It's Time For Some Bunting

It's that time of year, when the sun has actually come out for longer than a few minutes, and it is actually warm! This is the time of the year when we live in our garden, and as we are hemmed in on 3 sides by houses, I always put up some bunting to make the area seem more festive, more colourful, and more party-like.

As I was putting up the bunting at the weekend, it reminded me that I really needed to make some more bunting for my upcoming markets (The Duck Pond Market at Pinner this Saturday 14th May, and the Duck Pond Market in Ruislip this Sunday 15th May).

So I have been busy sewing. Here are some photos.....

Happy 30th to me!

Thankfully, I don't look or act my age, so everyone seems quite surprised when I said that I was going to be 30!

I love birthdays, I just love the excitement, and celebrations, and especially the cake. Even if it's not my birthday, I still get so excited for all the celebrations and fun!

So I was very excited when I had the day off for my 30th, and so did one of my best friends, and so we had a lot of fun!

It started with my boyfriend baking me a cake!!! This is one of his first cakes as he is not a fan of most sorts of cooking, and so I was so impressed!!

We started very classy, by going to yoga at our local gym, and then went to the amazing Oxygen trampolining land, that has recently opened in Acton! http://oxygenfreejumping.co.uk/

It was AMAZING!!!! As we went first thing in the morning, on a weekday, it was almost empty so we had the whole run of the place and it was just incredible!! We bounced and bounced and bounced and jumped into the pits until we were completely worn out!!

Then we cycled home, got showered and dressed up and went for afternoon tea! That was fabulous, we went to the Marriott Hotel right on the river in London and so had a fabulous view of Big Ben and the river. 

The we decided to walk off our prosecco, and inadvertently ended up walking 10 miles!! All the way back along the river, until we got back to Hammersmith in time for dinner!!

All in all a fabulous day!! I am so happy!!

Animal Felt Name Banners

I love the challenge of being asked to make new things, and so have said with my felt name banners, that I can make them with any animal, not just the ones I currently use in my mobiles.

So I was very excited to be asked to make 7 name banners, all with different animals. Here are some photos....

More Felt Name Banners

I have taken my new felt name banners to a couple of markets so far, and have been overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback for them. As such, I have had quite a few orders already!

Here are some photos:

New Mobile Designs

I'm not entirely sure what it is, maybe because it's still so cold, so I've been cooped up in the cosy indoors, but I seem to have a never ending stream of new mobile ideas in my head, that I am just bursting to get making! Here are a few recent ones....

 

Carrot & Oat Cookies - UK recipe

I had an urge last week, to make carrot & oat cookies. I quite often get an urge to bake, but will usually be in my pyjamas and very unwilling to leave the house (even though we have a few supermarkets within a minute walk of the house!!) and so will do a sweep of the cupboards and fridge to see what I have, and then try to find and tailor a recipe to what I have in the house.

Last week, I had a huge bag of carrots in the fridge, and an unopened bag of oats in the cupboard, and not much else in the way of interesting baking ingredients, and so I thought that carrot oat cookies would be a tasty, healthy (?) baking treat!

Unfortunately, all the recipes that I could find were American, and I just don't get all this 'cup' measuring.

In the end, I gave up with trying to search for an English recipe, picked an American on, and got busy translating.

So here is my recipe (also slightly adapted to what I had in the cupboards!!)

170g of butter or baking spread (I used Stork)
50g of dark brown muscavado sugar
125g of castor sugar
*note that the recipe called for 175g of brown sugar, but I used what I had in the cupboard, and though they were fabulous!
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
300g porridge oats
150g grated carrot
milk, to add until it makes a slightly sticky dough


1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees (180 for a fan oven, and lightly grease a couple of baking trays.

2. Beat the butter and sugars together until smooth and creamy. Add the beaten egg, and vanilla extract and beat well.

3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda, and nutmeg. Stir into the butter and sugar mixture until well mixed.

4. Fold in the oats and carrots and add the milk until it forms a sticky dough.

5. Drop mounds of dough, around 8cm in diameter onto the baking tray, and flatten with the back of a spoon, until they are about 2cm high.

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.

7. Eat!!! Mmmmmm!

Felt Name Banners

I've had the idea for a while to make felt name banners, using some of the felt animals from my baby mobiles, but with a hand stitched felt name in the middle, so they are very personalised.

I started with the elephants, as these are the ones I make most for my mobiles, and then went on to try some of my other favourite mobile shapes.....

I obviously had to make an Amy one first, so it goes with my stall!