Experimenting with Brass.....

Brass Cuff with Copper fastening

Where do I start? Firstly it’s been a while since I last blogged - how sad! I have been preoccupied with my new home to say the least. You know how it goes; lots of projects on the go, and you keep taking pictures thinking ‘I'll post it later’ however later seems to have been well over a year ago.......

Brass Cuff with Copper fastening

Anyway ........At Silver I have been playing around with brass instead of silver. My inspiration for this came from fixing my friend’s bracelet – It’s a gorgeous bracelet that was her Grandmother’s. To say the least Brass is less malleable than silver but I love the colour of it. You could say that I'm going through a bit of a brass phase, and this is the second bracelet I have made.

Brass Cuff with copper fastening

When I was doing my designs I thought this would be as simple as it looks, but noooo. The shape and cutting of the brass was fine, but as you can see from the picture, creating the curved brass that holds the copper clasp was always going to fight me. But I won - yay me!. There was something about this bracelet that made me want to take the time to write a new blog.

Crochet felt

There is a local fabric shop called the Eternal Maker, when it first opened I spent too much time exploring all of its nucks and crannies (I still spend to much time there - its almost home, such lovely fabrics and bits and bobs there uses just wating to be explored oooooooh).  One of the things I found was pure wool embroidery thread. This gave me the idea of crocheting with it and using the washing machine to make felted flowers. These little flowers have been carried around in my tool box for the past months.  I had thought of making jewellery with them, I then thought of brooches amougst many other ideas. I feared that they where going to end up as one of those started and not finished crafty journeys. Well they have finally been released from there captivity. Guess what I made........

Star Wars

A lovely Starwars card for my nephews birthday. The background felt is handmade and the black bold letters are cutout of shop brought felt, mainly so that the letters had a precise outline. When he opening the card (he's 4) he hummed the music that you associate with Darth Vader, should I worry now or later!?

Strawberry Shortcake

Another Be-Ro recipe from my new book. I love homemade shortbread it has to be homemade it! tastes so much nicer than the brought ones. That lovely crumbly creamy texture, ummm oh so nice. Shortbread are my second favorite biscuits Gingerbread are my first so its very apt I feel that I make this my second recipe and Gingerbread my first. I like order!

 Here is my Dad's presentation skills in action! nicely done Sir. The biscuits were lovely I feel that this will be a recipe that I will be making over and over, quick simple and yummy.

Wish there where some left looking at these pictures is making me crave shortbread......

New Years resolution!

This year I plan on making my own bread and trying not to buy any!. It tastes so much nicer than store brought bread and its something I always wish I had time for, so back in January this was the first loaf I made. I followed a recipe that my Dad has perfected (he's the bread baker in the family so I though I would use some of his skills).

Bread

It was yummy, I don't tend to eat lots of bread so when I do it's a treat, which is another reason I thought this year is going to be the year of homemade bread. The recipe worked well, it rise well, I think I needed to add more salt though. But hay not bad for the my first attempt.

In February my friend lent me her Paul Hollywood Bread book and these where my roasted garlic Petit Pains, these where gorgeous and will be a regular home bake in my house, yum!

The roasted garlic adds a lovely smoky garlic flavour to the bread and goes amazingly with a plain tomatoes sauce and fresh pasta. 

My next endeavor was crumpets, I have always wanted to try making my own. And they where fun to make, the way the batter bubbles when you fry then was very interesting to watch. I only wish I had bought more than four crumpet rings as it was time consuming cooking them in batches of four. 

This is my breafast the next day they where scrummy with butter and honey. 

These where again from the Paul Hollywood book (I think I may be working my way through it!). Stilton bread, the recipe had bacon in but due to my vegetarianism I left the carnivorous element out of the mix. Again these where soooo nice, lovely on there own with butter. Though I eat most of them with tomato and basil soup. I discovered that after a few days they made scrumptious croutons, the melted Stilton inside was to die for and a great combo with soup. 

                                     This is just the beginning there is more to come .......

oooh look what came through the post......

This is so exciting....

When I set up my blog 3 years ago I set out to work my way through the Be-Ro cook book that I grew up with. This is something I am still doing (its a slow process) so you can imagine my delight when this came through my door, a new Be-Ro cook book .

Well what shall I make first! well my favorite biscuit is ginger bread men, in my old Be-Ro book this traditional recipe is lacking, though in my new book it isn't. So this was an easy decision......

And hay presto! yummy gingerbread men. My first recipe from my new Be-Ro cook book.

Mothers day card

I know its a bit late! well the card arrived late to as I forgot to post it before I went on holiday, so this year my Mum got a belated card and a picture of it on the day. Oh well, she still loves me!

I have been working on a bit of a theme recently with layering fabrics, so I decided to stick with this and cut out some letters from bought felt as it stays together better than the hand felt I make. I then sawed them on to different fabrics and then on to a bigger bit of handmade felt.