Monthly Archives: October 2012

Autumn Tablescapes

October 28, 2012 By in Homing Instinct, Making Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

The weekend is drawing to a close – a blustery, windswept close here in our small corner of England – but it’s been a rather magical one.  We’ve had a brief but promising flurry of snow prompting Harry to announce, rather prematurely, the imminent arrival of Father Christmas, and we’ve had walks through the autumn leaves and evenings snuggled in front of the fire.  Like all the best weekends though, it began with a lovely event; dinner here with some of our closest friends on Friday night.

Usually when we’re hosting dinner, it’s something of a mad rush; whilst in my head I imagine myself uncorking a bottle of wine and pottering around the kitchen in a form-fitting silky number as delicious smells waft from the stove, I am more usually arm-deep in bath time suds whilst my husband does emergency runs to buy forgotten ingredients, and the first guests to arrive have to tactfully remind me that I have only made-up one eye before getting distracted, and thus look like a freeze-frame from a You Tube video on how to apply eyeliner.  In the early days of dating my husband, I even managed to accidentally lock myself in the bathroom during the early stages of a dinner party (don’t ask how; it’s surprisingly easy I promise you..), and had to eventually ring him from my mobile phone to come rescue me.  This, after 20 minutes of waiting for him to notice my absence, I should add.

So, my history as a hostess is a somewhat chequered one, and evenings with us are nothing if not excitingly unpredictable – or so I tell myself.  On this occasion however, I managed to pull it off; the table was decorated with nature’s finest autumn finds, the menu was delivered without culinary disaster, and I even remembered all of my clothes and make-up.  I think I shall retire at this new-found high; it’s surely downhill all the way from here…

In a nod to Halloween, I added shimmering grey bat wings to small gourds and nestled them in martini glasses at each place-setting; I drew these freehand onto a piece of card stock then made small incisions into the sides of the gourds to slide them into place.  The name cards were glued to small pins which I pushed into the stalks.  I added tiny seed pearls to the tips of the wings.. and then decided I had better stop faffing around and concentrate on the actual cooking and cleaning *sigh*.

First though, I printed out menus onto end-pages from an old book and pegged these to each napkin; I’d bought a handful of yellowing paperbacks in our local charity shop with a view to using them in some crafty fashion, and they ran through the printer very simply; on one side guests could see what they were eating, and on the other were excerpts of letters by Evelyn Waugh – I carefully didn’t ask which side was more gripping..

Over the course of a day or so, I added odd bits and pieces to the centre of the table; blush roses and vibrant chrysanthemums, a selection of pumpkins and gourds which Harry and I dragged back from our excursion to the pumpkin patch (Harry picked up a small gourd and announced ‘my hands are all full Mummy; come along, you bring the rest!’, and marched jauntily to the car.  I see he has mastered the art of delegation at the tender age of almost-3).

Quail eggs, walnuts, corks and pine cones gave our guests something to examine and play with between courses and whilst chatting (though playing with fresh quail eggs after a couple of glasses of wine is a hazardous old business, as we found out)

As for the food itself, I tested out a recipe from my new favourite read; a magazine called The Simple Things, which is a sort of pared down Martha-like celebration of slow food, nature and living in the moment; their chicken and leek pie won the popular vote and will appear again on our table, just as soon as our arteries recover.

But possibly the best part of evenings like these is having managed to choose a husband who invariably says those magic words at the end of the night; ‘you head on up to bed; I’ll clear up down here…’

Cheerful Ghosts and Bouncing Spiders…

October 25, 2012 By in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Today Harry and I have been feeling ultra-crafty, as Halloween-fever sweeps our little village.  The challenge with Halloween decorating in our house is that my crafting partner is a still of an age (at 2 and 3/4) where ghosts are a bit scary, spiders are only sometimes interesting and witches are downright terrifying. So, we needed to make some spooky projects designed to make us smile, that are only a little bit scary.  Here’s what we came up with (detailed ‘how-to’ pictures for each of these at the end of the post)….



For the garland, I traced around Harry’s hands lots of times on a large sheet of white card stock, whilst he was half-distracted by a Toy Story DVD, then together we cut around them all.  Harry enjoyed the ‘scissor practice’, though for aesthetic reasons I discreetly omitted his dismembered and fingerless hand cut-outs from our final garland… we glued sequin eyes to the front of each ‘ghost’, then threaded them together using an embroidery needle and silver thread.  Harry chose and organised all the beads to thread between our ghosts, whilst I did the tricky stuff with the needle.  Harry located the tissues when I accidentally stitched myself, and offered to check me over with his toy stethoscope, so all-in-all it was a team effort.

By this time, Toy Story was abandoned and Harry was keen to do more tracing and cutting, so we switched colours to black and started making these bouncing handprint spiders…



They’re very simply made by overlaying two handprint cut-outs and glueing together, then adding eyes, feelers (we used little buttons), and threading a piece of elastic through the centre.  I added a colourful bead to each which also helps to weigh the spider down a little and increase the bounce.  These were Harry’s favourite; they look super-cool dangling from shelves and the mantel, but they also made for a great game to test Harry’s co-ordination – every time he managed to catch the spider once I had set it boing-ing (is that even a word?), he won an M&M.  And so did I.

Our final project was the messiest by far; creating real ghosts out of a pile of Harry’s old muslin cloths (cheesecloth, in the US).  We soaked and dunked the cloths in a bowl of fabric stiffener spray, then soaked and dunked ourselves in the bathtub to clean up.  I draped each cloth over a pumpkin placed on a stool to create the shape of a ghostly head with trailing vapours.  Next morning, our cloths had dried to rock hard, ethereal-looking ghosties that cheerfully stand up of their own accord.  All it took then was a couple of eyes, a pair of false lashes (never has a ghost looked more alluring, if slightly trampy..), then I strung them up in the entrance hall; perfect!



To make the handprint ghostly garland you’ll need;

  • white or ivory card stock or heavy paper
  • silver or invisible thread and a needle
  • beads (optional) to use as descorative spacers between your ghosts
  • scissors
  • false eyes, or a black pen to draw these

To make the bouncing spiders you’ll need:

  • Black card stock and a white pencil or chalk (to draw around the hands)
  • Scissors
  • Craft glue
  • eyes, buttons and any other embellishments you want to use
  • a length of black elastic for the bouncy ‘web’ thread

For the cheesecloth ghosts you’ll need

  • a handful of old baby muslins or squares of muslin / cheesecloth
  • fabric stiffener (used to stiffen fabric for roller blinds; ardware and haberdashery stores are likely to stock this. Buy the liquid rather than the spray so you can give your muslin a good dunking
  • a round ‘head’ shape to drape your cloths over to dry, in an area where you don’t mind a bit of mess and drips
  • false eyes (or you can just cut out eye holes for an even more ghostly effect)
  • invisible thread for hanging

The house is now in a state of sticky, papery disarray, so we will temporarily avert our eyes and deny all knowledge of it if my husband should get home first; after all we have a very important trip to make  - our first ever outing to a pumpkin patch!

Have a wonderful weekend when it arrives, and see you next week..

Homemade Pinecone Firelighters

October 19, 2012 By in Homing Instinct, Making Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 76 Comments



Log fires, blankets, mugs of hot chocolate, toasty warm socks… there’s something magical about this time of year. It’s been a misty, cold day here and we’re planning to light the first fire of the season tonight to celebrate the start of  the weekend and our hibernation from the winter weather.  In preparation I’ve made these pinecone firelighters, lightly scented with cinnamon and guaranteed to set the kindling alight with a pop and a crackle.

You can buy these commercially but at vast expense, so I decided to have a go at making my own, with a view to giving these as homemade gifts this Christmas.  My research uncovered scarily complicated instructions involving double-boilers, safety goggles, wick-trimming and dipping and general scientific sorcery… so I applied some lateral thinking and came up with a much simpler approach.  It’s very safe and quick, though perhaps the only downside of this is that you’re unlikely to need to attract your local Firemen for manly assistance.

You’ll need:

  • A pocketful of pine cones
  • Pack of tea-lights or small candles; I used IKEA’s gorgeous white Fenomen ones.
  • Cupcake cases, slightly larger than your pine cones
  • Optional candle scent; cinnamon, pine, cranberry and sandalwood are all divine.

Firstly, gather all your pine cones.  Size doesn’t matter here, but give them a quick brush to remove dust and bits of forest-floor debris.  Pinecones which are tightly closed will open once exposed to the warm, so you may want to store them inside for a week before using.

When you’re ready to ‘cook’, line a cupcake tin with cases and place one of your tea lights or candles into each.  Make sure you remove the little metal cases if using tea lights, and tweak the wicks so that they are standing upright and proud of the wax; it’s much easier than fishing for them later.  Place in a moderate oven and keep checking until the wax melts and resembles water.  At this point you can add a drop of candle scent to each, or simply leave plain.

Once the wax has melted, move the wicks gently to one side of the case, using tweezers (or with your best pointy fingers; remember that some people claim to quite enjoy being covered in hot wax…hmmm).  This will ensure that the wicks don’t get lost underneath the cones.

Then simply place a pinecone into each case; the wax will rise around it and hold it firmly in place as it sets.

When the wax has cooled and set, lift the cases out of the pans and peel away the cupcake case, revealing your firelighters in all of their glory…

These also look very pretty when left in their cases; I’ll be tying a bundle of these (below) up in cellophane bags or small burlap sacks to take as gifts for those we visit during the festive season (though I’ll probably check that they have an open fireplace first…).

 

And now the light is fading, the kettle is on, and we’re almost all home; have a wonderful weekend whatever you’re doing!

*Update*; a few people have asked via email or comments how these work; to use these firelighters, simply place them at the base of your fire and arrange kindling over the top before lighting the wick; the wax ensures that the pinecone will catch light and burn for long enough to ignite the kindling and create a real blaze; at that point you can add bigger logs and settle back for an evening watching the flames.  Here’s how ours turned out this evening;

 

A Scented Christmas

October 16, 2012 By in Green Fingers Tags: , , , , , , , 11 Comments


At this point in the year, you can bet that Martha will have baked her Christmas Cake, completed festive gift shopping not only for her nearest-and-dearest but also for those unexpected guests who may drop in over the holiday season. Mulled wine is probably even now gently steeping on the Stewart household stove, and the turkey is gobbling a little more anxiously than last week. No such preparations are afoot chez nous; we are tardy as ever. Only Harry is our constant reminder that Christmas is not so far away, as his anticipation builds about the arrival of ‘Farmer Christmas’ (something may have been lost in translation there, but I do like the mental picture of Santa arriving on a large muddy tractor).

The one thing I have done today is plant up some bulbs to ensure that the house is full of festive colour and the intoxicating smells of winter hyacinth and paperwhites….

I love the process of choosing the bulbs; visiting the garden centre and filling a large brown paper bag with handfuls of these rustling bundles of promise.  This year I’ve chosen hyacinths of shades of delft blue and rich purples, which I’ll combine with white, silver and wood tones when decorating at home.  I’ve planted some in glass forcing jars so that Harry and I can watch the roots reaching out for the water and see the process of growth and flowering happen at close hand.

We carefully carried these into the dark coolness of the garage where they’ll sit for a few weeks until the tips are about 1.5 inches long, when we’ll bring them inside to flourish and scent the hallway.

Paperwhites exude a more subtle scent and love company, so I added a handful of these to a simple tin basin, tips just above the soil, before consigning them to the dark alongside the hyacinths.  We filled just about every available container with bulbs; they’re so cheap and plentiful, and their beauty distracts from the fact that they’re housed in old tin cans, mugs, mismatched flowerpots and jars (and besides, this was just never going to be a home where stuff matches, let’s agree..).

When we take to the woods this weekend on our usual expedition to hunt for bears (we more often find the ice cream van and the swings, but Harry remains hopeful), we will also be spotting places for the best mistletoe and holly berries, so that in the midst of one cold December morning we can nip out and gather some for our Christmas table.  This may be both the beginning and end of my Christmas preparations for now, but at least we’re off the starting blocks…

Halloweenie Cupcakes

October 11, 2012 By in Baking Tags: , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments



It’s been a while since Harry and I whipped ourselves up into a culinary frenzy, so with Halloween soon to be upon us we present to you… Halloweenies!! Our homemade concoction is essentially carrot cupcakes (because we love them), with whipped cream cheese frosting and fondant pumpkins (because you can never pack too many calories into a single cupcake…).

For the Carroty Cupcakes you’ll need;

  • 100g / 3.5 oz self raising flour
  • 100g / 3.5 oz wholemeal self-raising flour
  • 175g / 6 oz muscovado sugar
  • 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 2tsp mixed spice
  • 200g / 7 oz grated carrot (about 2 large carrots)
  • zest of 1 orange (or a dash of orange extract if you have already accidentally grated your knuckles by this point and are damned if you’re going to try grating anything else)
  • 2 eggs
  • 175ml of vegetable oil.

Mix all the dry ingredients together, whisk the eggs and oil in a cup and pour in, then sprinkle the carrot over the top.  Stir and fold until you have a delicious, gooey brown mess, then spoon it carefully into a lined muffin tin – we managed to fill 12, with Harry eating about 2 further helpings of ‘leftover’ cake mix. The uncooked batter will be thicker than a traditional cupcake batter, which means you should spill less of it en route to the muffin cases.  Bake these at 180 degrees C / 350 F for about 20 minutes.  Whip them out and they should look a little like this;

Whilst these beauties are cooling, whip up your frosting using 300g cream cheese, 50g softened butter and 200g icing sugar.  Then tackle the fondant pumpkins; I used a pre-coloured orange fondant and rolled out 12 small balls.  Using a toothpick, find a point and press firmly down the side of the ball, rolling it in your hand.  Repeat five times, rotating the ball as you go.  Make a small hole with the point of your toothpick at the top, and then press down lightly to flatten the ball slightly and deepen the grooves you’ve made.  We then added some tiny pine twigs in the top, having boiled them quickly to remove any gremlins first.

As a final touch, I wrapped each Halloweenie in black ribbon and added a Boo! motif; you can download my template at the bottom of this post.

Now, sit back and admire your efforts.  Contemplate inviting friends over to share these then decide, on balance, to eat them one by one until you are entirely unable to move.  Check upper lip for tell-tale smudges of frosting before leaving the house.

Halloweenie BOO Stickers

We are not alone… (Fairy Doors)

October 8, 2012 By in Making Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 62 Comments

Strange noises have been heard in our house of late.  Scratching and skittering from behind the panelling, often at night.  Things are also going missing; tiny things, like single earrings, and crumbs from the floor. My husband, ever the pragmatist, is convinced that we have mice.  Whilst he headed off to the rodent-control section of the hardware store yesterday, Harry and I stumbled across the truth, and it’s much more exciting; We Are Not Alone!



Almost invisible to grown-ups, camouflaged against the kitchen skirting boards, is a very tiny front door.  To adults it looks just like a plug socket from a distance, but to eagle-eyed little people it is immediately obvious that this is the entrance to the home of the Other People who share our house.  And look; as if more proof was needed; they even receive mail and milk deliveries!

So now we watch this door very carefully, from the corner of our eye, just in case we manage to catch someone coming or going.  We’ve found that the best thing to do is to be very still and to pretend to be absorbed in something else entirely.  Whilst we wait, Harry has led an exhaustive search of the house to see if there are any other signs of our neighbours, and lo and behold; we found another door!!  Occasionally when Harry comes down in the mornings there is a tiny plastic ladder nearby; we think they borrow it from his toy box and use it to scramble up the skirting to reach the door.

Harry is convinced that this front door belongs to all the little action-figures which by day are jammed into his toybox; at night, they obviously retire home to a warm – if tiny – bed, shortly after Harry wends his own weary way upstairs.  As a lifelong fan of Mary Norton, I think that we have Borrowers, and have been telling Harry all about them.  In due course I expect we’ll also discover that this is the doorway that Santa’s tiny elves use on Christmas Eve when they slip in to check that the coast is clear for the Big Man himself.  The tooth fairy, too, probably makes a cameo appearance via this very same entrance.  In the years to come, doubtless Harry will forget this wee door and it will fade into obscurity again.  Till maybe one day, years from now, someone small enough and attentive enough will discover it once more…

This is the lovely site which inspired me to create the presence of tiny neighbours in our own house.  I ordered a couple of inexpensive, non-opening dolls house doors online (‘proper’ doors have deep frames which make it difficult to affix them to skirting unless you actually go the lengths of channelling them in – only for the truly dedicated), then spray painted them and added some miniature door furniture.  I crafted tiny letters and tied them together with bakers twine; interestingly, it’s these that Harry has been most captivated by and saw as the ultimate proof of life.  The doors are attached to our skirting boards with double-sided tape; strong enough to withstand Harry knocking on the door and tugging the knob, but easy enough to remove if necessary, with perhaps just a dab of touch-up paint if needed.


And finally, for those who want the instructions in an all-in-one Pinnable tutorial, here’s a montage below;


Making a Statement: brighten up a dull day

October 5, 2012 By in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments



I’ve just finished redecorating the room in our house I use for all-things-creative; the walls are whitewashed, the old navy blue carpet ripped up and consigned to a skip, and it feels light, bright and inviting at last.  I wanted to paint the ceiling and walls bright white to maximise the light, but as a result they can look a little bare.  Last night’s project was therefore a simple paper banner which I can change at will, loosely strung between two wall tacks along a length of ribbon.  It adds a vibrant splash of colour but is entirely temporary, and can be reconfigured to create other words when I get bored….



To make this, I decided on my phrase and typed it into a document file, one letter per page.  I switched the font randomly each time, and played with the colours.  I then simply printed out the sheets and glued each to an A4 sheet of coloured cardstock (I love these tonal papers and use them for most projects, and tend to always have a pack in my drawer)

I then strung a length of ribbon between two tacks I nailed into the wall, and used wooden pegs to attach the sheets.  In my usual slapdash style, I didn’t make any measurements and just did this by eye – it looks rough ‘n’ ready and that’s fine by me!

I can see these appearing round the house in due course in various permutations; I can create an ‘enter!’ banner from my existing letters to string over a door, and by adding an ‘H’, ‘L’ and ‘M’ to my collection I can make a ‘Harry’ sign for his bedroom door, a ‘NOEL’ for Christmas, and a ‘Be Mine’ for those romantic moments which manage to occasionally elbow their way into life with a young family.  The possibilities are endless.. almost.  ’Never Be Ordinary’ seemed an appropriate motto for a family whose various members will frequently go shopping in a cowboy hat and swim goggles (Harry), and hold a Guinness World Record for running the fastest 3-legged marathon whilst tied to your brother (the unlikely-but-true pick-up line used by my future husband soon after our eyes met across a crowded room…). Embrace individuality – and so say all of us!


The Apple Game; making the most of Autumn!

October 1, 2012 By in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 17 Comments

This could be my last post before I go to jail.  A solemn occasion, therefore, because once I enter the local Correctional Facility I doubt I will emerge the same person. It is Harry who has introduced these Draconian threats and warnings, as he passes through a very literal phase where life is governed by rules, warnings and consequences.  Thus it is he who will exclaim loudly in shocked tones in a restaurant; ‘Mummy!! Are you talking with food in your mouth?? We don’t do THAT in our family!’.  He’s right of course, and I hasten to add that I don’t make a habit of it – but still, I am ashamed.  My latest misdemeanour was to switch off the television and refuse to say sorry for doing so.  ’If you don’t say sorry’, Harry announced, staunchly and a little regretfully, ‘you will go to prison with lots of naughty men’.  Now, naughty men may occasionally be appealing, but jail is less so, so I am attempting to distract from my shortcomings with a new family game; Pick An Apple.



12 small paper bags hang from this eye-catching board, each with a different mystery seasonal activity and the equipment we need to do it. On weekends or days when Harry and I are free from work and nursery, Harry gets to choose an apple bag at random and that’s what we’ll do for the day.  I’ve picked a number of age-appropriate and interesting things – mostly outdoors but with a few bad-weather alternatives – which include collecting leaves, choosing and carving pumpkins, apple-bobbing and helping Daddy to make a big bonfire.  The content of each bag varies accordingly; for our pumpkin picking there are just enough coins for Harry to buy the right size pumpkin, and a list of tips I found online about how to choose a good one, which will require us to squeeze, juggle and weigh our way around the field as we discard lesser pumpkins in pursuit of the most magnificent.  For our toffee-apple making activity (below), the bag holds lollipop sticks for Harry to push into each apple, wipes for sticky fingers and the recipe itself.

I bought the brown paper bags cheaply at a local stationery store, then cut out apple and leaf shapes and glued together with a small piece of twig to form each apple.  Tiny wooden pegs hold these on the bags and keep each bag closed to avoid peeping.  The bags I hung from pushpins on an old cork pinboard which I painted black and stencilled.  If you don’t have a convenient pinboard or canvas, the bags would look equally good strung along a wall or fireplace like bunting, pegged to a piece of ribbon.



And here’s the result of our first activity; making windfall toffee apples. No danger of talking with your mouth full with these beauties; our industrial-strength caramel effectively seals your jaws together and prevents conversation for several minutes after consumption…genius! Perhaps I should market these as a budget-conscious and appealing alternative to the gastric band.  We’ll work through our activities between now and Halloween as the days grow shorter and the seasons change in technicolour.  I’d love to hear what your favourite activities are at this time of year, and anything we should add to our list…

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