an obligation to beauty

very small portions

2012-03-20T08:41:00.002-07:00

things have been rather busy with work and uni lately, so my making things has been put on hold....but a girl still needs to eat, and if she happens to be eating ice cream, she may as well be making it too:

this is chestnut ice cream, another 'still chill' recipe which i didn't really stick to - chestnut paste (creme de marrons) is one of my favourite things, and as making things into ice cream can only ever improve them...

you will need:
around 225ml chestnut paste
about 300ml double cream (beaten 'til more solid)
about 50g of icing sugar
2 tablespoons of sherry, unless you're me and don't want to spend a tenner on sherry, so replace it with some muscovado sugar and half a cap of vaniller essence.

mix everything together and freeze in a shallow dish. then eat. in very small portions as it is incredibly rich!

making things for mothers day

2012-03-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

my mother is rather wonderful, and in her characteristically subtle way sent me a knitting pattern for a 3D dove she wanted me to make for the occasion. the only problem is i haven't knitted in years! and the pattern was a hard one. i hope she doesn't mind - i designedand made her a crochet one instead:

i kept the pink beak and red eyes from the knitting pattern, and kind of made up the body shape as i went along...it's a little wonky, and the wings are far too curly, but hopefully she'll think it's charming : ) all i had to get was the wool, the beaks made form embroidery thread and it's stuffed with a sock that lost its friend. i also made her some bracelets with the quote from julian of norwich which she likes. it's all a bit childish this year, but hey - that's as good a theme as any.

dali mustaches

2012-03-12T02:24:00.000-07:00

last night i was given a very stange but easy choice: either go outside in the cold and help get take-out, or stay in and make 19th century industrialist mustaches out of a scrunched up bit of old book spine. like that's really even a choice!

i simply ironed the spine fabric, cut out some mustache shapes in paper to see if they looked alright on (there was a lot of running back and forth to the mirror), and used them as a rudimentary template. they got sewn to an old, faded dali t-shirt. because we're cool like that : )

late presents are better than no presents

2012-03-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

so at christmas i was like, "sorry i left your birthday present at home, it's a couple of months late but i'll post it when i get back." now we're in march i think it's finally time to send it. i found the offending pressie in the bottom of my wardrobe, unwrapped it as i thought it might be for me, chucked half of it away as it had gone off, bought some nice smellies to replace the bad, used the nice smellies in an emergency, and finally have replaced them with this:

i painted an old frame and made an origami butterfly to put in it, she likes pretty things of a decorative nature so hopefully she'll like this. (she's also getting some crystal door knobs which you can see a bit in the top of the photo...they were part of the original present).

when life gives you lemons- make ice cream!

2012-03-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

on the 28th of last month i posted 'not quite ice cream' which included my woe of a broken ice cream machine. since then i have found that some recipes don't require an ice cream maker as their fat content is so high that they won't do the horrible crystallising thing if frozen in a shallow dish....or in lemon skins:

to make these just whip up some double cream until it's pretty solid, add the contents of 3 lemons and the rind of 2, add icing sugar to taste, mix, freeze. if you want to fill empty lemon halves and chop them into quarters once they've frozen like i have then do. however, eating them out of the skins is a bit messy, but fun!

tiny paper cranes

2012-03-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

originally i set out to make the world's smallest origami crane, then i found out that the smallest was made from a 1mm square of paper...as i am not currently in possession of a microscope, i'll settle for making mine from 38mm squares. they've been made into earrings, naturally.

fabric pens + canvas shoes = happy making!

2012-03-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

cheap canvas flats are everywhere but they're a bit boring and they never last long. so i draw on them:

i've gone for a hermes theme this time and tried not to go too over the top (experience has taught me that less is more on the shoe doodle front).

these took me literally a couple of minutes to do with red and yellow fabric pens and will no doubt get trashed after a month or two serving as my everyday-uni-oh-my-god-is-that-the-time-do-these-even-match-shoes. the shoes themselves cost £4 and i already had the pens : )

hey there lonely girl

2012-03-02T13:14:00.000-08:00

growing up, whenever i tried and failed to put bracelets on my mother would sing the first line of 'hey there lonely girl' by eddie holman (the first line is the same as the title of the song). i found myself singing it under my breath as i put on these three i made this morning:

the bright-garish-tribal look is in at the mo and it looks like accessorize buy their turquoise skull beads from the same seller on e-bay as i do. i bought the beads over half a year ago so am feeling rather uber ahead of fashion right now : )

to make these you will need: gold open chain, gold wire, beads, bells, colourful cord and half an hour or so spare. enjoy!

i'm a girl on a mission

2012-02-29T13:22:00.001-08:00

a couple of days ago i ordered a free recipe book online. it's arrival today has made me so super happy that i have decided to put together a beautiful recipe booklet of my own, and then hand it in to a charity shop somewhere. BUT I NEED HELP!!!!!! i really can't cook and don't have many recipes so please, if you have any to submit for psudo-publishing then i would be very grateful : )

watch this space for the finished product.

not quite ice cream

2012-02-28T13:56:00.001-08:00

i got an ice cream maker yesterday and was super excited! then i used it and it stopped working within its first hour. this makes me sad as i had great plans for it but not to worry- i have lychee, lime and mint slushys to look forward to instead.

it is just a can of lychees in syrup with a table spoon of lime juice and some mint leaves blitzed and then frozen, still very yummy though!

however i am going to invest in a better ice cream maker come pay day, as i think the sorbet diet is going to be/should be the next big thing : p

very yellow body necklace

2012-02-27T11:31:00.001-08:00

so, i'm not terribly convinced that body necklaces will catch on in everyday life. most of them on the high street cost somewhere between £20-£40 and won't look good on anyone who has any body shape that isn't pole-thin.

however, i'm thinking i can pull off this asymmetric gold number over something very plain...and maybe then only at night.

i happened over 4 meters of gold chain i bought off e-bay a while back when 'tidying' my room this morning (for 'tidying' see 'hiding mess under bed/in cupboards'). so out came the jewelry pliers! though please note, if you're planning on making one, don't forget to put a clasp on the back of the neck bit or back bit depending, otherwise you can't get out of it and you'll just have to wear it forever.

my animal dress

2012-02-26T15:43:00.001-08:00

it only took a couple of months to get around to doing it but:

so my boss was like, "i have this bedsheet that i bought, put on the bed, was repulsed by, and now it's going to charity if you don't want it", and i was like, "i could make a dress out of it", and she was all, "you HAVE to make a dress out of it".

i didn't have a pattern for this one, i just made a circle skirt, a thick waist band, and bit's that join at the shoulder to cover everything else - though it may need a vesty top underneath.

it only took a couple of hours, managed to bake a cake while i was in the middle of it too, which considering the day i've had at work makes for one full day of stuff!

oh, i did have to buy a yellow 14" zip for the back, making the total cost of my animal dress £2.50.

sending friends nice things...

2012-02-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

my friend and workmate got her ears pierced last friday so i've made her some earrings which i shall send her in the post - i do see her like 4 days a week as we have work and uni together but getting things in the post is always exciting! i should point out that i only made the dangly ones (the skull with feathers, the frying pan, the bike, the mini garden shears and the bird with feather). the studs are all the unused dregs from those earring selections, you know, the ones where you like 3 of the 10 in the set but you buy the set anyway. anyways, it only took some beads, some feathers, some dolls house stuff and ear wires to make.

none match because asymmetry is cool.

it's the little things...

2012-02-24T13:25:00.000-08:00

the boyfriend wears glasses, and has a habit of putting them down, forgetting where he's placed them, and as he's not wearing them they prove pesky to find. the most obvious solution to his problem was to make him a 'glasses hotel'. obviously. it was just a case of cutting up an old, ripped silk top (it was dry clean only but had survived several years of being put through the washing machine and dryer before dying on me) and sewing up the edges, writing on it with fabric pen and pinning it to the wall.

i was never going to get that deposit back anyway.

first post

2012-02-24T13:10:00.000-08:00

for this first post i'm putting in a couple of things i've made in the last couple of weeks:

i think i managed to cover my face with the camera rather artfully here. the thing i'm trying to show off is the gold laurel wreath - it took almost no time at all, just the cheapest hair band i could find teamed with some silk leaves with bendy wire stems. it was just a case of wrapping the wire around the hair band while sitting in my doorway talking to my flatmate about her plans to scare me while i'm sleeping (i have very silly flatmates!). of course you have to make sure that the pokey-outy bits of the ends of the wire are on the side of the band not touching your head, otherwise things could be uncomfy.

now have you ever seen the movie 'how to steal a million'? it's a very silly audrey hepburn/peter o'toole rom-com-heist movie with a memorable scene in which hepburn's charater is 'in disguise'. i attempted to emulate the mask she wore in that scene for my boyfriend's flatmate's masquerade flat party thing. i believe her mask was made by hubert de givenchy along with all the other costumes in the film, i however had only an hour between work ending and the party starting to scoff a tuna baguette and sew two bits of ribbon together in the nearest cafe! given the time limit i'm quite proud of the shapping a managed on the nose and cheeks. although quite effective as a statement piece, it does obscure the vision somewhat...although one should of course value looks above practicality so it is of no matter.