Friday 24 February 2012

Reusable Gift Wrapping - Sophie

Having children has really opened my eyes to unnecessary packaging. As the years have gone by I've become more and more unhappy by the amount of rubbish we generate around birthdays and especially at Christmas, when it's not unusual for us to have 2 extra bags of rubbish just from wrapping paper and packaging. Over the past few years I've been trying really hard to find ways to decrease this.  Obviously you can limit unnecessary packaging by choosing your gifts carefully but wrapping needs a bit more thought. My favourite and easiest way of doing this is just to hold onto gift bags and recycle them.  They seem to get passed all around the family and come back again - I'm sure lots of people do this!  I have also started wrapping family gifts with fabric and ribbons. At Christmas we halved our usual rubbish by doing this. This week it was Gaby's birthday and it will be the second year I've used this cupcake fabric and although it did cost more to begin with, it was a nice feeling to get it out again and have nothing to throw away. I'm getting better at the wrapping now I think.....!


 It's a bit harder when it comes to gifts for friends. I think most people would find it a bit strange to be asked for their gift wrap back! I found a way to make the wrapping part of the present with this knitted face cloth pattern last year, so a couple of people ended up with these filled with soaps or bath bombs...


Here's the cloth 'unwrapped'...


....I really like this pattern.  It's enjoyable and easy to follow.  I've knitted 6 of these now and given them all away, I think it's about time I kept one, maybe it's a stash buster project for the future!


Thursday 23 February 2012

My Birthday ~ Gaby

  Recently it was my birthday! We had loads of fun at Pizza express for my birthday party. Pizza, Chocolate sundaes and Twilight birthday cake, YUM!!!


  On my actual birthday my granny came round for tea and we had another twilight cake! (Next year I think we might change the themes...)



 I got loads of awesome prezzies, including LUSH  bath goodies, a bowl hand painted by mum, books, make up, vouchers and a notebook. Wow I was spoilt this year! Not that I never am or anything....


  Overall I had a good birthday and whenever your birthday is Happy Birthday!!!!

Saturday 18 February 2012

Stash Busting Challenging ~ Sophie

Oh blimey, I came across this challenge on the same day as we started this blog, so I'm thinking I will join in.  Actually I repeatedly promise myself that I'm going to use up my yarn stash before buying more but it never seems to happen so maybe this will help a bit.....(maybe)!

Since Christmas I have kindly been given a massive amount of yarn by a friend and I also bought some bargain purple yarn in a charity shop.  My boxes are bursting at the seams and there is no room for any more.


I'm already working on a crocheted cushion which I started last Autumn to use up some last bits of cotton left over from other projects.  It is sat in a basket nearly finished so I think this is where I should start!


I also have a tunic on the knitting needles at the moment which is getting close to being finished...


....and I'm trying hard NOT to start anything with the lovely colourful cottons which I bought before  Christmas even though I really want to make one of these cats.  I'm trying not to have too much on the go and once.

Famous......last.....words!

Friday 17 February 2012

Strawberry Love Cakes ~ Gaby

 Hello and welcome to our blog, Arty Crafty Cakey Bakey!


 For our first post I decided to blog about some cupcakes I made yesterday. I added strawberry flavouring and red food colouring to our cake mixture to make them even more delicious than they were! I then poured the mixture into a heart shaped cupcake mould and cooked them (Obviously!) After they had cooled down I decorated them with white ready-to-roll icing and sugar flowers. They tasted amazing!