I've been working on this one on and off for what feels like forever so I'm happy to finally be able to show it off!



Three different shades of green fibre that I got in a botany lap waste bag from world of wool. I believe that they are all merino. It ended up as 73g and 119m, Navajo plied, approximately DK weight. The colour changes are abrupt as I just switched between the different colours as I was spinning so it should produce distinct stripes when knitted up. I spun it while I was away visiting family so I got to educate a few people about the joys of spinning!

What squishy goodness does everyone else have to show off this week?

I haven't had time to do much spinning this week so this yarn is a work-in-progress.



Spun from a beautiful honey-coloured merino to approximately laceweight, 5p coin for size reference. It isn't perfect but it is definitely my most consistent yarn to date. I have some lilac and pale blue merino that I plan to spin to the same weight and ply with it. Fingers crossed that my first attempt at plying will be successful and I will soon have some stripy yarn!

What does everyone else have to show off this week?

Whee, I get to start this week!

This is my first batch of handspun that is actually long enough to consider knitting with!



100g of Corriedale, 98 metre single. I have named it Highlighter for obvious reasons! I cannot wait to start knitting with it.

What does everyone else have this week?

I received a cookie recipe book for Christmas and I knew on the first flick through that I absolutely had to make these cookies. They were quite simple to make but very time consuming!

Group shot:


One on its own:


The biscuit is just a standard dough with some almond extract and lemon zest for flavour. Some of them are decorated with hundreds and thousands and some with sugar strands. The 'stained glass' parts of the lollipops are made from crushed fruit drops which melted beautifully when cooked. The melted drops help to secure the sticks so you can pick them up with no problems.

I hope you enjoy them!

This was a Christmas present for one of my friends. She's very girly, loves pink and spends a lot of time baking so I made her a box of cupcake-themed presents!


I made a set of 5 cupcake notecards. The icing on the cakes is made from glittery cardstock that I love.


The box is made out of two sheets of A4 card. Very simple but I think it looks great with a fancy ribbon on it!


Group shot of everything before it was wrapped including a polymer clay pink pie charm bracelet, knitted cupcake and crafting supplies.

[You will need:]

At Starbucks here in the UK they sell these sweets called marshmallow twizzles which are basically marshmallows on a stick covered with chocolate. I kept craving them so I decided to try my hand and make my own. They were very simple to make though very unhealthy!

You will need:
A bag of marshmallows (the big soft, gooey kind)
A big block of chocolate
Skewers or sticks to put the marshmallows on
Kitchen foil
Sprinkles or maybe a contrasting colour of chocolate if you want to decorate them

Method:
Start off by sorting out your working area. I used two foil boxes (slim but long) placed next to each other with a gap a bit shorter than the length of my skewers in the middle. I then covered the boxes and the area in the middle with a single piece of foil. You can then place each skewer with one end on each box to allow the chocolate to set without getting squashed on one side.

Next you need to place your marshmallows on your skewers. I used four per skewer for mine.

Once this is done you need to melt your chocolate. I did it the easy way by breaking the block into chunks, putting them into a bowl and microwaving them but you could do it in a double boiler if you prefer.

Now comes the fun part: coating the marshmallows! I used a teaspoon to pour the chocolate over the marshmallows on each skewer as they were too big to dip but if you used a shallow dish you might be able to. Once each skewer was coated I placed it on my foil skewer rest and sprinkled the decorations over with one hand, rotating the skewer with the other to ensure that all of the chocolate was covered.

You then need to leave the chocolate to set. I transferred my skewers to the fridge once they were touch-set so that the chocolate hardened.

Finally eat them and enjoy!

I made these paper bird scenes for the handmade bird swap and I'm so pleased with how they turned out that I wanted to share them here!

I think this one is my favourite of the bunch:

His wings are made from flocked paper that had a lovely texture. He has googly eyes and his tummy is made from individual plastic gems that I had to glue and stick down.


I wasn't sure about the colour combination at first but this one has definitely grown on me. This bird also has a gem tummy and googly eyes. His wings are made from paper that had decorative stitching all over.


I think this bird took the longest to make out of all of them! His tummy is made of sequins that I stuck down individually and overlapped. His eyes are made from mini brads. The time consuming part was his wings! I hand drew the pattern on each 'feather' and each feather is actually an individual piece that I had cut out. They had to be stuck down so that they all fitted together correctly which was much more difficult than I had anticipated!


This bird has a little glass bead for his eye. His tail was a separate piece that I covered in fine glitter before attaching it to the rest of his body. His wing is made from a paper that had decorative stitching on and I also drew on it in silver and purple glitter pens to give it more pattern. His tummy is made from a shiny mesh.


My final bird was the most brightly coloured of the lot! Like the previous one, he has a bead eye and a separate glitter tail. His wing is made from scrapbook paper that I then stamped with green ink and coloured with gel pen as well as pearly translucent glitter glue, though that hasn't really shown up in the photo. His tummy is made from a metallic blue-green paper and I drew all of the orange stars on his body.

These are the individual bird pieces all together:


Each scene is made out of seven interlocking pieces: two side supports that the other pieces slot into, a background piece with trees on, 3 further pieces with trees that stand on their own and a final piece with the bird. This shot gives a better look at how they are constructed:



I covered the back of each bird with coloured paper to match their body so the scene looks nice from behind as well. The trees are made out of quilling paper which was incredibly time consuming and fiddly to cut but I think looks quite good.

I wanted to post the birds flat so that they didn't get damaged in the post and this gave me the opportunity to design some packaging. For each bird, I made a kind-of envelope that fitted nicely into the outer envelope. All of the pieces for each bird scene then sat one on top of the other inside.


The bird cage design on the front of each envelope is a single black piece of paper that I cut sections out of and then stuck down.


Phew! I hope you liked them. Comments are always appreciated!

Just before Christmas I watched the anime Azumanga Daioh with my boyfriend. He really wanted his own soft version of one of the characters, Chiyo's father, who is a cat-like creature. We couldn't find one to buy anywhere online, though, so I stepped up to the plate and made him one instead.



You can see a picture from the anime in the top right of my photo. I used it as a reference to draft the pattern for my soft version. He is made entirely of felt. The most time consuming part of the entire project was hand sewing his eyes and mouth to his head. He has no tail as his anime counterpart did not either!

I hope you like him!

I've seen lots of these nestlaces around on Craftster recently and decided I wanted one of my very own.


The 'eggs' are made from some beads I had saved a few years ago from a bracelet that broke. The nest itself is made from two different gauges of silver wire and the pendant is suspended from three strands of black elastic.

I fell in love with these long, sterling silver bugle beads that I found recently and these earrings were the first pieces of jewellery I made using them.


The chain and earring hooks are also made from sterling silver and the smaller, darker silver bugle beads are glass.

I hope you like them!

My mum dropped into conversation recently that what she'd really like for her birthday was some jewellery made by me, so after much agonising this is what I came up with.



Made entirely using sterling silver findings and Swarovski crystals.

I hope she likes them!