Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I am in the middle of my GCSE exams. Things are very hectic and quite stressful at the moment but hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be back up and posting some awesome crafty stuff for you.
Enjoy the summer so far, lets hope it stays fairly warm!
Love Ellie x
Sasha doing her best Michael Jackson impression
Hello!
Sorry I haven’t posted for two weeks, I have been super busy! I took completed the Silver Duke of Edinburgh Expedition on Red Nose Day; which involved walking continuously for three days. Then on the Monday I played piano in the Midsomerset Festival and won first prize in the grade five class! I took an IT exam last Friday (I failed the last one) and have spent this week, the easter holidays, helping my grandma clear out her loft, visited the Tower of London, doing revision and packing to go to Lyme Regis tomorrow. Excited!
If anyone wanted to know my life story, there you go…
A few pics from the weekend:
One of the many gorgeous views
The rest of the team chilling
To repay you for the missed posts, here are two biscuit recipes that are deliciously easy to make (see what I did there)
Easter Biscuits
275g Plain Flour
200g Butter
150g Sugar
1 Egg
6 drops of Cassia Oil (optional)
50g Currants
Preheat the oven to 160°c
Mix all of the ingredients together to form a dough (only use the egg yolk)
Roll out the dough and cut out the biscuits; you could stick to traditional circles or use cute bunny shapes to get into a real eastery mood.
Place the cut shapes onto some baking parchment and place in the oven for 10 minutes.
Remove when still pale, brush with the egg white and sprinkle sugar over the top. Return to the oven for another 10 minutes or when beginning to turn golden at the edges.
Ginger Biscuits
100g Self Raising Flour
25g Sugar
50g Butter
2 Tbsp Golden Syrup
1/2 Tsp Ginger or Mixed Spice
1 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
Preheat the oven to 180°c
Sieve out the flour into a bowl, then mix in all the dry ingredients.
Work in the butter using your hands until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Then mix in the golden syrup until it forms a dough. If the dough is too wet, add more flour. Too dry and add more syrup.
Make balls of dough teaspoon sized and place them on a piece of baking parchment. Squash slightly with the back of a spoon.
Cook until golden-brown, be careful as they burn very easily (evidence in the photograph below)
Enjoy these Easter treats and an egg hunt is definitely compulsory on Sunday.
Ellie xx
This is a super quick super easy method to make a Bow Tie from a piece of scrap fabric.
First, start by finding some fabric which is roughly 4″ by 9″
Then, fold up the two longer sides to meet in the middle and pin them there.
Next, fold in the other two sides to the centre and pin them.
Then sew the two folded in sides together, it doesn’t matter if it’s a little messy.
Now find some scrap material and tie it round the centre of the sewn fabric. Finished!
I have a thing about beads and sparkly things at the moment so I decided to embellish the Bow Tie with some beads!
Some people say second hand is second best; but I know that this isn’t true. The majority of my wardrobe is made up of vintage, charity shop, jumble sale and hand me down clothes, and these are some of the best made clothes I have and wear most often. And it’s not just me. Here are a few of the items that are second hand in my wardrobe:
My mum found this blouse when we were sorting through the Scout jumble (my brother’s a scout). The shirt itself is very old but absolutely adorable. Jumble Sales are brilliant as they are full of surprises (there are very odd items sometimes) and any profit usually goes to a funding for a local group or charity.
These chinos were also bought at the same jumble sale; the label is Mulberry- they produce really expensive bags and other items- so I dread to know how much the trousers originally cost (crazy money probably).
This gorgeous dress was given to me by my grandmother and used to be my aunts. I wore it last christmas and it felt absolutely lovely- I doubt I would have found something this perfect in the shops.
The Next denim jacket and the Topshop harem pants were both charity shop finds. The two benefits of Charity shop purchases are: the money goes to charity and the prices are relatively low. Also, the good thing now is that some charities are recognising designer labels and charging more for them- some have even launched special vintage/designer charity shops; find more information here.
The checkered shirt (originally topman), leather bag and Winnie the Pooh jumper all belonged to my mum; she’s not really the sort of person to wear these things anymore but I wear/use them all the time. They fill their purpose and its unlikely that anyone else will have the same.
So overall, buying or finding second hand items are:
Easier on the pocket
More likely to fund good causes
Be more unusual
Ellie xx
Ingredients
Eggs
Flour
Butter/margarine
Sugar
Method
Firstly, weigh the eggs. Then weigh out the same amount for each of the other ingredients
Mix together the butter and the sugar (using an electric whisk)
Whisk the eggs together (preferably using a fork)
Then slowly mix the eggs in to the mixture of sugar and butter, bit by bit (using an electric whisk). And then fold in the flour to the mixture using a spoon (to keep the air in the mixture)
Then place into two baking tins, and cook at 180°c until golden brown.
Add jam between the two cake pieces when cooked.
I thought that these looked quite cute and sweet, and could liven up valentines day a tad…
Find a strip of paper
Fold it diagonally
Then sideways
Then diagonally again
Repeat until the paper is wrapped 5 or 6 times
Leave a small amount of paper at the end and fold the corner in (so that the paper slots in easier)
Slot the paper into the open slot
The paper should now look like a tightly wrapped triangle
Cut the two equal corners off the triangle to that it looks more curved
Press down in the middle with your thumb and push the two curved corners together and the heart should inflate.
I went on a trip into Bath today as part of my mum’s birthday; we had a meal in Giraffe and then went shopping round the city. I found the last pair of Chelsea boots and luckily they were in my size! I’m looking forward to wearing them; I’ve been looking for a decent pair for weeks. We also had a chance to get some Barry M magnetic “nail paint”. I’m so excited!
