Making rubber stamps

Remember my nearly totally free stamps I made before? Well this is a bit of a step up. You have to buy the rubber to cut them from. But they are still pretty simple to do.

My friend Em was really awesome and organised a crafty gathering at her house. Just in case you are thinking, that sounds really great ... well, it was! This is pretty new for me, I've not known a lot of people who are into the crafts before so I was excited to meet some new folks and give this one a go together.

It seems like its best to go for a simple design and to use a scalpel/craft knife to cut away the excess rubber. We tried it with lino cutting tools too, but the lines came out really wobbly :( The rubber is like a high quality eraser in a big flat sheet. A little softer maybe. You can cut it down with scissors.

I made a new set of 'flags' since I miss the cardboard ones I made before. They have a high-easiness-to- impressiveness factor. By that I mean they are easy to cut but look way cool. I also made a cloud that was a bit more difficult (curves!) and a cute little camera for when I get round to some more scrapbooking.

Em has written something a bit more like a tutorial if you are interested. Check it out on her blog.

Chalkboard art - my first attempts

I'm not usually one for going with a trend, but this one has tickled my fancy. It's 'chalkboard art'. We always called them blackboards when I was at school, but now its all interactive whiteboards.

Anyway, I've made a Pinterest board with a few of favourites so far on it. Some of the best examples around at the moment are by Dana Tanamachi  an artist/designer based in Brooklyn.
 
I'm not great at drawing generally, but I do a lot of typography, so I thought I'd have a go myself. I actually drew this in pencil and used a little photoshop magic to get the effect, but I might get round to using actual chalk after a bit more practice.

I'm quite pleased with it for a first attempt. What do you reckon?

New project: Italy scrapbook

If you've been reading a while you may know that I got married a couple of years ago. My new Husband and I went on a trip to Italy for our honeymoon and had a fab time. We travelled by train a lot and saved lots of tickets, maps and other bits and pieces. Unsurprisingly we also took hundreds of photos! We've never printed out any of the pictures. I'd like to get a nice photo book done but in the mean time, I'm going to choose a few and make a scrapbook.

Since January is generally a bit of a ... frugal month, I've spent a lot of time picking the right supplies for this new project. I want to use some things I've already got but also add a few bits to bring it all together. In the end I chose some papers and tabs from Pink Paislee's Portfolio collection and a great stamp made by Kaisercraft. I really like yellow at the moment so I've gone for a yellow, grey and turquoise colour scheme. Hopefully it will work well with the pictures and stories I want to tell.

Book list 2012

Last year I recorded all the books I read for fun. I wondered how many I'd get through and whether they would be new to me or mainly old favourites. Here is the full list from 2012. I've copied it from my 'Books tab' so that I can start filling that with 2013's list.

So assuming I remembered to write them all down I got through 35 novels, nowhere near my target of 50 (seems like I really slowed down in the second half of the year). 22 were new to me and 12 were re-reads. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was one of my favourites and will probably appear in my re-reads list next year. 

What was your favourite from last year?

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What have you been reading? At the beginning of 2012 I decided that I would keep a list of all the books I read during the year. I wonder how many I'll get through? I'd like to find a book club too so hopefully I'll be reading some books I wouldn't normally pick up.

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It's August now and I've read 26 books this year. I think 50 would be a good target. I've joined and left a book club. I was reading books I didn't like, what's the point of that? Maybe I'll find another I like more.

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(r) means that I'm re-reading a book from my bookcase
(book club) means someone else chose it


The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (r)
Virtual Light by William Gibson (r)
Idoru by William Gibson (r)
All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson (r)
The Dark Tower: Gunslinger by Stephen King
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (r)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (book club)
Kraken by China Miéville
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (book club)
The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein (r)
How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (book club)
Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (r)
The Technician by Neil Asher
The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks 
Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James
Pure by Julianna Baggott 
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Burton and Swinburne in the Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne  (r)
Original Sin by P.D.James
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens  (r)  not all the Christmas books - the others are rubbish
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer  (r)
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer  (r)
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer  (r)
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer  (r)

December Daily

Have you ever made a rule for yourself that was totally arbitrary?

I decided that the next thing I would put up here on my blog would be my December Daily album. Turns out that was not such a great idea. It's taken a little longer than expected and I've missed posting lots of other Christmas stuff in the mean time using my stupid rule as an excuse. Maybe I'll add some of those things in later (my blog, my rules, right?).

Anyway, let's back up a bit. Last year I started getting interested in Scrapbooking. Ali Edwards (who I've talked about before) does a project every Christmas called December Daily. It records a story a day from the 1st to the 25th or the 31st of December. You can choose what ever format you like, so there's nothing to buy, which is handy and I love Christmas so I thought I'd have a go myself.

I used a 6x8 inch folder from Paperchase and started making some pages to fit inside in November. It's still not quite finished. I knew I wouldn't have time to do each page on the day, there's lots going on in December, which I suppose is part of the point?

Here are a few pages from my album. It was really fun putting it together, just playing with paper without any pressure for it to be perfect. I tried not to buy lots of extra stuff either, I bought one 6x6 paper pad and some wooden embellishments. The rest is things I already had or picked up along the way. I got all the photos printed at Boots every four or five days, they are mostly 4x3 inches. I arranged two pictures per 6x4 'photo' and just got them printed normally.

December Daily cover

Title page - I'm going to put my name on that tag and finish the
inside cover at some point

December 1st was pretty busy

December 2nd

December 4th - not so exciting

December 16th - THe Muppet Christmas Carol at the cinema

December 20th - the bottom right bit is not finished, but I love the rest,
so I thought I'd include it :)

More Christmas crafts

This week I've been working on more crafts for the festive season. One of the things I've made I've actually been wanting to make for ages. It's a really old Martha Stewart project where you use jingle bells to make a wreath. Not like a giant door wreath, more like a decorative item that you can put on a door handle so you get a festive sound every time you enter the room.

Here is my attempt. It looks okay. I tried to make it a bit bigger by using the biggest size bells I could get. Unfortunately the bells are not very jingly so it is staying on a wall rather than a door.

Also they seem to be quite popular this year, so maybe I'll just buy a proper metal one from TK Maxx.

Dear Santa

If someone would like to make this I would be really pleased. The pictures don't even have to be sticky, I've got five different kinds of tape. Thanks.   

Christmas Crafts

This year I am attempting to start my Christmas crafting earlier. I usually get dead into the idea in December when it's getting a bit late really. So this is my newest tree decoration. A tiny knitted sweater!

I've not done a lot of knitting before. I already knew how to 'cast on' and do a basic knitting stitch but I had to learn the how to 'purl', do a 'stocking stitch' and 'cast off', from you tube. I love the internet.

I found the pattern at Just Crafty Enough when I was looking for a pattern for tiny mittens (which they also have) but they were way too difficult for a beginner like me. They are done on circular needles. eep.

You'll see that Kathy from Just Crafty Enough has knitted a cute little pattern into her sweater. No idea how she did that. I'm thinking about sewing a snowflake into mine with white wool. I'm not sure if that will work.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with it. It didn't take too long either so I might manage another. Probably as close to knitting an actual jumper as I'm going to get any time soon.

The Most Tastiest Cookie of Them All

Do you read a lot of food blogs? I've noticed there tends to be recipes or techniques that 'do the rounds' and everyone wants to try them. Like cake pops. I've not tried them yet. But I am little behind the times trend-wise.

This chocolate chip cookie recipe is one from ages ago. It's by a guy called Jacques Torres who has a chocolate shop in New York. Apparently he has the best cookies ever in his shop and he shared the recipe with the New York Times. So what? I hear you say. Well, his recipe calls for the dough to be chilled for 24 to 36 hours before you bake it. 24 hours! Now, as someone who doesn't make bread because you have to wait an hour for it to rise ... I was skeptical. Two different flours, two sugars, 5 inch cookies? Skeptical.

I made a quick batch (scaled way down from the NYT recipe) with what I had in the house. They aren't complicated. And baked them straight away. They were pretty good.

So I picked up all the stuff (not the expensive chocolate) and gave it a go. I made half the recipe and left it in the fridge. The dough was delicious on its own. I made it late a night so I wouldn't be tempted to throw them straight in the oven.

Next night I split the dough in half and made it into 10 balls. (I don't think 5 inch cookies are helpful for portion control. I'd still eat two. So I made normal size cookies.) They were fantastic. The best cookies I've ever baked. The salt on the top was perfect.

I cooked more the next night even more yummy. I also keep a few balls of dough in the freezer and when I baked those - they were awesome too!

I am totally convinced. This is most definitely my new favourite cookie recipe.      

Happy (belated) Halloween

Eugh.

I pretty much missed Halloween this year due to being poorly. Not happy.

My Husband went to a horror film festival and still had time to do this creepy/cute pumpkin.

I decided I really really really wanted to make those 'broken glass' cupcakes that were on Martha Stewart's site last year. But I was still not feeling fantastic and they turned out less than great. I'm not awesome at making cake anyway but they ended up looking gruesome. Not a-bit-creepy-ooo-it's-halloween-gruesome, actually gross.

The main issue is the 'glass'. It's made from a very light caramel, poured on to a tray and then broken up. Unfortunately I used a non-stick mat with has a slight texture. It ended up making the glass look frosty and dirty and like it was found in a back alley somewhere ...

Anyway. I'm looking forward to Christmas now. So let's just forget about this whole episode and move on.