Birdie Num Num

Sometimes, I need some quick and easy hooky - just to make me feel that I do finish projects, although I have been sooo very busy with Dazzling Dance Dresses. I also seem to have been hooking forever and a day on my beautiful Japanese Granny blanket - it just seems to be never-ever-never ending!!!

So  a few days back I sat down and thought about a quick and easy hooky something.... I really loved the inner circle of the adorable little Easter bunny's I made for Little Madame, I had also seen some really cute little birds on  the Bunny Mummy blog, made with the same circle. So I set to work on making a quick and easy hanging mobile thingy - am really not sure what to call it!

Love This Circle

I quickly churned out three of the circles, they are so pretty. Once I had  finished the circle,  I folded it in half and simply slip stitched it closed, before I closed it up completely I  stuffed it then completed the last few stitches to close it completely......

Number One...

Number Two....

Number Three - Done!

Three little half circles were soon all good to become sweet little birds! I loved the colours I had chosen, now very often I will get asked how do you chose the lovely colours and how do you match them up so well..... To be perfectly honest, I think about what colours contrast the most then put them next to each other and hope for the best! Yes, I know, I am a little odd! 

Tail Feathers

Little bottom feathers came next , you simply double up some wool then pull it through the very end stitch and then pull it through the loop, pull it tight and cut it off! Done!

Done!

I cut a wing shape out of felt and sewed it on with a tiny button, they were starting to look very, very sweet, and were looking exactly like the picture I had in my head!

Wings .....

Buttons...

Felt beaks and tiny buttons for eyes, and my teeny tiny birds were born! Have I mentioned to you that you must Never EvEr throw buttons away, I have even been known to snip buttons off shirts(yes LSO's shirts - But don't tell him!) when  needed for something crafty, I have a bottle of buttons in my craft room, now I think this is an inheritance from my mother, she never threw a button away and in her built in cupboard at home, I guarantee you, you will still find her bottle of button, if I am not mistaken it is an old Peanut butter bottle! Funny how traditions get started....... Little Madame has her very own bottle of buttons!

Sweet Little Birds

I crocheted up a heart, the same one I used for Valentines day teachers presents, only I used a smaller hook as I wanted them to be slightly smaller. Just before the end, I inserted a long piece of ribbon, (thread a bead on to the end, then place a knot on each side of the bead, this will kept the bead firmly inside the heart) the slip stitch over the ribbon, I gave it a few good tugs and it stayed in place!  

Hearts and Birds

I then raided Little Madame's bead box for some  sweet  little beads. I  threaded three onto the ribbon and  then with the ribbon threaded onto a huge needle, I eased it through the top of the bird and out directly under it, it was not difficult as I had not  stuffed the birds too full, and tied another knot under the bird, that way they wouldn't slip down, and when you push the beads down it gives the little bird shape! I repeated the whole process 3 times!

Love This Ribbon

A few days later while watching Little Madame playing at my favourite coffee spot(@ tap, I managed to finished my sweet little bird hanging thingy!(Still not sure what to call it)

I made two roses and some leaves for the heart! Then tackled a few teeny tiny pompoms, these very sweet and easy pompoms have become my new obsession! They are easy, super easy! I have a bowl full, even  Little Madame gets in on the act!

Roses and Pompoms

A Rose By Any Other Name

Pompoms and Beads on The End!

I Love This Heart!

I could not wait for the play date to end so I could rush home and put up my sweet little hanging bird thingy, I knew exactly where it would go....... Funny thing that, because when I put it up, next to my beautiful wall stickers of bird cages, it looked all wrong! Very Wrong! I was heartbroken, had I made it all for nothing......



Not The Right Spot!

I walked around the kitchen with it hanging over my shoulder for a few minutes, looking and pondering, where did I spend most of my kitchen time?......Then it hit me.... Where do we girls spend most of our kitchen time?....... You clever, CLEVER peeps!! - Washing Dishes!!!! So up it went, right beside my sink, now dishes seem like a much happier chore for me........Ok, I can hear you all laughing, BUT I will keep trying to fool myself ......xxx

Perfect Place!

Heaven in A Biscuit!

I have told you all about my love of all thing Edible! I sure you all know that I love eating and cannot resist a good recipe or cookbook, hence the shelves and shelves and SHELVES of cook books and magazines all around my house!(and the voluptuous rear end!!) Soooo lets add yet  another cooking mag  to the pile! For my darling peeps who read my blog over the sea's. Here in Good Ole South Africa, we speak NOT 1 but 13 official languages... well I certainly can not, but let me clarify... we have 13 official languages that are spoken in our beautiful if some-what-mixed-up-country! One of those is Afrikaans, a sort of Kitchen dutch that most of us count as our second language. It comes in VERY handy when overseas and one wants to mouth off about something annoying and even more handy when mommy and daddy want to speak about something that Little Madames ears should not hear..... a very handy language indeed! 

So here in SA there are many Afrikaans magazines, I mean,that just follows. One of those is a magazine called Sarie(a Girls name) This very clever magazine just brought out a food edition - in ENGLISH!!!!  Oh my Giddy GiDdy Aunt!! There are really good South African recipes in it! From traditional Babootie(a Minced meat dish) to mouth watering Oxtail Stews, Malva puddings,Souskluitjies(dumpling in a Cinnamon milky sauce - my Ouma Honnibal is the queen of these) and the Biscuits..... oh the yummy-yummy-mouth-watering-delish-biscuits!!(click on the picture for the link)

Beautiful Picture and Recipes

n the back was a section on Healthy Eating - Oh Stop it right now! - Stop laughing and get up off the floor!!! I do try, I really do....... Any way...... back to what I was saying..... Was Chocolate Chunk Biscuits - and boy did they sound delish!!!. You know what comes next.... Off to the kitchen....

The Making

Sarie Magazine's Chocolate Chunk Bicuits with Milk

200g Soft Butter
100g Brown Sugar
50ml Honey
2 eggs
5ml Salt
250g Cake Flour
350g Raisins ( I only had a cake mix, raisins ,currant and sultana's  - but it worked perfectly)
240g Oats
100g Dark Chocolate( 70 percent or more please)

Oven to 160 degrees

Cream the butter sugar and honey
Add eggs (one at a time) and mix well
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well
Roll into ball, place on a greased tray and press flat with your palm to about 1cm thickness
Bake for 20 - 25 min

Pour a large glass of ice cold milk and APPLY TO MOUTH! try and to stop at 2 as the knowledgeable people who wrote this say that is what is healthy,  I eventually stopped at 5 or was it 6....... can't really remember .... or choose not to .......

Out The Oven

In The Jar

Applying To Mouth

Now apparently they really are very healthy, you would never think so by the taste, my dear friend Lesley (by the way - Lesley's blog is awesome -take a look -http://lesley-justsaying.blogspot.com/) who popped in for a very successful crochet lesson, proclaimed them very good! The recipe states that the batch of cookie dough makes about 30, I got a lot more out of the dough, but I like smaller biscuits that fit perfectly into your tea cup and can get all soft and soggy when saturated with tea! Oh, uh... Please excuse me while a go put the kettle on, I feel the intense need to go be healthy!........ xxx

PS:: Was thinking, you could add Nutmeg and Cinnamon to these  for a very Christmassy feel..... Will try it out and let you know.....

Mug Hug

Yesterday was a very cold day so Little Madame and I decided it was a Chillax day! We ate Pancakes in bed for breakfast, she then played with Lego - Now I need to tell the creators of Lego  - WELL DONE on the girly Lego what a WiNnEr!  And as for me, I really relaxed, my favourite all time comedy, The Big Bang Theory,   was running a day long marathon, It was Heaven I tell you, sheer Heaven! I made many cups of tea, now half way through one of the said cups of tea I noticed that it was getting very cold very quickly!! Mmmmmm  was not happy about that , on a cold day one needs(with a large amount of need!) hot, no not just Hot but PIPING HOT tea or coffee! Of course this send me off on a crochet frenzy!

Pancake Left Overs

A few months back LSO had brought me a crochet magazine from the UK called Simply Crochet, an article had caught my eye, a kitchen article, so I went in search of said magazine,because it had in it exactly what I was looking for....... not in the lounge pile...... not in the toilet pile.....not in the kitchen pile...... Oh, there it was in the bedroom pile.... a sweet little Mug Hug was needed.... a very girly thing indeed!!(wait you will see... it genius!)

About To Begin..

So while we lay in bed and watched  The Big Bang Theory (Will say it again, my favorite all time comedy - I adore Sheldon!!) I whipped it up and I do say whipped because it took no time at all! I am either getting super quick or these last few patterns I have crocheted are super easy! I like to this I am becoming super fast....(insert a big smile here)

Very Clever Pattern

Literally, cast on 42 stitches and  9 rows of crochet, alternating a treble and double crochet, a very small increase and a button hole, which was so easy, normally I have to really concentrate when doing button holes but this was really so easy! I popped myself off the haven that is  my bed and went in search of a button(that handy bottle of odd buttons) Found the perfect one, sewed it on, and sewed the very bottom together and wait for it........

Ta Dah ... A Mug Hug!

Ta Dah!! A MUG HUG! It really is so very cute, and to be honest my mugs are very boring and drab and WHITE! Not sure why, when I love colour so much, every where else you look in my house there is a riot of colour going on, but my mugs well drab and boring...... so they were really in need of something to help them out!  

And you know me, I never can stop at one, and well there are 6 mugs.....

So back to the original plan... Keeping my tea warm, weeeelllllll the jury is still out on that particular bit of science.... Maybe I should enlist Sheldon's help, but then again maybe not, all I really want is HOT tea not an entire thesis on the molecular process of why my crazy cute mug hugs won't work........ I like to thing they are working just fine ......... xxx

PSS:: Mmmm I know how your minds all work you are not even looking at the Mug Hugs just the accompanying Biscuits.... my new recipe.... WATCH THIS SPACE!

The Loo.... eh .... Moo

 

 

Remember way back in February when I was whisked off to London...... Yes it is a Long, long time ago, or so it seems, things have been rather busy around here, and to be honest I could do with another trip to London real soon.....

 

So where am I going with this ...... Let me tell you, while we were there I discovered this really quirky shop, I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called and  could probably go onto google earth and see but being that I am feeling a bit lazy ...... Well now, I bought this really vintage looking necklace and earring in this shop and was browsing around waiting for LSO, who was in the millionth(not sure if that's a word) outdoor shop, when I saw the most amazing bit of decorative wall art. 

Now for those of you who know me well, you all know how much I LURVE anything out of the ordinary.... quirky, funky and eclectic, my home is a mish mash of odds and ends..... And I love it, each and every piece has a story or meaning, or I have collected it on my travels!  

 

SO what had I found?? A really funky Moose head made out of patch work pieces that came flat packed and could be put together like a puzzle, I HAD TO HAVE IT - lucky for me LSO had left his credit card with me........(Insert BIG smile here)

 

Sadly however, when we got home and after all the excitement of Little Madame opening her gifts.... I looked for it but it was gone... oh woe is me!!! I had left it behind, or so I thought, a few days ago, I was looking for something, that had fallen behind my chest of drawers and to my absolute delight there was my moose head - YAAAAYY!! WOO HOO!! YIPEE!!

  

  

The Long Lost Packet

 And so I set about piecing it together, I was rather easy and with help from my Little Madame, it went from being a flat pack to a three dimensional moose in no time at all. And as you can see by the picture a lot of fun was had!! 

 

Press Out Moose

The Instructions

Looking Good!

Get Your Hand Out Of My Picture!

Little Madame being a 'cow'

 

So where to put it? My walls are pretty full, and I think that poor LSO groans but grins and bears it every time I bring something new home! We debated long and hard as to where it should take up residence, the lounge-over the fire place would be ideal but it just didn't look right, the kitchen - eh definitely  no place! The bedroom -  not quiet right, when I was struck by a thought, What about in the loo above the throne? It was quirky enough and would elicit a laugh, and to be honest lots of really important business goes on in there- so why not ?

Ta Dah!

And so it was put above the throne amid much pomp and ceremony,  and to be perfectly honest I don't think we could have found a better spot for it, it is at the end of our passage and as you turn the corner you see it and every time I see it, it brings a great big smile to my face. LSO now calls it "The Moo" A very apt name for our very own throne room ....... xxx




The Throne Room

 

 

 

A Little Crochet Monkey Business...

At the moment, I have two gorgeous friend who are both about to have little bundles of joy, and because I have been so very busy making 'Dazzling Dance Dresses' I have not had a moment to crochet the blankets that I had promised myself I would make for each of them...... Also as you all know my attention span to finish things ...... well it is REALLY short. 

I wanted them both to have something unique and really cute and this set my mind in motion, well it is always racing like a steam train..... no let me correct that the Japanese the bullet train! A while ago on Pintrest I had seen the most adorable little dummy chains(pacifier  - for all you Americans) Sweet little flowers, well since neither of my friends were telling the sex of said little bundles of joy, I needed to come up with an alternative...... 

When I first started to crochet I had started to buy a series at our local newsagent on crochet, and was sure I had seen what I was looking for in these books,  so down to my craft room I went and pawed through the 3 files and sure enough there they were little animal heads - Monkeys, Ellie's, Bears and Tigers, they were so, so sweet! And exactly what I was looking for!

The Pattern

I had everything I needed and got to work right away, now would you believe it twenty minutes later the head was done....... you stuff the head  as you go, and simply crochet the hole closed - people who create these patterns are so  very clever!

Stuff As You Go

 

Might Make A Good Ball

Twenty Minute Ears

I am not telling you a lie, when I say the ears took about three minute each, the little monkey head was DONE!! Talk about quick and EASSSSYYYY!!

 

 

So Sweet

Next came finishing off, add some circles to the ears, stitching them on with a running stitch, and then attach the ears onto the side of the head!

One Ear

I was smitten and I knew that I would be making these for every single one of my friends who were expecting from now on.... I mean, look at the picture below, is it not the sweetest!(even if it's not finished)

Two Ears

Half A Face

 

 The face was also made out of felt and stitched on separately, little pink cheeks and a mouth and nose and it was beginning to look like the cutest little monkey ever!! I sewed a brooch pin on the back and added a long piece of ribbon to it, you can just loop the dummy onto it and it was good to keep dummy from getting lost....Why oh why did was I not crocheting when my Little Madame was born...

Awwwww!

I'm In Love

 Next was a sweet little elephant, it  was super quick, actually even quicker than the monkey as there was less detail in the face, the little trunk however was a challenge, and I ended up just doing my own thing, which of course will be a problem should anyone ever want another 'ellie' but it is also so incredibly cute, I just cannot make up my mind which one is cuter.......

   

Ellie Making

   

Ribbon On

  

All Done

 So I am happy to report that both of these beautiful woman that I call my friends have subsequently brought two bouncing baby boys into the world! I have yet to meet either of them as I have had a very bad head cold and been poorly for a few days..... but plan on making a trip, for baby cuddles later this week.

Josce and Nick -  Welcome to the world precious boys, may your lives be blessed with love and laughter, and may you bring joy to all who meet you .......xxx