Thursday 29 March 2012

Living with Dogs: Meet the Doggies!

I have two beautiful little doggies that I love unconditionally. It's time you met them, I'll probably talk about them lots!!

Now due to the death of my old laptop I don't have many of their pictures :( But I do have zillions of pictures that I've taken on my phone! So although the quality may not be as good, the spontaneity of the pictures will hopefully make up for it!

So please meet our eldest:

This is Roofus! (yes with two o's) He is our beautiful little Cavlier King Charles and is currently 15months old.






Isn't he gorgeous! He is possibly the most playful dog in the world, you thought Cavalier's were lap dogs? Not this little boy! He will play for hours on end and only stop for a snooze when he is thoroughly knackered - he even outplays the next little doggy on the list!

This is our gorgeous little girl - Dakota. She's a blue roan Cocker Spaniel and is currently 8 months old and about double the size of Roofus.






Look at that face! How could you not love her? Dakota is a misunderstood little doggy, many people dislike her boisterousness and clumsiness (the girl hasn't got a clue how big she is) but I wouldn't change her for the world. She actually loves cuddles more than Roofus and is currently asleep next to me on the sofa :)

Sometimes we worry about the battle for dominance between our two dogs as sometimes their 'play fighting' seems to get a little bit heated, but the truth is they are the best of friends and they really do love each other muchly.






We all know that dogs can cost a lot of money to look after but there are plenty of ways to cut that cost without affecting the well being of your pups or the loveliness of your home! I'll show you a few little tricks soon.

Toodles!

Sunday 25 March 2012

If it looks too easy...it won't work!

This was meant to be a post where I basked in the glory of your 'ooohs' and 'ahhhs' after making something especially pretty, alas, it won't be.

And don't think I gave up after the first attempt either! I tried twice to get this to work but it just won't, I'd love to know where I'm going wrong.

So I better tell you what I wanted to make....

Glitter!

Now I don't know about you but I do love a bit of sparkle and I always find that when I want to add a little bit of sparkle to something I never (ever ever) have any glitter and have to go on a walkabout to go an buy some. So when I saw this tutorial I thought I was quids in! These are the ingredients:



Not exactly items you wouldn't have in your cupboard are they? Fantastic! So I got the ingredients together and I got to mixing:



Time to put them in the oven! The instructions say 10 minutes at 350F (so about 180 on our ovens) and the results:



Erm...that doesn't look much like glitter to me! Where did I go wrong I thought to myself...Well I have a fan assisted oven so perhaps it was too hot? OK, take two - this time on 160 for five minutes...



Nope! That's still not glitter! And how does red food colouring turn purple? I'd really love to know that one.

My main issue with this 'glitter' is that it doesn't sparkle, this is just coloured dust (well, salt) and that isn't what I wanted. I had a bit of a look about 'tinternet for a solution and some people suggest adding a sparkly powder to your home made glitter to make it sparkle...so add glitter to your glitter people!

Rubbish.

I'm not impressed.

I'm especially not impressed because I had a little project all lined up for using my glitter and now I'll have to go and buy some!

Have you ever made glitter? Do you know how to make it sparkle? Plleeeaaase tell me!

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Everybody's talking about it!

So I had to give it a try didn't I? (Fluffy little sheep that I am)

I know, I know, this blog is meant to be about things I've made, but...well...I really wanted to share this!!

So everyone's talking about it and so far everybody seems to love it (I've had phone calls from my mum telling me how fabulous it is!). It's a strange concept, one that got most people scratching their heads and wondering just who let the monkeys into the factory to come up with THAT one?

Have you figured out what it is yet?

Dun, dun duunnnnnnnnnn



Now admit it...you're intrigued aren't you? So was I! I love a good slathering of Philadelphia on my toast and I love a good slathering of chocolate spread on my toast - now I've got the best of both worlds! My lovely fiancé however, he wasn't so impressed. He was so unimpressed in fact, that it took three trips to the supermarket to persuade him we should at least try it.

This morning I got my way!



The texture of the new chocolate cheese spread is much smoother than that of regular old philly, it's not as thick and it's much more spreadable.

It smelt pretty darn chocolatey too! A good sign!

Time for the taste test:



Erm...Oh dear :( I wasn't at all impressed. It didn't taste as chocolatey as I'd hoped and it didn't taste cheesey either! In fact, I thought it tasted a little like sour milk!

The strange thing? My fiancé LOVED it! He ate the second slice and had some more a little bit later too!

Just goes to show, you never know what some quirky new idea is going to taste like until you give it a go! I'm going back to my regular Philadelphia light tomorrow morning.

Have you tried it yet??

Monday 19 March 2012

Let's make this house a home! Part 1

So I thought I'd get straight in there!

Now I'm not setting myself any goals here, I'm not going to blog every day (that's a racing certainty) but I am going to try and blog as often as possible and because I want to keep you interested I don't want to leave you with just one post do I?

So...Here is my first glimpse at my handmade home :)

A new home needs decorating right? And if you can't (or can't be bothered to) paint or put up wallpaper you need to add pictures to the walls right? Well yes, but pictures are usually expensive and I'm not only very fussy when it comes to pictures, but I also resent spending good money on a mass produced picture (and there is no way I can afford something original at the moment!

This posed a dilemma for me because there is one thing I cannot do...paint/draw or anything that involves moving my hand over paper to create something pretty - I just don't have the hand-eye coordination thing down. So I had to come up with something else....

Well here it is!

You will need a piece of card, a frame and these two little lovelies:



I bought both of these on eBay for a grand total of about £5. Not bad hey? But what am I going to do with them? Well I'm going to stick, stick & stick some more!

I have a bit of a love for hearts, so naturally I'm making a heart picture, first stick down the outline, then fill it in! Don't worry about gaps between the buttons, just layer them until you're happy with the coverage; making it fabulously 3d is part of the fun! Once you're done sticking buttons to the card, leave it for about 5 minutes to make sure everything is secure, trim the card to fit the frame and Bob's your uncle!

You have one of these!



I was pretty impressed with myself :) And even better, my other half liked it too! And promptly popped it on the wall! Our little flat had started to feel more like a home already.

What do you think? Will you give it a go?

Little disclaimer note: Glue guns as shown above get HOT! Children should not use (at all really but if they must) unless under adult supervision. Be careful people, we don't like burns!

Well Hello There!

Yoo-hoo!

Hello you, how the devil are you?

Welcome to my new (hopefully soon to be sparkling) little blog! I'm a bit of a rubbish blogger to be honest (not a good start to selling myself there is it?) but I've got some new inspiration and I'm hoping to get back on the blogging bandwagon and give it my best shot! It's actually been about 17 months since I last blogged!

Whoops!

So I'm starting here and hopefully I'll get my old, withered, tired and pretty much knackered blog back up and going too!

This blog is all about my little handmade home. Me and my fiancé had had to do a little bit of moving around recently and as a result, have a fair few less pennies in the bank than we're used to. This has started a bit of a revolution with me; Need to buy something? Well sod that! I bet I can make it myself for less money and more satisfaction!

I've become a little handmade, thrifty queen and I'm loving it! So this blog will be full of little tips, pictures and (lets not beat around the bush)a lot of me showing off pretty and useful things that I'm proud of making! I hope you like it!

Now...just need to decide what will be the first little something I show you....Thinking cap ON!