A big post- with lots of cakes :oP

Hiiii,

Today, as mentioned in the title I bring you a rather large post!

 

The first thing I have to tell you about is my visit to the Fashion and textile museum in London :) I went there for a day course on couture sewing techniques, the price for which included a ticket to their current exhibition of Mexican Rebozos (Mexican rectangular shawl like garments).

 

The sewing room the course took place in was really nice, and I learnt a lot of cool tricks and tips too:



 

Then at the end of the day I had a wander around the exhibition, here is a really cool Rebozo knitted by Kaffe Fassett:

 

 

Here is a suit made from Rebozos- the cut is really sharp:

 

This dress is also made from a Rebozo- it is so wacky! :P:

 

Haha. This little dude was appliqued onto one of the shawls- I love him because he is wacky too!:

 

This painting is the last picture I have to show you from the exhibition, it was so cool, the canvas is cut away at the loom part so there is a real loom stocking out of the painting, it makes it 3D and makes the painting really come to life:

 

I really must learn more about weaving- the loom fascinated me, trying to work out how all the patterns in the cloth were being created :)

 

Now I am finished telling you about the Mexican shawls I shall move onto another culture- African culture, with a quick picture of the African dress I was helping Stephanie put little bits together of when I went to my Work experience on Monday:

 

The mannequin is slightly to small for this dress really so it doesn't quite show it off to it's full potential but it still does give you some idea of Stephanie's flair for design (and making!). The dress is so vibrant, I love helping Stephanie with her dresses as I love learning more about more traditional/popular African styles, they are so different to what I normally see/wear so they are really inspiring to me :-) My fascination with different cultures styles is also why I visit the Asian wedding fair as well as the UK wedding fair- that way I can see the different aspects specific to different cultures but also how on many levels they intertwine and mix and influence each other. I need there to be an African wedding fair too!

 

You are probably all thinking by now 'where's the cakes? the tile says there is lots of cake!', well don't fret as it is on it's way now :P

 

First up are these double chocolate chip peanut butter cookie cupcakes, I made them as dessert (as part of the American themed dinner party I cooked) for when my nan came round on Friday:

 



 

They were peanut butter choc chip sponge with cookie dough frosting and chocolate chips and a cookie to decorate :) They went down really well, my dad liked them especially!

 

After I made those and they went down so well I kind of had the cupcake bug (I've had it for a while now- after doing the TWO cupcake tours :-P). I decided to make some more today, these ones were even more decadent:

 

Peanut butter, choc chip cookie dough AND caramel cupcakes!: Peanut butter chocolate chip sponge and cookie dough frosting again but this time with a cookie baked at the bottom and a caramel filling too. I reallly liked these ones (though they are super sweet).

 

And because one variety is never enough is it? :P I also made these bounty ones:

 

Desiccated coconut and milk choc chip sponge, with half a bounty bar baked in the middle. Then coconut milk frosting, half a bounty and a sprinkling of desiccated coconut to top! I haven't tried one of these yet, that is on the menu for tomorrow. My mum said they were good though and my brothers eyes lit up when he was eating it so I should like them :0)

 

I may make making cup cakes my new hobby on the side as I enjoy it and people have expressed to me it is not healthy to think about/read about/practise/learn about sewing, costuming, pattern making etc... 24/7, lol. That will still of course take up most of my time as I couldn't bear to let it not!

 

For example, today I continued working on the dress I am making myself from the HUGE mens shirt I got from the costume store sale (remember? :). I unpicked it so I could basically just use it as fabric then drew up a pattern for a 60's inspired a line dress, here it is so far:

 

It is going to have some decorative pocket flaps and a collar in a matching colour scheme tartan style fabric from a skirt I got in the Costume sale- I will probably get those on it tomorrow- then It will be done. I did the bias binding on the armholes in the sink stitching method I got extra tips on at my couture course on Saturday :o) I have always found it tricky but now I have got techniques to make it not so hard and with practise I will get really neat at it! I want to have it done for Sunday when we are having family friends over for dinner.

 

Work has also started on my mums dress:

 

Quite a bit more hand sewing to go but I am getting there slowly. You have to do it a bit at a time though as I find I have to have the dress hung up as shown whilst sewing to check nothing pulls and that the edges of the panel are going on straight, but it makes your arm ache :0P

 

Phew, that was a long post! But hopefully an interesting one, or possibly just to much of me waffling :P

 

I will let you go now, but not before telling you to have a look at all the new headbands in my shop:  (with more coming soon!), for example, ice creamssss!!!:

 

 

They are inspired by my work experience at Queenie and Teds, the whole Idea of collage like, fun, applique/decoration :)

 

Hehe, now I will officially let you go!

 

Speak to you again soon, I hope you are all well,

 

Bye XxXxXxX

 

Fathers Day!

Hi everyone,

As the title of this post suggests, this post is mainly about Fathers day :P However I would like to begin by saying a big thanks to Steph (see her blog here!) who sent me this lovely bundle in the post:

 

 

 

They are the most awesome cross stitch charts ever and she even put in an adorable little Hamtaro charm she found for me! (for those of you that don't know I love Hamtaro and hamsters in general :-)

 

How kind and lovely Steph is, I can't wait to start on some of the charts! Thank you xxxx

 

Hehe, now onto fathers day :P

 

First up, I managed to finish the Paddington Biscornu I was making for my dad just in time:

 

My dad loves Football

 

And he does some primary school maths teaching (Just to explain why I chose those Paddingtons, in case I haven't already)

 

I stitched the words 'I love You Dad' and a little heart into the opposite corners:

And I added two little love heart charms to make it extra special:

 



 

My dad really liked it and said it would probably take him years to sew something that didn't look nearly as good, lol :P He also thought the shape was cool.

 

Making this Biscornu has reminded how much I love the shape of them too, an dhow fun they are to make. Maybe I will whip up another couple using the charts Steph sent me.... ooohh.... a Hamtaro Biscornu.... I am in heaven!!!

But before I drift off into Biscornu world, back to fathers day. As well as his other presents me, my mum and my brother all clubbed together to buy ingredients for a special Fathers day picnic. I then did some baking with it all (with a bit of help from my brother) and voila:

 

We had to have it indoors because it wasn't very sunny outdoors, but I think it still looked pretty and we still had fun. There were benefits also like not being bothered by any insects, lol!

 

The round bread loaf you can see in the picture is actually a giants sandwich (a hollowed out loaf that you fill with your sandwich filling them slice it and eat it). I filled it with green salad leaves, roasted tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, basil and some Quorn ham- we managed to finish it all, it was tasty, even if I do say so myself :P

 

In terms of baking, I made peanut butter cookies:

 

Cherry and Cinnamon cake (the recipe for which can be found here)- which went reallllyy well with custard!:

And finally some black bottom cupcakes (chocolate and a blob of cheesecake mix, with cream cheese frosting on top) from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook:

 



 

Everything went down well :) Pretty much everything I know about picnics, dinner parties, and cooking in general I have learnt from watching and helping my dad (and a little bit from GCSE food tech, lol) so it was nice to get to treat him by showing him all he has taught me, and by doing all the hard work he normally has to do to put everything together for him.

I LOVE YOU DAD! XXX

After the picnic we all watched a Paddington bear DVD (my present to my dad) and the Harry hill movie (one of my brothers presents to my dad), which was amusing- and one of the main characters was a hamster, lol!

 

I hope all of you had a good weekend/Fathers day too. I better go now though, I have got to get off to college in a moment to finish my jacket,

 

See you all soon,

 

Bye XxXxXxX

Cookies and cakes :)

 

Hi,

 

As I mentioned the other day was my friends birthday :-) I wanted to make her something special as part of her gifts so I sat down to try and think of ideas. She really likes cute stuff and cookies so I came up with this little happy felt cookie purse:

 

 

I double up on the felt on each side to make it sturdier and added a little popper to close it.

 

It's a COOKIE you can keep your FORTUNE in lol! She liked it so I was pleased :D the little guy has gone to a good home! :0P

 

Hehehe, and now from cookies to cake...

 

Yesterday my nan, grandad and aunty came round to celebrate my nan and grandads 50th anniversary (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! :). My dad made a delicious vegetarian roast for dinner and then I was in charge of dessert. I made these special 'Red Velvet Cookie Cakes' hehe my own kind of random creation!

 

The cakes weren't traditional red velvet I just made a deep red vanilla sponge and then topped with vanilla butter cream and crumbled white chocolate cookies:

 

 

The went down well and If I do say so myself I thought they were quite nice (I still think my dads cakes are actually perfection though!) :-P I was a bit worried the red would put everyone off but it didn't so that was good.

After all that sugar and sweetness I will give you all a rest now, lol!

See you all soon,

Byeeeeee xxx

Last holiday update!

Hello everyone,

This is my last holiday update as tommorrow I am coming back home. I had a really good last day today though as the sun has been shining and me and my family went back to the Chocolate Apothecary (a reaalllyyy nice cafe). I had half a cookie, half a brownie (I shared with my dad as they are to good to try and choose one of them :P) and some appletizer :0) Mmmmmmmmmm! Also this evening when we went to the pier my brother won a cute donut plush on the grabber/claw machine and gave it to me (we have been trying for the whole week to win something and finally on our last day we did!)

 

Yesterday we had a 'chipnic' ( a chip picnic :) on the beach, hehehe :0) my dad made up the idea. we packed some rolls and sauce and then went and bought some IOW potato chips from the local chip shop and sat on the beach and ate our chip butties :P I had a few chips left at the end so I fed them to the seagulls, they went crazy for them!!!

 

On Wednesday we went for a meal at pizza express with some of the gift vouchers my nan gave us, that was really nice I had doughballs, some margherita pizza and then a big toffee glory ice cream :P It was very tasty :)

 

Tuesday was a shopping day really, my mum took me back to the vintage clothes shop as I really enjoyed looking round it the first time. She helped me look through all the rails for something my size and I tried on some different dresses, they were all so pretty and in the end my mum treated me to my two favourites and a cardigan for me to wear to my upcoming 18th birthday celebrations!(Pictures coming when I get home I am just still struggling to upload them)

 

This week I managed to finish the teddy bear cross stitch kit I started a while ago and the mini butterfly one my mum bought me last week. And I started another dress for my Monster high doll out of some pretty Chinese style fabric I bought in the IOW this time last year! I also came up with another tutorial to share with all of you which I shall be posting up over the next week or so :D

 

I hope you all had a lovely week,

 

See you all very tommorrow to announce the winner of the 2nd blogiversary giveaway, If you haven't entered yet don't miss out! Good luck to everyone :0)

 

Bye xxxXxxxXxxxX

 

Cooking and crafting

Hi friends,

Since I got home I had really been craving those 'Maxibon Cookie' ice creams, I had a check in my local supermarkets but none of them sold them :/ But then I thought what do I normally do when I can't find what I would like? I try to make it :0) So that is what I did, me and my brother bought some cookies, ice cream and chocolate and attempted to re-create the deliciousness! We had to work really fast as you could feel the ice cream melting. They weren't very neat but they were tasty :P:

Another thing that was very tasty was the chocolate bunny me and my dad made together today!:

I bought my dad the mould and chocolate as a birthday gift as he really likes cooking and today we gave it a go, it was very fun. The chocolate came out very thick as I bought my dad a 1kg bar of Cadbury's and we ended up using it all :-P We didn't eat it all this evening though, promise!

In amongst all the chocolate and ice cream eating/making I have been doing some crafting though, Here is the little sign I made as a present for my mum and dad:

It is made out of scrabble tiles and I made up the little rhyme myself :o) A while ago my mum gave me a bag of scrabble tiles that she found in my brothers games cupboard, I kept thinking what to do with them and finally came up with the sign idea, my parents really liked so I was happy. I might try making a little door plaque for myself out of some of the remaining tiles.

I'm off to bed now as I am quite tired after spending the afternoon chocolate making :P Also I have got to get up my energy too as tomorrow me and my brother are making another batch of the cookie ice creams for when my nan and grandad come round in the afternoon!

See you all soon,

Byeeeeeeeee XXX

Holiday (and Olympic!) snaps :)

Hi guys!

I am back now and as promised I bring you pictures, lol :P Hehehe, I will try not to bore you all! (I have only chosen my best snaps :)

Here is the view from the back of the glass bottom boat, the water was very blue in Malta and it was ALWAYS hot and sunny:

Interestingly there is no tide in Malta... I don't know why, there just isn't! :-P

This is the best picture I could get of the fish through the windows at the bottom of the boat:

It was cool to the see the 'underwater world' though I did feel a little bit sea sick!

Hehehe, here is the infamous 'Maxibon cookie', soooooo tasty :0)

It got a bit battered on the way home from the shop but It was still very yummy!

If only it was possible I would have got one for a giveaway, lol!

Another thing that was super tasty was the ice cream filled croissants me and my family had by the sea front, I very much recommend giving it a try at home:

I had cookie and banana ice cream......mmmmmm.... I wish I had one now :)

In the main set of shops near our parade they had lots of handmade Maltese lace and my mum and dad treated me to this beautiful umbrella, I absolutely love it. I can't wait too use it in the park on a sunny day or at  the next family barbecue!

Last of my holiday snaps are the pictures of some of my makes :-):

Hehehe, I hope you all had a nice couple of weeks while I was away too (and I hope my pics didn't bore you too much :P) xxx

In other news as I'm sure all of you will already know London is hosting the 2012 Olympics! Me and my family luckily managed to get some tickets, we got to go and watch the handball today. I had watched quite a few events on TV whilst on holiday so I was quite excited to go and see the Olympic park in real life. (I'm also lucky I only live 10 mins from Stratford so we didn't have a long journey to get there either!)

Here is the main Olympic stadium, what you  see as you walk in:

It is a very pretty stadium. As you can see from the picture the park was relatively crowded but not jam-packed which was good as it was quite hot today. The queue for the mega store was huge but it did move quickly and only took about 10 mins to get into the shop for a look.

I also saw the velodrome quite clearly too:

I got to go into the basketball stadium though as that was where the handball was

The basketball stadium:

Here are some pictures inside I took from my seat:

It was the mens quarter final, Spain V France. It was quite exciting at the end as it was 22, 22 with two seconds to go and then France scored to win the match. They told you all the rules at the start so that was good as then I knew what was going on :-P

I promise there will be less pictures in the next post, I will give all your eyes a rest! I just wanted to share with you all my adventures :)

See you all soon my lovely lovely friends!

Bye XxXxX

P.S. In the next couple of days I will be celebrating my Second Blogaversairy (well belated one as it was a few days ago now) as I mentioned before I went away so make sure to check back soon :D

Byyyyyyyyeeeee

Holiday Update 2

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all still well and having a nice time :)

It is still very hot here in Malta (like it is all year round I think! :P). The other day me and my family went on an underwater safari boat trip, the boat drove out to a nearby rocky island and drove around it while all of the people on the boat got to go down to the glass bottom bit and look at the fishes. It made me a tiny bit sea sick :S But I did enjoy seeing the jellyfish/fish alot :0) (I'm still struggling with pictures but I will post them all up when I get home :)

Then yesterday we went and had an ice cream by the sea. Me and my dad tried ice cream served in a croissant, it was very yummy. I will definitely recreate it when I get home! (I will also try to recreate this ice cream I bought in a shop. It was called a 'Maxibon Cookie', it was like a half choc dipped cookie ice cream sandwich - DELICIOUS!)

After my croissant ice cream my day got even better as in one shop my mum treated me to a traditional Malta lace sun umbrella, it is beautiful and I can't wait to use it in the park at home!

Along with the chocolate brooches I previously mentioned I have now made candy floss, french fries and corn on the cob ones. I have been fitting in extra crafting as we have been staying in a bit longer watching bits of the Olympics which has been fun.

Which reminds me, the synchronised swimming is coming on very soon and I really want to see it (it looks so fun!) so I will speak to you all soon (probably when I get home now :)

Bye for now my lovely friends :) XxXxX <3 p="p">

Last preparations for Christmas!

Hello everybody :)

ITS NEARLY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! :D

Today I was doing my last preparations ready for the big day :) My dad baked the biscuits for me and my brother and then we decorated and put together this very yummy looking (if I may say so myself :0) shortbread biscuit house, I shaped the snowman biscuit at the front:

Hehehe I think the side bit looks like a face :-) We had to add the round biscuits and wafers as I messed it up and decorated the side pieces the wrong way round so there was a big gap between the sides and the  roof  :P Silly, silly me! But oh well, it worked out in the end and I've got lots of it to eat in the morning! mmmm.... :P

Tomorrow is the day I always go round my nans house for the evening so I made sure I got her Christmas mouse all done today, here he is (o:3

He is one of the Dickensian mice  from Alan Darts pattern. I adapted one of the hat style patterns slightly and added a bell to the top to make it look more elf-ish and then gave a little snowball. Finally I added a pretty Christmas star (from my Christmas swap parcel) to complete the look!

Tonight I am also going to make one of my quick n easy Christmas tree decorations for my Aunt who will also be at my nans tommorrow :)

Now all thats left to say is.....

Image from: here

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!

Just in case any of you are too busy having fun on Christmas day and I don't get to wish any of you happy Christmas then :)

I'm off to get started on this decoration then, see you all soon !

And remember.... You better not pout, you better not cry because Santa Claus is coming to town o<]:0)

Bye :D xxxx