Thank you cards for little ones

It was my boy's first Christmas and he got lots of lovely gifts. I wanted to do something nice for thank you cards, particularly for those who had sent things, but don't get to see him so often.

I alighted on the idea of doing a little photo session of him with all his new things so I could send each person a photo of him with the toy they had gifted to him. Luckily he is a great one for grinning at a camera so the photos themselves didn't take too long. One quick upload to www.photobox.com and a couple of days later I had my pics.

Then I made simple cards with letters cut from magazines and - tada! - great thank yous for everyone. I have had some lovely responses, everyone was thrilled with their pictures - I will definitely be doing this again!

Etsy listings are go!

So it is December! Have you got your decorations up yet? It's much trickier with a baby in the house. I keep thinking I will get it done after I've put him to bed, but by then I'm too exhausted! We have a very small tree (3ft) as we are still in a flat and don't have a lot of room, but since we now have our front room full with pushchair, walker, highchair etc, I am not convinced we even have room for this little tree. But I will find a way!

I have managed to get some things listed on Etsy in time for Christmas, a few things I think would make lovely gifts. For the little ones, I have some baby blankets and cute crocheted bunnies. And some lovely painted candle jars which are perfect for that person who has everything!

Where did the year go?!

Well, last time I posted I was waiting for my son to be born, then suddenly here he was and everything else fell by the wayside! He is now almost 8 months old, and a joy every day. But I have realised how the time has flown. It is time to get things moving now, get back to some crafting and (hopefully) some selling. Today I am finally doing some listing on Etsy, I will post some links once a few things are ready. . .


(By the way, the bunny and blanket in the top pic are my handiwork. A couple of more of those bunnnies are going on sale today!)

First time: Making Marmalade

So last week I made my first marmalade! I have made jam for a few years and foolishly thought it would be much the same. Marmalade is much harder! There didn't seem to be much pectin in these oranges, despite the overnight soaking, so I added some lemon and eventually some cooked apples as well and boiled it for about 1.5 hours instead of the 15 minutes the recipe insisted I needed.

I based it on this recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3383/seville-orange-marmalade

My original quantities were:

2.5 lb oranges
2.5 litres water
2 kg brown sugar.

Plus, as mentioned I ended up adding juice and peel of one lemon, and a cereal bowl full (not very precise i know!) of cooked apple.

Eventually it gave in and started to set, and I now have some rather nice, but very very dark coloured marmalade!

In future attempts I would probably use jam sugar which would add in a lot of the necessary pectin, and possibly mix this with canderel or stevia, as it is really too much sugar in my opinion (as a diabetic these things matter!). Also, this would fix the darkness as that is caused by using brown sugar instead of white.

But all in all I'd have to say, not bad for a first attempt! 

Anticipation

Happy monday! I have only 3 more weeks at work until I go on maternity leave, it's all very exciting. My plan is to start getting things up and running with this new venture as soon as I am off but obviously it won't be fully operational in the first few months after having the baby (it's my first child so life is changing a lot!) 

I actually started working on this idea some time ago, which includes getting furniture (small tables, chairs and shelves etc) that is about to be put on the rubbish heap and repairing / beautifying it to extend its useful life. But as soon as I found out I was pregnant I had to stop working on furniture as you are warned to avoid paint / paint stripper fumes etc. So I have been working on some fabric items and crochet in the meantime, some of which will show up on here soon.

Until then I am just looking forward to a very exciting new time in my life!

PS. I also managed to locate the RSS feed too

My first post :)

Welcome to my blog! It's early days and I'm just trying to sort out layouts and things right now, but will be back soon with lots of crafts and projects i've been working on.

I will also be updating on twitter and facebook soon as well!