Hearts for Valentine's Day

Just love making and designing these felt hearts.

I've decided that resistance is futile. I love making these hearts. It really can't be denied. Every evening I make another. You may wonder why I need so many?  I intend to have a bunting of felt hearts. So I have a reason. Well, that's the one that I'm using and I'm sticking to it.

Here's the latest:

If you want to see the hearts on display then please come and find the stand.

I used:

Baby Pink Felt Hearts 7.5cm wide, 30% Wool Blend x 6

1.5cm White Pointed Edge Cotton Lace x 2 metres

Light Orchid Satin Swiss Dot Ribbon, 3m x 6mm

Glass Seed Beads, Ceylon Round, Pink, about 3mm, hole:1mm 6cm tube

Light Orchid Satin Edged ChiffonRibbon, 2m x 25mm

How to make a bow

Did anyone think that I could give up Craft Fairy and give up crafting at the same time?

All of my friends and followers know that I could never give up crafting. Craft Fairy grew out of my love for craft rather than the other way around so I have to have some project or the other on the go.

If you want to know what I do when 'watching' the television then ponder no more because this is what I did yesterday evening. I made a dozen of these in an hour. That didn't include the cutting of the ribbon but quite honestly that took about 5 minutes and my full attention. Scissors and looking in the opposite direction don't mix. ouch!

The Bows will make a perfect Christmas stocking filler if they are added to hair clips and that's what I intend doing with them.

So do you want to know how to make them? I've made a video clip here for you so that the mistery is unravelled and you'll be surprised at how quickly and easily they are made. 

Just add lace to make a distinctive bag

From this

To this with a little lace, a few buttons and some ribbon.

Getting from one bag to the other was a joy as I was working with such beautiful materials.
I chose one of the new cotton laces:
50mm Cotton Lace Natural x 1 metre
Some of the baby pink buttons:

Baby Pink Mixed Buttons for sewing and craft, 50g

Some ivory and Sherbet 16mm satin:

16mm satins here 

Some 3mm satin

3mm satin

Of course I also used one of the pink bags.

Small jute shopper

The pictures below are fairly self explanatory:

Start by putting a strip of double sided tape across the top of the bag. About a third of the way down is good.

 Then cut a piece of lace to fit with just a little to turn at the edges and stick to the double sided tape.

Add another layer of tape to the top of the lace and then stick the ribbon to the lace. Turn the raw edges so that they are hidden.

Now sew on the buttons, leave room to add the rose.

If you look at the finished bag, I also decided that a few dangly bits would look good so I tied buttons to the middle of about 5 pieces of 3mm ribbon and then sewed them to the bag before I sewed on the rose.

I hope that you have enjoyed this as much as I have. In fact, I think that I like this so much, I will use it rather than keeping it as a demo piece for the shows.

Left Over Mincemeat?

Left over mincemeat? Never in out house so I made mincemeat especially for this.

Mincemeat and apple streusel, what could be more comforting? Perhaps the addition of a big bowl of softly whipped cream or a jug of steaming yellow custard.

Without further ado I will give you the recipe as I know that this is a cake that you will want to make immediately.

175g self raising flour
125g sugar
1 egg
125g unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1 large cooking apple, peeled, cored and sliced
Half a jar of mincemeat, better if it is homemade.
Crumble about 6 digestive biscuits.

1 baking tin approx 18cm x 27cm. It will not be a problem if it is slightly larger or smaller. Not too much though.

Heat the oven to C160 fan or C170 top and bottom heat.

Put the butter, sugar and egg in a largish bowl and beat well to combine. No need to cream really as this is not going to be a sponge.
Fold in the flour to make a fairly stiff mixture. Sort of half wak between a sponge and pastry.
Spoon into a  buttered baking tin. Smooth out with the back of a spoon or a spatula.
Top with spoonfulls of mincemeat and then with slices of apple. Finally top with the crumbled biscuits.
Cook for about 40 minutes. Check with the point of a knife, if it is not cooked then leave to cook for a few more minutes.
Leave to cool and cut into slices to serve.

Christmas Italian Style

In our house, as in many Italian houses we will be having a pasta course of annolini in brodo. They are small pasta parcels that are filled with a fantastic mixture of stracotto and cheese which is an intense and wonderful flavour.

These have been a tradition for as long as I can remember. As a matter of fact a Christmas meal would not be the same without them.
I am not going to pretend that they are not labour intensive as they are, but like the tortelli they can be made in advance and stored in the freezer until needed.

First of all you will need to make the stracotto which translates as over cooked or extra cooked.
Start off with a good size piece of brisket. No need to worry if you have too much as you can eat the extras and enjoy every mouthful. You will need at least 1 kilogramme.

1 large onion.
2 or 3 cloves of garlic. It all depends on how big they are. they will cook for ages and the taste will mellow while they cook so don't skimp.
1 carrot.
1 stalk of celery.
1 Knorr stock cube. I bring mine back from Italy and I use gusto classico. It has a good flavour and does not fight with the flavour of the meat.
250g butter. Yes, that much.
A couple of glasses of white wine.


What you will need to do:
Fry the meat in a little butter, add the onions and continue to fry gently until the mixture is brown.

Add the carrot which you have peeled and cut in half along with the the halved celery.

Pour over the wine and add the garlic and stock cube.

Simmer gently and I do mean gently for about 5 hours. If you have the oven on low then it will sit quite happily in a very low onen for the same time.
It will be ready when it falls apart.


To make the filling you will need these extra ingredients.
Parmesan cheese Use as much as you think that you need. I generally tase mine and see. the cheese also tends to dry the filling so if you think that your filling is too wet add more cheese.
2 to 3 eggs
Fresh breadcrumbs

Make the pasta in the same way that I described in the Tortelli section and
These will fill us so much that the turkey course that follows will be picked at rather than devoured.

Blue for Christmas

This is a memory from an earlier blog post. Now that Craft Fairy and I are no longer an item, I have removed the links to the products.

However, I still have the stamps so message me if you want them!!!

I've made a lot of red and green cards lately and this challenge was very welcome. I have also decided that this card is going to be the one that I send out to my nearest and dearest. So to anyone that reads my blog, and doesn't get one of these handmade jobbies you know why.


Materials used
Trees plate 
Blue satin swiss dot ribbon 3mm
Buttons from the pack of mixed buttons
Art anfdGraphic pens from Zig Kuretake in number 3

Christmas Heart for a Garland

Yesterday evening I felt, (ha, ha) the need to make another of my favourite craft goodies. So, being Christmas, I decided that the best thing to do would be to make one of the red hearts. This time I decided to combine it with the red spotty bows that I made and a little of the natural cotton lace and create this:

You can make one too by using:

Red Felt Hearts 7.5cm, wide, 30% Wool Blend
30mm Pointed Cotton Lace Natural
Red Grosgrain Ribbon with White Swiss Dots
Christmas Red and Green Assorted Shape Buttons
Red Swiss Dot Ribbon, 6mm

Please message me for supplies.

You will also need a needle and thread of your colour choice,
Some wadding to fill the heart.