Make it: My Heart Belongs to You Necklace

With Valentines less than a week away I thought I would squeeze in a little jewellery DIY you can make before next week. This really sweet glass bottle necklace would be such a lovely accessory to wear on Valentines Day. 

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

Make it. Gamer Tag Hoodie

I don't know about you but I always struggle to find a really cool Valentines day gift for my Husband. Quite a lot of the Valentines DIY's I find are girlie and my Steve is definitely not girlie! I have also been wanting to do a tutorial with freezer paper for a while now, so I came up with the perfect DIY gift for the gamer guy or girl in your life, a gamer tag Hoodie.

You will need: a Hoodie or sweatshirt, Freezer paper, a pencil, a craft knife or small scissors, a sponge, fabric paint, a paint brush (not shown) and your gamer tag printed on paper.

For this tutorial I have used Dylon Fabric Paint, the colours in this range are quite thin and translucent, so I chose to start with a base of white (which is more opaque) and build up my colours on top. You can choose any colours you like, but bear in mind the colour of the hoodie you are decorating. 

I started off by printing off Steve's gamer tag from the computer, I messed around with size and fonts until I got one that I liked, be mindful that you are going to be making a stencil so if you have any loose middles like O's and D's that you will need to draw stems for them into your design. I laid the design on top of the hoodie to make sure it fitted in the space I wanted it to go and that the hood wouldn't cover it. Then I took a sheet of Freezer paper and placed it wax side down over the print out to trace the design through. Once I had traced the design I cut it out with a craft knife, you could use small scissors if it starts to get fragile.

When you have cut the whole design out you have your stencil. The joy of freezer paper is that it is waxed on one side so you can use an iron to temporarily stick it in place. Be careful to make sure all the small bits of your design are ironed down. Leave it to cool for a moment before you start to apply your paint. As it is waterproof I used another piece of freezer paper underneath where I was going to be painting, just in case any paint seeped through to the other side, and another piece for mixing my paint. It is very versatile stuff. Now you can take your sponge and gently press on your first layer of paint.

As I wanted a flame look to my design I waited for the first layer of paint to dry, then applied a thin layer of white at the top, then a layer of yellow blended into that and let it dry again for about 20 mins. After that I went in and mixed up some orange on that piece of freezer paper and sponged that over the bottom of the yellow. Finally, I went over the very bottom with some pure red paint. It wasn't looking strong enough with the sponge so I dabbed some on with a paint brush for a more intense colour at the base.

You need to let it dry for about two hours before running the iron over the whole design to set the paint so it won't wash out, and to loosen up the freezer paper before the fun part, pealing away the stencil!

I am so chuffed with how this turned out, and as you can see my Steve was pretty chuffed with his early Valentines gift (although I have taken it back to wrap it up for him to open on Valentines)

My favourite thing about using freezer paper as a stencil is the clean crisp lines you get on your designs and the flexibility of designs you can create, the possibilities are endless.

I chose Steve's Gamer tag because that's his thing, but you could easily use this technique to add a personal touch to a football top, hen party t-shirts or a nickname hoodie for yourself. Check out some more Valentines ideas in my post from last year.

What would you put on yours? We would love to see if you have a go at this. 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

Sammy xxx

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Make it: Ginger Biscuits

Last week I became a bit obsessed about making Ginger Biscuits!  I wanted to make something for a volunteer afternoon at work and so I decided on biscuits rather than cake and of course I had to have a dry run earlier in the week and so my colleagues got a very biscuit friendly week!

This was the recipe that Jane Horrocks recently used for The Great Sport Relief Bake Off and aparently Paul Hollywood's mum uses the same recipe, so it must be good!  I found the recipe on another blog: http://busybutterfingers.blogspot.co.uk/

They are so simple to make and you are most likely to have most of the ingredients already which is always a good start.  They do go hard really quickly, which I like, but you do have to have strong teeth or a good cuppa to dip them in!  I also added stem ginger to mine to make them extra Gingery, but you can leave out if you prefer.

Recipe

110g unsalted butter

110g brown sugar

110g golden syrup

225g self-raising flour

2 tsp ground ginger
50g Stem Ginger

Instructions

1.  Preheat oven to 180*C and grease baking sheets.

2.  Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan gently until all melted together.

3.  Remove from the heat and add the dry ingredients to make a dough.

4.  Make into balls about a 50p size – do not flatten.

5.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

6.  Allow to cool and try not to eat them all!

If you try them out, let me know.  I also made some chocolate chip versions with a smaller amount of golden syrup and they seemed to stay softer for longer.  So do play around with the recipe and let me know what you get up to!

H

Come Craft with us at Norden Farm

We are running our two last workshops with Norden Farm Arts Centre in March and April. We have had such a lovely time teaching there, but it is time for us to concentrate on some other projects. So if you want to come and join us before we go, check out the links below for booking.

Make it: Your Name Bunting

Thursday 27 March 

Make it: Your Name Bunting - £20.00

All Materials Supplied.

Come along and rummage through our fabric stash to create your own personalised bunting using hand sewing techniques. Depending on the name you choose you may not finish within the session but you will be well on your way before you leave.

Book Here

Make it: Jewellery 101

Thursday 24 April

Make it: Jewellery 101

All Materials Supplied.

Always wanted to make your own jewellery or repair a beloved necklace? Join us for a starter session teaching you some basic jewellery techniques to make a pair of earrings and a bracelet from scratch.  

Book Here

We look forward to seeing you there.

H and Sammy xxx

Pretty Nostalgic 'Live by our Motto' feature

If you have never heard of Pretty Nostalgic magazine, you are missing out! We were asked last November to contribute our thoughts to a feature for the new year and we finally managed to get a hold of a copy and check out what else the issue had to offer. 

The magazine is available to buy from their website and a limited number (growing) of independent retailers. Their website is really lovely too, we spent some time looking around it whilst waiting for our issue to arrive (which it did very quickly). 

We were asked to way-in on the subjects 'Spend wisely, Waste less, Appreciate more' that make up Pretty Nostalgic's motto. We could have spoken about this all day but we managed to get our points across in three small paragraphs which have all been featured in the six page spread, along with other bloggers, writers and readers of the magazine.

There are some really lovely articles, as well as the one we are in, in this edition. Particularly one about British shoe makers and Nicole Burnett talking about her love of repaired objects and the sad loss of making do and mending simple household goods.

If you like vintage for the history, not just the fashion factor and like seeing real artisans at work whilst being enchanted by beautiful photography, take some time out to get a copy. Then sit down on a Sunday afternoon with a big cup of tea and enjoy.

H and Sammy xxx


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