North Pole Snow

Another day ticked off our advent calendar… (Actually in our case it’s another chocolate for Shannon from her little “Advent house” and another tiny Lego goodie to build for Reece from his Star Wars Lego Advent calendar) :0)

I promised the recipe for the North Pole Snow (sherbet) I made to go along with the Reindeer lollipops yesterday.

North Pole Snow (sherbet Christmas treats)

• 1 cup of icing sugar
• around 1/4 teaspoon citric acid * (or to taste – a little at a time. I added the citric acid to taste when I made mine as I made a lot for the market)

Mix together well.

*Citric acid is available at supermarkets/ baking supply shops.

*Here’s the printable label I made:

click on label for downloadable A4 printable sheet

• Print out the label sheet onto A4 cardstock, cut out the labels.
• Glue each label onto the front of a small zip-lock bag with a glue gun.
• Fill the bag with the North Pole Snow and delight tiny people with a bag of snow and a reindeer lollipop. The kids love dipping the lollipops in the sherbet!

I also made a few Christmas trees with this design from the Silhouette Online store. They are really cute and easy to make – especially once my Silhouette had cut them out for me.

Each tree had a bag of the North Pole Snow inside and instead of gluing the label to the bag, I attached it as a tag to the top of the tree at the closure.

PS: I can’t guarantee your entire kitchen won’t be covered in fine sticky ‘snow’ – especially if there are little people involved in making these!

TIP : To assist in getting the snow into the bags, I used a small funnel – much easier (and less messy) than using a spoon.

My little entrepreneur selling at the Christmas market at school :

 

*I cannot recall where I got the little snowman image from. I coloured it myself, but the design is not my own. If it is yours , please do let me know so that I can provide credit to you. Or, if you would rather I do not use it here in my free label printable, please advise.

December!

I know, I haven’t blogged for ages, but November passed by in a flash!

This past month consisted of hot sunny days mixed together with a whole lot of school exams, a splash of school Christmas market day, and a good dollop of everyday life. Finished off beautifully with the thought that Reece’s school is now finally closed for the year and Shannon doesn’t have to go, except to get her report card next week.

In between the monotony of helping the kids studying for their exams, I also got to be a little creative! After the exams, Reece had a market day at school where they have to sell goodies – preferably with a Christmas theme.

Reece was (naturally) more interested in how much money he would make. I was all for the ‘making’ but not in his definition of ‘making’ - I saw it rather as an opportunity to be creative!

So here’s what I made:

Reindeer Lollipops

These turned out so well that I want to share how I made them:

Shopping list:

• lollipops (Fizz Pops) for the reindeers.
• brown paper
• raffia, string or ribbon
• wiggly eyes
• mini red pompoms
• darker brown cardstock for antlers

How to:

1. Cut squares of brown paper – big enough to cover a lollipop. (I’d say around 10-12cm square/ 4 inches square). I couldn’t find brown paper, so I had some brown paper packets lying around and used those.
2. Cover each lollipop in brown paper and tie at the base of the sucker with raffia.
3. Glue on the nose and eyes – I like to glue these all close together as it gives the reindeer a cute expression.
4. Cut out and glue on the antlers** 

Done!

Note: You can always draw on eyes and a nose with pens or paint if you don’t have wiggly eyes or pompoms. My pompoms were part of a package in a rainbow of colours- I just picked out all the red ones.

** I used a Silhouette die cut for the antlers from this cute Reindeer treat box from Pebbles in my Pocket , but you could easily draw similar ones out onto cardstock and cut them out by hand. They are about 1 1/2 inches high. You glue them on slightly to the back of the lollipop ‘head’ – almost like a headband.

I selected just the antlers and copied as many as I could onto an A4 sheet and cut them with my Silhouette.

How to separate the antlers from the treat box design:

Select the whole design, then click on “Object”, then select “ungroup”, then delete each of the other pieces of the design except the antlers. Move the image to the top left corner, then duplicate the antlers in rows.

PS: I’m certainly no expert at the Silhouette software, I just plod along on my own, occasionally using the ‘Help’ function and eventually figure it all out.

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with the recipe for making “North Pole Snow” which the kids could dunk their reindeer lollipops in. There’s also a free printable label…..

Tuesday Tutorial : treat cones

Today is laundry day in our house. So while the washing machine is busy with its cycle, I was browsing around the internet and found this cute tutorial for making a sweet treat gift.

I got thinking how pretty it would be as a hostess gift, or perhaps a teacher’s gift filled with chocolates or soaps. It would also be ideal to put birthday money or a gift card in.

So, after adding another load of washing, I used some images from The Graphics Fairy and created two gift cones. {Nothing like being creative to make the task of doing the laundry so much more pleasant!)

The hydrangea paper cone:

The Toile paper cone:

The finished cone is around 9 inches (23cm) from top to bottom.

Toile Cone Gift Bag – DOWNLOAD

Hydrangea Cone Treat Bag – DOWNLOAD

Note: I found double-sided tape worked really well to secure the cones so you don’t see any cellotape on the outside.

Love,

I’m linking to:

Winter is here!

Today is cold! Our first wintery day for 2011. It doesn’t snow here, but the wind is howling and icy cold. When I left with the kids this morning at 6h30, there were no clouds about, just gusting wind and once the sun was fully up, loads of wintery sunshine. Now, the clouds from the cold front have gloomily moved in making it seem even colder!

This will probably last two or three days, then it’ll warm up again until the next cold front embraces us. Fortunately our winters are short-lived.

I’ve been wanting to share this cute little baby’s beanie with you for a while and I think this is appropriate for our first really chilly day!I found the pattern online * here. My ‘babies’ are a little too big for this beanie, so I gave it to my daughter’s vocal teacher for her 7 month old baby girl. It fits her perfectly.

* There’s also a video tutorial (how convenient is that?!)

This is so easy to crochet and (I am happy to say..) really quick. I used a 4mm hook with double-knit yarn in a lovely ecru colour.

If you need a larger beanie, I would imagine you simply add a couple more rows in the top rows so the hat will be larger then in general.

– Disclaimer : I am merely guessing- I cannot claim to be a professional when it comes to crochet! So please offer your expert advice on how to make a larger one!

(You will notice that the first rows are ordinary double crochet with increases as you go along).

You can see in the following photo how it is simply crocheted round and round – you start with a circle and just keep going.

Finished it off with a little crochet flower embellishment – a grey flower, topped with a smaller pink one with a rusty orange centre and a lime green leaf.

I love how the shell pattern creates a pretty scallop edge along the bottom of the hat. So girly. Looking forward to making some more!

Hope you have a great day! To those having cold weather like me- stay warm! To those enjoying a lovely warm summery day – soak up the sunshine! I’m off to make a warm mug of coffee now!

Today’s Tutorial : Crazy colourful crochet circles

Here’s a sneak peek of a project I’m busy with at the moment. In fact every moment when I sit still, I keep my hands busy with this.

I am crocheting loads of these colourful circles which will ultimately be sewn onto a long cushion for my daughter’s bed.

Now by “long”, I mean long- think the width of a Queen-size bed and then the height of a standard pillow.

I got the idea when we saw one in a shop recently, but it was simply too expensive - especially since I could make it! I’ll be making the cushion up in a lovely natural fabric- almost the colour of burlap (hessian) – perhaps a little lighter. I think it will look gorgeous with all those colours.

I’m almost done with all the crochet circles, and just as soon as I’ve finished straightening out my pigsty studio and found got out my sewing machine, then I’ll whip up the cushion. My daughter is hoping it’s before she changes her mind again on her decor scheme! - Remember the “orange” decor ?– well that’s evolving (thankfully) into a more pleasing  natural look finished off with these crocheted circles. Note- there is still splashes of orange in the circles –LOL!

After many a trial and error, I have finally figured out how to make these circles – (You’ll see some of mine aren’t ‘perfect’ – those are my trial and error ones which were kept anyway!! LOL). believe me, after you’ve made this many, you eventually figure it out!

If you would like to make these – here’s a tutorial how to crochet them :

(My first tutorial on crochet – so please forgive me if it’s not very clear- please ask questions if you need to!

If you click on any of the highlighted words, you’ll be redirected to a tutorial on how to do that particular stitch.

NOTE: In South Africa and the UK, we use the term Double Crochet instead of Single Crochet (US term). For the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to refer to DC as SC – it’s easier as the tutorial I have found for you on the stitches refer to DC as SC. {hope that makes sense!}

I used a 4mm hook with Double knit yarn. (I think it was double knit- I’m no expert!-it’s just plain old ordinary wool – the thicker your yarn, the bigger your project will turn out.)

1. Crochet 6 chains.
2. Join into the first chain with a slipstitch to form a circle. Chain 1.
3. Crochet using SC into the ring as many times as you can. (Probably around 6-8). Join the circle with a slip stitch.
4. Chain 1.
5. Crochet into each chain twice using single crochet (This is how you increase stitches).
6. Join the circle again with a slipstitch into the first SC.
7. Add a new colour in. Chain 1.
8. Continue the next round with SC, but SC twice into every second chain. (First Row)This will ensure that your circle lies flat and does not curl up.
9. The next round, only increase into every 3rd stitch.
10. The round after that, increase into every 4th stitch –and so forth.
11. keep going until the circle is the size you would like. I have varied the sizes of my circles slightly and for further variation, here and there I’ve thrown in a row of DC (Treble – UK and RSA).

Remember : Join circle at the end of each round with a slipstitch and start each new round by chaining 1.

** NOTE : If there are too few or too many increases in a round, your circle will not lie flat. If it curls in, you have too few increases, if it buckles and gets wavy, you have too many increases.

There’s a really simple way to make an adjustable magic circle to start with – the circle is so much easier to control, especially in other projects when you need to add lots of stitches into a tiny centre circle. Watch the following video to see how:

Here is a video I just found (after writing this entire tutorial –LOL) which explains really well how to make a “magic circle” and how to do the slipstitch at the end of each round to join the circle. It also explains exactly how and where to increase each round. Easy Peasy! Go take a look – you will be able to learn exactly how to do this without having to read instructions!

What I love best about these circles is just when I start getting bored with my circle, it’s time to end it off and start a new one. LOL- Not much patience here ! Have fun!