo on it.

So I had an idea to find a t-shirt with a cool print and stitch that over the top of the logo. Then I could take the bag out with me and not feel like a walking advertisement for a hardware store. (I’ve had the bag for a few years – I figure the bag has fulfilled it’s advertising potential by now.)

Off I went to the opshop. I was tempted by a men’s shirt with a flocked print of Bruce Lee’s face, but I don’t think I could have brought myself to chop up a Bruce Lee shirt – and it was too big for me so it went back on the rack. There was a Monster Threads shirt with a random print that might have worked but the print was too big. No go.

Then it occurred to me to check the children’s clothing. Ta-da!

I left the shop after finally deciding I couldn’t justify the gorgeous 1970′s Noritake dinner set. Sad face. I’m in the middle of moving house (as mentioned, the majority of my stuff has gone before me to another city) which is as expensive as it is inconvenient, so it probably would have made my life difficult.

I may go back next Saturday and see if it’s still there.

Meanwhile, back in the world where I have access to the bare necessities (scissors, pins, needle & thread) I took the kid’s shirt home and chopped the cute print out, turned the edges under and stitched it onto the bag.

 

Of course, when I was looking for a suitable print to sew onto the side of the bag, I’d forgotten that the logo is in fact printed on BOTH sides of the bag… sigh. Well, if I can find a piece of calico or a suitable doily/hanky at the opshop next weekend, my bag may yet acquire a pocket on the other side.

 

 

Crazy Crunchie Rocky Road

It’s crazy. It’s crunchy. It’s …. well, it’s delicious, actually. Here’s a quick and easy one you still have time to whip up for an Easter gift!

This makes a small batch, perfect for a gift with a few pieces left over, but you could easily double the recipe.

Ingredients:

150g chocolate (I used a mix of dark & milk)

75g butter

2 tbs golden syrup

125g shelled pistachio nuts

2 x 40g  chocolate-coated honeycomb bars, broken into roughly 1cm chunks

1/3 cup marshmallows, chopped in half

If your pistachio nuts are raw, you’ll need to toast them for 5-8 minutes on a tray, lined with baking paper, at about 150degC (you can tell when they’re toasted as they’ll smell fantastic!) Sprinkle with a couple of generous pinches of sea salt and allow to cool. Line a small dish or tray, about 6″ square, with baking paper.

Using a heavy-based saucepan or double boiler, melt the chocolate together with the butter over low heat and add the golden syrup.  Add in the marshmallows, nuts & honeycomb and stir until everything is coated in the chocolate mix. Pour into the prepared tray and refridgerate until set.

Try not to eat it all before you are supposed to give it away!

 

Tea Bag Folder

I saw these teabag holders online. In fact, I saw patterns for them as well. I saw them in several places so if you want ‘em, google ‘em. I didn’t use those patterns, because they used four layers of fabric. Four. Do the math… that means where the seam allowances fold back, where the four layers come together… eight layers. Why? Okay, I think it was so they could add extra pockets for sweetener. My teabags are quite laid back, though. They don’t mind sharing their pockets with sweetener, if I felt the need to carry some.

Here’s a pic. I have to improve it with a few modifications mext time around.

 

Cakes for Colleagues

I have made a lot of cakes.  Occasionally, I even remember to take pictures. In fact, I have pictures of cakes and slices that I kind of can’t remember. Like this one, which I believe was a walnutty syrup cake made with halva:

Most of them end up fed to my colleagues (they’re a handy bunch to feed an experimental cake to).  One that ended up at work was the All-In Brawl Cake. (Calling it the All-In Brawl Cake is easier than saying the Chocolate Banana Yoghurt  Layer Cake).

It came about just before Christmas, when I wanted to use up the bananas before I went away – but there wasn’t quite enough banana, so I got to use up the last of the vanilla yoghurt as well. There’s big chunks of chocolate between the two layers of cake batter.

 

How about this one? Gluten-free Spice Cake with Cinnamon & Honey Icing.

A classic chocolate mud cake with creamy chocolate ganache. Who doesn’t love ganache? I wasn’t responsible for the funky spiral cut, either, but I must admit it looks kind of cool!

Hmm. I think I might go and make….. well, perhaps not a cake.

 

Blackberry Cheesecake

Just thought I’d share this cheesecake I made for a New Year party I went to. It’s simply a cheesecake with blackberry topping. I made a recipe-and-a-half of a regular cheesecake (in this case, 375g philly cheese, 1.5 cans sweetened condensed milk, about 80ml lemon juice, 3/4 cup of thickened cream, and about 10g of gelatin powder dissolved in a couple of tablespoons of hot water.)

Make the cheesecake in a suitable dish, so that you are left with a ‘dam wall’ that will contain your jelly until it sets properly. I used a large fluted pie tin.

The topping: drain a can of Blackberries in Syrup, collecting the syrup and making a jelly from it using a couple of teaspoons of gelatin. Let that cool in a bowl until it is thick but still pourable. Meanwhile, pile the really well drained blackberries in the middle of the cheesecake (or whatever placement tickles your artistic fancy), and then put that in the fridge so the berries are cold when you pour the jelly on. Reason? The cold berries help the jelly set, so you end up with a shiny coating of jelly over the berries instead of it all running off onto the cheesecake.

 

Things I learned:

If I put jelly in the fridge to partially set, I will always forget it. But that’s okay because a quick visit to the microwave makes short work of jelly.

Dissolved gelatine tends to start setting immediately if you add it to a mixture that is cold because you just beat in a large serve of cream straight from the fridge. That means you get little strings of set gelatine through your cheesecake. I know this is common because I ate someone else’s cheesecake at the party, and theirs was the same! I suggest letting the cream sit out for a while. But not long enough to poison you. In fact I intend to try a short burst in the microwave to bring it close to room temperature, but I haven’t tested that yet. Cream is tricky. But this recipe doesn’t call for whipped cream, so it should be okay.

It was good, too.

 

Tablet Cover

I got a Tablet for Christmas. It’s cool. After many hours and a large helping of stubborn (supplied by me), I even managed to convince Android Market that I actually was accessing their games with an android tablet, and they let me download some games which will hopefully keep my kids occupied at appropriate times. Not me, of course, because I don’t care about trapping a mouse with towers. Well, not much anyway. At least not after I’ve proven it possible. A few times.

Ahem.

So, I made this cover to keep my tablet in good condition while bouncing around the back seat of my car.

It was easy to make. Here’s the main ingredients… check the full post for further instructions.

Hardcover book, fabric and glue... forgot to show a piece of felt.

 

 

A Little Knitting

Here’s a couple of knits I did for the Work For Yarn forum at Ravelry.

This is a Drifted Pearls short scarf (not my photo, I wish I was that clever, it was taken by the person I knit it for).

 

And this is the yarn I received in payment for that knit, Fleece Artist Somoko

I also did two knits for another deal. One was a triangular shawl on large needles, and the other was this Gretel beret using very fuzzy nohair yarn.

I received a skein of Wollmeise for each of these two knits, and here are the colours I chose:

Wollmeise 100% in Heavy Metal and Kubris.

 

No more working for yarn… at least until next year LOL.

 

Recycled Purse

Just a quicky with bad pictures…

I picked up a couple of these little wallet-type snap-closed purses at St Vinnies. I think they charged me a dollar each for them. They were, of course, ugly. I was waiting around for something that day so I dug out a multipurpose tool from the glovebox and stripped the outsides off the purses before I had taken pictures. One of them was red fake leather, the other was wierd woven plastic in pastel colours.

When I got it home I replaced the padding on the back side of the purse inner, which was still in great condition. Probably because the purse was too ugly to use. I stuck it back into the frame and cut out some fabric and iron-on interfacing as the fabric was quite light:

destroyed purse

I used the red ‘leather’ strip as you can see, because I thought it looked good. The fabric came from a skirt donated by a neighbour. I intend to make a bag from the remaining fabric. I’ve already traded both purse and unmade bag for a collection of magnetic buttons for making other bags!

Here is what it looks like now:

Covered Purse

 

Picnic Perfect

One day, whilst hanging out in an op shop (surprise!) I saw a cotton sheet in a cute floral print – faded, but charming. I thought, hmm, I could use that to try making a shirt dress.

I’m really happy with the result.

Cotton sheet: $4, Vinnies

Purple Buttons: $1.50, Cat Protection Society Op Shop

Stay tape: from a bag of miscellaneous haberdashery, Vinnies, $6

Thread: from my stash

Ta-daaah!!!

Oh, and the belt was from Vinnies too – $4.

I used a fitted shirt pattern (McCalls 2094) which I shortened to the waist and then just added a length of fabric gathered to fit. The shirt has turned-up cuffs which kind of don’t show in the picture. Buttons, buttonholes – voila!

Even the picnic rug and the 78′s we were listening to (see the portable record player?) were from various op shops! What a perfect day!

 

UFOs… Un-Finished Objects…

Laura reminded me that I haven’t blogged for a while. So here I am with a summary of my knitting UFOs… minus any I suspect might actually be Christmas presents. You think that won’t leave many? Hah!

First of all, to prove that I actually can finish things, here is a crochet shawl made from nearly 12oom of 5ply wool. It’s huge but somewhat grannified. It’s also lighter in colour than the picture suggests. It’s called Denim Blue.

Jump the break if you are bored enough to look at my UFOs.