Mothers Day Cards

I try to make cards and gifts for people whenever I can. Sure it takes longer, and is more effort, but it's generally worth it in the end. Last year, I made cards like these for Mothers Day. Yes, I said cards. We send out six Mothers Day cards now - my mum, his mum, my step-mum, his step-mum, my gran and my nana. We've got a lot of mothering going on around here...

In the space below the ribbon, I put the name of who it was to with silver lettering stickers.

Brownies

Sometimes, you've just got to have brownies... nom nom nom...

Jam Tarts

I tried making these jam tarts, using a ready rolled pastry and a blob of jam in the middle. Unfortunately, the pastry I used was not at all nice! Very flavourless, it was like eating cardboard.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Everyone at work loved these when I took them in, but OK, I admit it. I cheated a bit on these ones. The cakes were made from Tesco's ready mixed chocolate cake mix, and the icing was Betty Crockers Chocolate Fudge Icing. A few sprinkles and some edible spray paint, and they actually looked pretty good too.

The cakes themselves were not what makes this memorable though. A special mention must go to the first decorated cake of the evening. I tried making my own piping bag, but it didn't go quite to plan...

It's ok, you can say it, it looks like a cat turd on a cupcake. My attempt to rescue it didn't make it any better.

I was in fits of giggles all evening after that. I'm surprised the rest of them actually got decorated as I had to keep going to sit down and compose myself every time I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye.

I gave this special cupcake to my friend at work, who would later become my awesome boyfriend. I'm sure it was my mad cake decorating skillz that sealed that ^_^

Blueberry muffins

I love blueberries. This was my first attempt at blueberry muffins. It was converted from a US recipe, so the measurements were originally in cups and I tried to convert to grams. They didn't rise very well, but I think now adding some baking powder would have helped with that.

I can't find the website I originally used, but here is the recipe if you'd like to give it a go.

• 2 cups / 256g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup / 55g brown sugar
• 1 cup / 140g frozen blueberries
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup / 170g apple sauce
• 1/4 cup / 125ml semi-skimmed milk

1. Mix sugar, milk, eggs and apple sauce together and add to flour
2. Gently fold in the blueberries
3. Divide into muffin tins
4. Bake at 160c for 15 minutes

Krav Maga

From Wikipedia: Krav Maga /krɑːv məˈɡɑː/ (Hebrew: קְרַב מַגָּע [ˈkʁav maˈɡa], lit. "contact combat") is a martial art and self-defense system developed for the military in Israelthat consists of a wide combination of techniques sourced from boxing, savate, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Judo, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and grappling, along with realistic fight training.

I first read about Krav Maga on a weightloss forum. It was July 2012 and I was a single woman, living alone. I was looking for something to help me to defend myself and get me fitter at the same time, and Krav seemed to fit the bill. I checked on the internet, found a class near me, and went along to see what it was like. The whole of the class, apart from me, was male, but I didn't feel intimidated. Everyone was really friendly and made me feel included.

I came away completely enthused about it and couldn't wait for the next class. My arms were covered in bruises, but I really didn't care. I'd had so much fun and learned some real defence.

 My licence arrived in August, which meant that I was now insured to train.

And when I got my t-shirt, I felt like a proper part of the club.

Since joining and deciding that this was the martial arts system for me, I have taken and passed the first three grades first time, and I'm now Practitioner Level 3.

All the cookies!

I was thinking of something to do with my nephews and niece, and I got it into my head to make cookies... lots and lots of cookies... I figured I can make some icing up with some food colouring and they could decorate their own.

They loved it! There were even sprinkles available! I used the silicon cupcake moulds to put the icing in, and they each chose which colours they wanted.

Ingredients (makes about 30 cookies)

• 250g butter, softened
• 140g caster sugar
• 300g plain flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180c
2. Mix the butter and sugar in a large bowl
3. Add egg yolk and vanilla
4. Beat to combine
5. Sift over the flour and stir well to combine
6. Bake for approx 15 minutes

Variations

• To make them chocolatey, simply substitute 50g of flour for 50g cocoa powder
• Substitute vanilla essence for lemon essence to make lemon cookies
• Add 50g chocolate chips, or chopped nuts, or dried mixed fruit, or whatever else you think might be nice

Strawberry Bag

This cute little shopping bag folds up into a handbag size strawberry.

The tutorial I followed is here.

Hidden photo now on display

It was my Gran and Grandad's 60th wedding anniversary on 5th January 2012. I'd found a gorgeous picture of them on their wedding day, but it had been kept in a drawer all this time, rather than on display. I decided that this needed to be seen, not just put away again to be forgotten about, so I sneakily measured the photo while I was looking at it, by seeing how it compared to the length of my fingers.

Once I got home, I dug out my cross-stitching materials, and came up with a basic design. I even found some metallic thread to do the bigger hearts in. I found the actual frame in Tesco. I think it has a slightly vintage feel to it, and was perfect for the photo that it was going to contain.

They were both very surprised and thrilled with the frame when I gave it to them on their wedding anniversary. They had had no idea that I'd measured up the photo, but I think that they were happy that it now gets to be on display.

Here's the frame with the photo inside. I think you'll agree that this deserved to be out in the open.

Jewel Biscuits

The recipe I followed for these was from a kids cookery book, but unfortunately, I can't find it at the moment, so you'll have to make do with this recipe instead.

Easy Chocolate Cheesecake

This was taken from the book "The Takeaway Secret"

• 150g melted butter
• 10 digestive biscuits, crushed to crumbs
• 140g soft cheese
• 200g chocolate spread

1. Mix butter and digestives
2. Press into cake tin
3. Mix chocolate spread and soft cheese
4. Spread onto bases
5. Decorate with chocolate sprinkles
6. Put into fridge to chill

Weetabix Cake

A really easy cake that is a little bit like malt loaf. Really nice with some butter spread on it! My family really like this one, and it's been happily received as a present a couple of times.

I originally found this recipe online, but it looks like the website that I found it on has gone!

Ingredients

• 2 x weetabix
• 150g sugar
• 150g raisins / dried mixed fruit
• 200g self-raising flour
• 250ml milk (I use semi-skimmed)

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c/160c (fan)/gas mark 4
2. Grease and line loaf tin
3. Crush weetabix into crumbs
4. Add sieved flour, sugar and raisins
5. Give it a quick stir to mix it all up
6. Add milk and mix well until there is no dry flour around the bowl
7. Spoon into tin and bake for an hour
8. Leave to cool for 10 minutes after removing from oven, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely

Infinity Multi-way Dress

This dress consists of a circle skirt with two really *really* long straps. The straps can be tied in various different ways to get different dress styles.

It is based on this type of dress, and the tutorial for it is here.

Carrier bag snake

Word of advice: If you are going to make a carrier bag holder, don't make it out of stretchy material... This was supposed to be half the size of this!

You can find a pattern similar to the one I used here.

Messenger Bag

My second, and much more ambitious, project was to make myself a bag. I love messenger bags that I can wear across my body and keep both my hands free for whatever I might need to do. I can't find the original tutorial that I used, but I've got sort of step by step pictures of the bag coming together. I don't think I'd use this method again. I've seen much simpler tutorials since, and if I was going to make another bag, I'd probably use one of those.

Scrunchie

I bought my sewing machine in March 2010, and this was the first thing that I made with it.

It was a nice simple project to get me started and I had some fabric scraps already available. I can't remember which tutorial I originally followed, but I've found this one that describes the same process I followed.

http://sewing.about.com/od/freeprojects/ss/scrunchies.htm