Last minute edible Christmas gifts.

The last couple of days have been devoted to making edible gifts. I'm glad because I foolishly ventured out to the shops today and it was so stressful that I made a hasty retreat back into the peace of my kitchen. I would rather make last minute gifts than do last minute shopping.

So here are some of the gifts that I've been making, along with my girls.

Chilli Jam. 

This is delicious and I used Nigella's recipe.. It's super easy to make, you just need some chilli, fresh red peppers, apple cider vinegar and jam sugar.

I also made some Courgette and Chilli Relish. I kind of made up the recipe and I foolishly didn't write things down as I went along, but I do remember that it had courgettes obviously, along with one fresh chilli, two onions, two fresh peppers, about 350ml of apple cider vinegar, a generous amount of caster sugar, a teaspoon of cumin seeds, a teaspoon of curry powder, some black pepper and a bit of salt, oh and some ground arrowroot to thicken it, (or perhaps a teaspoon of cornflour instead). It really is delicious, I was genuinely surprised at how nice it was and it tastes amazing in a cheese sandwich!

I then made some Cranberry Sauce (Nigella's recipe) and some Cranberry and Orange Marmalade, which was basically some of the cranberry sauce mixed in with some of the marmalade batch from a ready made 'mamade' tin. (You simply add water and sugar to the mamade orange mush, according to the instructions, boil it and you have marmalade!)

 The Cranberry and orange marmalade is another pleasant surprise. It really is delicious on toast and adds a festive twist to breakfast.

I wrote about my Christmas cake mishaps in my last post. I took one of the rather overdone christmas cakes and cut off the burnt bits and marzipanned it. I then had a brainwave that I could cut it into four pieces and give them as individual iced mini christmas cakes. (It would have been easier to do this before I covered the cake in marzipan as I then had to re-marzipan the cut edges.)

 My daughter Daniella helped with the icing of the mini cakes. I think she ended up with more icing on her!

Here are the finished mini Christmas cakes. They look so pretty with the sugar flowers, hearts and sparkles! I will wrap each one in cellophane and ribbon.

Lastly I roped the girls into making cookies as another gift. They made heart shaped cookies and we will put them in mugs with hearts on them, and some heart shaped dishes and wrap them in cellophane and ribbon. The cookies are Cinnamon Shortbread.

Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Christmas filled with very much love.

xxx

Christmas makes and bakes.

I do love this time of year.

I love the twinkly lights and the general candlelit cosiness.

 I love making gifts and all the creativity that goes on.

(I can't post about everything I've made, else the surprise will be ruined.)

My love for felt is continuing into the Christmas season. I love these make up bags using my handmade felt panels and flowers. I made this bag for my daughter's friend and she has already received it so I can post it here.

Felted soaps are a great gift idea and are super easy to make last minute if you have some wool roving to hand (I mean who does, but you never know!)..You simply wrap the wool round the soap in your desired design, secure it in some netting, or old cut off tights, wet it and work it in your hands until it has felted. I learnt how from Youtube and there are lots of videos to show you how if interested.

Here are some of the felted soaps I made. They are a really pretty addition to bath time and the wool is a lovely and gentle exfoliant.

Christmas time is always filled with lots of baking. I always moan about it at the time, but I must love it because I end up doing lots of baking and christmas wouldn't be the same without it.
 Here are some of the bakes for my daughter's school Christmas fair.

Gingerbread cupcakes topped with members of a very happy cookie family.

Christmas tree cookies (Vanilla shortbread).

Star topped Vanilla cupcakes.

I made these for my daughter Kezia's birthday this week and she took these in to share with her class at school.

Making a Christmas cake for our friend Patrick has become part of my Christmas ritual. The trouble is, every single year, of which this is the 3rd, I have burnt my first attempt in the oven. I always forget that my oven works at a much higher temperature than it says, and so I gullibly follow the instructions and end up with a burnt cake, and then have to make another one. My family very kindly eats the burnt one and say how much they like slightly burnt christmas cake. I think they genuinely do, because that's all they've ever had!
This year I burnt the first two attempts at Patrick's cake, because I got over confident and put two cakes in the oven at the same time, one for him and one for us, and they both ended up burnt. So I had to make another one yet again!
Anyway, here is Patrick's cake this year. I hope he likes it. It was made with lots of dried fruit, brandy and very much love.

To end, I shall write about Pomanders. Pomanders are oranges studded with cloves. I make them every Christmas to decorate the Christmas table, but also because making them is a very good stress reliever. There's something about the repetitiveness of it and the gorgeous scent of cloves and orange that is really good for the soul, especially when things start to feel really hectic.

Wishing you much joy this Christmas season.

Very much love.

xxxx

Lately..

I actually wrote a blog post yesterday and published it. It was called 'Ridiculous Ramblings on a Monday Morning' and I went into unnecessary detail about having a bad back and how I couldn't bring myself to go to the osteopath because it would mean being prodded in my underwear and I didn't feel up to it. I then went into too much detail about what underwear is appropriate to wear to the osteopaths and so on. I then deleted it later on because I re-read it and felt embarrassed. It's ironic because the point of my post yesterday, (when I got round to it eventually after all the unnecessary information), was about being authentically who we are regardless of what we do, or other people's perceptions and opinions of what we do and then I kind of fell victim to the very thing I was making a point about.

Anyway, instead I shall show you a picture of my rainbow socks. My older daughter thinks I'm having a mid life crisis to wear such a ridiculous combo, but they really do make me very happy. Here's to rainbow love! Rainbows are for rainy days! Can you believe that I once saw a beautiful rainbow in the sky on the same day that I was wearing these rainbow socks, it's true! So enough said, that was all the confirmation I needed that they were a very good purchase. I may get some more, there's a bloke in Covent Garden who sells them, 3 pairs for £10!

So yes I've had a really bad back, but it's getting better now thankfully. I hurt my back because I'd spent hours and hours sitting making things, and sewing bags and stuff to sell. But my back was getting progressively worse so I had to stop. (I really should go to the osteopaths).

I love autumn! It's my favourite time of year. Time to get all cosy, except the weather has been quite warm recently which I personally don't like. I don't like to feel hot and bothered in October, and I certainly don't want to have to keep wearing summer clothing. It's feeling a lot more autumnal today, and that's good. So here's to autumn!

 I was so frustrated last week with not being able to do much that I tried to paint watercolours in bed. An endeavour so ridiculous that in trying to balance the sketchbook and colour palette on the duvet as well as trying not to spill water everywhere, my back ended up in a complete spasm and I had to give up. But anyway here are some autumn leaves in my sketchbook..

 Talking of autumn, and the need to wear warm clothing.. Have you seen this coat?!! It's wonderful. I found this lady called Katwise on Etsy who makes sweater coats using recycled sweaters. I really love her stuff!

I mean this is rainbow love on a whole other level! Even her house is painted in so many colours. I love it!. I bought her tutorial on how to make one of her sweater coats, I think I might give it a go, but with much tamer colours else my kids will properly freak out!

What else shall I tell you... oh yes, now wait for it....

 Who we are is who we are is who we are! regardless of what we do. 

I believe that more on some days better than others, but I do think it's true. What we do comes out of who we are rather than the opposite ie being defined by what we do. I hope I'm not just saying that because I haven't got a job description at the moment, but the many months of soul searching have led me to this conclusion. 

So I shall leave you with that thought.

Have a great week.

Much love.

xxxx

Fear, love and everything else.

I've been thinking lately about love and fear and how the two coexist quite happily until a choice has to be made because there isn't quite enough room for both to wiggle their toes freely. I've struggled with being afraid for most of my life and particularly in recent years with uncertainty about my health.

I realised this week that one of the biggest fears that cripples me is the fear of running out of time. 

It's kind of irrational. I'm still youngish, I have a whole lot of life ahead of me as far as I know, and my health is stable. But when I was first diagnosed with a degenerative kidney disease five years ago, I felt like it was all hopeless, particularly with the prognosis I was given, and I can see then that I wasn't sure how long I would have with a good quality of life, and that fear paralysed me. But now the disease is in remission and I am so grateful, but yet that fear has lingered on. It has made me afraid to commit to anything, especially with any sort of long term commitment with work, and so on. As a result I've spent the last few years kind of drifting.

And so I am making a choice. To embrace life more fully. To stop procrastinating, to really breathe, to make more room for love in all of its array of colours. 

I choose to make more room for love. 

Page from my Art Journal.

Paper flower art from my art date with a friend.  Embracing relationship leads to so much joy!

Am I still afraid today? Yes I am. But I'm choosing the way of love instead. I will acknowledge the fears I have and then lay them down. 

Fear constricts but love relaxes, it allows pores to open and makes room to breathe.

Fear concentrates on lack but love always allows for the possibility of abundance.

Loves finds abundance in times of plenty and when there's only a little.

There is no fear in love.

Love drives out fear.

Page from my Art Journal.

I've been felting lots this last week and not just because I love it and I really do, but I am choosing to take more seriously the things I love doing and try to earn some income from those things. 

It's scary and vulnerable and kind of uncomfortable but it really is about time.

Here is my felting bounty from this last week! 

I really enjoyed making the felt flowers and love hearts.

It has been wonderful working with colour and soft wool. I feel so much better for it.

Much love.

xxx

 

Rainbows and the beauty of colour.

I saw a rainbow two months ago.

I saw it at a time when I had been feeling really discouraged. 

It stopped me in my tracks and I had a conversation with a stranger in the street about the vibrancy of it, and about how it had made my day.

As I stood in the street and looked and looked at it, the child in me felt that the rainbow was in the sky just for me.

It felt like a reminder of hope, that the promise of my life would be fulfilled and that I live out this promise in every moment. 

A reminder that the moments of my life, in every single day, are precious, and they are beautiful. 

That regardless of any outcome or end result, my life's story is a series of moments, treasures stored up that will one day be counted, and laid out and cherished. 

A reminder that life is a process and this process is the main event.

Since then, I have seen two more rainbows, one with my daughter Daniella, about two weeks ago, and another, two days ago with my husband, walking home after a lovely dinner together.

Rainbows are by their very nature, a celebration of colour, so I have been honoring my 'rainbow moments' with as much colour as possible.

Yesterday I met with my friend Deborahgrace for an art date at mine.
It was a wonderful time of colour, laughter and fun.

My work in progress..

Deborahgrace's beautiful art!

Deborahgrace and her and her joy filled art. Gorgeous!

Here's to many more 'rainbow moments' filled with hope, love and colour.
Much love.
xxx