Hooray, my first post on the papercrafts board!

My sweetie and I celebrated our first anniversary a couple of weeks ago, and I've been really inspired by all the matchbox shrines I've seen around here lately. I made a large matchbox that slides sideways rather than up, so that he can display our little shrine on a shelf. (I also crocheted the pears, which are about 2cm wide and 3cm tall, because he goes crazy for anything I bake involving pears ) I hope you like, I've already got ideas for the next one!

I wanted to crochet a monkey for my niece's birthday, but I couldn't find a pattern I liked so I winged it. When he was finished I wasn't sure if he looked enough like a monkey, so I didn't give him to my niece, but happily my boyfriend volunteered to name him and take him off my hands.

Here he is (sorry for slightly blurry pic):

Hello all, I just wanted to share the gifts I made for my boyfriend and my best friend this year.


I made a "50 things I love about you" book for my boyfriend, cut out of cardstock in all the colours of the rainbow.


And the front:


I knitted a scarf for my best friend:


And made a heart brooch to go on the front of her card:


Thanks for looking!

EDIT: Oops, I have completely forgotten how to insert pics in a post...will fix shortly...
EDIT: Pictures fixed....I hope....

So at a knitting and stitching show ages ago I bought some gorgeous yarn (can't find the ball band atm so I can't tell you what it was called). For ages it sat in my stash, and then last month it shouted at me "mittens!!!". So while I was visiting my dear old Nan in hospital (don't worry, she's out now) I made them, and all the ladies in my nan's ward loved them!



I love the fact that they're not symmetrical. The only thing I'm upset about is that when I wear them, the seams go round to the back. I think I need to undo the seams and put a little more give in...


And they're super long!

So....I made the half-pipe hat for my best (girl) friend....and I covered it in buttons! She loved it...and I kind of wanted to keep it for myself once I'd finished it!




Slightly sucky picture, but hey, my skillz are knitting, not photography!


Pic from behind, a bit blurry but shows off the lovely turquoise button!

I made the brim from a few layers of cereal box cardboard glued together and then covered with sticky-back plastic. You have to shape it a little when you put it on, but other than that it looks pretty good.

After being inspired by coloured cakes on here, I decided to make some green ones!

I made apple cupcakes using a recipe from The Cupcake Book by Susanna Lee.


Here is the very sexy green cake mixture. Looks scrumptious, hmm?


Cakes a-cooling. The front ones are from my second batch, which turned out much greener cuz I put foil over them so the tops didn't brown.


After the first phase of icing...They actually turned out more of a dark pink colour...damn pictures taunting me with the colours I wanted!!



All iced up and ready to go. This part took ages. First I drew the outline of the apple with green icing through a thin piping nozzle, then filled it in with a tiny bit of icing squished (technical term there) and spread out.

I can't bear to eat them yet, so I'll post an action shot once my flatmate gets home!