Snow globe tutorial

Hello everyone,
I can't believe it's almost officially wintertime already, but I actually rather enjoy getting snug indoors and feathering our nest ready to hibernate on the sofa with my girls. I like to change things round a little indoors when it begins to cool down to make home feel more cozy and inviting to reflect the season. This means piles of pretty blankets and handmade quilts (I shall be writing another post about quilts shortly so look out for that one), copious candles and fairy lights for softer lighting, stacks of favourite old books and pretty biscuits and snacks in kilner jars or on beautiful china plates, because, let's face it, we all like to put on a bit of extra winter insulation at this time of year :-) . The extra time spent indoors also means lots more crafting in this house, and today I wanted to share with you a simple little craft idea which adds to that magical feeling winter brings and also makes a fabulous handmade gift if you are stuck for something personal and a bit special to give. It's also a craft that the children absolutely love so that's a bonus! I have lots of little trinkets about the place that belonged to my lovely nan who passed away last year, and being of such sentimental value I wanted to make a feature of one or two of them, so after a short mooch through ideas on pinterest I decided to make a snow globe.  Snow globes always held a special intrigue for me as a child, ever since I watched Shirley Temple in Heidi receive a snow globe containing a miniature of her grandfather's house. I found it fascinating that there was this tiny little world in a flurry of snow that you held in the palm of your hand. So this was a perfect craft for me. I chose a small plastic deer for this project, which can be found everywhere in the shops around Christmas and are just deliciously kitsch. I remember being allowed to play with this one as a child and I thought it was completely gorgeous. I don't know why my nan kept it but she was a bit of a magpie and just loved animals and anything a bit cute. Anyway, to make your snow globe you will need an old jam jar and lid, perhaps a more globular shaped one would be best, some boiled cooled water and a bottle of glycerine which you can buy over the counter at Boots, some glitter and fake snow, and ribbon or any other little embellishment you may fancy. I used faux gemstones and some cute little toadstools I found at Wilkinson. You will also need a hot glue gun. You may need to begin by gluing your chosen figurine to a bottle top so that it's slightly raised up on the jar lid. You can then glue the figurine and bottle top to the inside of the jar lid. Fill your jar 3/4 full with the cooled water and a couple of tablespoons of glycerine. Add your glitter and faux snow and check that the liquid is viscous enough that the glitter etc takes a while to settle. If need be add a tad more glycerine. When you are happy with the liquid, screw the lid to the jar and hot glue around the edge. You can then add your embellishment.  I'm sure you will agree the effect is rather charming! I shall be making more of these so will post pictures of the results. Have a good evening all xx

Hi everyone, just a quick post today as I have to get on with the very important task of watching Bambi with my girls.  Love that movie.

Anyway in the interests of cozying up for our movie afternoon I've lit the candles, put the fire on and made a pot of tea.  I got some cheap fairy lights in Wilkinson this morning ( I get so many fantastic bargains in that place, only £3.50 for a string of led's) and decided to use them to finish off a little chandelier I made out of galvanised garden wire last year. I have made quite a number of these now, the design is fairly simple although you do end up with hands covered in blisters by the end of it, but I do think it's worth the pain to have something beautiful and handmade in your home. I'm not sure I could write a tutorial for one of these but I will see what I can come up with.  I used mine to glam up a lacklustre corner of my living room and I'm thrilled with the result now I've added a bit of sparkle with the lights.  You may notice a little cobweb in the picture... I'm afraid I didn't have the heart to evict it's tiny inhabitant so it will just have to stay for the time being!
Well I'm off for a lovely sofa afternoon now, Lidl is now stocking those gorgeous iced German ginger biscuits now in time for Xmas so I shall be tucking into one or two of those with my cuppa! Have a lovely afternoon x

Hi all,
So I'm back from visiting my folks in South Wales which was just lovely. Can't beat a weekend at your mum's no matter how old you are. Mum's home cooking and fussing over you as only a mum can is always so comforting, and now that I have children of my own, a weekend at mum and dad's has the added bonus of being a bit of a break for me on the childcare front too. It was lovely, I slept in, went and got my nails done, and had a night out with friends for cocktails and the theatre. We returned today for a kids party and now the little munchkins are tucked up in bed fast asleep after an afternoon of jumping on the bouncy castle, running around screaming and stuffing their little faces full of chocolate cake.

Speaking of parties...A number of friends, including my lovely sister in law, are about to pop and become mummies themselves so baby showers a - plenty are being planned left right and centre. As my sister in law was visiting us recently I took the opportunity to throw a little shower for her at my home.  I have to say I do love party planning, especially if I get to use my collection of vintage china, so I threw myself into the task with gusto even though I had only 4 days in which to pull it all together. I asked a good friend to provide one of her fabulous 'ruffle' chocolate fudge cakes, and I baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes, scones with jam and clotted cream(the key to a perfect scone is to knead the dough as little as possible), some gorgeous little heart shaped sandwiches and my piece De resistance...white chocolate macarons which I filled with white chocolate buttercream in pink and blue, as we don't know the sex of the baby. I absolutely adore macarons and their gorgeous velvety chewiness but they are notoriously difficult to make.  After endless experimenting with different recipes and rules, I have settled on what seems to be a fairly foolproof recipe and it works every time:

100g icing sugar (confectioners sugar if you are I  u.s)
100g ground almonds (almond flour)
2 egg whites
55g caster sugar
Heat safe food colouring

Sieve the icing sugar and almonds together. Any bits that won't go through the sieve can be blitzed in the food processor and then pushed through the sieve, this is really important as it needs to be really fine, any lumps in your mix can ruin your macaron. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl till they resemble fluffy clouds, then add your caster sugar and colouring. Continue to beat until you have a fairly stiff dry meringue. At this stage add your almond and sugar mixture and fold it in.  The object here is to knock a good deal of the air out of the mixture so don't hold back, you will know your mixture is ready when it resembles molten lava, it shouldn't be too runny. Now you're ready to pipe your macarons onto a lined baking tray. Try to pipe nice even circles, or even use a silicon macaron tray.  It's crucial to give your tray a good few firm taps on the work surface before you put them in the oven, to get rid of any trapped air and avoid cracking. Bake in a preheated oven at 140 degrees for 12 mins; this will depend on your oven though, you may need to have a few trials to find the perfect time and temperature for you.  Let them cool completely before peeling them off the baking paper. You can fill them with ganache,  buttercream, chocolate or anything you fancy. This is just a basic recipe but they are super delicious and if you can master this recipe then it's fun to experiment with different flavours.  www.bravetart.com is a fabulous baking blog which dispels the macaron myths and gives some great troubleshooting for those macaron disasters which inevitably will happen. But when you finally make that perfect batch,you will be hooked! They are just the prettiest little bites of perfection.

The baby shower was a roaring success and left me feeling like I need to plan another little tea party soon, i'm thinking just an afternoon tea with friends this time, so watch this space! Xx

So today I took the kids swimming for the afternoon which I must admit I really didn't feel like doing today. It's getting decidedly autumnal outside, and while I adore this time of year I do believe it is best enjoyed kicking through the fallen leaves bundled up to the eyeballs in a big wooly jumper and hat,or indoors by a roaring fire with a mug of hot spiced apple juice. Most definitely not in a skimpy cozzie in a lukewarm swimming pool. But my girls disagreed, they couldn't think of anything more exciting for a Wednesday afternoon, so in the interests of earning mummy brownie points I stuffed our kit in a bag and off we went. Boy am I glad I did. Ella, my eldest, has been gradually becoming more comfortable in the water each week, and today for the first time she dunked herself under the water and swam quite a way on her own. Her little face was so overjoyed that she finally swam unaided I felt like I was going to burst with pride. Honestly if she had won an Olympic gold medal I could not have been more proud. And I taught her that. Such a wonderful feeling. 

Anyway, I wanted to share with you my boot sale finds from the weekend. It's been sooo long since I went to a boot sale, I've always been too exhausted after broken sleep with babies to drag myself out of bed early enough to get the really good stuff. So this weekend marked another little step towards being able to enjoy 'grown up' stuff again. Which did make me feel a little sad, because it brings home how quickly our baby girls are becoming big girls and I do miss having a baby around. Still, it was nice to feel that familiar thrill of rummaging amongst all the junk to find your one little piece of treasure. I do believe my enthusiasm rubbed off on my girls, they came home with a pink unicorn and a pair of mickey mouse roller skates,  items I do not know how we have lived without thus far. Although I only found a couple of treasures of my own I was chuffed with what I did get: a wonderful sanders teapot with a beautiful shabby chic design, and 2 Cecily Barker flower fairies books. I adore her illustrations. And I must admit I'm a bit of a magpie when it comes to vintage China.  There's nothing quite like the thrill of haggling for your desired item;

my heart skipped a beat when the lady apologetically asked me for £2.00 for my teapot. I do love a bargain. And I love the idea that I have rescued something that was once treasured by another person from ending up on the rubbish heap, instead to be treasured by me. I think there will definitely be a lot more boot sale trips coming up this winter! 

Off to my parents' tomorrow with the girls so will share what we've been up to when we return. Xx

Bloggin'

Well, I have been dancing around the idea of writing a blog for a long time now. I just take so many pictures of my home and my little craft projects or pretty things that inspire me, but I have nowhere to collect them all. So, a blog seemed a good idea. I have no idea if anyone will actually be interested in reading what I have to say, but I'm going to have lots of fun writing it nevertheless! I'm heading out to take my two little darlings swimming in a mo so I will write my first proper post later when I'm all settled on the sofa with a cuppa 😊 xx