Everyone knows that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. This is often quite literally true; however, beautiful covers do entice. I often find myself, having spied a pretty book on the train being read by someone else, making a concerted effort to find that book, and indeed that particular beautifully bound edition.
The first cover I’m featuring is one that I indeed spied on an early morning train journey; I could not take my eyes off the cover or fail to be intrigued by the title.
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, Faber & Faber edition, has a well laid out cover featuring an exquisite illustration:
This book is definitely worth a read in my opinion. I found it quite hard to keep on going while I was reading it; but whenever I wasn’t reading it, I found I was constantly thinking about it.
Holly Cupcakes has to be one of the cutest cake supply sites I’ve come across. Not only can you buy all the usuals from here, such as cupcake cases, baking equipment and that all important edible glitter, Holly Cupcakes also offers a brilliant range of edible cake decorations.
Surely I need some Fairy Princess ones? This one needs to be on my cupcakes!
Everything just looks so very pretty- and cupcakes were made to be pretty. Well, that and to taste good, of course. There are also these delightful cupcake decorating kits, of which my favourite is the pirate one. Or the dinosaur. No- pirate. You get a recipe, cases, glitter and edible deocrations, all in a lovely box.
It’s a bit late now, I know; but I didn’t get round to making these until after Christmas and I simply couldn’t wait until next year to do them.
My mother-in-law gave me these adorable edible decorations from Holly Cupcakes, a website that shall be thoroughly investigated very soon.
The cupcake recipe I used was a very basic one. I got some tips from the Queen of Cupcake Corner, who said recipes with milk usually turned out nice and light. Here it is (makes 12):
150g butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
150g self raising flour
2-3 tbsp milk
First, cream the butter and the sugar. Make sure the butter is nice and soft before you begin. I usually do this by hand, but as I was at my parents I used their food processor- so much quicker!
Next, beat in the eggs. I was told you need to do this for a long time, which is much easier with a food processor- it got the mixture really really smooth.
Then fold in the flour carefully, making sure you don’t over mix it. Add a little milk to make it dropping consistency, then fill your cases. As I wanted poofy tops for my reindeer, I filled some up more than others. Bake at 180 degrees C for about 20 mins. They turned out pretty good!
To ice them, I made a batch of butter icing; 6oz of icing suger, 3oz of butter. I know, I used grammes before, but I’m not fussy, I just use whatever recipe I like the look of! I replaced just under 1oz of icing sugar with 1oz of cocoa powder, to make a vaguely reindeer coloured icing. Not having anything else, I just smoothed this on with a knife.
After that it was just a case of decorating! I used some red icing to do the noses, but you could use lots of things: chocolate peanuts or raisins, cherries, cranberries…
Having had a look in a few shops for little gift boxes to put my handmade chocolates in, I found myself disenchanted with the ones on offer. So of course I decided to make my own!
There are quite a few simple boxes that can be made out of paper/thin card; I opted for this box of triangles. I chose one without a lid, so the chocolates can be on display, looking fancy.
This one really is very simple and also very effective- just a bit different from your average cuboid!
You’ll need three squares of paper/thin card, all the same size. I know this is obvious, but do think about the size of box you need! I used 3″x3″ squares. It turned out too small; I forgot I had 8 chocolates to fit in. 6″x6″ was perfect.
Firstly, fold your first piece of paper in half from corner to corner, creasing firmly with a bone folder/thumb nail/scissor handles/similar.
Next up, fold the two corners in to the centre point. Crease firmly and unfold.
Lastly, fold up the middle point, crease firmly, unfold. You should be left with a triangle with three fold marks, like this:
Repeat with the other two squares, so you have three the same. Then slot them all together…
…and then join them up. At this stage, it should become obvious how it all fits together and the bottom forms.
A nicely wrapped present is a happy present. I like to make a thing of present wrapping, get everything ready, stick a festive film on and do it all in one go.
Here are my hints and tips.
Firstly, get everything you’ll need all in one place and within reach. Then you don’t have to keep getting up to fetch things. On my list are scissors, tape (with lots of pre-cut bits stuck around), ribbon, tags, old cards to make tags from, and of course wrapping paper.
Next, a very important point- make sure you’ve taken any price labels off!
Now to wrapping. Try not to use gift tags that are a similar pattern or colour to your paper; they’ll just get lost. You can cut pictures or shapes out of old cards to make fancy tags- just be careful when sticking them on. For instance, in the picture below, you can’t lift the star tag up to read the label. Error. The bauble is fine.
When it comes to ribbon, I like to keep it simple but (hopefully) effective. Start with the ribbon on the side where you want the bow to be, twist it round at the back, then bring it round across the other way to tie:
One last tip: be wary of fancy brown paper wrap. I got this from Paperchase last year (I love you for everything but this, Paperchase!) and it is mighty pretty but tape just does not stick to it. In the end I have to plaster it on then disguise with a huge bow. Which I actually really love.
‘Lego Bricks And Paper’ is all I needed to read on the Muji website for me to be intrigued. Basically, I think you get a special puncher thing and punch holes in the paper, then Lego brick it up…
Cool, huh? You can pick up a Christmas one for £19. I love.
I pretty much love everything in Muji; it’s all so simple. The toys are plain, delightful wooden affairs. Among my favourites are the horses merry-go-round and these slightly disturbing animal puzzles, which teach children the food chain… by showing different animals inside each other, according to what eats what.
Whatever, they’re simple, colourful, fun and have a lovely homemade feel!
No room for a Christmas tree? Reluctant to opt for an artificial one? How about this wooden one from Muji?Completely festive, completely reusable- and you can hang the decorations where you like, meaning you can still feel like you’re decorating and personalising your tree. Winner.
Well. Erm. So… yeah. It was a bit poor. However, it was the general consensus amongst all the stall holders that it was a particular naff fair, no one was buying or indeed looking, and exhibitors weren’t making money. Good to know it wasn’t just us amateurs!
As the craft fair is next Sunday, last weekend I took a few extra days so I could prepare without panicking. I set up a little ‘activity centre’, as my husband called it, and got to work. Basically I spent 4 days surrounded by bits of paper, card, envelopes, inks, pens, more paper, there was a ruler there somewhere (never to be found when needed), some silver thread, stamps and stencils, paint, and good old PVA glue.
I reckon I made good headway though, mostly my stock for the Christmas Craft Fair is done!
I’ve been busy busy folding and sticking this week.
These origami candy canes are simple to do and I think they look great. You start with a sheet of 2-colour origami paper, blank side up. Fold, crease and uncrease corner to corner, both ways, so you end up with this:
I’m afraid I’m using my old camera; aside from it not being very good, I keep putting it on the wrong settings!
Step 2. Fold the bottom corner up to a little way below the top point, like this:
Next, turn the paper over and fold up from the bottom… like this!
Then all you have to do is fold the top bit twice to make the hooky bit at the end:
Press the creases reeeeally well, so it sits as flat as possible.
