Creating during winter ...... Quince and Felt

I thought I would take part in Thrifty Household's and Silver Pebble's Making Winter.  I too am not really a winter lover, I hate the pewter grey skys and the cold, I hate that I can't get out into the garden to potter and earth myself and what I hate most of all are the dark mornings :-(  So here goes with a bit of creativity to see if that helps lift my spirits :-)

A month or so ago I took advantage of my neighbours Quince tree and made some Quince Jelly from the book below.  I love this book, it is full of wonderful recipes ....

   

Image taken from Amazon site

I started off by roughly chopping the Quince.  This fruit has the most wonderful smell, it smells like flowers until you cut it and then it smells like pineapple.  When you stew it it then changes to the scent of apples.

I then stewed them ....

I hung them to drain off over night, I was going to make a net fruit bag but got this off e-bay for cheaper than I could create one in the end :-)

You then re-boil the liquid with lots of sugar until it becomes syrupy in consistency .  I did find I had to squeeze a lemon into it to get it to change more quickly although Quince are meant to be high in pectin.

I then sterilised some old coffee jars and jarred the jelly up.

 

It is a really lovely taste, sweet with a summery flowery taste .... hmmm I can't really describe it.  It goes really well with strong cheese or pork.  Here it is on a plate with some of my friends piccalilli :-)

I think I will make smaller jars next year as less is more with Quince Jelly.

I have also been playing with Merino wool with the children and had fun wet felting and needle felting with them.

Here are some little felted acrons I made :-)

Here are the children's.

After chatting the a lady who created gorgeous felted scarves about creating a tortoise in a walnut shell (she must have thought I was a little bonkers :-)) she suggested a pin cushion would be great too - she was right, I love this little pin cushion :-)

 
And then of course there are my son's (right) and my tortoises made out of walnut shells :-)

There is something else I am creating but that will have to stay secret for a little while longer .... this is the scene in my sock drawer (away from prying little eyes :-)).

Gorgeous Cards and Felt Creations :-)

Thanks for all your comments re the bees, I will keep you posted on what they are doing and how we get on with them :-)

Some time ago I received a lovely parcel from Andrea at the blog Fin and Gabs.  I was going to do an interview with her but what with me being very forgetful and Andrea being a busy Mum it hasn't happened so I thought I would do a post about her lovely creations.

Andrea is one very busy women, she not only creates these gorgeous cards but also runs a shop based in Hanover Road, Scarborough, writes articles for magazines whilst also looking after her lovely children Fin and Gabs.  How on earth she fits it all in I will never know!

Just look at this lovely bunch of cards  (minus one or two as I have used a couple already).

Andrea makes the original cards with fabric, ribbon, buttons and line drawing.  They are then printed by Creatives Inc and are fantastic quality.  The embossing of the cards really makes it look like they are still made of ribbon and fabric!  The only problem with them is that they are far too nice and I am having problems sharing them :-)

You can also buy original cards, lovely covered books etc from her on-line shop or in her real life shop below :-)  Click on the link or pop in to see some scrummy looking things.

She not only stocks her own items but many other items in her shop and she now stocks some of my creations  too:-)  How fantastic is that - I was really, really chuffed when she asked if I could send her some stock !  oohh if only I lived closer, I have a real urge to visit this shop!

Here is an idea of some of the things I sent Andrea:

I hope they sell well for her.  I have been selling a few things via facebook here Scented Sweetpeas.  I couldn't make a living out of it but am really enjoying creating for others and getting some lovely feedback.  It is so nice knowing people are enjoying my little makes :-)

Other news this week is that Eldest Sweetpea had his cast taken off.  It was a cast that can be removed yourself which was interesting.

We peeled off the blue cover and then had to cut down the soft part whilst avoiding the hardest part of the cast.  Slow and steady won the race - it was a bit scary having scissors so close to his skin without being able to see what we were doing !  Look at Ted looking on anxiously :-)  He has been really good the whole time the cast has been on, not once has be complained. 

Better be off now as the kiddies are all kicking off - take care everyone and I hope you have a fab Friday. x

Creating birthday gifts

Recently I have been trying to make a lot of presents or buy them from artists rather than buying from shops.  I don't know why but I don't find much excitement in high street shopping anymore (unless it is whilst pottering round just looking at things whilst chatting to friends or family).

With my ickle Sister's birthday coming up I had to put my thinking cap on as to what she might like.  She recently popped over to give us a training course on how to ice cupcakes properly so cupcakes was one idea.  In fact she had bought me a day out with her in London to decorate cupcakes with her but I chickened out :-(  I don't know why but my confidence levels drop sometimes and the old shy me re-appears for some things - my sis is really understanding and let me chicken out - I love her so much for loving me for who I am (oohh soppy moment there lol).   Isn't the brain a funny thing - there are so many things I am confident about and people who know me probably wouldn't believe how shy the inner me is sometimes (especially when sleep deprivation takes hold) - I have to fight her quite often :-)

The kiddies loved their Auntie showing them how to ice with a piping bag and we made some funky retro cakes.

Here they are next to our retro phone which we are still loving.

So a little box of cupcakes it was.  I had a little brain wave to add love hearts on the top of them and some pink sparkly sprinkles.  I had to go through all the love hearts though as some of them were mean and not nice with things like 'grow up' written on them - when did that happen?

I then found some wonderful little cupcake boxes in Sainsburys to set them off nicely.

Now as you will know if you read my last blog post, my Sis loves tashes!  Not sure why but she does so I set about making her a key ring of moustaches that she could use for any occasion :-)

There were curly ones, little ones and long ones ......

I then I added a cute little heart with some ribbon on that I bought a while back especially for my family.  My Mum always tells my kiddies that she loves them 'this much' with her arms out so when I saw this ribbon I had to have it :-)

Just look at that cute girl in her hoody with her arms stretched as wide as they can possibly go :-)

Some time ago she asked if I could make her one of my daisy chains for some festivals she was going to so this was another pressie.  There is something lovely about making something for someone when you know they are going to get so much joy out of it - you smile all the way through making it :-)

Last but not least I ordered her a Scented Sweetpeas bath bomb box from Caroline's Creations, it must have been the best smelling item I have ever received through the post!

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post, I really do love reading them and they always make me smile - thanks for spending your precious time doing that. x

Creative fun .....

Hi everyone, I am sorry I haven't been here for a while, where on earth does the time go?  I am sure the earth is spinning faster making time go quicker - even eldest Sweetpea commented on how fast time was going recently and kiddies usually think time goes slowly so it must be going very fast!  I seem to find that I can either spend time reading blogs or writing one, not both.  All you bloggers write such lovely blogs I have been too busy reading them :-)

I thought I would update you on the creative side of our family tonight.  With Easter recently and our Sweetpeas getting lots of chocy I thought I would make the girls some little felt bunnies, I also made my ickle sis one too :-)  I popped some lavender in them to make them smell yummy.  This design was inspired by The Linen Cats gorgeous bunny purses - so lovely.

Chocolate nests are a must in our house at Easter so we HAD to make some - so scrummy!  I make ours with shreaded wheat to give a real nest look.

I have also used a sewing machine!  Wwwahhooo!  If you have only recently joined me you will wonder why I am so excited :-)  One of my New Years  targets (I don't do resolutions as I always break them) was to use a sewing machine, I haven't used one since College.

Well a lovely friend of mine lent me her sewing machine after reading my blog and then it sat there for a couple of weeks and another mate then came and threaded it up for me.  I had to break the fear factor of it so it sat there for another 2 - 3 weeks until I finally plucked up the courage and got a few moments of quiet in the house.

I made some little bags for the kiddies Easter egg hunt in the garden.  Nothing too big but great fun learning to make them.  I even had to learn to wind the bobbin up whilst doing it as that ran out of thread so that took about an hour lol.

Eldest Sweetpea wanted a more manly bag so he went for some owl fabric with a leather strap.  I was really proud of them and really enjoyed myself.

Little Sweetpea won a colouring competition at the local Library, she was really chuffed about it :-)

Middle Sweetpea did some hand sewing and made a lovely lavender pillow with a chick on the front, I must blog a piccy soon as she did really well and I was amazed how quiet she was when she was making it (she is not known for being quiet :-)).

And eldest Sweetpea made a tree house - I was gardening and then suddenly heard hammering and drilling and there he was up a tree creating a house.  He even has a pulee system to pull his dinner up there.

He also wanted to sleep there the night but we did say no to that just in case he fell out, we did let him stay out there for a while though.

He also made a fab go cart at the beginning of the holiday , I think engineering might be his thing :-)

I have also been creating more things for my little shop and am loving making things, in fact I get rather frustrated if I don't get to make a little something each day.

Birthdays, gardening, cakes and makes ...

Hi everyone, I hope you have all had a fantastic week.  This week in the Sweetpea household we had a birthday, mine ! :-)   As I have said before I like to buy a pavlova for my birthday every year but this year I thought I would try and make one.  It was a lot easier than I thought and was great fun to decorate.  I got the eggs off my friend Helen as our chickens are not laying as much as they used to and used blackberries which I had frozen from the Summer (I bought the Raspberries and blueberries but hopefully we will have homegrown this year :-)).  It could have probably done with a bit longer in the oven as it was a bit gooey on the inside but then again  I like gooey meringue.  My parents popped over in the evening and bought a chocy cake so this pavlova was only eaten by me and my parents and the kiddies and Mr Sweetpea wanted chocy cake :-)

I popped to the toddler group today and my friend Kathryn gave me a lovely card with a crochet hook hidden in it, this then gave it away that it was my Birthday this week (she saw some Birthday messages on Facebook).

Now I don't mind getting older at all but I am not a fan of fuss so try and skip past my Birthdays with little fuss if possible.  The lovely Bear's Footprints had just shown me a gorgeous crochet mini cushion she had made which has lavender in it, it smells devine.  This was her first make of this kind and she then decided to give it to me as a birthday present!  How sweet of her, it must have been so precious to her as it was the first time she has made one and it is so lovely - if only we had smellyvision as it smells so yummy!

 

As the sun came out late last week (none this week I am afraid, just grey, grey, grey :-() we all got out in the garden and planted some seeds.  The kiddies and I really do love being outdoors in the warmer weather.  Little Sweetpea got busy with her new watering can that she got from Father Christmas :-)

 

And I had to find ways to label my seeds so I decided to use those old CDs you get with internet software or children's sample programmes on to label some up.  They also act as a bit of a bird deterrent.

oohh and I have been creating more daisies, I decided to make a rainbow of colours :-)

I have also been thinking about Easter so have been making some felt pouches for the hairclips for my little Facebook Shop :-)

ooh before I go, can I pick your brain???  If you are into sewing can I ask what machine you would recommend as I really want to buy one with my Birthday money and try my hand at sewing?

xxx