Christmas Champagne Glasses

What you will need

• Champagne Flute (or any other glass you want to decorate)
• Metallic coloured Sharpies (I found a pack with gold, silver, red & green in Ryman)
• Christmas snowflake template & Printer
• Masking tape

Instructions

Step 1 - Position your design

Before starting give your glass a wash and dry well - you don't want any greasy fingerprints ruining your design

Cut out the text / image you want to use and stick it in place on the inside of your glass using masking tape. 

I tried two designs (both are on the template supplied):

• All I want for Christmas is bubbles
• You're my snowflake

or you could try your own idea. I quite like the thought of using them as place setting on your Christmas table and come up with a personalised glass for everyone.

Step 2 - Draw your design

Holding your glass, draw over the top of the template with a Sharpie pen on the outside of your glass. You can also add on any extras you want to draw freehand, like these cute little bubble. I did this one line at a time, keeping the dots close at the bottom and further apart as I worked my way up.

Step 3 - Finishing Touches

I fancied a snowflake design on the base of my glass to add a little bit of extra glitz. This part was really simple as I just places the snowflake image under the glass and then draw the design over the top, adding some extra shapes round the edge.

Step 4 - Go get a drink

After all that crafting it would be rude not to test them out! Just make sure you hand wash them and dry carefully but the Sharpie should stay on pretty well

I'll be back,

Paper Cut Christmas Gift Tags

I try to find a new way to wrap my Christmas presents every year and this year I has a new toy to play with - my Cricut Explore

Since it's the season of giving gifts I thought I would share my SVG file with you and instructions on how to add the lettering - hope you guys enjoy using it

Step 1 - Download the SVG file

Click on the image below and down load my christmas.svg file

Step 2 - Upload SVG to Cricut Design Space

Upload the christmas.svg file buy selecting the vector upload option and then choose the image to import

Step 3 - Add your text

Add text to your image

Turn it black and then move it so that the centre is touching to one of the lines on the line.

Once it is touching the line, ungroup the text

When the text is ungrouped you can move the letters individually. This means you can slightly turn the text so that it an all be moved to touch the line on the image.

Once you've finished moving all the text on one line, select each of the letters and click on "group" so they are linked back together.

Then select both the sentence and the image, before clicking the Weld button to link the test to the image. Repeat until you have added text to all the lines.

Step 4 - Link your star

There will be a gap between your text on the top line and one of the falling stars so link it up by adding a square and move it until it fits between the bottom of the letter and the star. Remember to weld the square to the image so that it stays in place when cutting.

Step 5 - cut out the image

Cutting out these tags with my Explore, I then glued them to the front of  my gifts, finishing it of by writing the recipients name on the tree with a gold pen.

I'll be back,

Paint Swatch Christmas Cards

This is a great one to do with the kids, especially when they are school age and need to take loads in for their friends / teachers!!

What you need

• Paint swatches (I picked mine up from Homebase but most DIY/paint stores have them)
• Blank cards or sheets of card folded
• Christmas Text 
• Buttons
• Sequins
• PVA glue

Instructions

Step 1 - Select your swatches

I walked into Homebase and had so much choice that my Christmas trees were almost purple but in the end I stuck with green and brown. However, if you want to be more adventurous and give everyone a different coloured tree, then go for it!

If you can't get your hands on any then coloured card will do the same job.

Step 2 - Cut out your tree

Cut a triangle from your swatch. I ended up having to cut this tree in half as it was too long for my card but you can adjust this to whatever works for you. I like a range of different sizes so they don't all look the same.

Step 3 - Plant your tree

With a few dabs of glue on the back of your tree, stick it to the front of your card. I used a ready made pack of blank cards I already had in the house but you can just buy sheets of card and fold/cut them to the size of your choice.

I also cut a small piece of the brown paint swatch to use as the base of the tree, also gluing it onto the card.

Step 4 - Add sparkle

For some reason I also had a tub of sequins in the flat that had snowflakes and stars (as well as some dinosaurs and cats mixed in - don't ask) so I was able to glue a few of these around the tree to add a bit of sparkle. Circle sequins or sticky gold stars will have the same effect though.

Step 5 - Add your Christmas Message

Print out your Christmas message. I've attached a sheet full of Merry Christmas labels for you to use but feel free to come up with your own.

Glue this onto the bottom of your card and then a button on either side or use more sequins / stars to finish it off.

I'll be back,

Gluten Free Dragon Rolls Sushi

I loooooove sushi and one of my favourites is dragon rolls but the tempura bater and soy sauce both have wheat in them which sucks for those intolerant to gluten so I tried out a new recipe last night and the results were pretty tasty!

What you will need:

Ingredients

• Sushi grade rice (I get mine from Tesco)
• Shrimp or king prawns
• Cucumber
• Avocado
• Nori seaweed sheets
• Gluten Free soy sauce
• Chilli paste (optional)
• Garlic paste (optional)
• Salad of your choosing (I used spinach, radish and cucumber)
• Vegetable oil
• Batter (100g gluten free plain flour & soda water or tonic if you want more of a lemony taste)

Tools

• Sushezi or sushi rolling mat
• Sharp knife

Step 1 - Prep your fish

I used king prawns as they are easier to find in the supermarket, cutting them into smaller pieces to that they are easier to lie in a straight line within the sushi

Step 2 - Make your batter

Add 100g of gluten free plain flour to to a bowl and then slowly mix in your soda/tonic until it's a thin paste. If you dip your finger in it then it should slightly cover your finger but not look too thick.

Remember to clean your hands first!!

Step 3 - Cook Fish

Fill a small pan about a 1/4 full with oil, whilst putting your fish in the batter whist your oil heats up. Once the oil is hot enough (you can tell this by dropping in a small amount of batter to see if it sizzles and rises to the surface) then slowly add your fish and leave to cook for a few minutes until golden brown. Then very carefully remove the fish from the pan and place on a piece of kitchen roll to dry out.

Then leave the fish to cool.

Step 4 - Make your Sushi

Take half a Nori sheet and place your fish and some strips of cucumber in a straight line on the sheet. Then roll the sheet up, wetting one end so it sticks.

I have a Sushezi so then I just put my sushi in the tube, place the Nori sheet in the middle, close the tube up and compress, before pushing the sushi out. Alternatively, you can use a sushi rolling mat.

Step 5 - Add the scales

De-shell half an avocado and thinly slice it, as well as slicing your sushi (it works better if you clean your knife between sushi cuts).

Then take a few slices and layer them on top of the sushi like dragon scales

 

Step 6 - Make your sauce

Now you can just have soy sauce on it's own but I like putting it in a small tub with some chilli and garlic paste before shaking to mix up.

Step 7 - Garnish your plate

Garnish with a salad of your choice or just load up on the sushi goodness!!!

I'll be back,

Gluten Free Gingerbread House for your Mug

I've got lots of friends who have a difficult relationship with gluten (including myself) and the holiday period is particularly hard with all the meals out and goodies being brought into the office so this year I'm going to try my hand at a range of gluten free recipes so that all of these gorgeous girls can enjoy Christmas as much as everyone else!

The Recipe

Ingredients

Gingerbread

• 300g of Gluten free plain flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum
• 2 heaped teaspoons of powdered ginger (or less if you only like a hint of ginger)
• 1 heaped teaspoon of powdered cinnamon 
• 250g of honey
• 125g of shortening (brands such as Trex, Flora White or Cookeen in the UK)
• 1 tablespoon of treacle

Icing

• 1 sachet of powered egg white
• 250g of royal icing sugar
• 1 cap-full of vanilla extract
• water (I used 5 table spoons)
• sprinkling of desiccated coconut for the roofs

The Method

Step 1 - Make the Gingerbread

• Heat the shortening, honey and treacle in a pan until it starts to boil and then turn if off and leave until it is room temperature
• Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and then mix in the liquid ones once they have cooled. You'll have to get your hands dirty of this one and don't worry about it being quite a soft/oily consistency)
• Wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the freezer for 1 hour (or in the fridge overnight if you are not in a rush). This stops the dough expanding when you put it in the oven
• After removing from the freezer, put whatever you are not using just now in the fridge to keep it cool

My dough looks dark in this picture because I put too much treacle in my first batch. Yours should look lighter than this.

Step 2 - Roll your dough

I put my dough in between 2 sheets of grease proof paper on a chopping board and rolled until it was about 1/2 a cm thick

Step 3 - Cut out your house

Print out my Gingerbread house template onto some card and cut out the shapes. before placing the template on the dough, sprinkle a little flour over the top so that the card doesn't stick to the dough.

Cut out two of each to make 1 house

 Step 4 - Bake

Put them in the oven for 8/10 minutes at 180 degrees celsius. but keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn. it will still be a little soft when you take it out the oven but will harden up as it cools.

Make sure none of the pieces are touching otherwise they will join together when baking

Step 5 - Leave to cool

Leave your pieces out to cool as they need to be cold to touch before you can put on the icing

Step 6 - Make the icing

• First beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of water until they are light and fluffy
• Add half the icing sugar and 1/2 more table spoons of water as needed
• Repeat with the rest of the icing sugar

Step 7 - Build your house

Pipe the icing on the house pieces to join them together. The small squares are for the sides of the house and the larger rectangles are for the roof.

Step 8 - Let it snow

Ice the roofs and then press some coconut of the top to make it look like snow. Then all that's left to do is serve them to your friends on mugs of your favourite hot drink, I recommend a chai latte!

I'll be back,

Easy Halloween Lantern

This lantern is super quick and easy to do
Perfect for those who need some last minute Halloween decorations

I opened my Cricut Craft Room today to find I had a new free cartridge - 3D lanterns and I love to try out anything new so I set to work straight away

Now I think this is how you are mean to use these images but my way is even quicker and lets you use real candles, rather than fake ones

Taken from Becky Baugh on Pinterest

What you will need:

Jam Jar

Black Card

Tissue Paper

Sellotape or Glue

Cricut with 3D lantern cartridge

Step 1:

Measure the circumference & height of your jam jar. Then take one of the lantern images and expand it in Cricut Craft Room until it is slightly larger than your jar (as you want it to overlap a little)

Step 2:

Take your black card and cut out the lantern image using your Cricut

Step 3:

Cut out a piece of tissue paper that is slightly smaller than the size of your cut of black card and stick it to the back so the tissue shines through

Step 4:

Wrap the card round the jar so the black card is on the outside and the tissue is against the jar, then tape the overlapping edges of black card together so that it forms a cylinder around the jar.

Step 5:

Drop your tea light inside and light it - making sure you keep the flame away from the paper!!!!

Easy peasy and super effective for any Halloween household!

I'll be back,

How to throw a Tiki wedding in VEGAS!!!

I was over the moon for my little brother Sam when he announced he was marrying the amazing Zara and the fact that they wanted to do it in Vegas was the icing on the cake!

Of course I offered to help in any way I could, especially when it came to the wedding decorations and I'm going to share with you my 5 simple steps to turning any party into a Tiki celebration to remember!

1. Burlap Bunting

I love burlap material as I think it gives a really vintage feel to your decorations, however this time I was looking for a distressed look so made sure I left it a little rough around the edges.

I tried out 2 new styles inspired by my travels to Hawaii (but mostly Pinterest)

White Distressed

Cutting out triangles from my burlap material, I made sure I had enough for the words "Just Married" and made a few extra to split up the words.

I used my Cricut to cut out letters/images on vinyl and stuck them onto the triangles but if you don't have a Cricut you could cut the vinyl with a craft knife or just cut up masking tape.

Then I coated the top of the bunting in white fabric paint. Don't worry about being to precise with this step as you want it to look a little distressed but make sure you go up to the edges so it doesn't fray too much.

Once dried, just peel back the letters and then stitch some  twine to the back of your triangles so you can string up your bunting

Personalised Screen Printing

Again I cracked out my Cricut and designed 3 bunting images. This time I personalised them for my brother's wedding by making a Z & S monogram for them both.

Instead of triangles for this one, I cut out large rectangles and then frayed round the edges. To make sure it didn't come apart completely I used some fray stopper which once dried, I was ready to go.

This time when I cut my designs out I had to remember to flip them backwards first as I wanted to practice my screen printing skills.

Taking the cut out vinyl, I stuck it to the outside of my screen and covered any gaps round the edge with masking tape.

Then I put a rectangle under my screen, positioning it toward the bottom of the screen and then pulled the ink over the top until I felt the image was fully covered. Lifting the screen up it relieved the image on the rectangle with a large gap up at the top - NOT TO FEAR there is method behind my madness. The reason for this is so that I can fold it over the twine and then sew on with my sewing machine. Of course remember to leave your bunting flags to dry before stitching them all together

2. Tiki Photo booth

Every wedding should have a photo booth. They are my favourite part about a wedding and a brilliant wedding favour for your friends and family to take away.

This is such a simple way of creating a bit of a buzz at your party.

I made the background by buying lots of 2m pieces of ribbon from Ebay, which were all different widths, and then sewing them all to a 2m piece of ribbon along the top - SIMPLE

Then I made a tiki blackboard with a piece of MDF covered in blackboard vinyl and then glued bamboo round the edges, before sticking a paper flower at the top. This allowed the guest to write their own special message to the happy couple or just something really funny

To finish it all off I bought lots of tiki tat as everyone loves a bit of cheesiness and dressing up for a photo. Stanley the Flamingo was a definite hit of the night

Now you can just let your guests take their own photos but I have my own digital polaroid where you can take picture but choose which ones you want to print out instantly. People love to get their polariod to take home and I've used it for so many parties now that it's definitely been worth it's money

3. Pompom Bunting

It took me a long time to come up with a colourful way to do some tiki bunting but when i saw this pompom tutorial inspiration smacked me in the face

Mini Pompoms - Vivid Please

I bought 5 different coloured balls of £1 wool from poundland and made 15 pompoms in each colours. Then i got a large sewing needle and threaded a long piece of wool through each of the pompoms to make a string of bunting.

Once finished I wrapped it round a piece of cardboard so that it didn't get tangled up when packed in my suitcase, then on the day all i had to do was slowly unravel whilst stringing it up on tress and the outdoor bar

4. Beer Koozies

Our wedding guests had their party Polaroids to take home but I also wanted to create something that people could use on the day - hence the beer koozies.

Now at the time, I knew exactly what I wanted to make but had no idea what it was called so after lots of Googling I found out it was a Koozie I was after, also known as a beer/stubbie holder.

I used my Cricut to cut out the template on foam and then stencilled the personalised wedding design on the front of the koozie, before stitching up both sides. I'll put up my templates on this blog in the coming weeks so that you can make them as well

5. Pool Lights

I did lots of research on floating candle holders but the cost of them didn't really stand up to the fact that we would only be using them for one night as I don't have the luxury of a pool at home so I came up with the idea of using glow sticks.

Originally we had planned to put the glow sticks in balloons and have them floating on the pool, which worked really great in my bath where I could turn off all the lights but because there were other lights outdoors they didn't really shine through the balloons. Instead we ending up putting the glow sticks in the bottom of the pool and leaving the balloons to float on the top. The pack of glow sticks I bought also had connectors to make a glow stick ball which was lots of fun

Just remember to take everything out the pool before you get out so it doesn't get stuck in the filter!

I hope these ideas have sparked your creative streak and if you decide to throw a tiki party of your own, then you have as much fun as we did!

Sam & Zara - I am so proud of you both. 

You have grown up to be amazing people and you are both so brave to carry on your life together over the other side of the world, even though I selfishly want you back home with us. I wish you all the happiness for the future & hope every day is better than the last.

I'll be back,