The Development of a Wannabe Creative Goddess

Productive day

2012-04-04T22:00:00.002+01:00

Today, I made these very yummy things: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4320/marbled-brownies?pager.offset=20

Marbled brownies, mmmm.

But enough about me, this post is actually directed at my Boyfriend. Who published his collection of short stories, I've linked to his blog before here: drunkwriter.blogspot.com

But his book can now be bought on Amazon for the kindle, or kindle software at least (this is free to download) and you can buy the book for 77p. The link is here, you'll need to scroll over it to see it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Something-Nice-10-Stories-ebook/dp/B007R62AXU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1333572759&sr=8-3

Please support him, tell all your friends and family.

Paint it yourself pottery!

2012-03-21T20:26:00.001+00:00

Today I went to a paint yourself pottery place in Cheltenham, I had a great time and I'm very much looking forward to going back on Sunday to finish my piece! This is what I've done so far!

Some of you may say that this isn't the right colour. I know this, don't worry- this is the first coat and it gets darker when it's 'cooked' for people who want to go this is the link: http://www.piyp.co.uk/

Very excited about finishing it on Sunday!

Crochet! Development!

2012-03-19T18:40:00.001+00:00

So, Just over a week a go I learnt how to crochet. I've been doing it when I've got the chance to and I have got this:

How pretty is this!
This is this square done. I'm going to make ones the same size, probably about 6 of them and then join them together to make a throw for mine and my boyfriend (www.drunkwriter.blogspot.com) Buscemi, our cat absolutely loves it, she does this thing when she loves blankets or dressing gowns so I know it's got her approval!

Overall I think I'm kinda liking crochet!

What have you been up to? :)

Crochet time!

2012-03-06T20:35:00.001+00:00

Today I learnt how to crochet! It's been taking me a while with some very massive tantrums (Yes, seriously, ask my house mates...) I get angry with myself if I can't do something it's a major flaw of mine...
I met someone on the National Express route to Cheltenham and she was knitting, so I decided to get my knitting out. We formed a bond and she's teaching me all sorts of life skills! And today, after spending 4 hours with her I produced this:

I am pretty impressed with myself! I'm going to make loads of these and make them into a blanket, at the rate I'm going I'll be finished by the time they go on my knees at 68. I'm a bit slow at it... But I'm getting there, this one is finished now and I'm onto my pink one! I am mega excited at the idea of a blanket that I have made!

I also bought a knitting pattern to make a 'Tank Top' style jumper for my Father, for Christmas. Yes, I'm so sorry for mentioning the C word, I didn't mean to swear. But It's going to take me AGES! And therefore I need the time! It's going to be so strange making something that isn't a scarf. But I will be very pleased if it works out and not to mention I'll have a very proud father.

What creative adventures have you been up to?!

Valentines Day

2012-02-14T18:57:00.000+00:00

Valentines day this year has been a bit of a creative one.

For my boyfriend I got a little heart box, filled it with purple sugar paper, Bought a bag of haribo. I put some heart and rings haribo in the box with some gummy bears in so it wasn't all lovey dovey, put the lid on and sello-taped it up so that it didn't come loose in the post. I liked this idea and everyone I mentioned it to has said how sweet and romantic the idea is... I should so be a man...

In other creative news, This arrived in the post for me today!

Valentines gift for myself. Yay!

I got a nice card this morning from my boyfriend (drunkwriter.blogspot.com) which had knitted chillis on and said 'Hot stuff' funny and creative.

What creative things did you do for valentines day? Make a cake or knitted a heart?

Brace the chill with the knitting thrill!

2012-02-13T22:43:00.002+00:00

So, we all know it's cold out there...

I got bored and sick off my ears getting cold. So I've knitted myself a headband. It's so warm and comfy!

Here it is!

Excuse the poor quality picture! But here it is!

I knitted a mini scarf almost (cast on 10 stitches) and knitted till I had a band that stretched over my head, it has to be stretched! Otherwise it won't stay on your head, it can't be lose at all. So when I got it to the right length I simply sewed the two edges together! Done!

I've also just finished knitting a scarf for the son of a friend of my boyfriend (drunkwriter.blogspot.com) and that is looking pretty cool! I'm very impressed, I've added Fringing and put his initials into it! Never tried that before.
This video taught me how to do the fringe! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeVHSyZXU68

And here it is! I look forward to sending this in the post tomorrow, ready to hit France!

What have you been up to? :)

Mario!

2012-02-08T10:36:00.002+00:00

This was a latest project. My housemate and I got to work on an electrician's boiler suit, that looks like this-

So we altered it and made it into a dress. It was really good fun to do, quite odd also. The transformation is weird. But it was awesome to do. We did a lot of chopping and then sewing. Added some buttons and button holes to the material and that was that, Mario was born.

I was creating Mario for the SFX Weekender, which is an annual geekfest that I enjoy to go with my partner and best friends who we don't see often.

Being Mario was really fun, I managed to steal a stormtroopers mask, and a gun over the course of the evening. I also discovered several different projects that I wish to complete, including a knitted K9!

Many appologies for not posting recently, university life has become quite hectic...

What creative things have you done recently? :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

2012-01-16T16:48:00.000+00:00

Tomorrow marks the Birthday of a wonderful Drunk Writer, My boyfriend who can be found on drunkwriter.blogspot.com

So, in order to mark his birthday I decided to make another TARDIS cake. I'm really keen to improve on last years and to get it better. So this is the one I make for his birthday:

That is this years cake. Last years birthday cake can be found here: http://creativeprogress.blogspot.com/2011/12/tardis-cake.html

So, it's definitely safe to say that we are WHO fans...

Now I'm not sure which one is better. Can you help?

This years is obviously the right colour. It took me ages to get the right colour using sugar flair colouring paste and my hands are still blue from mixing it (no, really they are). It's a chocolate cake, which I was quite nervous about because I've never really made chocolate cakes... His request! But I tried the butter cream and that had some serious yummy goodness right there!

Let me know if you want to know how to make it!

My Latest Project: TARDIS IPOD CASE!

2012-01-12T19:53:00.000+00:00

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Yesterday I found myself taking a trip down to Goldhawk Road tube station, where I found millions of fabric shops. So I decided to get a bunch a felt and give myself a project.

I forgot how fiddly hand made projects were. I was going to upload the complete project when I had finished it, but seeing as it's taking me a while I thought I would update you on my latest Project. So here it is, my working progress of my TARDIS Ipod Cover:

You will need:

Blue felt
White felt
Black felt
See through thread
White thread
(Possbily Black thread haven't decided yet!

So, My first Step was to cut out the shapes that I needed. I thought I would take this a step at a time as opposed to rushing in with the project. It's a gradual project.

So, This black panel is for the 'Police Public Call Box' sign which I will later stitch in white onto the black sign.

The finished Tardis Sign

The White square is for the glass panels.

Here is the finished sign!

The Tardis Sign (Started)

Put next to the white panels and it's starting to look like the TARDIS! Next I shall go on to put the detail into the window

panels.

The Window Panels

It was really difficult to cut down the felt so that it was thin enough to use as Window Panels. However, I managed to cut it down and then sew it to the white felt square. Do this again and then you have 2 window panels!

The next stage is to Sew the details to the blue 'TARDIS' felt.

One windowed TARDIS

So this is where I've got to so far. And I must say, It is coming along rather nicely. I look forward to working on it more! And having a finished TARDIS IPOD case! :)

I'm excited about finishing it!

Yummy Alcohol!

2012-01-11T17:33:00.000+00:00

Sangria!

Sangria is a wine punch/cocktail depending on what you like to call it and is very well known in Spain.

Before Christmas I made a batch of Sangria! Very yummy stuff, perfect for parties! I thought I would tell you how to make it!

You will need:

3 Parts Red Wine (up to you how much you put in!)
1 Part Orange Juice
2 Parts lemonade
Sliced Orange
Now because I'm a poor student I didn't put the other parts in:
Ice
Fresh Mint

Mix all the ingredients together into a jug ( I put mine in a measuring jug first and then tipped into a clean bottle) and then serve, I served with the sliced Oranges and it went down lovely! After about 4 glasses you can really feel it. If you feel like there's too much of one ingredient you can add a bit more of the others.

Enjoy and let me know if you like it! Have you made any interesting drinks before?

Home Made Beer Mustard

2012-01-09T17:27:00.000+00:00

It's always good to make presents for people, whatever the occasion, but what should you make? (http://bit.ly/wF97UG)

Mustard is an acquired taste and not everyone enjoys it. There are so many different flavours with mustard these days, however I haven't seen this one around before.
I was made a big batch of this for a few people in my family, friends in France and also my boyfriend (drunkwriter.blogspot.com), My boyfriend is obsessed with beer and everything related and I've recently got him into the whole mustard scene so I thought I would try my luck with making a batch of Beer Mustard and see how we got on!

I really enjoyed making this, it's the sort of thing you look at and then think 'How on Earth do you make that?!', I now know how and I can, so neh :P.

So are you ready for it?

You will need!
175g Yellow Mustard seeds (I found these at Holland and Barret)
175g Black Mustard seeds (Brown is fine) I found these at a thai supermarket
500ml bottle of beer or ale ( I used Hobgobblin)
1 tbsp Sea Salt
Pinch of Crushed Chili Flakes
175ml Cider Vinegar or White Wine Vinegar
6 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp ground mace or nutmeg

If you do it all right it should look like this:

The method to this madness:

1. Mix the Mustard seeds and beer together in a bowl, cover and set aside for 24 hours. The mustard seeds should soak up most of the beer.

2. Sterilise the jars. Wash in very hot water, preheat oven to 160/325f/gas mark 3. Place the jars upside down on a baking tray and dry in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

3. Stir in the remaining ingredients, then blend in a food processor (this will take you ages) until nearly smooth (this won't happen), you may need to do this is batches.

4. Put the mustard in the jars, put on a pretty bow and instructions (usually keeps for 4 months in the fridge and is perfect with ham!), tap gently to remove air bubbles and you're done!

I hope you enjoy making this, I felt pretty awesome when making this. It is very yummy and can be powerful! Best of luck and let me know how it goes! Try making a load for your dad! It's the sort of thing that a dad would love...

Have you ever made something that you had no idea how to make?

Christmas Project- Geeky Kindle Cover!

2012-01-05T12:26:00.000+00:00

As this year was the first year that I'm properly into the whole creative thing and my parents don't have Internet I thought I would set myself a Christmas project. Which was going to be a TARDIS bag for myself (it would have been bigger on the inside). However, I messed up the tension on my sewing machine and it was taking me ages to try and get it right and to be honest I gave up trying.

I had a deadline to make a Kindle Case for my boyfriend (drunkwriter.blogspot.com) it was just typical that the only kindle case he wanted was something that money can't quite buy yet...
And as my sewing machine was annoying me I decided to make it by hand, which took about 5 days to do. Probably spending a good 4 hours at a time on.

So here it is! The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy Kindle Cover:

There is a machine on the show that provides them with information and apparently it's a lot like a kindle. This machine has 'Don't Panic' on the front in green, friendly letters. And therefore I have re-created this.

I got this Kindle card through the post with an Amazon order which I was quite happy about because then I can measure it all up and get the right measurements.

The Green material is felt, I used this because when you cut felt it doesn't frey. The black material is satin I think. This was a bit more difficult to work with, I had to ensure that I cut it a cm more than I needed on all sides so I was able to do the hemming.

After I had done the hemming I ironed on firm Viline which gives the material a bit more support.

I needed one hemmed double kindle sized piece for the front with a cm gap for the middle. And the same for the back. I then worked on the letters on the front section using a clear thread.

I put kindle sized cardboard in the middle of the material for extra support. And black Elastic on the corners of the kindle case to keep the kindle in place. And a piece on the back as a fastener.

This was all done by hand.

And there you have it really! A geeky Kindle Cover!

Chocolate Truffles

2012-01-03T17:17:00.002+00:00

Chocolate Truffles are a brilliant gift to give for any occasion. And if they are brilliant (like these are) then they will ask 'Where did you get these! I want more!' you then have the bragging rights of stating that you made them and that if they want more, they will have to pay you.

So, Chocolate Truffles! My boyfriend (www.drunkwriter.blogspot.com) and his parents love these, I tend to make them a batch for Christmas, I really should start making them other things too...

So, what will you need!

You will need:
225g Plain Chocolate
175g Whipping or double cream
Icing Sugar and Cocoa powder to dust

I will take you through step by step!

1) Cover a baking tray with Cling Film or Baking Paper

2) Place the chocolate in a mixing bowl, ensure that it is cut up into small pieces:

3) Bring the cream to a rolling boil, make sure that you stir it occasionally.

4) Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate and keep stirring until all the chocolate has melted!

5) When it's all blended and melted through put to one side and allow to set, this should take roughly 1 hour and a half.

6) When the ganache is all set roll into little balls, you may need to dust your hands with cocoa powder first so it doesn't stick as much; this stage is messy.

TIP: Set out two bowls of powder to make Stage 7 easier for you:

7) Immediately dip the truffle into your preferred powder, icing sugar or cocoa powder. Then place on the tray!

8) Put in the fridge and leave overnight so they set properly into their new shape.

9) Find a box that you want to put them in and decorate it with sugar paper, looks very professional:

Once you're ready the next day place the truffles in and then present them to that lucky person!

The truffles can last in the fridge for a week, if they last that long ;)

Variations:

You can add 75ml of rum, brandy, Calvados or anything you fancy. Do this before the Ganache sets.
Another good idea is to dip the truffles in melted chocolate to give it that crunch.

Enjoy!

On the Run up to Christmas!

2011-12-22T12:40:00.003+00:00

This little teddy bear has taken me about 3 months to do and it's finally complete! Yay! This will be a present for my nephew who will be 5 months on Christmas day!

I'm afraid I don't have any instructions as to how to do this...

I made the small one with the blue ribbon on his neck. the other one is a Hamley's bear that my boyfriend (www.drunkwriter.blogspot.com) got me for this Christmas (early I know, but that's how we roll. The teddy's name is Humphrey.)
I enjoyed making this bear and I would say that the most difficult part of it was the face. It's so hard creating a perfect bear face from a totally blank canvas. And not to mention I lost one of his eyes... So I had to improvise.

I am also in the process of knitting my nephew a scarf, which is taking a while- Christmas Admin and all! But this is how far I've got so far!

So I've still got quite a while to go and several things to make before hand! Ahhhh!

Also on the run up to Christmas I've been making my family and my boyfriend's family, unfortunately I can't show you the cards made for his family because they have his family's face on with the additional christmas hat put on! Easy to do in Paint!

I'm always struck by how easy Christmas cards are to make. I mean look at the right one... So easy! I bought a set of christmas card decorations from ebay and stuck it on card. Now it's done! Make sure you have something Christmassy to put onto the card. Really nice gift wrap is brilliant to use as backing before you put down any objects!

Enjoy the admin!

Butterfly cakes!

2011-12-14T23:25:00.002+00:00

Butterfly cakes are yum. Pure and Simple (as hearsay might wish to say) YUM.

They aren't just fairy cakes, they are fairy cakes but with an added bonus, buttercream icing, mmmmm.

Now, the best way to make butterfly cakes is to find a really good recipe for fairy cakes and then work from there.

Now, I've discovered a recipe that makes 24 fairy cakes so you'll have to make sure you have enough fairy cake tins before we start. You'll need 2 X 12 fairy cake tins.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fairycakes_93711

Ignore the recipe for icing, the way i'm doing it is much yummier! So follow the recipe and bake the fairy cakes. Then allow them to cool before you go on to making the icing.

Oh, and one thing the BBC never mention in their recipes, you have to lick the bowl. It's Law. If you don't then you'll have an issue with the Baking police...

...Yes, the baking police.

Ok, so the cakes are all nice and cool now!

Now for the icing!

You'll need:

10oz icing sugar

5oz butter, softened to room temperature and unsalted

a tbsp of milk

You literally just mix them all together using an electric whisk, nice and simple.

Mix until it's got thick but not really thick! Icing like thick, you've eaten cakes before you're a good judge.

So, cut out a ten pence from top of the cake. Spoon a t-spoon of icing into the crater , cut the cake piece that you've just cut out in half to create wings and position so that it looks like this:

When you're done, sprinkle with a touch of icing sugar, sieved. Will look pretty!

Enjoy and don't forget to lick the bowl!

Making Christmas Crackers!

2011-12-05T21:29:00.001+00:00

We all know Christmas is a stressful time of year and if you're a creative person like myself you will love all the hustle and bustle that comes with it, making presents, Christmas cake and even Christmas crackers, yes, Christmas crackers.

What you will need:

Lots of empty loo rolls or kitchen rolls.
Christmas wrapping paper
Snappers (available from all good craft shops around Christmas)
Tissue paper, different colours
Prizes!
Paper.
Ribbon

OK! SO!

You will need to get your thinking hats on and think of awesome jokes to go into the crackers, who am i kidding? All cracker jokes are priceless and rubbish. My advice, buy a packet of penguins, enjoy the chocolate and pinch the jokes- brilliant material for jokes. After all it's where I got my favourite clean joke ever from:

What did the fish say when it swam into the wall?

Dam.

Write down your jokes on cut out pieces of paper! Make them interesting and relevant to different people! Thought of some cracking Dr who jokes while making these, the boyfriend hasn't got one this year though.

Before you make the crackers make your paper hats from tissue paper. Measure your head and cut this out from the paper, leave enough room for gluing. And cut many triangles in so it looks like a proper Christmas hat!

1. So, cut a section of wrapping paper, enough to completely cover the roll, it'll have to be quite long so it can be scrunched up for the cracker effect.

2. Place a loo roll in the middle, cut another loo roll in half and place either side of the centre loo roll. about 1cm apart from the centre roll.

3. Place the snapper in the middle, be careful not to break it at all when doing the wrapping.

4. Place the prize, the hat and the joke inside of the main loo roll. Make sure that the snapper stays in place.

5. Wrap it all up!

6. twist the sides to create the cracker effect either side of the main part with the prize, be careful you don't pull the snapper! And tie with ribbon!

You're done! It should look something like this!

One Christmas cracker for your table on Christmas day!

Quick to make, fairly cheap and thoughtful if tailored to certain people!

More Cake Shinanagons

2011-12-01T22:35:00.001+00:00

As you know it was my house-mates birthday on Monday. And you have to have birthday cake on your birthday, it's law. Or if it isn't a law, it should be a law- no birthday cake on my birthday makes me a sad Mary. So i baked her a birthday cake.

I wanted to create an awesome themed birthday cake because I like the idea of people looking at the cake and going, wow! That's awesome!
So on saturday I spent 2 hours baking cakes, the first cake went wrong, bad reading on my behalf- this never happens to me but I HAD spent the day writing SQL code, forgive me?

So first cake went wrong, had to bake another one and it was, as the french say Parfait. I made the cake, allowed them to cool mixed the buttercream (mmmm) which was 10oz icing sugar, 5oz butter and a drop of milk, mixed together. Very sweet but VERY yum. I spread a thick layer of jam on the cake once it had cooled and added the buttercream.
Next was time to use the sugar paste. I've never used sugar paste, it's not nice to roll... But you use icing to roll it out and to make it stick to the cake a liquid paste made from water and icing sugar.

So here's the cake!
Mr Pacman! I thought it was awesome! I cut a slice of cake out and put it to one side, nom nom! No I had to ring a friend to eat the cake, no way i was eating all that cake!
I melted some chocolate and made the eye from melted chocolate, on the whole a good success.
Again I used the Mary Berry recipe as previously stated in my TARDIS cake post.

Hope you like it!

Over and out!

K9 Painting

2011-12-01T13:56:00.001+00:00

I've never ever painted for something before. However, I was planning a gift for my boyfriend (again :P) so I decided I would paint him a picture of his favourite Doctor Who character thing. This was nerve racking. Because it's his favourite there was so much pressure to get it right, if it went wrong then I would have been upset.

So I bought a Canvas from HobbyCraft for about £2.50. I didn't have an intention of using this to paint K9 at first, I was going to paint a picture as a Christmas present for someone, didn't know who. So I put the canvas to good use.

The first step was to find a decent picture of K9, this was difficult. I eventually found the right one and then used that to guide me with my sketching.

The first step was to do it on paper. I was happy with the results so I decided to put it straight onto Canvas.

I used Acrylic paint and a very fine brush to do the outline. As you can see this looks pretty much like K9.

The next stage was to mix the paint so that it was the right shade of Grey to do K9 and paint him after the outline had dried.

Here is K9! I wasn't sure whether to leave it blank or not, so I spoke to one of my close friends who is also a Doctor Who fanatic and he advised me to do a background. So, as Doctor who is Sci-Fi, and Sci-Fi is space and stuff. I thought I would do a space outline, like so.

I agree, It looks so much better with the background. The white dots are stars and I decided I'd include some shooting stars to give it more awesome factor.

So here he is, K9. I was insanely jealous of the painting and wanted one, it's a good job we live together!

Over and Out.

Bumble Bee Bear

2011-12-01T13:37:00.001+00:00

On Monday it was my house-mates Birthday. For her birthday we decided to buy her a bear and then make it a bumble bee outfit. Pretty cool I'd say.

So here is Mr Bubble-bee Bear. We made a dress for the bear using a bit of elastic at the top to create a 'boob-tube' effect. Which was pretty groovy. We also created Wings for the bear!
I decided that because it's November (was at the time) that the bear might get cold and because of that I knitted it a scarf. I did this by casting on 10 stitches, it's all you need for a tiny scarf and knitted lots of rows until I was satisfied with the length. Normal stitch, I haven't learnt purl yet, but I'm coming onto that shortly.

These are the wings, they were made using garden wire moulded to shape and using black wool to cover the wire. Attached two pieces of elastic and sewed them up so that they remain stationary and you're able to attach them to the bear!

This is what happens when you're let loose in Hobbeycraft, you come up with project ideas! As like my next post....

TARDIS Cake

2011-12-01T12:46:00.000+00:00

First of all welcome to my blog. This is a blog dedicated to all creative things that might occur when I've got bored of doing my assignments or when I'm just being creative. I hope you enjoy.

I've always enjoyed Baking. However, I've always made the cake and just got done with it. However it was my lovely boyfriend's birthday in January and I decided that I had to make him a cake that he wouldn't forget about, ever. And so he got his first ever TARDIS cake. Now it's very safe to say that he is a little bit of a Doctor Who fan.
Scrap that, he adores Doctor Who, and so he should it's a wonderful show.

Ok so It's not the most beautiful cake in the world, but it was as I've previously mentioned it was my first attempt. And I did make the fondant Icing by hand, it is ridiculously difficult to get the right colour for a TARDIS. Whatever they said 'Blue Food Colouring' doesn't make it as blue as you'd like it to be. I don't know about you but I have never seen a pale blue TARDIS.
I piped the detail which wasn't easy, first attempt at any type of piping!

Looking back on this it does look as though a 4 year old made it... But that's fine, seeing his face when I presented it to him was priceless :). But next year I think I'm going to attempt to make it differently and use sugar-paste. Or I might attempt a different type of cake, look forward to that update in January.

Whenever I'm making sponge cakes, traditional Victoria Sponge cakes that I'm turning into a birthday cake I always use Mary Berry's cake recipe: http://bbc.in/9ar9pi

Over and Out!