Cutlery holder from tin cans

The summer holidays are flying by. We have been very busy. Busy in a good way of course. This week my son turns 10! I can't believe how time has flown. I am so lucky to have a great kid. He is getting pretty spoiled this birthday! Well you only turn 10 once right? We are taking a bunch of his friends go karting then out to dinner. His best friend is staying over and then we are going to watch the Red Bull Air Race at Ascot. Should be a great weekend. Fingers crossed that the rain stays away.

The weather picked up this past weekend and we finally got the barbecue out! Last year I made a cutlery holder with some recycled tin cans. It was a quick project and pretty basic looking.

Whilst colourful, I felt it was missing something. I decided to make it over for this year.

I started by painting all 3 cans off white. To cover the original bold colours took about 3 coats.

They looked so much better just painted all the same colour. I wrote out 'Knives', 'Forks' and 'Spoons' in pencil, the carefully painted over the letters in red using a very fine brush.

I sprayed the paint work with clear sealer to protect it, then got about a metre of gingham ribbon which I glued to the top and bottom of each can to give them simple embellishment. 

I think the red and blue together is lovely and bright, perfect for the summer.

I also made a little bunting to complement them.

Long may the sun shine!

From left over Frosting to Hydrangea Cupcakes

I always make too mush frosting. I am constantly paranoid of running out while decorating a cake. This results in the top shelf of my fridge being devoted to tubs of different colours and flavours of frosting. Sometimes I get around to using it up and other times it goes too hard and has to be thrown away. Most of the time the latter is the case.

With my recent Chalkboard cake, I had a little left of each colour used along with some white vanilla frosting from a previous project before that.

It had crusted over so a good mix and a little water was needed to bring it back to life. I mixed the white frosting in with the purple and had plenty to make a batch of cupcakes with.

One of my earliest pins was this.

I discovered Glorious Treats from this one pin and I have been a fan ever since! If you haven't already seen Glory's blog, check it out here.

I have wanted to recreate these for a while. Here is my version of Glory's cupcakes.

I didn't blend my colours like Glory, however, I used the same tip for each colour so that there was a little transfer on a couple of the cupcakes. I used Wilton tip 129 and filled my bag half way with frosting. Using a 90' angle (straight up) I began by piping a flower in the middle.

I then piped a couple more either side of the first one, and continued around to the edge.

This can be a very random technique and you can over pipe.

I filled the whole top of the cupcake with flowers to achieve the look of a Hydrangea.

I did the same technique for each cupcake. This is so simple and quick. They would make a lovely gift for a Mum, Grandma or friend. Perfect for birthdays, Mother's Day, or just to say Thank you!

Beautiful and bright!

They look equally nice if they are all the same colour.

I hope you like these and have a go! Have a great weekend!

One Pan Gnocchi with Chorizo and Spinach

Schools out!! Weather is looking yucky for the next few days but we are still determined to have some fun, meeting up with friends and spending long lazy days doing pretty much nothing!

When it comes to dinner I still want to be able to churn out something tasty and delicious though time is a bigger factor for me during the holidays. We can potentially be out all day which leaves me with very little time when we get back to prepare something (or indeed the inclination!).

I have a lot of quick and easy to prepare meals that I use in rotation and they will be used a lot over the summer holidays. It is nice though to discover new recipes and to create a new tasty favourite to add to the mix.

One of the things we all enjoy eating is gnocchi. I must admit I have yet to try and make it myself, but Sainsburys do a very nice fresh gnocchi which means less time making dinner!

This recipe I am about to share came about when we were on holiday in France last year. We had a self catering mobile home, so we popped up to the onsite shop and picked up fresh gnocchi, vegetables, cheese and a large piece of chorizo. I threw it all together in a pan along with some of the items I had brought with us, and created a quick and tasty meal that could be ready in about 15 minutes!

One pan Gnocchi with Chorizo and Spinich

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

500g Gnocchi

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 red onion chopped

2 cloves garlic (chopped or minced)

1 red pepper

3 large mushrooms or 200g button mushrooms (chopped or sliced)

500g chopped tomatoes (I used Sainsbury's chopped tomatoes with basil)

A handful of fresh basil roughly chopped

A large handful of spinach

Diced chorizo (I use half of the Sainsbury's cooking diced chorizo pictured below)

Salt and Pepper

Method

1. Set a pan with water to boil.

2. In a large pan or skillet warm through the olive oil. Add the chopped onion and cook until the onion starts to go clear, about 2-3 minutes.

3. Add the chopped/minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds.

4. Add all vegetables except spinach and cook until softened and cooked through. Once your water is boiling, add your gnocchi to the pan to cook for 2-3 minutes.

5. Add in the chorizo and continue to cook on a medium/low heat.

6. Add basil, chopped tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. You can add a teaspoon of sugar to the sauce if it tastes a little sharp. Once these are cooked through add your spinach.

7. Once spinach has started to wilt add the cooked gnocchi to the pan. Mix the gnocchi in well so that it gets covered in the sauce.

8. Once mixed, remove from the heat and serve. To make this a more substantial meal for 4, serve with bread and a side salad.

Doesn't that look tasty?

All done in a few minutes and provides a very flavourful dinner.

Have a great weekend!

Personalised Notebooks/Journals

This week is the last week of school, so naturally thoughts turn to teacher's gifts. We normally make a little something so that they get something fairly unique from our family.

One of the things we enjoy making are personalised notebooks. Taking something plain and boring and giving it a lovely individual look, and hopefully geared towards the recipient.

Earlier on in the year I shared my decopatch covered notebook for Mother's Day. It's the lovely polka dot book you can see here. For details of how I made that one head over to this post.

Another great way to cover a notebook is with fabric.

I cut the fabric to size and then glued this to the front and back covers of the book. I added a ribbon tie in the same way as I had done for the decopatch covered book.

Another fun idea is to cover the book completely in glitter! The glitter I used here was quite coarse and I would recommend using a fine glitter for a smoother finish. I firstly painted the book in a colour that was similar to the glitter I was going to use. Once that was dry, I then covered the book in glue and began to sprinkle the glitter all over it.  You have to be very generous so as to cover the front of the book completely. You may find you have some gaps at the end where you can just add additional glue and glitter to.

Repeat this process on the other side of the book. Once this is completely dry you need to spray the entire notebook with clear sealer. This will stop the majority of the glitter from coming off! I also added some embellishments to the front along with a ribbon tie.

For an even quicker project, use stickers! Here we have used travel stickers as the recipient is going travelling for a year.

Firstly we took the little Smash book we found with travel notes inside, and stuck this to the inside cover of the notebook.

We then covered the front with the person's name and a selection of the travel stickers we had purchased.

Simple yet personal. To add an extra personal touch, my son wrote in the front of the book.

A heartfelt note is always lovely to receive.

All ready to give tomorrow!

Enjoy those last school days!

Painted Terracotta Pot Beaded Chimes

It's hot hot hot! I am not going to complain one bit, it's been a long time coming this summer! I do wish I had an air conditioner though. We had one in our previous house, but the set up of this house makes having one a tricky thing! I managed to vacuum downstairs before getting too hot. Upstairs will have to wait till later!

So while I am cooling off with a nice cold drink, I thought I would share these easy wind chimes with you all. Well I say wind chimes, they don't actually chime, but you get the idea.

The garden coming into bloom!

I actually made these last year but didn't thread the beads on strong enough thread. I was constantly worried they were going to drop and break.

All you will need for this craft is :-

Plain terracotta pots, any size that you fancy as long as they are not too big as that may put too much strain on the wire you use to thread the beads.

A selection of beads. I purchase a mixed pot from Hobbycraft along with some smaller packets of beads in colours that matched the paint I was using.

Acrylic paint. I chose 3 different colours for variety, shown below.

Clear sealer. Easier to use than the bottled varnish and weather proof.

Wire to string the beads with. I used florist wire.

Firstly paint your pots.  The pots took 2 to 3 coats of paint to develop a nice deep even colour.

Once fully dried, spray your pots with the sealer. It is best to build this up in a couple of coats. Plus it gives the pots a lovely sheen. I don't plan to have this out all year round, just the summer months.

Take a selection of beads, either matching them to your painted pots, or being completely abstract! I decided to select beads in similar colours with a few tonal beads added in.

I selected lots of simple pony beads to thread on which would mainly be in the pots and therefore not visable. All the pretty beads I strung after these so they could be seen.

Purples and Pinks.

Greens and Pinks, plus a bike charm I picked up a long time ago.

Blues with Orange.

I eyeballed how much wire I would need and the rough gap I wanted between each pot and cut it to size. I began by knotting the bike charm at the base of the wire, then threaded on my green and pink beads, followed by a set of green pony beads. I kept one larger bead back which would sit at the hole on the base of each pot to keep the pots in place. The green pot was then threaded over the top of these beads. I then moved onto the blue set of beads, doing the same thing. Finally I added the purple beads. I made a loop with the wire at the end and reinforced this with extra wire wrapped around the loop and the top of the wire thread.

And that's it!

I love how they add a little colour to the garden.

You do want to hang them on a strong branch as they are quite heavy.

I love the bike charm!

Have a lovely warm sunny week!