Briliant bargains!

 Helloooo,

I hope you are all having a good week, with college tonight I am going to see the live streaming of the National Theatres War Horse. I have never been to a live streaming but it is meant to be an interesting experience so I am excited  :D

 

As I mentioned, last week my family were on holiday in the IOW. They were very kind because thy had bought me home quite a few little gifts for me that they had collected from around the island, Including this bag of felt scraps my mum picked up:

 

I was really impressed because it is a whole bag, stuffed full of really nice, quality, felt and she got the whole thing for £1.50! I think that is such a bargain as nice felt can be really expensive.

 

As soon as I saw the bag I had an idea of what to do with it. Al the little strips reminded me of paper strips and I thought; what can you do with paper strips?- Quilling of course! So I attempted to try a quilling style look by rolling and sewing the felt in different ways, it was fiddly but fun so I am glad I thought of it! Here is a flower brooch I made yesterday:

 

I have ideas for tons of little brooches to make, like trees and butterfly's all in my new felt quilling style, I better get started... :P

 

Another bargain I just had to share with you guys (this time non craft related) is the birthday cake bargains me and a friend from college managed to pick up on our way home in the local mini Waitrose. We got 3 big birthday cakes for less than £3.50!!! Two vanilla and jellybean birthday tray bakes for 99p each and this chocolate hedgehog cake for £1.49. Look!:

 

 

Just in case you didn't believe me, here is the sticker :P:

 

 

Hahaha, I am taking some home for my family to share with them at the weekend, my friend kept some for her flat and then the rest of the tray bakes we are bringing into college to share today, Mmmmm :)

 

I am off now as it is almost time for me to head off to college- cake and corsets  are calling me. Hehehe!

 

See you all soon,

 

Bye XxXxXxXxX

 

Macaron madness! (and other stuff)

Hiiii!

 

I hope you have all been having a lovely week and it's Friday tomorrow so the weekend is not far away either :)

 

As I mentioned in my last post, the Saturday just gone I took my mum for a cream tea at Hush Brassieres in London- it was very nice and they had mini macarons. I wasn't sure if I even liked macarons (I didn't think I did) but after one bite I was hooked- they were soo tasty and fun!

 

When I went out with my family on Sunday my dad treated me to a box of mini macarons (just like the ones from the cream tea) from Marks and Spencers. I have been very much enjoying working my way through them:

 

Mmmm yummy!

 

I have officially been bitten by the macaron bug as on Tuesday this week after I finished early at college I tried making some of my own raspberry ones. I wasn't sure how they would come out as I had never made them before and had heard that they are notoriously difficult. I did some searching on the internet and found this youtube video: click here! I followed all her tips to the letter and left them with their filling inside in the fridge overnight (to moisten slightly) and they were almost perfect, apart from they weren't the pinky colour they were supposed to be as I couldn't get any food colouring :P:

 

 

 

I was so proud! I still have to hone my skills as I think I may have got a bit lucky how they came out with their feet and everything first time. I shared them with the girls at college who said they were really tasty so I was happy- I thought they did have the right macaron texture and flavour :)

 

And Just in case I hadn't made enough macarons already I ended up creating a pattern for a crocheted macaroon that evening! lol:

 

I think it is quite kawaii- now all that is left to do is make up lots in different colours (or flavours :P).

 

Hehehe, in other non-macaron related news yesterday after college one of the 3rd years ran a mini recycling project thing (as part of his final year project) which was really fun. We got to work with wrappers which was cool as I like to use these in crafty ways too. We made oyster card holders by fusing plastics together with the heat from irons and then sewing the plastics together. Here are mine:

 

One skips one...

 

And one Cadburys marvellous creations on (I love this chocolate!!!)...

 

I will definitely be using the heat technique to maker more wrapper stuff in the future!

The last instalment in this rather long post is a couple of pictures of the tasty food I ate at Giraffe - a really fun restaurant I went with my family on Sunday and a picture of my Ice cream from the Harvester which I went to with a friend from college today :) It was all so good, I had to share it with you guys!

 

This is the Farmers market burrito from Giraffe, sorry the picture is a bit blurry I was excited to get eating it :P:



 

and here is my brownie and ice cream dessert from Giraffe:

 

Warm, gooey and sweet- delicious!

 

I will definitely be going back to Giraffe as the food was really good and tasted really fresh :)

Hehe, and last but not least my minty aero Harvester sundae:

 



 

Again, very good, but safe to say I didn't need any dinner today and am also a bit worried about possibly having to do a corset fitting tomorrow, lol :P I actually went with the girl who I am making a corset for but luckily I did her fitting this morning, before we went and ate tons of salad bar and ice cream!

Sorry- I am done now! You can go and rest your eyes now :-P

Speak to you all again very soon,

Byeeeeeeeee xxxxx

Happy valentines :)

Hi eveyone,

I hope you all had a great Valentines day with your loved ones yesterday :)

 

I had a lovely day with my family. My dad treated me to this cool multicoloured rose (and a box of lindt chocolates!). It is a real rose and everything but they used coloured water to make it these amazing colours:

 

 

 

It was called a Harlequin rose. I love it soo much!!! it reminds me of cirque du soleil, it is very theatrical :P

 

Talking about flowers, this week (as it has been reading week for me) I have had some time to work a bit more on a little half scale dress I have been working on- I designed it, then draped the pattern and now I am making it up in the real fabric :0) Here it is so far, the skirt is inspired by petals:

 

It is also inspired by the dress in Disney's Princess and the frog (I love that movie!). When I have finished the dress (it will be ribbon laced at the back and may even have some form of sleeves :-) I am making a petticoat to go underneath to puff out the bottom for the petals to drape over. I have been really careful with the construction and pressing and am really proud of it so far :-)

 

This week I also finished the new stock I have been working on for my shop- some of my little knitted Easter chicks!:

 

 

I have uploaded four sets of two; one set of light green (pictured above) and one set in pink, blue and yellow- All at only £2.50 per set.

 

Do pop over and take a look: Click here :)

 

Today me and my mum went to see the Isabella Blow fashion exhibition at Somerset House in London. It was really fantastic- so many amazing hats and dresses to look at many of them quite outrageous making it all even more fun! :) Then we went for an afternoon tea at Hush Brasseries in St Paul's which I treated my mum too, We ate it all before I remembered to take a picture though :P It was very nice there were little scones and mini macaroons. Hahaha I didn't know I liked macaroons until today and now I have a craving for more! The slice of mars bar cheesecake you get at the end of the tea was tasty too :0)

 

Tomorrow me and my family are going out for a meal (Hehehe, I will try to remember pictures this time :P) as it is my last day of reading week then i am going back to uni- to do more corsets, yay :)

 

Talk to you all again soon and I hope you all have a lovely Sunday,

 

Bye xxxx

 

 

I won a giveaway!

Hello everyone,

 

Last week I was very happily surprised to find out that I was one of the lucky winners of Stephs mystery giveaway prizes!!! :oD

 

I was soo excited and was not at all disappointed when my fantastic parcel arrived a couple of days ago- look! :D:

 



 

I really really love the nakd bars so was very pleased when I pulled one of them out of the envelope!

 

The brooches Steph made are absolutely beautiful- they go perfectly in my brooch collection :) I can't wait to start wearing them :-)

 

All the little charms are super kawaii too:

 

I have lots of ideas of how to use them :o)

 

Thank you Steph for organising the giveaway and thank you for my fantastic prizes xxx

 

In other news I finished my mums kindle case:

 

She really liked it and hasn't stopped using it since I gave it to her :) Hehe, I was pleased with the fit seen as I didn't get a chance to do a 'fitting' as I made it whilst I was away at uni.

 

Im off now to keep working on the new items I am working on to go in my shop soon....

 

See you soon,

 

Byeeeeeee xxx

An update :)

Hi,

I hope you are all well and have a good weekend planned :) I am excited as next week I have a reading week so get to spend lots of lovely time with my family! (though, I mustn't forget I do have a bit of work to do in-between :P)

This week I have managed to get a lot further on the kindle case I am making for my mum, I just have the ribbing left to do, and then just sewing it up:

 

I also managed to Finish the little cross stitch I wanted to sew onto the front for decoration:

 

I should be able to give it to my mum this weekend as I reckon I will get it finished tomorrow, my aim was to get it to her before my family go on holiday to the IOW the week after next (my holiday is out of sync with my family this time) so I am well within schedule :P

 

I have actually got a lot done this week, now I am more used to doing all my washing etc... and I don't faff so much I can do more stuff! I baked some flapjacks for all the girls on my costume course. They were chocolate, date, raisin and sticky toffee:

 

 

I doubled up on the recipe so everyone got a nice big one :) They really enjoyed them so I was very pleased, I thought they were tasty too! We were thoroughly spoilt today though as it is one of the girls Birthdays coming up and a couple of the other girls made her a really tasty gluten free lemon cake and brought it in. It was very moist and delicious :-P

 

Today we also started making corsets!!! This is our next project, I am very excited about it. We get to be models for each others so I am making one for someone and they are making one for me :-) Today we started the master patterns which tomorrow we are changing to fit our person:

 

They are taken from historical corsets (I chose the 17th century one) so at the moment the patterns are very tiny, people were so much smaller- my wrist just about goes through the armhole! :P

 

In about two weeks we should get our Kimono stuff back (it is being marked :) and then I can show you all pictures of my kimono- which was my first project as I mentioned.

 

Hehe, that is about it for my update, but just before I go I remembered the other day that I hadn't put up the picture of what was inside this years mini parcels Christmas giveaway, silly me! So here it is- just in case you were curious :o):

 

 

See you soon,

 

Bye xxx

Giveaway winner!

HI everyone,

Entries are now closed and the winner of the little nature themed giveaway, as chosen by random number generator is...

RYLLISSE!!!!

Congratulations :-)

I have sent you a message via ravelry so I can get your prize on its way to you ASAP for you to enjoy!

As usual don't be disheartened if it wasn't you this time as there will be plenty more giveaways coming along soon :0)

Also there is a big sale on some of the items in my shop which expire early February - I won't be listing them again so get yourself down there quick to grab a bargain before they are gone for good!

See you all soon and well done again to Ryllisse,

Bye xxxx