Sneak peaks...

Just to show I've not been completely slack with the making and do'ing over the past few months I thought I'd post some sneak peaks of things that will soon be available in my shop.

Mini cross stitch hoops : ice creams, donuts and this little pencil are all in the pipeline...

Something else I've been having great fun playing around with is this Dia de los Muertos piece. It's a super chance to test out all my brightly coloured threads if nothing else! This will be for sale over the weekend, just in time for a rather cute, very unscary Halloween decoration. (I myself am opting for gore, "police line do not cross" tape and yards and yards of spiders web... watch this space!)

Lastly, here's a piece I did from a pattern I got on Etsy. I don't want to sell it as it's not my original work, I just did it for some cross stitch practice really BUT I think I might do my first give away. Any 80'S Brat Pack fans out there?



Pretty in Pink

(Still not located my real camera....)

Becky

I'm back.

Howdy there!

So the last time I took the time out to blog I was just about to move house. Well, that house is now very much my home and I'm still completely in love with it. It's full of lots of exciting pieces of tatt, just like I' hoped. I'll probably share more of that tatt here but for now I'll leave you with a few snaps that I already have...

The Tiki fish tank.

Chintzy lamp with eyes!

My extremely messy dressing table.

I should really dig out my camera to take some photos that aren't still instragram'd up shouldn't I? All in good time.

Something else I've really been working on in the new house is the vinyl collection. My boy house mate has quite the indie collection, mine on the other hand is full of retro classics like Roxy Music and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Lunch times at the new job are perfect for hitting up the chazza shops in town to see what musical treasures you can locate, another great place to find them however is in your slightly more mature relatives lofts.

Look what I got!

For nothing! My aunt also let me pilfer some rock and roll compilations, Simon and Garfunkel and lots of Motown. Happy Happy Happy!

What are your favourite vinyls?

Dream homeware: must haves!

So references pending we have found a house! YIPEEEE!
It's perfect location and a lovely house which we'd started to think we may not get a combination of.

My online window shopping has gone into overdrive and here are some things I must have!

$29.99 Amazon.com

£15 very.co.uk

Sombrero nacho bowl
£4.99 partypieces.co.uk

cork screw £14 urbanoutfitters.co.uk

And lastly my house mate Lucy is making us some amazing cushions for our lounge (think tropical parrots with pom poms, cow girl pinups with tassels and Mexican sugar skulls! - can't wait to share!) but I may have to splash out on one of these bad boys for my bedroom:

They're absolutely perfect and are £17 by Nikki McWilliams. Get yours here: GET ONE!

I'll try to stop getting so excited my home wares now shall I?

B
x

Dream homeware: Garden edition.

Here we go again.... Can't stop myself looking at things I can't afford for a house I don't yet have. This time I'm mostly lusting after outdoorsy things.

£25 NEXT

From £7 eBay

£12 Habitat.co.uk

£7 habitat.co.uk

The thing I want most of all in the world for my garden:

Tiki Bar! $3000 backyardstuff.com

We can fashion one out of an old desk and some bamboo right? RIGHT!

B

x

Dream homeware: Kitchen edition.

Salt and Pepper shakers £8 urbanoufitters.co.uk

I'm househunting at the moment so after registering my interest for a few properties on the interweb my attention is soon drawn to the delightful things I'm going to fill my not yet found home with. I'm sure I have versions of much of these things already but all of these are much nicer....
 

habitat.co.uk £3

habitat.co.uk £7

 

 

Chopping board £16 (for a chopping board!?) urbanoutfitters.co.uk

Argos £5.24

Forever Foxed on Folksy £5

In reality I'm probably just going to make do with what I've got with a few thrown in charity shop/carboot finds! I can but dream...

B
x

A long time coming...

My blogging has gone off the boil a bit recently. Possibly because I haven't done too much of interest, but trawling through the pictures on my phone I've found some things I'd like to share!

Firstly the bunting brooches I made for the blinkin' Royal Wedding (yes..... still talking about that!)
Playing with Shrinkles and Sharpies is right up there with sewing birds on the list of things I like to do. I'm all over mini bunting. Many things are improved when made mini and I think bunting is one of them.
Here y'are...

Secondly are some gifts I made for some friends of mine. A mini Andrew WK party pal and a blue tit wall hanging whatsit.

I've got some nice ideas for more birds to sew but I think I should sell some more of the old ones first, if anyone wants to do a gal a favour feel free to go here... http://www.folksy.com/shops/tweettweet

Lastly I thought I'd show you some cool knick knacks I've re-purposed into super rad plant pots! A plastic popcorn tub and a pirate cup now house a green leafy thing and a cactus respectively. I got the kitsch cat from a charity shop in Aberystwyth a few years ago, it's quite easily one of my favourite things ever. I'm currently house hunting so you can expect more photos of my incredible tatt collection once I start packing/unpacking. Lucky you...

That'll do for now, I'll leave you with the man himself to sing you out....

B
x

Royal Wedding Fever

With only a few weeks to go the internet has been flooded with all manner of royal wedding tatt. Some of it is brilliant, some of it not so much. Personally I'm quite looking forward to it so have been trawling my favourite websites for some choice bits of merch.

Here are a few things I'd like very much:

These badges are by Folksy seller Pinch Her Cheeks

 A very tasteful tote from acceptable chintz queen Cath Kidston.

 Very cute cheeky necklace from Folksy seller Tea Please.

Gorgeous cameo necklace from the ever stylish Tatty Devine.

And something I definitely would not like very much:

A slightly too realistic Princess Catherine doll from theukgiftcompany.co.uk

And last but not least, for those of you sick of all the hype I'd advise getting one of these:

http://www.lydialeith.com/

That is all chums,

B

x

Cute pin-wheel biscuits

As may be obvious by now I'm a gal that spends a lot of time baking. Any excuse and all that... I'd been looking for a reason to test out my brand spanking new gel food colourings and on Monday one arose. I got invited to a 21st birthday night out and had no gift so stoked up the oven! (can you "stoke" a gas oven? I did anyway...)

I'd seen a recipe in a freebie supplement for some very cute little biscuits that I thought would definitely fit the bill.

And here are the finished treats:



Apologies for filtered iPhone image but I'm not a very prepared blogger!

  If you'd like to make some of your own then here is the recipe for you. I'd super advise you opt for gel food colourings like i did. The colours are so much more vibrant and didn't stain my dough pummeling hands at all. Here goes:

You will need:
100g softened butter
75g caster sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp good vanilla extract
200g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
a couple of drops of your fave food colorings. I used turquoise and "electric" purple by Americolor
100g white chocolate and sprinkles to decorate
Baking paper

How to:

• Grab your butter, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla extract and mix together by hand or with a whizzer until its smoothly combined.
• Sift in your flour until it forms a dough, if its a little dry and a splash of cold water.
• Half your dough then add cocoa powder to one half and pummell until the colour is even.
• Half again your plain dough and add your food colourings.
• Split your chocolatey dough in half and roll into a rectangle untill its about half a centimetre thick.
• Roll out one of your coloured portions untill its a similar shape and thickness and place on top of the choccie dough. Trim any excess so it's a nice tidy rectangle.
• Roll into a tight sausage and cover in baking paper the repeat with your other portions of dough.
• Pop in the fridge for about 20 minutes or until the doughy sausages are firm. You can also think about preheating your oven to gas mark 6/200 degrees.
• Once firm you can slice your sausages up, each biscuit should be about a centimetre thick. Pop them on a non stick baking tray and stick them in the oven for 20 minutes. It may help to know they didn't spread very much in the oven like some biscuits do!
• Once cool I dipped some of mine in melted white chocolate and then sprinkles but they are pretty enough on their own really.
• That's that. Easy peasy. Now enjoy them with cup of tea, or like I did with a sneaky pre-party gin...

Happy baking.
B
x

Pigeon Fancier

I've been doing a bit more stitching for my shop the last day or so to take my mind off of the job hunt and the need to become a real life grown up. It worked. Here is "Daniel" the pigeon. He's hand embroidered felt on a suitably chintzy back ground fabric.




And he's now for sale for in my Folksy shop: BUY ME!

Back to looking for a job I suppose.
Laters p'taters.

B
x

Giftage

I've really got into making my own gifts for people recently. So much so that I'll look for any excuse to do so.

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend in North Wales and as a "thanks for letting me have a free holiday" gift I crafted a bit of geek-tastic awesomeness, for want of a better word. The last time I'd visited a Admiral Ackbar latex mask had pride of place hanging in the living room, so I decided to use the Admiral as inspiration. And this was the result. Chintzy sci-fi. Yes please.

While charity shopping in sunny Wales I stumbled across a pack of over a hundred used stamps. Having a pal who has recently started collecting I took it upon myself to snap them up. Today was her birthday and this is what I did with them. Got to love a bit of decoupage every now and again!

Not forgetting some grade A gift wrapping! Comics from car boots and free newpapers do good wrapping paper make.

Last but not least I went to visit this little fella.... I'm hoping pictures of cute kittens will gain me more blog followers. The internet LOVES cats!

Come on, let's hear it for the kitty! Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Over and out.
B
x

How To: Royal Wedding Cupcake Toppers

Is anyone else getting a tad excited about the Royal Wedding? I'm not a monarchist by any sense of the word but I am a huge fan of chintzy touristy tatt, Bank Holiday's and the added excuse to throw a shindig. I'll be spending my extra bank holiday checking out Kate's frock with a teacup full of gin and a mouthful of cake, comedy fascinator worn at a jaunty angle and surrounded by a lot of royal junk.

This tatt has absolutely nothing to do with me, but it is amazing and I'd quite like it all please.

My Mum has already bestowed some sugar paper Royal couple cupcake toppers upon me but I thought I'd make some too to jazz it up a bit. Undoubtedly the Post Office will release some hideous wedding commemorative stamps closer to the time but for now I'll have to stick with Her Majesty's delightful mug.

To make these I drew round the bottom of a small glass a few times for my outer circle template on a sheet of thin card , painted them in rather garish Union Jack hues and cut them out. Stick two circles back to back with a tooth pick wedged firmly between them. Add another brightly painted circle of card, with your stamp artfully glued in the middle. If you're like me, it will be with all the precision of a three year old! Tie a pretty piece of ribbon in a bow around your cocktail stick and "TA-DAHHHHHH". One very haphazard but very attractive cupcake topper.

Sadly no cakes to display them on...

If you've get any other ideas for Royal Wedding party makes then please share! I've got the bug.

B
x

Cheats Walnut and Honey rolls

I made these bad boys to go with my squash soup and I think I may have developed a rather unhealthy addiction to them. My parents have a bread maker so I used that to mix up and prove the dough to save time and to save my hands getting messy but it's easy enough to do without, I'm just lazy and prefer boogeying in the kitchen to BBC 6 Music than pounding dough with my fists.



Ingredients
1 small bag white bread mix
325 ml warm water
100 g roughly chopped walnuts
4 tbsp honey
Olive oild to brush on top


Method
Whack the bread mix and water into a large bowl with the honey and nuts and mix until the dough comes together.
Place the dough on a floured surface and rest for five mins, then knead for a further two before resting again for five. (This is why I stick it all in the machine...) Shape into however many rolls you desire, i did 6 but they were flipping massive. You'd easily get 8 or 10 out of the mix. Pop them on a greased baking tray and cover with a damp cloth and leave in your airing cupboard or somewhere else warm for about half an hour, in which time they should have almost doubled in size. (Again the machine does all this for me. Magical!) Now brush with olive oil and pop in a hot oven, gas mark 8-ish for about 15 minutes. Apparently you can tell when they're done by knocking them on the bottom, they should sound hollow. They should be golden brown on the top and smell divine!

Now I've been told eating hot bread can give you indigestion but to be honest, the pain would be worth it to enjoy these oven fresh with some melty butter.

Happy scoffing!

Bx

" Soup, Soup. A tasty soup, soup"

A made soup yesterday inspired by a recipe I saw in The Independent. I don't know why I don't appreciate soups more. They are delicious and can be made out of whatever you have lurking in your fridge/veggie drawer.

Have a go at this one for a vibrant and tasty spring soup!

Squash and Ginger Soup


Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash
1 medium white onion
1 chopped garlic clove
1 fistful of fresh chopped parsley and a pinch more if you fancy a garnish
1 heaped tsp of grated or "lazy" ginger
3 heaped tbsp natural greek yoghurt
Salt and Pepper
4 cups of water

Method


Peel and chop the squash and onion, and place in a large saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil and turn down to a simmer. Throw in the garlic, parsley and ginger and simmer until the vegetables are suitably mushy. Turn off the heat and add the dollops of yoghurt before blitzing the mixture. Serve with a swirl of yoghurt and a few parsley leaves if you want to look fancy! Season to taste.

Enjoy with a tasty buttered roll, unless you're being healthy. Then just enjoy!

Also, I can't make or eat soup without busting a groove to this:

B

x

A secret ingredient...

I'm a bit of a cupcake fiend and this week I baked up a batch for my managers birthday. I didn't have the money to spend on gourmet ingredients or decorations so it was very much a store cupboard raiding event. I also needed to suck up a bit: my contract is up at the end of the month but I could really do with them extending it...

Thankfully I had a cupboard full of cooking chocolate and the basics for chocolate cakes and I found  a certain something something that would top them off nicely. A bottle of Starbucks black cherry syrup. Delicious in coffee, even better mixed with icing sugar, butter and a splash of milk to make a flipping fabulous frosting! With the chocolate sponge they had a bit of a Black Forest Gateaux vibe going on. Retro! In hingsight I should have plonked a cherry on top. I have a bag in the freezer and everything. Silly me.

I implore anyone who bakes to snap up a bottle in your favourite flavour straight away at your local 'Bucks. Or live dangerously and try one of these bad boys: COFFEE SYRUPS

Over and out!
B
x

A sale!

I made my first Folksy sale today and my little budgie couldn't be going to a better home. He'll be winging his way (ya'geddit?. groan) to Claire from http://theworldofkitsch.com/ first thing tomorrow. Check out her blog, it's quite easily one of my favourites on the internet. Kitsch wonders and bad taxidermy. Perfect!

Not bad going seeing as I only opened my shop on Sunday, and hopefully there will be many more where that came from.

Bye bye Birdie

Tomorrow night I'll mostly be baking so my next blog will almost definitely involve edible treats!

B

x



Shrinkles!

Ive spent a large portion of this morning playing with Shrinkles. They're probably the most fun thing EVER. There must be some scientific explanation for how they work but the one I prefer to use is "MAGIC". Draw a picture on the flimsy sheet of plastic, colour it in, cut it out, put it in the oven and then BAM. A magic teeny pretty piece of plastic emerges. Apologies for the misuse of capital letters but that's just how excited I get about shrink plastic. I remember being less excited by it as a child. I recall a Beatrix Potter themed set for keyrings and what not. I'd appreciate this much more now than I did as a 7 year old.

      
Here are some pictures I took of my shrinkling adventure.

Teeny!

Cute Blue Tit necklace

Parakeet Earrings

I also learnt today that "chintz" is so called because people used to think it came from China, but get this, it actually came from India! Silly people.....

So I think you should all go buy some Shrinkles now. Here you go. Thank me later.

B

x