Day 84 - Art Journalling calendar pages

So I've completed my month-by-month days they are all stacked and ready to be bound, now I am playing around with art journalling and the many techniques that come with it to create my monthly images. To begin with I splattered 12 background sheets with tea then added a few Pollock style drops of ink. Then began the slower task of sifting through all the images I gathered on Friday and arranging them in a suggestion of months. Here I have got January and October, tea'd inked and decoupaged, later I will add some more detail and texture, once all the months are at this stage...
Perhaps this will be done by Wednesday, but the likeliness is very slim, so long as I get a new Calendar before mid-January I'll be happy...

Day 83 - Calendar prep month by month

So today I've been drawing out spaces to write on for each day of the month. I made a template grid to keep things sort of aligned, and made another little template (in the shape of a scroll) for each of the days. I'm only up to October so far, so a few left for when I get home from work. I'm enjoying the process and can't wait to see the end result.
 

Day 82 - preparations for Calendar making

This should keep me busy for some time, and it's not christmassy (until I get to December perhaps.) I had a lot of fun making my sisters wedding guest book in the style of an art journal, so I'm going to make myself an awesome calendar with some great images from my stock, steampunk accents and inky detail. It's going to be fun. But for now, I've just been cutting out good pictures all day, and etching letters...

Day 81 - Christmas Yule log

Merry Christmas everybody! Here is the fruit of my Christmas eve labour, I'm pretty chuffed and there is still a bit of decorating to do tomorrow. If you want the recipe it is Paul Hollywood's and it is lovely...but intense. We adapted it a little with figs rather than berries.
The great thing about this recipe is, it has no flour, so mum can partake with little guilt.

Day 80 - Hot spiced Apple Brandy

I've always liked the idea of mulled wine and cider more than the actual drink itself, I've even tried to make it myself, but I find the flavours a  bit acrid. So this year I decided to try something different, and well, this will be my Christmas drink of choice from now on. It was so yummy I failed to take a picture after it was ready.
This is a very simple recipe, you will need, Apple Juice, Brandy, a dash of Golden Syrup, an orange, star anise, cloves, fresh nutmeg and a cinnamon stick.
Pour your apple juice into a pan, I made enough for three good sized mugs. Add in your spices, I wet for 1 Star Anise, crushed, a grating of fresh nutmeg, about an inch of cinnamon stick (again crushed) and two segments of orange. I think it's a good idea to play with the spices to suit your taste, once the apple juice beginning to simmer add a few shots of brandy and a very small amount of golden syrup. Bring to the boil and then STRAIN! You don't want to be drinking mouthfuls of star anise so the straining is very important, but you will probably end up with some tiny particles of nutmeg and cinnamon.
So much better than mulled wine or cider, this drink simply tastes of Christmas!

Day 79 - DIY christmas jumper

If I had known how simple this was I would have made one for all my family. Oh well, next year. I spent days thinking about what I would do on my Christmas jumper, I didn't want anything to christmassy, or tacky, but I did want it to be cute. Even when I found the red jumper I wasn't sure what to do. It was only while tidying away some of my present making that I settled on a white beard. A little twist on the moustache jumpers I have been seeing (and coveting!) Simply made with white felt and a bit of stitching.

Day 78 - DIY sock monsters

I'm still on the Christmas mission right now, getting everything ready to send home this weekend. I'm pretty excited about hosting, and even more excited to think I am pretty much finished with presents. Just the baking left to do now :)
These two buddies are for my nieces, I had promised them a Steampunk art doll each earlier in the year, but they are a not really toys so I'll wait till they grew a bit older. This is a squishy alternative, made to suit their personalities, the Princess and the Pirate.

Day 77 - Tidy, organise Jewellery findings

 To begin with I just had bags and boxes, some of it was partly sorted but mostly it was just a tangle of chain, wire and cogs... I had originally intended to make some sort of jewellery of something for Christmas but decided instead to just sort it out!
Now everything is stashed away neatly, easy to find, even down to the tiny cogs and watch handles in an old pill box.

Day 76 - DIY incense holder

This is a gift for my sister, hopefully she wont see this as she has no internet connection. I made it from a wooden salad fork, and soldered a basic design. It's pretty, simple and upcycled which is my kind of project.

Day 75 - Festive flapjack

This is the best flapjack, better than the last recipe. For a festive treat I added in figs and pecans and made a monster batch. The recipe is so simple, these weights can be halved for a smaller batch easily enough.
640g Oats
350g Butter
2 1/2 Heaped tbsp Peanut butter
340g golden syrup
200g Figs
250g Pecans
Melt the butter add syrup and stir until silky smooth, add peanut butter and stir in till melted. Weight up your other ingredients, I crush the nuts and chopped the figs (make sure to remove the stalk). Mix everything together until its evenly coated and put in a tin lined with greaseproof paper, don't worry too much about covering the whole pan as the butter will do the work. Use a piece of greaseproof paper to press the mixture into the tin evenly.

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180 degrees. Take it out before it looks ready, it will still be soft and kind of pale, most often the problem with flapjack is the dryness from overcooking! Leave it to cool and enjoy :)

Day 74 - Alternative to cards on a string

Today I made an alternative way to display Christmas cards, using pegs, cardboard and glitter glue. I also used some scrap strips of pleather for decoration. Hopefully this will stop the constant picking up cards game.

Day 73 - DIY wrapping paper

Every year I think long and hard about wrapping, last year I went for the brown wrap with gold stampings and twirly strips of paper. This time I started off with some blank white sheets of paper and a load of ideas. I wanted something simple and effective, that could be easily repeated but didn't take forever. This design is ridiculously simple, I used gold and silver glitter glue to draw quick swirly trees at random, I then used a snowflake stamp with gold ink for some depth and a Merry Christmas train stamp to sit under the tree. The last step was using an eraser on the end of a pencil, dipped in blue ink and dotted around the tree 'branches' for the suggestion of baubles. Now I have wrapping paper, little tags made from the handmade paper I produced a few weeks back and a vague idea for presentation, but that will be another day. :)

Day 72 - Home is where the Christmas Chaos is...

So this is where I see all of the things I have made over the last few days. The Man got excited and put hats on all the Game of Thrones people, which is pretty fun and the Cat is rediscovering his love for shiny Christmas trees...

 

Day 71 - Snowflakes

I think the hardest part of snowflake making is folding the paper into sixths, I had fun making these, even the man stepped up to have a try. These will probably go in the window for decoration.
Annoyingly I think I might have RSI in my left thumb from a few weeks of sewing, cutting and whatever else I like to do. So things may be a little sporadic over the next few days while I rest my hand. It's pretty much my worst fear, losing movement or dexterity in my hands, just hope it gets better soon!

Day 70 - prototype elf slipper

I asked the internet how to make slippers, and this is what I found. It's a pretty incredible pattern, simple, easy and adaptable. So after creating my own pattern from newspaper I made this prototype slipper from felt to make sure the size and shape were right and make sure I understood the pattern. Thats enough for today, you will not see the end result until after Christmas, but lets just say it's going to be super hard for me to part with them unless I make another pair!

Day 69 - DIY soap

This is another thing I've never tried before, it's actually pretty simple. I made two batches one almond and poppyseed the other lemon and poppyseed. Both have a mild exfoliating texture from the white poppyseed's which is pleasant. I already want to get more Shea butter soap base so I can try more things out, but I think that'll have to wait for now. Anyway, here is a link to the recipe and basic instructions if you fancy having a go.

Day 68 - DIY homemade wreath

I've had a lot of fun working on this the last few days, I started the base on Tuesday evening, made simply of lollipop sticks. I covered the base with plaited string to give it depth and something I could sew onto. Then I ruffled strips of green tule and wrapped it around the centre of my star focusing on one quarter to build it up more. I stitched it in place in a few places adding some gold bells as I went. I cut the leaves from some scrap pleather donated from Natalie :) (Thanks Nat) and stitched them on too. After that it was a matter of foraging for pine cones, tying bows and adding a few fimo candy canes found in my studio, oh and some more bells :)

I've never actually had a wreath before so this is my first and I totally love it. Can't wait to see what Taz makes with hers.

Day 67 - DIY wreath, part 1

I began the wreath creation by making a star base out of lollipop sticks. I used woodglue to stick it together and pegs to hold the sections together while they dried. Later I will collect some wintery foliage and other things to decorate my wreath. I think lollipops have so many uses, and have a lot of potential for unique decorations. It doesn't look like much at the moment but I have a plan in my brain. The man really wants me to make a mario star, but...no.

Day 66 - Felt garland in Christmas colours

Using the offcuts of felt from the previous projects this week I made a number of felt circles and strung them together with beads for spacing. It's pretty cute I might make a few and put them in the windows...it's going to be pretty christmassy up in this house! :)

Day 65 - Christmas Photo props

Photo props are great fun, I made some for a wedding earlier this year, they were pretty fun. These christmassy ones are pretty cute. I cut two shapes from felt and glued them together with fabric glue with a bamboo stick sandwiched in between. I'm not sure how sturdy these will be as the glue will take a few days to dry.

Day 64 - Jewellery making

A friend asked me to turn this pebble into a necklace, I used wire to create a simple cage and hook, and added a lovely hook and eye fastening. It's been a little while since I made any jewellery, I may have to make some pieces for Christmas this year but we'll see.
Look a that, blogging before work today, I promised it was time to start catching up with my days.