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!