Homemade Vanilla Extract

Every man and his dog has had a go at making their own vanilla extract....so I figured that it was time I did too!  Besides, I hunted and hunted and hunted for the right bottles, the right vanilla and the right vodka - all at a relatively decent price.  Maybe you want that info too?

The pics are blurry, I am still having real trouble getting my not so new camera to agree with me.  Sorry; you will get over it I am sure.

I really thought that it would be a *cheap* project.  Not so much!  The ingredients were each quite expensive.  But, it is worth it - I now have a gazillion (21 really) ready made presents just sitting and waiting for unsuspecting recipients.

It is simple.  All you do is cut the bean in 2, then slit each half in half length ways so that all the little beans are exposed.  Keep one end of the pod halves attached.  Put your sliced and slit beans in bottles and cover the beans with vodka.  I used 2 pods per bottle.

I believe that it is also possible to make extract with other hard liquor - if you have a huge stash look into using it, the internet is your friend.  The beans need to be kept covered with the vodka, otherwise they will dry out.  They also say that the beans need to soak for something like 6 weeks before using the extract.  The longer they soak the better it gets.

We sloshed some vanilla into our weekend latte - it was yummy, except that we could taste the vodka (ick!).  I am waiting for some of the bottles to mature a little more, then I am going to move the beans around so that I have more beans in a bottle - to get a stronger vanilla extract.

About the stickers - there are so many free printables online for these.  I ended up downloading a ready made sticker page, then, never happy with things as they are, decided I needed to add to it.  So, my stickers have a recipe for Vanilla Biscuits on one side and instructions on the other.  If you would like a copy, drop me a note and I will e-mail you the sheet.

Now...you really want to know about my supplies, don't you?  Here we go then:

8oz/227ml sauce bottles - £17 for 39 bottles

Vanilla pods - £16.50 for 50 premium Madagascan pods

Humungous 1.5l bottles of vodka from Costco - can't remember how much they were, but they were a little bit cheaper than elsewhere.  Cheap, cheap vodka is just fine.

If you have made vanilla extract, let me know what worked for you.  I'd love to hear.

Leap Year Day

I have a friend who was born on leap day - 29 February.  She says that she doesn't have a birthday and only celebrates when her date comes up.  That makes me so sad - I look foward to my birthday every year.  I say that she should celebrate on the 28th AND the 1st.

She is special - she should get to celebrate more than the rest of us!  Don't you agree?

Last year I made this for her.  This year I made her this pretty teal cross-body bag.

I posted it to her yesterday, all wrapped up in tissue paper and string and packaged in one of my pretty pink mailing bags.  If I must confess, I am just a little anxious - a) what if the postman doesn't bring it to her today? and b) what if she hates it?

Ava's little Croc's bag was my inspiration.  I think that I need to make another grown up version for me!  Maybe add a little fabric flower too.  Once I have made a few tweaks to the pattern and the way that I assembled it, I thought I might add a few to my shop or maybe create a pattern for it.  What do you think?

Macadamia Chocolate Spread {Recipe}

My mother made me a recipe book for my birthday a few years ago.  The recipes are all cuttings from various magazines....almost all from the 1980's-1990's.  I guess that she had a monster pile of magazines that she wanted to ditch and decided to chop them into shreds before doing so.  I won't complain - there are some delicious recipes in there!

One of the recipes is for this chocolate spread, I don't know what magazine it has come from.  It is sooooooo goooood, so I feel the need to share.  

125g macadamia nuts, chopped finely

250g milk chocolate, finely chopped or grated

125g unsalted butter, softened

Combine the butter and chocolate to form a smooth paste.

Add the nuts and beat until smooth and evenly combined.

Store in jars in the fridge, but serve at room temperature or slightly warmed up.

I spooned dollops of mix into 2 and a half dijon mustard sized jars.  The half a jar means that we get to keep a little as the other 2 jars are [very] late Christmas gifts.

I also sterilised my jars and lids in the oven, am not entirely sure that is necessary - I figured it wouldn't do any harm to be on the safe side.

Once your jars are filled and cooled, have fun decorating them.  I just cut fabric circles and tied them onto the lids.

Spread the chocolate on to sandwiches, toast, biscuits, cakes....you get the idea.  

These little jars of healthy chocolate - hey! they have a nuts and milk in them...doesn't that makes them healthy!?  The little jars would make a lovely Easter present too.

Christmas Tradition

A few photo's of some of the Christmas projects that I am working on...

This is - uh, will be - a cat with a fluttery dress.  I will be using the cat pattern from the Wee Wonderfuls book.

She still needs her legs attached and some clothing.

I combined two patterns from the same Wee Wonderfuls book for her.

I think that I should redo her cheeks...they have stretched out of shape after stuffing her.

The doll will sit in this backpack.  Backpack pattern from Oliver and S.

Doll seat idea and spotty fabric inspiration from Saltwater-Kids.

The eye-less elf.  The pattern is from the Scandinavian Stitches book.  The elf will be getting eyes...temporary felt eyes until we get to my mom, when the elf will miraculously have teeny weeny button eyes.

Have you ever heard of Elf on the Shelf?  I first heard of it last year, but thought that Ava was a little young for it still.  This year - we are making it our new Christmas tradition.  Anything to encourage good behaviour and kindness between sisters...!  Rather than buying the kit, I have made our own elf.  Maybe not quite as pliable as the 'real' elf, but I am sure that Flower Daddy and I will be able to conjure enough fun with it.

Robert Robert is here!

Finally!  Robert is in my shop and on Etsy!  That took forever...!

DIY Fabric Tape

Right, you know that I am on the hunt for small but effective gift ideas for Christmas this year.  Well.  This is the easiest, peasiest gift that you will ever make and is pretty economical too.  If you are like me, you will end up making a bunch more for yourself too.  Not so economical then!

Right, all you need is some fabric, some double sided sticky tape and a pair of scissors.

I used this Stix 2 tape.  For no particular reason other than that is what the shop had in the width that I wanted.  I figure that a 25mm width will allow me/who ever I gift some to to either use it at full width, or to make it go further by snipping the width in half, or thirds, if they so fancy.  The fabric that I used was given to me by a lovely lady, together with heaps and heaps of other fabric (some not so nice - icky slippery black sparkly lining; some useful - shed-loads of plain blue cotton; some gorgeous - like this left over and very old curtain)

Are you paying attention, because these are your instructions....blink and you will miss them...

Peel your tape off of the roll, keeping the backing paper on.  Stick your tape on to the back of your fabric in a nice straight and smooth line (make sure your fabric is nice and smooth as you go).  Snip off the tape when your have stuck as much as you want to 

Cut the fabric along the sides of your tape.  I used scissors, but you could use a rotary cutter.

Roll up your tape and tie a ribbon or string around it to keep it neat.

Job done!  Great for scrap booking, beautifying parcels and packaging, sticking pictures to the wall (ok maybe not such a hot idea considering this tape is permanent - can see Flower Daddy hyperventilating already).  You get the idea - use it for beautifying whatever you fancy perking up.Go and make a heap more...!!!

Christmas 2012 *Plans*

2008 - Gordons Bay, near Cape Town

During May we bought tickets to go home for Christmas.  I was last home 3 years ago, when Ava was 6 months old.  Flower Daddy was last home when I was pregnant with Ava - so it will be 4 years for him by the time Christmas arrives.  Far.  Too.  Long.

2008 - Hout Bay , near Cape Town

My mother has visited us a few times and the Flower Daddies parents have visited once (just as all-day sickness took residence when I was pregnant with Chloe - eugh).  But, it has been pretty much 4 years since we saw anyone else.  I miss my family.  Especially now that we have our own family to share with them.  I would love for our girls to have a proper and meaningful relationship with their cousins and aunties and uncles and especially their grannies and grandpa's.

2008 - street market in Cape Town

For me, about 3 weeks ago, the excitement started settling in.  I am now just itch-itch-itching to start packing and to see our families.  We know that our time away will be crazy and hectic and far too busy to call a holiday.  We will, with out, doubt be exhausted when we return.  We have 4 different places to visit - (Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Pietermaritzburg and a teeny weeny town in the Karoo) - 3 of them a 2 hour flight or 10 hour drive (longer now that we have little people travelling with us) away from each other.  The fourth being a 4 hour drive away from one of the other places.  We know that it will be stupid expensive.  We also know that it will be a lot of fun.

2009 - my gran and Ava (6mths old)

So now....I am thinking about Christmas presents.  They need to be inexpensive, but meaningful.  Preferably home crafted.  Light-weight, if I am to make them before we travel.  Or simple and quick and very economical to make if I am to make them when we arrive in South Africa.

What to make - what to make????

The age range is pretty huge - from 18 months to grannies and grandpa's and a very special 90 year old great-granny.  Boys and girls.  Young and old.  What to make?!?

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I am thinking that this play mat would be a great idea for Ava and her 6 year old cousin.

Doodled key rings or brooches (made from the copious number of wooden coins I still have left over from Ava's memory coins) a la Happy Doodle Land for aunties, uncles, grannies and grandpa's.

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I can think of a little 6 year old boy cousin who would probably love these fun animal hooks for his bedroom...not that I have any spray paint, random animals or wood backing shapes in my craft box!

My 90 year old gran loves photo's.  So I think a special family portrait mounted in an embellished picture frame would be a good idea (something like this one).  Am thinking a simple wooden frame, painted, then colourful buttons stuck all over it.

Eesh!...it's a start, but what to do about everyone else?  Any thoughts, suggestions or ideas?

1 Year Blog-iversary!

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I was just rustling through my archives...It is exactly 1 year ago today that I posted my very first post.  How did a year fly by so darn quickly?

Oh ja!  Kids tend to make that happen!

Must be all the fun been had.

In fairness, I really have only been making more of a bloggy effort in the last few months.

My first colouring in softies were hand drawn...now they are screen printed (by me)...times have a-changed, and times are a-moving onwards and upwards with lots of good new things and ideas in the pipe-line.

To celebrate, I have a discount code to share with you:

Use BLOGIVERSARY at my shop for 25% off or on Etsy for free shipping, anywhere.  Good until the end of Sunday!

A Homemade Gift for a New Baby

A friend recently had her 3rd baby.  A little boy.  He is a very lucky little man with 2 older sisters - at 8 and 5 years old, he is sure to be looked out for.

I couldn't bring myself to buy him a birthday gift.  Mostly because I like to 'make'.  But also because I know that no one else will have given the same thing if I give him something hand made.

So, I bought two 3-6mth sized white body suits and embellished them with spot creatures.  Coloured body suits would have been more fun, but I couldn't find any at the time.  It was really easy...all I did was cut out 2 circles of Bondaweb and fuse them to my coloured fabric.  Then I cut out the circles and fused them to the body suits.  I sewed the circles on with a straight stitch on my sewing machine.

For the black lines I used a Crayola fabric marker pen.  Stupidly, I drew the lines on with a blue water soluble pen first.  I have had issues with soluble pens where once ironed the pen doesn't wash off, so I tried to remove most of the blue before ironing the black pen.  Stupid, silly me...of course the black pen would bleed with the water.  So...if you are going to give this a try - I would use an air marker...one of those that vanish by themselves.  Know the ones I mean?  Like this one?  Also, it is helpful to slip a sheet of sandpaper under your fabric to stop it from slipping around while you draw.

I am really hoping that the worst of the bleed will wash out.  Sorry little guy, I hate to give a sub-standard gift.   Here are the, um, fox (?) and the bee.

I also made a special co-ordinating pair of my baby hot pants for the little chappie.  This is the bum view, with the label nicely located so it isn't scratchy on is lovely soft skin.

As he is just about 1 month old, he should have some wear of these during our summer.  That is, if the weather ever heats up!

For his big sisters, they each have a circle skirt - made from two of the lovely soft Pat Bravo fabrics that I have in my shop.

I loved making all the goodies...fingers crossed that they all fit and are enjoyed...

Please Say Hello to Snappy, Stanley and Molly

Here we have Snappy the cheeky crocodile.  He thinks he is a bit of a clown with his sneaky water squirting flower!

Stanley the pocket rocket sausage dog with enough attitude for two great danes.

And last, but definitely not least, Molly our lovable geeky artist.

Alrighty then...they are finally in my shops...and they are all looking for new friends to love them and cuddle them and breathe new life into them!  You can find them in any of your preferred places :: my shop ¦ Etsy ¦ Folksy

As always, I love to receive photo's of these dolls all coloured in by your little artist...so, please do send them to me.

I really do need to create a Flickr group for these....!!