Edible christmas gifts

For the past few Christmases I have cooked a batch of something to give to friends, neighbours and anyone who I'd like to know that I appreciate them. I enjoy the planning, cooking and making cute little packages, finishing them with hand printed tags. All very satisfying!

Last year I made jars of caramelised red onion chutney and packaged them with a box of crackers and some brie. The year before was peppermint bark in cellophane bags with pretty ribbons. This year I wanted to try cordials to mix with soda water or iced water (or possibly vodka for the grown-ups ;-) So I tested  out lime this time.



I tried this recipe, which I liked, though it was a bit sweet (the kids love it, obviously!) and I'll adjust it next time. I also love the look of this rhubarb cordial and will try that one too. And in preparation for the gifts I bought some empty bottles from Ikea.



I made a little citrus stamp and used it on a hand written tag with some jute ribbon. I packed up a bottle to give to a lovely friend as thanks for a favour, along with a fresh lime to slice and add to her drinks.



While at Ikea (and will food gifts in mind) I spied the lovely fabric above, which previously had not appealed at all to me, and thought it would make lovely shopping tote bags. See, the sewing sneaks in yet again ;-)

I'll also probably make some more celery salt, one of my favourite little condiments which we use a lot and is quick and easy to prepare, plus there's the opportunity to do some more stamping. And the colour fits well with the Christmas theme too. Important details in the scheme of things!



... and another option would be Apple Jam, a pretty safe bet that most people will like it.



I think I'm starting to get into the spirit of Christmas now. A little craft will do that! How about you - planning any edible gifts?

Hand printed fabric swap

I've been playing around for the hand printed fabric swap lately, exploring colour, shape, overprinting.

 Sketching my thoughts...

And trying out ideas...

It's been a great kick in the pants to get the creativity flowing. And there's nothing like a deadline to help with that!

Hope you had a great weekend :-)

A swap and a community

I've just signed up to do round 2 of the Hand Printed Fabric Swap, organised by the lovely Leslie, and couldn't be happier. To be honest though I nearly didn't do it as I wasn't sure I could find the time (I've been busy with another little project - tell you all about it soon ;-). But then just as the deadline approached suddenly I really wanted to be part of it. And within a matter of hours of Leslie emailing me my group details I got a lovely message from one of my swap buddies, Kate. It made my day and reminded me that apart from giving me a kick up the backside to try something a little different, the nice thing about joining a swap is getting to know some new-to-me talented crafters.

When people ask me why I keep a blog, and they sometimes do, I struggle to put into words just what I love about it. But really it's simple - the wonderful sense of community that comes from sharing with others, picking up loads of inspiration along the way, not to mention the confidence that all the lovely comments give me. It can be a bit of a solitary life at times being a SAHM and this community enriches my life.

So thank you Leslie, Kate, my other swap buddies, and you for reading this! Hope you have a good start to your week.

The first idea - hard to beet

It's Print Swap deadline today and true to form I've wrapped and posted the parcels on the final day (operating under "the cornered rat syndrome", as my uni lecturer used to call it!).



This was not for want of trying or thinking about it for the past few weeks. With another project in mind (tell you another time ;-) and still stuck on a food theme after my artichokes, I knew I really wanted to do a new beetroot design. But that little voice in my head kept nagging me: "maybe I should do something different... what if my partners don't like cooking/gardening/beetroot... should I do something more girly, even though it's not really 'me'?... maybe I should do something kiddy (all my partners have kids)... or maybe not... I could do something Christmassy..." and so on and so on, until I told the voice to shut up and got on with it!



I did play around with a few other ideas, which may turn into something in future, but in the past I've found that my half-baked ideas often lead to frustration... so for now if was back to the beets.



And now that I've practiced screen printing I am keen to keep going. Next on the agenda is coffee. Food obsessed, me? ;-)

KCWC wrap-up +

I'm rather late with this one as KCWC finished last weekend, but I just thought I'd show you a little messenger bag that I started last week and just finished for my little boy. As he's always taking his sisters' bags and wearing them around the house I thought he'd better have one of his own.



I used my usual self-drafted pattern but made this one a bit smaller than I usually do as he's little. Apparently noone has told him he's only 2, I'm sure he thinks he's 10 - he's so independent and just has to try to do everything his sisters do (3rd child syndrome maybe?).

And what better fabric to use for a dog-loving 2 year old than this Michael Miller "Mutt" print. I teamed it with some repurposed denim for a bit of strength and durability.



I was considering reserving the bag for Christmas for him (which is approaching scarily fast - arghh, someone slow the year down please!!). But as we are going away on a little break for a few days soon I'll give it to him for that - for taking some cars and trucks away with us, or maybe collecting shells on the beach?



I'm looking forward to making a few of these bags to sell at the upcoming school fete, then hopefully I will finally get my act together and reopen my Etsy shop with some more bags... that is if I can finish making the pair of these that I am happily fussing over :-)

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In other KCWC news I was thrilled to be featured in Meg's wrap-up pics - yay! It's over here in case you want to have a look, staring my little girl as no. 6 ;-)

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In unrelated goings on, I have joined the handprinted fabric swap going on over at onegirl. I'm really looking forward to thinking of a design to print and also seeing everyone else's.

Coincidently my friend Lamina from do a bit recently very generously lent me one of her screens to try out some screen printing of my own (and reminded me of the print swap - thanks Lamina!). After doing a course recently I've been keen to try it out. I'll have to have a few practice goes before I do my swap pieces so I don't send my poor partners anything dodgy!


If this sounds like your kind of thing the sign-up is open until tomorrow so pop on over to Onegirl.

Lots of interesting creative spaces over here today, go visit and enjoy :-)