Macaron book

Happy New Year folks!

Check out this cool book Marc got me for Christmas. It's by one of the top chefs in the world of Macarons - Pierre Hermé. It's got loads of recipes for different flavours including tomato ketchup!

What's interesting is that the basic mix he uses is made with Italian meringue. The recipes I've tried have always used soft meringue. The main difference is that hot sugar syrup is added to the egg whites. Apparently this makes for a more stable meringue which won't deflate as much when you add your other ingredients. It does mean more washing up though and hot sugar...

There's one other issue. The whole book is written in French. Luckily although my spoken French is awful, my reading is okay. Hopefully I'll be able to decipher enough to give it go. Maybe not the ketchup ones.

Merry Christmas

Yes it's true I gave up on my advent calendar. I know, I'm bad. I got distracted by Christmas parties and shopping! And I got a Hello Kitty calendar with chocolates in it :) Maybe I'll finish it next year.

So anyway - here is picture of our Christmas tree. I think it gets better every year, if I do say so myself ;) Or it might just be that I have a better camera than last year and the year before.

Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and I'll see you next year for more sewing, baking, crafty things, a wedding and whatever other amusements take my fancy in 2011.

Merry Christmas! xx

Advent calendar challenge: day 7

Experimental shrinkies icicles.

Yeah, I'll admit, not that successful.
Shards of broken glass? Not so festive.

I've not used the shrink plastic stuff before, but it seems to have potential. A snowflake might be pretty, maybe something a bit more delicate.










There's some new pictures of real icicles on my flickr. Much more appealing.

Advent calendar challenge: day 6

Behind door number six is a super sweet candy cane. I'm going to go ahead and suggest you don't eat this one though as it's made from fimo.

I've not used fimo for a long time, but I really enjoyed making this so I might try it again soon.

Advent calendar challenge: day 5

We put up our tree today. I love having the twinkly lights on in the living room, it makes it so cosy. The fifth decoration is a present from Santa, all wrapped up ready to go under said tree.

I think it still needs a gift tag to finish it off properly.

Advent calendar challenge: day 4

Today's inspiration is Christmas wreaths - I'd like to make one of these, but I have no idea how I'd attach it to my uPVC front door. So here is my tiny tribute to Christmas greenery.

I nabbed this way of making a wreath from Whipstitch, though I've bulked it up a bit by using two rows of plaits and twisting them together. I was going to add some little red berries but I like the texture as it is.

This is a pretty rubbish picture of it - but here is the fabric I'm going to use as the background for my calendar. I've had it for so long I'd totally forgotten about it but I found it right at the bottom of my fabric box. Apparently I bought it in 2008!

Advent calendar challenge: day 3

I've been out and about in the snow today. It seems to take twice as much energy to get anywhere and that coupled with a very long week has left me feeling totally wiped out.

Therefore tonight I bring you: The Extremely Low Effort Snowball.

I made it by cutting out a circle from fake fur then sewing a simple running stitch around the edge. Next I pulled the loose thread to draw the edges in together, and stuffed it with poly filling. Finally I sewed over the gap and added the ribbon. (This also a great way to make Tribbles.)

I'm looking forward to putting the tree up this weekend... after a good long lie in.

Advent calendar challenge: day 2

When I found a shiny red bead today whilst I was looking for buttons, I knew right away what I would be making. What else could it be except Rudolph's nose?

The rest of him is made from scraps of gold silk and his antlers are twisted jewellery wire.

Did I mention that I also challenged myself to make all 24 decorations from materials I already have?

It's probably for the best as there was 14 inches of snow outside my front door this morning and it's been snowing all day... again.

Advent calendar challenge: day 1

Where did November go? I had every intention of making an advent calendar this year and the time has just raced by. Suffice to say we don't have one. And I've seen some lovely designs on various crafty blogs and look at this one on Etsy... So when I saw this post on Whipstich about how she (also) hadn't got round to making her calendar and was therefore having a sew-along - I was hooked.

So from now until the 24th I'm going to try to make something for my advent calendar everyday.

Here is a bit of a rough sketch of how it will work - the 'dots' will all be buttons with a number sewn next to them. Then I'll make little ornaments to hang on each one. The bit at the bottom will be a 'bag' where they can all live next year until it's their turn. It's somewhat inspired by this idea from inchmark. What do you think?

Here is my first decoration. It's a letter to Santa :) I'm quite pleased with it. My embroidery is not so amazing but the envelope actually opens and it has a little letter inside.

Hopefully I'll have time soon to make the backing as well or they might all end up pinned to the curtains. eep.

1 down 23 to go. What shall I make tomorrow? 

Monster snow

Today the 'festive dusting of snow' we had, turned into 'monster snow'. Monster as in it's now above my knees. That doesn't happen here very often and in the past few years it's been more likely to snow in March than November or December.

I'm caught between the idea of taking some great pictures and not actually wanting to go outside unless I really have to!