The Craft-Arty Kid

Snickerdoodles!

2013-06-18T10:02:00.000+01:00

I've already shown you guys the best cookie I ate on my holiday last year.

(Oatmeal and raisin from the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum)

But I bet you were wondering what my second best cookie of that holiday was.

Well, as you may have guessed by the title of this post; it was a snickerdoodle cookie.

Not only that, it was a snickerdoodle cookie served on the flight home!

That was the first, and prior to this baking session, the only time I'd had a snickerdoodle cookie.

I don't know why it took me so long to try baking them myself.

I googled around for a recipe and lots of them had 'cream of tartar' listed in the ingredients.

I was thinking, 'what is this cream of tartar and why do people want me to put it in my cookies??'

Turns out it's kind of like baking powder or bicarbonate of soda.

So with the cream of tartar purchased and a recipe acquired (this one from Nigella, even though I was a bit put off that cinnamon was listed as 'optional'. It's one of the key ingredients!), I started baking.

A key step to baking snickerdoodles is rolling a ball of batter into a mix of cinnamon and sugar.

Mmmmm cinnamon sugar.

The cookies from the first batch didn't seem to be completely cooked on the bottom and they got a bit stuck on the tray, so I put them back in the oven for a bit longer. This didn't seem to do much, and my Mum wasn't home to ask, 'are these done yet??'. I was cooking solo.

I thought maybe it had something to do with the cinnamon sugar getting on the bottom of the cookies, so for the next batch I made sure not to get the cinnamon sugar on the bottom of the cookie balls.

This seemed to make things worse.

That, or turning to oven up a gas mark to see if that helped.

But whether the cookies ended up whole or in pieces they still tasted delicious, which is what really matters.

Though I'm still left wondering; why are they called snickerdoodles??

This Week I...

2013-06-16T20:06:00.000+01:00

...finished up some more bow necklaces and added them to my Etsy shop.

Check them out here.

I worked two more days at an infants school delivering workshops for the arts centre.

This time is was making hails stones, rain drops and snowflakes with the reception and nursery classes.

And I continued working on this fun project.

All will be revealed soon!

What did you guys get up to this week?

White Rose Painting

2013-06-13T17:42:00.001+01:00

To maintain my painting skills I produced this little paintings the other day.

It's from a photo that I've had on my computer for 3 years.

I think it was of a rose that I took away from a Letchworth Arts Centre event.

I like these little canvases - 7x11" - because the paintings don't take to long to complete. Depending on the level of detail of course.

I've got a few other paintings this size for sale on my Etsy shop. Check them out.

Ribbon and Gold Ball Bracelet

2013-06-11T10:56:00.000+01:00

Coral and Gold Ball Bracelet Stack from New Look

When I was shopping with my friends the other day I noticed these bracelets in New Look, the bottom one in particular.

One of my friends asked me if I look around at this stuff and think, 'I could make that'.

Well yes, I do.

I remembered these gold balls on wire that I've kept for ages.

They came off some Christmas crackers and I've held on to them thinking they might be useful.

The gold balls on the original bracelet are beads but since these gold balls are already attached to wire I used that to wrap them around a plastic hoop.

Then I wrapped ribbon around the hoop in between the balls.

I also tried using thinner ribbon around a thin bangle

They sort of look like they should be little bells that jingle, but I'm sure that would get annoying.

The best thing about this quick project is that it allowed me to use some of the things I've had for ages but never done anything with.

This Week I...

2013-06-09T20:15:00.000+01:00

...had two days work at a local infant school delivering workshops for the Letchworth Arts Centre.

The children were making aliens to stick on the string balloon planets that I made during my internship.

On Friday I had to pop to London because part of my braces had broken so I had to go to the dentist to have it fixed. It took all of 5 minutes.

So to make the train trip worth it I also checked out the Hunterian Museum.

It is awesome and gross. And awesome. And gross.

It's rows and rows of dead stuff in jars!

It's really fascinating but it's no secret that I'm a medical light-weight (I once fainted in a first aid lesson. There weren't even any pictures, the teacher was just telling a gross story) so the key was not too look at anything for too long.

There was a skull fused to another skull, a foot from someone who had elephantiasis, a skull that had had a tooth growing in the nasal cavity, the skeleton of a 7 ft 7" giant! It was awesome.

And gross.

On Friday night my friends and I had a long awaited sleepover.

It turns out that sleepovers are still as fun as they were when we were teenagers.

And then the next day, since none of us were working, we hit the shops, including Primark where we tried on these glasses.

Standard.

How was your week?

Bran Cake

2013-06-06T16:44:00.000+01:00

I'm a bran fan but it gets all up in my braces too much for me to eat it for breakfast.

#realtalk

So I had to come up with another way to use up the box of bran flakes that had been abandoned in the cereal cupboard.

My first thought is always cake so I googled bran flake cake recipes and came across this one on the NHS Change4Life website.

The first thing you have to do is put bran flakes and dried fruit in a bowl and add milk, so this recipe is basically breakfast in a cake.

The recipe calls for mashed bananas, apricots and sultanas. I decided to use sultanas, raisins and glace cherries instead because I don't like apricots and I find things don't last as long if they have banana in them.

This cake tastes healthy, which isn't a bad thing.

The addition of dried fruits makes all the difference, so it'd be interesting to try the recipe again with different combinations.

I've also found recipes for a chocolate bran cake and carrot cake bran muffins so I might try those to use up the rest of the box.

I made a bag!

2013-06-04T14:26:00.000+01:00

I made a bag!

Guys, I'm pretty proud of this.

The black plastic-y leather looking fabric I used was an off-cut in the bargain bin at The Range.

I've previous used it to make a camera case and a bow necklace.

The lace on top is an old net curtain and I got the idea to add that from a re-style on Studs and Pearls.

I was able to sew this fabric using the sewing machine which was a relief otherwise my plans for the bag would have been ruined.

I also added some velvet ribbon round the edge of the flap because I thought it already has leather and lace, why not add another trend!

The strap is a detachable strap from another bag which I can clip on and off the metal rings which are from some old key rings.

I think my favourite part of the whole bag is the lining.

Firstly because I actually managed to sew lining, and second because it's pink and stripy.

The fabric is from an old pillow case but I'm not sure whose because I don't recognise it as one of ours...

The bag fits everything I regularly carry!

My diary (yep, I kick it old school with a paper planner, rather than using the calendar on my phone), my purse, my glasses, my phone and I made sure to sew a little pocket onto the lining for my keys because otherwise I'll lose them at the bottom of the bag.

For the closure on the bag I've used self-adhesive magnet strips.

They're not that strong so I'll see how they go. They're not strongly stuck on so I can always change them for something else.

I just didn't want something that I had to sew onto the bag which might pull and rip the fabric.

I've used it a few times and it hasn't fallen apart yet, so it's going well!

This Week I...

2013-06-02T20:48:00.000+01:00

...have been fighting with the sewing machine, and mostly winning!

I started a fun project. Papier mache head anyone?

And on Friday I went 'out out' with my gal pals.

It's nice to have an excuse to get all dressed up.

What did you do this week?

New painting

2013-05-30T14:55:00.000+01:00

The idea for this latest painting came from seeing a photo when looking through old camp photos for this post about my last painting.

The photo had a really Turner/Constable-esque sky so I thought it should be painted.

It's oil on canvas and measures 12 x 9".

Here are some of the other photos from the same time.

They were taken in 1992 by my Dad.

I wasn't there because I didn't start going to Quaker camp until I was three, the next year, but that's my sister in the bottom left photo.

My Dad helpfully labelled some of the photos so we know that it was 1992 in Swanage.

A pretty good year for camping by the looks of it.

Bright Beads

2013-05-28T10:42:00.000+01:00

Here's a new necklace I made for fun.

I love the bright colours and the pink chain. I need more pink chain!

The blue beads came from an old necklace that was my Grandmas. Some of the beads were flaking but I picked out the good ones.

I think they look like candy...

The star of it is this bead covered bead.

I got the idea from this blog but ended up doing it slightly differently.

I started by making to rings of beads for either end and then connecting them with strings of each colour bead.

The necklace isn't exactly my style, so I might try to sell it.

But it was fun to try out a new technique.

This Week I...

2013-05-26T19:52:00.000+01:00

...made this large bow hairclip for my Etsy shop.

People seem to really like the bow necklace I've made in the same fabric so I thought I'd make something else with it.

That fabric was such a good buy. I got it from a jumble sale for mere pennies and it's gone a long way.

I even made a pair of shorts out of it.

I also have a Folksy shop now and made my first sale through it this week!

This week I also made a Tardis pen topper into a necklace for my sister.

First a special cupcake and now a necklace. I'm such a good sister.

On Friday I had another dentist appointment in London (I now have an elastic band connecting my top braces with the bottom. Not cool). My parents came with me and we visited the Tower Bridge exhibition which is actually in the bridge.

If you love bridges (who doesn't!) I recommend it, but I suggest you wait for a sunnier day.

How was your week?

Pearl Ears

2013-05-23T11:20:00.000+01:00

Have you noticed that decorative cat ears are now a thing?

Taylor even wears some in her 22 video.

I got the inspiration to make my own from a tutorial on Cut out and Keep.

It's pretty simple really; bead some wire into ears, thread on beads, attach to a hair band by wrapping around ribbon.

It took me ages to find both beads and ribbon that matched and were the right size.

My ear turned out a little wonky but I don't mind.

It adds character.

Cupcake for One

2013-05-21T12:18:00.001+01:00

Last week my sister spent a long time helping me with my CV and things so to say thank you I made her this cupcake!

You know that bit in Bridesmaids where Kristen Wiig makes and decorates a single cupcake.

Well I wanted to do that, so I googled single cupcake recipes and came across a recipe for a single funfetti cupcake on Chocolate Covered Katie

There's loads of single serving cupcakes and other desserts on there. Well worth checking out.

Everything is measured in tablespoons and the key is using oil instead of egg, because it doesn't make sense to just use a bit of any egg.

When I was mixing the ingredients it was looking a bit doughy so I added more milk so get a better batter consistency.

Then I tried making it again, following the recipe exactly and I think the cupcakes came out pretty much the same. This just meant that I could have one as well as my sister.

Putting sprinkles in a cupcake is awesome.

The taste is different to a regular cupcake, but still delicious.

I'm excited to try out some of the other recipes on the website.

This Week I...

2013-05-19T21:35:00.000+01:00

...made some cupcakes! And had fun with different kinds of icing/decorations.

The pinks ones are strawberry flavour!

I went to a quiz with my family and we came joint 2nd.

We were pretty happy with that since my sister said we weren't even trying, cos we spent a lot of time working on this doodle masterpiece.

And on Saturday we watched the Eurovision Song Contest!

Me and my sister liked Malta's entry; the singing doctor with a song about Jeremy from I.T.
He just looks so happy!

How was your week?

New painting, not a self-portrait

2013-05-16T13:38:00.001+01:00

This is my latest painting.

It's from a photo I took whilst camping in 2008 when Rebecca, the girl in the picture, was five.

What I like about the photo is how much she looks like me when I was that age.

In fact my sister thought I was painting myself.

Here's the original photo, and below is the closest example I could find of me looking similar, in 1993.

Yup, they call me 'two biscuits Lisa'.

(No one has ever called me that)

Beads

2013-05-14T10:22:00.000+01:00

I bought these two beads back in 2008 from a bead shop in New Zealand, which I talked about here.

I've only just got round to doing something with them. Well, one of them.

The little black beads I used for this necklace came from a bead shop in New York.

So well travelled.

I made it so that the three strands are different lengths, but now I'm not sure if I'd prefer them all the same length.

Oh well, too late now, the ends are all glued together.

The necklace also doubles up as a pretty cool bracelet when wrapped around my wrist.

This Week I...

2013-05-12T18:40:00.001+01:00

...went to Cambridge to check out some galleries.

In between the rain showers it was actually sunny!

My friends and I finally got round to watching Pitch Perfect after no managing it last week.

Rebel Wilson is the best thing about that movie.

And I've been delving into my big bucket of beads. More on that soon.

Spring time swap

2013-05-09T16:45:00.000+01:00

Last month Dawn from Candidly Clyde organized a May day spring time swap.

It was in a round-robin style so we gave to different people than we received packages from.

I had Twinkle from twinklevanwinkle.com to send something to.

I thought a painting would be nice so I searched through the photos on her site for inspiration and came across this instagram photo which had the caption, 'Happy Hour | The Lemon Drop - pretend like it's Spring :)' which seemed appropriate for a springtime swap so I painted it.

I also made a little strawberry fridge magnet out of Sculpey.

I received these goodies from Franca from Oranges and Apples.

A set of notecards with Franca's own photography and a cute flower hairclip.

Lovely.

New painting - Beach feet

2013-05-07T10:10:00.000+01:00

Here's my latest painting. It's a big'un.

I knew all that detailed sea would be a challenge so I decided to draw out the image using the grid method (which you can kinda see in this photo).

When I was doing art at school lots of people did this with their paintings, but I preferred to free hand it.

The grid was useful for drawing out the picture, but when it came to painting I didn't really use it.

At least I know not to bother next time.

The painting is a cropped version of this photos of my friend Natalie being pushed into the sea. Nice.

This Week I...

2013-05-05T19:05:00.000+01:00

...hung out with my girls, and Lizzi (yeah, her from all the paintings) made chocolate covered fruit kebabs. Om nom nom.

We had planned to watch Pitch Perfect, but when us girls get to talking there isn't time for anything else.

I took down my exhibition at the Arts Centre on Tuesday which meant I had to rearrange my bedroom to find somewhere to put the models.

The shelves on the left are new (and now contain the models), and my computer has turns a whole 90 degrees so now I'm facing the wall not the window. It's weird y'all.

I had some correspondence with everyone's favourite home diy bloggers this week which resulted in mailing this package off to Virginia. More on that soon!

More bleach

2013-05-02T14:30:00.000+01:00

Last summer I spray bleached this top.

I've worn it a couple of time, but I wasn't totally convinced by the way it looked.

So to change it I thought, 'bleach it all!'

I put the shirt into a washing up bowl of water and bleach, poked at it with a stick to it was all submerged, and then left it for a few hours.

When I took it out and rinsed it, it looked like this. I thought about putting it back and actually making sure every bit got bleached, but I quite liked the pattern caused by the creases.

This is the back.

I've always got the option to change it again if I want, since I've come this far with it.

New painting : The Lizzi show

2013-04-30T09:45:00.000+01:00

This is my latest painting. It's my friend Lizzi.

She's my most depicted friend in my art work.

I think this is partly because she lives the closest to me, so I can quickly pop round to get a photo or draw her, and partly because of the hair.

Here's some of my previous Lizzi art.

This was a drawing I did for my A-level art work.

Lizzi sat for me and I think we put a The OC dvd on to keep her occupied.

This was another A level piece.

We had a lot of fun taking photos for this piece.

Every so often we talk about doing an updated version now that her shoe collection is way bigger.

This was a piece I did for fun to experiment with adding textures on the painting.

See what I mean about the hair?

This painting was done during my first year at university.

This is the only painting Lizzi's actually asked me to do, a portrait of her and her boyfriend for his birthday.

I think I should start painting my other friends or I might start getting accused of favouritism.

This Week I...

2013-04-28T19:14:00.000+01:00

This week I've either been modelling...

...or painting.

Can't wait to show y'all when this one's finished.

And I've been watching The George Jones Show, because I need the education.

Though I've never really listened to his music - not surprising since I've only been listening to country music for about 5 years - a lot of the artists I listen to did and were inspired by him.

Plus, Billy Ray in 1998? Lol.

Matchstick Pendants

2013-04-25T10:35:00.001+01:00

When I was at uni I bought a bag of these wooden matchsticks one weekend thinking they would be useful for my model making, only to find that my friend Natalie had bought me the same thing.

I thought it was about time I did something with my abundance of matchsticks.

Ok, this project only used 18 of them, but it's a start.

I started experimenting with shapes that I could make using the sticks, and UHU'd them together.

I also added some E6000 to make sure they didn't fall apart.

I painted them black, added a jump ring, and hey presto; geometric pendant.

I think they look pretty cool.

I picked black because my outfits tend to be black + another colour, so I figured they pendants would go with most things I wear.

I don't know how long they'll last, because they are just glued together, but they're doing all right for now.

My own Disney colouring pages

2013-04-23T11:32:00.000+01:00

Here are some true facts:

1) Colouring is fun

2) High-fiving Disney characters and trying to capture it on camera is fun

So I present to you the 'High-5 Disney Character Colouring pages' (it's a working title)

I used these photos from my trip to Disneyland last year of my friend Lizzi high-fiving, or trying to high-five, Disney characters.

Minnie Mouse was loving it. The Queen of Hearts on the other hand totally blanked Lizzi. Not cool!

I put the photos into a programme called Revelation Art. Sure, there's probably a way to do this on Photoshop but I don't have that on my computer.

I layered a blank page over the photo and used 'onion skins' to alter the transparency. Then I used the 'simple spline' tool to draw curved lines, tracing the picture.

This is the same method I used to make my Colour Me Magnets

I think these are so funny, and now I just need to take Lizzi back to Disneyland to get a full set!

Yay colouring!