stencilling

Brown Owls was lots of fun today!
Freezer paper stencilling was super easy, and people got really professional looking results - you can see what we got up to over at the Brown Owls member blog =)

I stencilled a cheap plain calico bag I had lying about at home - I have future plans for this little cat stencil, and I wanted to give it a trial run first.



Of course, only some of the fun of Brown Owls is in the crafting - the chatting and the treats everyone brings along are worth it own their own =)



This month I made these shortbread buttons, straight out of the Women's Weekly Cookies cookbook - delish =)

I'm looking forward to next month already =)

xo

freezing

Hurrah - it's Brown Owls time on Sunday, and I'm extra very excited, since I missed the last meeting.

This month we'll be trying our hands at freezer paper stenciling, so I've been scouring flickr for some inspiration - they have a whole group dedicated to freezer paper stencils, here are some of my favourites:

1.C-3P0, 2. red monkey, 3. octopus skirt, 4. Om2n Stencil, 5. summer baby onesies, 6. Stencils - Johnny Depp 1, 7. sacred bamboo stencil cushions, 8. stenceIT 005, 9. Stencil Fabric Painting

I've been hunting out printable stencils too - there are lots of ace freebies here and here.

AND there's also a cute mini-tutorial here on using a craft punches to make your stencil.

I can't wait to see what my fellow crafty owls come up with!!

xo

Supervised creative space

On the weekend I treated myself to a brand new rotary cutter, and put it straight to work cutting some cheap flannelette sheets into squares:



I have plans for these guys to get together with the sewing machine this weekend (if it has time in between sewing of my pockety skirt!!) =)

xo

More Creative Spaces at Kirsty's =)

pockety skirt

At some point during the week I suddenly realised that I simply could not head into spring without a skirt with pockets.

A quick search around the internets turned up McCalls 5591, which is just perfectly, exactly what I was looking for =)

I picked up the pattern yesterday, and spent today sewing it up in calico to make sure I get the sizing right.



All three views have pockets, I'm making view A.

I also wanted, before cutting into any 'real' fabric, to make sure that a skirt with pockets really was a good idea. Judging by the calico I'm pretty sure that it's going to turn out super cute =)

xo

My creative space

This is my most creativest space today:


Yup. My chestage.

See, we went for our regular Thursday lunch - a super quick one today since I had a meeting at work immediately afterwards.

In my haste (or maybe just because I'm a bit of a slob ;o)) I managed to spill some of my noodles on myself! eeeeek!

A bit of quick creative thinking, and a loan of this gorgeous brooch (by Betty Jo Designs, FYI) from my generous friend, and no-one at work was any the wiser!

xo

as always, more creative spaces at Kootoyoo!

Breakfast-y tiffin*

With half of my colleagues home sick, I thought a little moral boosting might be in order for our team meeting this week, and having seen some delish tiffin around I knew it was just the thing!! =)

I used the recipe Lucy posted at Attic 24, but dried cranberries (or craisins) have been a bit tricky to find, and pecans expensive, so I tweaked it a bit. To be honest (apart from Christmassy goods) muesli is pretty much the extent of my relationship with dried fruit, so I based my tiffin on my favourite bowl of breakfast: apricot and almond with a sprinkle of coconut. Ooh, and I threw in some white chocolate chips too =)



Ooh, and since the butter and the biscuits (I used Marie biscuits) came in 250g packets I used 250g of chocolate too - the recipe is really flexible so it still worked out super =)

Mmmmmmm PERFECT!

xo

*this is really pretty much what we would call hedgehog slice, or might be called refrigerator cake, but doesn't TIFFIN just sound tasty?

Remarkable Kittens

As soon as I saw this little beauty by Cat Rabbit I just had to pop straight over to Etsy and snaffle one.



But if you're more disciplined than I am, you might like to enter the giveaway at the Meet Me at Mike's blog to win one for yourself =)

xo

The aliens, Ted!

UFO sightings chez Kuka?



Well, almost! MY creative space this week (as so often it is) was the kitchen, which was the scene of a little macaron party!

I made a couple of batches to take to a dinner which ended up being cancelled.

But... there were no complaints from my colleagues when I took a boxful into work during the week =)

These little guys, from top to bottom in the picture down there, are:
- chocolate with orange cardamom buttercream
- plain with chocolate buttercream
- plain with orange cardamom buttercream
- mint with chocmint buttercream

I've had the same chocolate recipe work beautifully before, but these ones didn't quite work out right - no feet and cracked on the top. But, geez, they are so chocolately and TASTY!

For the others I used the 'simple' recipe from Syrup and Tang.
The recipe is given more as a formula, which I really like - not just on account of the science-nerdiness - you weigh the eggwhites and adjust the other ingredients accordingly.



And they worked out pretty nicely, I think ;o)

xo

you can see more CREATIVE SPACES at Kootoyoo

just a sneak preview

I'll tell you all about these babies tomorrow...



xo