Spring Herb Garden

My Aunt has just bought a new house and has invited a bunch of the family to a housewarming get together. I wanted to give her something special, and as she is a horticulturist I thought a mini herb garden would be ideal.

I used a standard 6x8 inch paper mache box I bought at Hobbycraft and covered it in white cardstock. I took a small flower stamp (I used one from papertrey Ink's Limitless Labels collection) and some ink that coordinates with the colours of the rest of the project and stamped all over the box. I added a strip of ribbon to the lid and base of the box and glued on a scallop medallion to the lid to complete the box.

I punched six holes into a sturdy piece of cardstock to hold the pots in place and placed it in the bottom of the box. The terracotta pots were also purchased at Hobbycraft and are filled with a little potting soil mixed with some gravel. Each pot contains a different herb; garlic chives, rosemary, oregano, thyme, basil and chamomile.

I got the inspiration for this project from this post http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2008/02/introducing-jus.html at Nichole Heady's blog. Sadly, Papertry Ink don't have a UK outlet, (and I cannot justify paying an $11.00 shipping fee on a $4.00 item) so this paper mache alternative (more or less identical in dimensions) from Hobbycraft priced at £1.99 is a perfect substitute.

Cupcakes galore

I spent this last weekend making cupcakes for my cousin's kids, Abbie and Ben. Needless to say, I am glad I took photos before I went to her house, as there were nothing but crumbs left after the kids gobbled them up. They turned out a lot better than I had hoped for (I need to have more faith in my abilities) and I had plenty of cute edible decorations to finish them off. I used a ready made icing/frosting for these as the recipe that accompanies the cupcakes in the book just makes far too much for a dozen.

I used Allysa Torey's recipe from the More from Magnolia cookbook. I absolutely love this book and the cupcakes are like nothing I have ever tasted before. My budget doesn't stretch to a trip to NYC just to sample these delights therefore the cookbook is a much more affordable option. I highly recommend this book.

This is a book that I will return to time and time again. I am eager to make the chocolate cupcakes next. One thing that really intrigued me about these cupcakes though was the way they were iced. My curiosity lead to a very short but very useful video on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0-a86o5IqU

Ideas and Inspiration

I am constantly finding ideas and inspiration in magazines and on the internet and I usually compile them as scrap images or images on my hardrive or in my favourites folder, but this was becoming really problematic to sift through when I was looking for a specific item and somewhat fragmented as things were located all over the place. So I came up with the idea of making an Ideas and Inspiration journal.

I went through the images I had stored on my computer and printed off a selection and then collected together the magazine articles and scraps. I bought an unruled journal from WHSmith and made five sections throughout the journal; beads, cards, sewing, alterables and other. Then I went about adding the various images I had collected to the journal in the appropriate sections.

In the beads section I have all sorts of ideas for jewellery, stitch markers, book thongs, decorations, keychains etc.

The cards section contains ideas for greetings cards, recipe cards, invitations, envelopes, basically anything made with card or that involves papercraft.

The sewing section is my favourite and contains ideas for eye masks, sleep pillows, aprons, wall organizers, recipe card holders and so on.

Now, the alterables section contains pretty much anything that isn't covered in the afore mentioned sections, tea tins, card, paper mache and acrylic boxes, glass bottles, acrylic blocks/coasters etc.

As for the other section, that contains editorials from magazines, advertisements for various online shops, advice, tips and techniques and information on upcoming events.

Now when I am lost for ideas I can just pick up my journal and flip through. The beauty of it is that I can add to it as and when I want.

Making this journal has lead me to start compiling photos of my own creations to put into a similar book. That way, even if I give items away as gifts I will still have a tangeable memory of my handcrafted achievements. Cool, huh!

Get Well Care Package

My cousin Laura has been quite unwell with the flu for over a week now and I know it was really starting to get her down so I decided to make her a little get well care package.

I made a tea book which contains five cold remedy tea bags and one revitalise tea bag, two cup-a-soup pockets, a criss cross box with a handful of chocolates and an open pillow box containing 6 honeysticks.

I used is Making Memories - {note}worthy Ava Aqua Floral paper, DCWV cardstock, Maya Road Chipboard and Papertrey Ink Limitless Labels stamps throughout.

My cousin was very grateful and got over the flu soon after. ;)