It's a Crafty Christmas

Well first of all let me just apologise for my absence. As I'm sure is the case for most people, I've been very busy with my preparations for Christmas especially considering that I have decided to knit my presents for the family this year. Blinking heck it's been a knitting frenzy trying to get everything completed. There have been quite a few panic stricken moments where I didn't think I would get it done but I have managed to pull it out of the knitting bag! Yes excusing that rather bad pun, I am finally able to lay down the knitting needles and say I am finished on the present front . I'm in the process now of making Christmas tags to go with the wrapping paper.

This is all rather annoying actually. Here I am all excited as I've got all this crafty goodness to show you but because they're presents and thus a surprise for the recipients, I can't divulge any information. So you'll have to wait for show and tell time till after Christmas I'm afraid.

Now that my presents are all taken care of, I think it's time that I pay some attention to my other project; a crocheted tree top star decoration I made a start on a while back. It's perching on top of the Christmas tree quite miserably at the moment begging me to complete it's other points. I'll do that today so it'll sitting proud for Christmas day I think.

Birthday cake surprise

It was my Mum's birthday the other day so I decided to make her a cake as a surprise. We went to a nice restaurant for a meal where the waiter very tentatively gave her the cake being careful not to singe his eyebrows off. The fountain I bought to put on it was very impressive! As you can see in the photo, the flame was so high it went out of shot! The cake was a real labour of love. It took me a couple of hours to bake the cake itself and then all night for the decoration.

Luckily, Mum was out at a party so I didn't have to worry about her walking in. I started decorating at 7pm and just literally didn't stop till just gone midnight! As you can imagine I was very tired. But as much of a cliche as it sounds, it was worth it. I actually had to point out to Mum that I had made it because she thought that it was a restaurant cake! An what does the cake itself taste like...well, as my Dad put it, fabulous! Yay!!!

Bottle cap badges

This is my most recent crafty creation... well one that I can show you. I'm making Christmas presents but obviously I can't show you them until they have gone to the recipients. Don't want to give the surprises away now do I?

I've been wanting some badges for my guitar strap but in my search for them I found it to be very expensive in comparison to just making your own. I pondered into getting a little kiddies badge maker kit but held back on the basis that they might not be that reliable.

Thinking upon his mini conundrum, I suddenly had a brainwave. I know of people who can get hold of lots of bottle caps so why not make badges out of them?! Oh and by the way, these people aren't raging alcoholics, they just work in places that have bars!

Inside the caps are little MOO stickers which were the leftovers from my laptop sticker cover project. I then bought some brooch pins and super glued them on the back. Here they are on my guitar strap. I'll have to order some more stickers as I've run out. These were all the badges I could make to put on my strap so far.

It felt quite strange making something that only took a few minutes to do. I'm so used to things like knitting which take time to achieve the final results. These would be a perfect thing to make and sell. My brain is now whirring with the potential!

Cheeky Monkey

You probably don't want reminding but Christmas is on it's way. I thought that this year instead of buying my family presents, I would knit them all something. That's the plan anyway. I would be able to get on a lot faster if Jenna here didn't think she was a cat and start playing with the balls of wool. The scene in this video here is what met us when we came home one night. This hasn't been a one off event either. She seems to have an obsession with wool and I've caught her many a times. Every time she pulls a ball apart even if she's only had it for a minute, it takes (and I don't joke here) over an hour to unravel it all! This time took even longer as it was multiple balls all tangled together. I've become somewhat of an expert now and actually secretly enjoy the challenge of unraveling! It's like a puzzle. What was lucky about this time was that the knitting on the needles remained intact. Man I would have been cross if she had pulled that apart and I definitely wouldn't have seen the funny side like I have here let me tell you! I decided on this occasion to put it on video because the trail of destruction was vast. Also, you don't really know a huge amount about Jenna and this video really portrays her cheeky personality. Watch her ears twitch back and her eyes blinking innocently when I talk to her! Tut tut!

Chocolate truffles

And now it's time for a mouthwatering post. My twin sister and I made some chocolate truffles this evening. We drove over to Asda to buy some chocolate and ground almonds first though. I real sign of the times there actually. Ellen can drive now so there is no more having to wait till a parent is free to take us; if we want chocolate this evening then I'll be darn it, we will get chocolate! Oh what freedom...that is until we have to pay for the petrol. Speaking of driving, I'm now learning. I've had a few lessons now which are so far going quite well. Although having said that, I did have a lesson today after not being behind the wheel for a couple of weeks so I was a bit...rusty. Lets just say I found it rather amusing when panic crept into the voice of my instructor today! Anyway, back to the truffle making. They were really quick and easy to do and taste GoooD with a capital 'g' and 'd'. Ellen has warned me that when she's a student with no money, this will be what I get for a Christmas present which is fine by me! I love white chocolate so I've requested some of those. They really do make the best presents. If you put them in a pretty little box with packaging, it will look like a high class gift with little effort. What I really loved about truffle making though is that it's messy! Or that might just be because we made it unnecessarily so. I'm still finding choco powder on me even now!

So Amazing by Bekah Funning

I got my song recorded today! And yippee you can listen to it!

I found out a way you can put on audio tracks through my blog so here it is. It was quite simple really. All I had to do was make it into a movie/slideshow thing. I also designed a 'single cover' to go on it so you have something cool to look at whilst you're listening. It's of me recording the song complete with the same outfit I had on and everything.

I would just like to say a huge thank you to the worship leader of my church who put this whole backing track together for me to sing on. Great work!!

My song for church

This is a song that I wrote in mind for my church. I played in the services on Sunday which was pretty amazing! I'm not sure how many people were there exactly but it was in the hundreds. The performance went really well despite feeling naturally quite nervous. I have actually got a recording of it but because it's only an audio so I haven't been able to put it on the blog which is a shame.

I did however record this video in my room a few days before Sunday so at least you can have a listen to this. I haven't put this on until now because I didn't want anyone who goes to the church to hear the song before Sunday and I was then waiting for the audio recording which I thought would work.

I got a lot of really great response from people after Sunday. So much infact that I was the last one to leave the church! The plan now is to get it properly recorded which should be fun!

Laptop skyscrapers and top fours!

Firstly, let me just say a big well done to Bethan Funning who got into the top four of the young songwriters competition! How cool is that eh? The next stage now is that she's off to record her track which will then be available for downloads. The person who sells the most downloads over a period of time will be the eventual winner. Do you know what would be extremely cool?! If she managed to sell so many downloads that she made it to number one!! Lets try and make that happen!

And now on smaller scales, here's my skyscraper laptop. I made it on bonfire night so of course I had to stick on some fireworks! Rather handily, it's made using the only two colours of paper that I actually have; yellow and black. The yellow background has been stuck onto the laptop using double sided sticky tape. I then cut lots of squares out of the black paper and glued onto the yellow for the effective looking windows. Overall, not a bad couple of hours work and it's helped make my laptop look that extra bit more unique wouldn't you say?

Bethan Funning: Young songwriters competition finalist!

Regular viewers of my blog may recognise that name. She and I recorded the song Tip of the Tongue which we wrote together and recorded in video format to go on my blog. What has she been up to since then you wonder?! Well Bethan has reached the finals of a big competition where money raised from voting goes to Banardos. I know that she needs all the votes she can get and would so appreciate it if you could maybe vote for her to win.

Here's the link to the website where you can view the songs: http://www.young-songwriters.co.uk/

Her song is number 17 on the list entitled Spaceships and Moonbeams. I'm sure you'll agree when you've listened to the song that she's very talented! As I said, the money from the votes you cast goes to Banardos so it's all good. Think of it as your good deed for the day! You need to be fairly quick if you want to vote though as voting closes on the 6th November which funnily enough is Jenna's 1st birthday!

Good luck Bethan!!!

Look what Jenna picked up on our walk!

Some rather funny pictures to show you here!

Yes you are right in thinking; that is a dummy in Jenna's mouth!

We were just on our ordinary dog walk when I suddenly see a flash of green in Jenna's mouth.

"What has she got now?" I ask to my Dad.

I pull her head torwards me only to be greeted by this silly sight!

I tell no lies. This was how we found the dummy! She must have been walking like this for a few minutes too just holding it like this in her jaws. Can you imagine what that must have looked like to a passerby?!

We quickly snapped up these pictures before she eventually started chewing it up.

So funny! I don't think we could have made her do that if we tried.