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