Makers Month: DIY Colour Block Tray with Claireabellemakes

We are finishing up Makers Month in style with a beautiful DIY from our best blogging buddy Claireabellemakes.  She has a pretty and practical tray tutorial, any excuse for afternoon tea!  Take it away Claire. 

Make it: Banana and Oat Bites

It's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK and I am having a bit of a rest day - It's been a busy summer so far and so it is well needed.  Usually this means I like to bake at some point and so I thought I would give these Banana and Oat Bites a go that I found in the Sainsbury's Magazine - plus they so so simple to make.

You will need:
Mash 2 ripe Bananas
60g Porridge Oats
30g Apple sauce
1tsp Ground Cinnamon

Put your oven onto 180C, if it's a fan oven put it to 160C or Gas mark 4.  Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mash up the banana until it's all mixed together.  This will only make a small batch of about 8 and so if you need more you can scale up the mixture for your desired amount.

Then add desert spoon sized blobs onto a baking sheet and pop into the oven for 18-20 minutes until golden.

Take them out and wait for them to cool a little and then devour!  When they first come out of the oven they are crunchy on the top but when they have cooled completely they are a bit more chewy.  Let's face it they are not the same as having a big old cookie, but they are pretty good (as long as you like bananas) and a healthier version too.

They also go brilliantly with a cup of tea - with the looks of this weather, I think it's a day for cosy food and warm tea!

Have a great Monday, whether you are on a Bank Holiday or not.
H

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Make it. Mothers day Tea Bags

It is Mothers day here in the UK on Sunday, so what do you do for the Mum who has everything? Why you make her some DIY heart shaped Peppermint teabags of course! I have been dying to try my hand at these since I saw something similar on Pinterest and my Mum's new love of peppermint tea was a great excuse. Of course you can use any flavour of tea to make these and make them in any shape you like too.

You will need: Coffee filters, Peppermint teabags, cotton thread, pretty string, scissors, fancy hole punch, a sewing machine and some stickers.

Start by emptying a teabag onto some paper, I used a spare coffee filter. Draw your heart shape around the pile of loose tea, leaving some space for movement. Pop the tea back in the bag and cut out your template. Use the template and draw around it onto your coffee filter.

Once you have drawn out all your hearts pin a second filter to the back of the first. Take your filters to the sewing machine and stitch around your heart shapes, just inside the line you have drawn, leaving a gap to fill the bags. As you have finished each bag take the thread ends and tie knots in each end then snip away the excess. It gets messy if you leave all the threads until the end. When you have stitched around all of your bags cut around the pencil line.

Go to the opening in your bag and tip in the contents of the original teabag. Next take your string and tie three knots over each other in one end, and pop it into the opening of your bag. Take your teabag back to the machine and stitch it closed.

Fetch a cup and pop the teabag in and measure how long you would like the string to be on the side of the mug and snip it to size. Get out a pretty hole punch, or a pair of scissors and cut your stickers into a cute shape. I used some small rubber stamps to decorate some plain stickers with little phrases. Take two of the stickers and pop them back to back over the end of the string to make the tag.

I made up some with kraft stickers as tags to mix in with the phrase ones, I love the combination of the white, kraft and pink. Perfect for Mothers day or for a tea lovers birthday. I am giving these to my Mum in this little mug, I'm going to wrap it in cellophane and add a matching gift tag. (I will also give her the rest of the original box of tea bags, so they don't go to waste). Why not add a box of your Mum's favourite biscuits to the parcel for a real tea time treat.

What DIY's are you having a go at this weekend as a gift for your Mum? Or just for fun?

Sammy xxx


We would love to see if you have a go at these. Like with all our DIY's if you do, take a photo and share it with us on Twitter or instagram with the hashtag #livelovemake

Live it: Biscuiteers Biscuit Boutique and Icing Cafe

We do love an adventure - you may have noticed, and so when we got the chance to go to Notting Hill recently we took the opportunity to visit Biscuiteers, the biscuit boutique and Icing Cafe.  This lovely little place is just off Portabello Road, pretty much opposite an Oliver Bonas and so for us, it was the perfect place to have a cuppa and a biscuit of course!

Aside from the gorgeous illustrated exterior when you walk into the shop there is a large array of biscuits and cake themed goodies.  It was a mission just to decide what to look at first!

They have a beautiful display of treats to buy, from Biscuit tins to sweets to Iced Gingerbread men and of course they have a huge collection of their signature decorated themed biscuits in tins, from 'Paris' through to 'Gardening', something for everyone.  If you can't make it down to the cafe you won't miss out, you can buy them online and get them sent direct, wouldn't they make a great gift! We loved (and bought) The gingerbread men or 'Jolly Gingers' as they are known, iced in characters from Batman to a fireman, they make a brilliant treat for anyone, young or old.  They come in the cutest presentation box, illustrated just like the shop front.

At the back of the shop there is a little seating area where you can have a sit down with a cuppa and a biscuit (or cake) from the selection in the old haberdashery display cabinet.  It's a nice cosy area that is more of a quick stop-off than a sitting down for the afternoon kind of place.  Although we did stay for a while!  Our friend Becky works at the shop and so it was a great chance to sit and have a catch-up with her over a lovely cup of tea.

Down stairs is the Icing cafe where you can book in for their Icing classes or just drop-in and ice 3 biscuits for a mere £15.  It's just a case of getting them home before eating them, so you can show off you skills to your friends...  But that's what Instagram is for, right?!!

You can also buy lots of icing supplies, so if you catch the biscuit bug you can carry on at home.

How amazing is this giant biscuit iced to look like the store! Becky told us it was made for a window display which included iced biscuits of all the shops on the street, I wonder who got to eat the rest?

Going back to our lovely friend Becky who works for the Biscuiteers, she has just done this little tutorial on You Tube for Icing your own biscuits this Valentines Day, so cool.  She has such a steady hand and makes it look so easy, I'm not sure ours would look that good! We can't wait to go back and have a try ourselves. 

We had a lovely time checking out the Biscuiteers venue and will definitely be back as we have to try all the different biscuits and do some Icing of course!

H & Sammy

Declutter your Life - Part One

Those who already know me well, will know that I like to have an organised space and love a de-clutter.  I do believe in tidy space, tidy mind - which I know conflicts with my creative side, but I guess there has to be an organised creative amongst us!  I have even been known to help others with their sorting too - its like I have a compulsion to sort!  This picture definitely represents my food cupboard!

I thought it would be a good idea to share a few of my tips for having a good old declutter as the weather is getting warmer and that means that we always like to have a sort out of all the winter clothes, so that we can make room for next year!  I know there have been a few of these posts around on blogs from Mrs Thrifty and Without Dash, but I think there is always room for my little clean-up operation!

Some people - who have much more space than my rented flat can spare - can put away all their winter clothes and get all their spring/summer clothes about now.  I am afraid I am all about the layering up in winter and keeping it simple in summer and so my wardrobe just has the same stuff in it all the time mostly.

Now for the fun part.  I always do a declutter in stages as I feel that if you have to be ruthless it can only be for a short time, otherwise your resolve tends to fade.  I have split up some stages so that you can use them as a guide, but by no means is this how it definitely should be done.

Wardrobe

• Firstly, drag out all the winter clothes as these (hopefully) are not going to be needed till next year now so what's the point in them lounging in your wardrobe when they could be gone.  Some of the following will apply to these items.
• Anything that is too short in the body or sleeves needs to just go as who needs clothes that don't fit.
• Items that when you put them on, your just not sure you really like them - they should go, because your never really going to like them.
• Anything with holes in it or that has faded to within an inch of itself should either go or be relegated to the sleepwear pile.  I have plenty of old t-shirts to sleep in, so a cull of these every now and then needs to happen too.
• Things which haven't been worn this winter or the last really should go too, unless of course they are classics - but then if you haven't worn them for a while, will you ever wear them?
• You can even go through your underwear drawer - anything that doesn't fit anymore as you may have lost weight! yey, or perhaps just things that have lingered in the drawer a bit too long!

You can then go through all your other clothes and see if there is anything else that fits the above criteria, as we all know we are going to buy more clothes for spring/summer, so why not make a little extra room.  There may well be things you loved last year, but are now, well just not really working for you.

Jewellery

• I love my jewellery and being allergic to Nickel means that its either real silver or plastic/wood in my stash as even the nickel-free stuff doesn't cut it.  So I buy fashion jewellery and then change the ear posts to sterling silver - easy!
• When I was first getting into wearing colour, I used to buy lots of colourful dangly earrings to get my colour fix.  I don't tend to wear them very much now and so I thought it was time for a bit of a cull.
• This is always the toughest part of decluttering for me as they are small bits, I always have that 'what if I need it' phrase ringing around in my head.
• I start with pulling everything out and working out when I last wore them and whether they are something special I should keep - presents etc.
• Then, the rest must go as they say - but I have a plan for them, so hang on to them for now!

Bags

• For this, I get to use Sammy as a proper example.  She has ALOT of bags and a cull was definitely needed as they couldn't even fit into a cupboard anymore. (The pic is some of my stash)
• We all like to have bags for different occasions, but after a while you just can't see them for the amount you have and then you just use the ones you have most recently bought.
• Sort them out into colours or types of bag, clutch, shoulder bags, satchel etc.
• Then go through and see what you haven't used for a while, can you actually fit everything you need into it or is it broken?
• You can then start to get rid of those other bags that are pretty similar to each other, I mean how many black  clutch bags does one girl need!?
• You can keep the presents or special ones as sometimes having a bag that is tied to many memories is just what you need.

Phew, after all that you will probably need a good cup of tea and a slice of cake - well, why not!

If your really feeling brave, you could even start on your shoe cupboard - all rules apply!

Check out Part Two next Thursday for ideas of what to do with all this clutter you have sorted through. Don't miss it!

H 

P.S.  If you feel you need a bit more help, I can always come around!  ha, ha

Live it: A fun Craft Day

With our Christmas break we decided to have a little craft day as it is becoming a new tradition for me and Sammy.  We have been friends now for over 14 years and so we love to hang out and get creative just as much as we like to enjoy events and doing this very lovely blog.  Sometimes we have to stop ourselves and actually hang out like normal friends, which has been one of the perks of the recent Christmas and New Year break, lots of time to do that!  yey

We have a few tutorials coming up for you with what we did so we don't want to give too much away, but we thought you might see a little of what we get up to when left to our own devices!  Sammy's poor husband must think I live there sometimes!

Firstly we started with sandwiches and cake, afternoon tea style!  Sammy made a selection which were delish and if you know us by now, we like eating just as much as we like being creative!  I think we were meant to tuck into these all afternoon but they were mostly finished before we even got started!

Then onto a bit of creating, we got a few projects under our belt which we have been meaning to do for ages!  Some snap purses that neither of us have done before and a Kindle case for H's mum's Christmas Present based on one that Sammy had done previously - watch out for the tutorial for that.  

Then there was various chatting, more tea and a bit of needle felting.  I am afraid neither of us really took to this, but I have seen some really good needle felted goodies.  I just think that maybe it's not the craft for us, after all not all crafts are for everyone.  Even we can't love everything, although we do try!

So what did you get up to for your Christmas and New Year break?  Did you get up to any new crafts or just crafts you know and love?  It would be great to hear what you got up to, so please comment below and say hello if you haven't before.

H & Sammy