Song lyric embroidery #2

One of the few things my sister and I have in common, apart from the same parents, vegetarianism and the belief that my niece is the best child in the entire world, is that our favourite band is The Doors.  I made this little set of embroideries for her birthday, using a line from her favourite Doors song:

I did them totally freehand and although they're a wee bit wonky, I think this adds to the homemade look rather than detracts from their appearance.  I used chain stitch which I hadn't done before but I'm now hooked on the way it looks.  My stitches could be a bit neater and I definitely improved a lot towards the end, but as a first attempt, I'm pretty pleased.  

Now, shall we have a gratuitous picture of Jim Morrison to round off this mini-post? 

Jenny

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Betty's Birthday Embroidery

My Gran (Betty) turned 92 the other day and I wanted to give her something handmade alongside the other gifts I'd bought her.  I usually give her jewellery I've made especially for her but as her jewellery box is overflowing these days, I thought I'd give her a little embroidery this time. 

This was a super-quick job, with the stitching completed in an evening and then the petals filled in with watered-down acrylic paint the next morning as I was in a rush to finish it!  I'd love to do something similar but with the petals entirely stitched...although I have just found two forgotten and half-finished embroideries in a cupboard, plus I've just started working on a new one tonight so that might be a while off...

My Mum, Gran and niece

Anyway, most importantly, the birthday girl loved it and had a great lunch at her favourite restaurant, surrounded by family, delicious food and copious amounts of wine!  

Jenny

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DIY Christmas Giftwrap

I love browsing all the luxury giftwrap available from the likes of John Lewis and Selfridges but for the past couple of Christmases have been going low-key with brown parcel paper. I love it for various reasons:
❆It's cheap
❆ It's really good quality so is easy to wrap with and doesn't tear
❆ You can dress it up in many ways and with any colour theme you want
❆ It looks really classic and timeless
This year, I was inspired by this lovely idea from www.robbieanderin.blogspot.co.uk.  I originally found it via a Pin on Pinterest and loved the idea of using doilies as gift tags.

It just so happened that I had loads of paper doilies sitting in my studio, leftovers from a long forgotten project.  Mine weren't as pretty as the ones on Robbie and Erin's blog but I still wanted to incorporate them into my wrapping as I love the way they look against the brown paper.

I decided to just use doilies as embellishment, tie them into place with raffia ribbon, and make my own gift tags.  I say 'make', but all I did was buy a huge quantity of those cheap card luggage tags you can buy from any stationery shop and punch Christmas trees into them with a paper punch.

I really like the end result.  I also like that all the wrapping is totally recyclable or, if it's going to a crafty or frugal recipient, re-usable.  

For smaller items, like the little Disney rings and bracelets I bought as a stocking filler for my four year old niece, I made the doilies into a little pouch and tied them with ribbon.  I love the way these look and will be using this method again.  

Using the same technique with lace doilies would be a brilliant way of wrapping jewellery for big girls too :-)

Jenny 

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Triple Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix In A Jar

I'm a big fan of giving and receiving Christmas gifts that can be used up, whether that's eaten, drunk, poured into a bath or spent.  Unless I know someone wants something very specific, I always try to give them something I know they will be able to use up and won't have to keep lying around the house for years to come.  Last year, I gave several friends and relatives homemade jars of cookie mix as part of their present.  They went down really, really well so I'm doing a few more this year.

After trawling the Internet for hours last year trying to find the perfect cookie-in-a-jar recipe, I ended up combining a couple and adjusting the quantities to perfectly fit the 750ml jars I had.  The recipe below will fill this size jar perfectly and you can easily increase the quantities of each ingredient by, say, 25% to fit litre jars.

Of course, you have to do a trial run of the cookies, just to make sure they're good enough to give out as gifts...that's my excuse, anyway.  I don't like 'hard' cookies, so when I sampled the recipe, I baked the cookies for 10 minutes which gave a lovely, soft chewy texture.  If you like them more crunchy, bake for a few minutes longer until they're just right for you.

Triple-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie-Mix-In-A-Jar Recipe

Fills one 750 ml jar

60g white chocolate chips

60g dark chocolate chips

60g milk chocolate chips

15g Rice Krispies 

150g plain flour

Half tsp of bicarbonate of soda

Quarter tsp of baking powder

80g dark brown soft sugar

75g caster sugar

30g porridge oats

Layer the ingredients into your jar in any order you like, but see the tip below on the brown sugar.

Attach a label to your jar with the following instructions:

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Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 24 small or 12 enormous cookies

1. Preheat oven to 180 C / Gas 4. 

2. In a large bowl, cream 75g of butter or margarine until light and fluffy. Mix in 1 egg and 1 additional egg yolk. Add the contents of the jar and stir until well blended.

3. Dollop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking tray.

4. Bake for 10 minutes for a soft, chewy cookie, or a couple of minutes longer for a crunchier cookie. Remove from baking trays to cool on wire racks.

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Tips on filling your jar

Obviously, you want the jars to look pretty but I found it a lot harder than it looks to get perfectly neat layers!  I just spooned the different ingredients into the jar and levelled them out as best I could.  

One thing I do recommend, is to mix the brown and white sugars together before adding them to the jar.  

Dark brown sugar has a tendency to harden and I read lots of comments on other cookie jar recipes from people who found they had to hack away at the brown sugar layer to get it out the jar!  Mixing the two certainly worked for me, and a jar I kept back for a couple of months was fine when I came to use it. 

Decorate your jar any way you like - I keep things simple with a length of ribbon and a customised gift tag.  Those retro style card luggage tags you can buy in stationery shops for pennies are perfect as they're big enough to write the baking instructions on!  

P.S How cute are my Santa and polar bear?  We had an almost identical Santa when I was a toddler in the 80s and I loved him. I was delighted when I saw this 2012 version in M & S and had to have him and his polar bear friend. Tacky, you say? Absolutely :-)

Jenny

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