Painting up a storm! (Tiles as coasters)

We have just painted our cold porcelain and when we had finished we had 6 tiles with paint on them. So we decided to blend the paint on the tiles to make 6 very different tiles. Its amazing to see how different they all come out! We did this with all our leftover oil paint.

easy sweets

This is one of those days where it is almost impossible to do anything on the internet a drawback of having a slow internet server! So I decided to add onto our blog as it is the only thing that seems to be responding today. These are some Butterballs that my children and I made the other day. We got the recipe from Family Favourites Cookbook-Alison Holst and it is really easy to make and uses almost no ingredients. The toffee is very hard and buttery to the taste....my kids love it and funny enough even my husband enjoyed them though he isn't big on sweet things. One thing I have to warn about the recipe tells you to put a thick layer of butter on and you really need to otherwise it sticks to the pan...you also need to work fast once you take the toffee off the heat as it hardens fast!

BUTTERBALLS

half cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons honey (we used honey syrup)
2 tablespoons butter (we used margarine)
half teaspoon rum essence 

Put the sugar and water into a small pan and heat gently until it dissolves.
Add the honey and butter and boil gently, without stirring.
Get a shallow container of cold water, and dip some of the mix into it.
When the drops harden and break when you bite them take the pan off the heat and leave to cool a little.
While you wait rub a thick layer of butter on a metal plate.
Add the essence to the mixture, stir it gently then pour it onto the plate.
When cool enough to touch push into a lump and twist into a rope.
Cut pieces off the rope using buttered scissors, and roll into balls.
(We just shaped it into a long rope and cut square pieces)

Yum Yum all done!

Cold Porcelain (play dough)

So today Cath and I even got the men helping with the cold porcelain so we were all in the kitchen chatting. One thing we have noticed is that this brings the family closer together, our ears have been bombarded by ideas from our helpers and they have even made notebooks to put all their great ideas in!

You can make so much with this necklace pendants, beads, brooches. fridge magnets. We had tons of fun with this but as you can see we have to wait for it to dry before painting it. We will let you know how it dries and take photos once we have painted everything. Cath found the recipe on craftstylish and it has been so much fun trying this out. I am sure we will be using it many more times!

Sunny Cushions !

Hey Everyone,

Look at what we've made.  Sunny cushions.  Courtney and I got the inspiration for these delightful cushions from a very old book of crafts (from the 1930's).  It is a marvellous way to use up scraps.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy New Year everyone, we have spent a great evening with our children playing max and jacks and discussing how sad it is that people don't read as much as they used too. Books open the imagination and make you believe you can do anything. My daughter read Anne Frank's Diaries when she was 10, she inherited the reading bug from me and I will always be grateful for that.
What books do you remember as good reads, if you are a reader there are a few that will stick in your mind for all time..
mine are:
I heard the owl call my name
His name is courage
Watership Down
Memoirs of a Geisha
Tom Sawyer
Call of the Wild
White Fang
Shadow the sheepdog
Black Beauty
My family and other animals

A good book will  always stay in your mind. As my husband says a good book lives forever.

I hope all your dreams and ambitions for 2013 come true but most of all I hope you have a happy year with lots of love and lots of laughs!

ramblings of a mind!

Occasionally a mind tends to wander through events that shape your life...so from time to time I will put these on here and please just skip them if all you are interested in is the crafts and if my ramblings give anyone any pleasure I will be pleased but for now I'm just happy putting it out there!

Cath and I started emailing each other a few years back when we were going through some trying times as you do sometimes, We found that by downplaying our difficulties and making them funny for each other we could laugh and look at our hard times in a different light. Sometimes when things are really hard it takes a friend to show you that maybe its not so bad as you think. You can still have a laugh with a good friend over things that normally would make you want to run away screaming.

It makes you realize that even though your life seems to be falling apart around you your friends and family around you are the glue that holds you together and the light that leads you out of the dark! You need to keep those people close and treasure them. Been the emotional beings that we are that is what makes us all tick and what makes us look forward to the next day. The amazing things that our friends and family bring into our lives every day because they love us so much.

To me the most precious things I have in this life are my family and friends who except all my faults and quirks and are always there to lift me up and laugh with me when I have fallen down. They can only be there for you though if you let them, the choice is all yours!

Well thank you Jo for the lovely things you said about my toys and dolls.  Well it all began when Courtney and I got that book from you.  We started at the beginning of the book and worked our way through  the book making toys and dolls.  Well before long we develpoed a great love for making all sorts of dolls.  We made Red Riding Hood Dolls, Blue dolls with huge hats, big dolls, baby dolls, you name it, we made it.  What fun my little girl and I have with this!!!!!  Our sewing room is full of our toys and dolls.  We modified patterns and clothing, most of which we made up as we went along.  We have got so much out of that sewing book.  And trust me, we are makiing more and more toys - at the moment we are making bright yellow dolls with pretty frilly dresses and hats.  I'm in my happy place, hope you are too.