Wine Bottle Feature Light

It's time for another Christmas craft! Today I'm going to share with you my latest adventure: Wine Bottle Light Accents.

If you Google wine bottle lamps, you'll get a lot of different types and ways of making some pretty cool lamps. A number of these will show you instructions on how to make them yourself. I decided to make some of these cool feature lights myself as a Christmas gift for my dad who is a wine lover.

For this project I needed:
A drill
A glass cutting drill bit (large - you need to make a hole large enough to feed your lights through)
A bucket large enough to submerge your wine bottle lying down
Fairy lights (led work well). I used a string of 80. This is probably the max you could fit in the bottle.
Patience!

So, when drilling glass, you need to keep the drill bit and the glass wet with water as a lubricant. Rather than having to stop drilling on a regulag basis, or have my bottle under a running tap I submerged the bottle completely. Make sure that when your bottle is submerged there is enough water to cover the tip of your drill bit.

Dry your hands thoroughly and then grab your drill and start drilling about 3 - 4 cm from the base of your bottle. Make sure that you do not apply too much pressure or drill too quickly as it is quite easy to break your bottle when doing this - as you can see in the picture!

After breaking the first two bottles I figured out a technique that worked well for me. Drill at a 90 degree angle starting with mild pressure, drilling slowly until you have a little divit in the bottle. Then, drill more quickly, still using mild pressure. Stop regularly to check your progress. The further into the bottle you drill, the less pressure and speed you apply. Once you have broken through the bottle, drill slowly until your hole is the size you want.

You'll then need to wash out your bottle to remove all glass dust and pieces. Dry the outside with a towel and let the inside dry thoroughly before feeding through your lights.

Voila! A festive wine bottle accent!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I’ve been busy lately making a few different Christmas products. I recently discovered a website called Instructables (they have an app as well). I found these two different Christmas crafts to try from the Intstructables site: socksnowmen, crayon melt glass baubles/oranments and these painted baubles/ornaments on a website called Favecrafts. For full instructions please follow the links above.

The first ones I tried to make were the crayon melt baubles. I picked up the glass baubles from Spotlight. They stocked three different shapes at my Spotlight. Just make sure when you buy them that you check for broken or cracked ones. These were very easy and quick to make. I’d definitely make these again. I love the look of them – very festive. The only thing I would do differently is to try and find some gloves to use that will protect my hands from the heat! I did manage to burn my fingers when making these. I was afraid of wearing fabric gloves though as the glass ornaments were very slippery. Rubber gloves also don’t work as the rubber heats up too. 

I then tried the painted glass ornaments. I used acrylic paint to make these and found that I did need to drip a fair amount in order for it to run down the sides. I then left them upside down for nearly a week to get these ornaments to dry. A lot of paint dripped out of the bottom (wasteful!) and changed the look of how they were. I also found out later, that they weren’t actually dry! Not something I would do again. At least not with acrylic paint (I couldn't find the specific paint that was mentioned in the instructions and I am certain this affected the final product).

Lastly, I made the sock snowmen (of course I had to try these – we all know how I love a good sock craft!). I tried making the sock snowmen as shown in the instructable, but I found I didn’t like how the body sat when using the method shown. A friend of mine shared this sock snowmantutorial with me via Facebook so I tried this one too. I really love how these turned out! Super cute. In the next lot I do though I’m going to use more ‘festive’ socks and add more embellishments. I also didn’t have any toothpicks to use for the nose so I just did little felt noses which I think worked out well.

Stay tuned for more crafts in the lead up to Christmas!

Over-ripe Bananas?

I don’t know about you, but in my house we go through a lot of bananas. I mean, my toddler just loves them, and my husband and I find them to be a filling snack. So, normally we eat them all before they have a chance to get over-ripe. However, every once in a while we have a few that get over-ripe and none of us want to eat them. Rather than just throwing them away, I use them to bake.

Over-ripe bananas are great for baking with as when bananas are over-ripe they are higher in sugar and therefore your baking is much sweeter. Banana bread is always a good choice for baking with, and my mum has a great banana muffin recipe too (the one I normally use). This time though, I thought I’d have a go making my own recipe as I had other things in my house that needed to get used too. I had some pineapple that needed to be used up, as well as some rolled oats. The end result: Banana Oat Muffins with Pineapple Chunks! They were easy to make and a very filling and relatively healthy snack or breakfast.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats

2 cups milk (approx.)

3 over-ripe bananas

3 eggs

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup brown sugar

2 ½ cups self raising flour

2 tsp bi-carb soda

1/3 cup oil

1 cup diced pineapple (I used fresh but you can use tinned – doesn’t make a difference – just make sure you drain it)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees (Celsius).

Place oats in a bowl and cover with milk. Set aside.

In a large bowl mash bananas to a smooth consistency. Add eggs and oil. Mix together. Add flour, bi-carb soda, brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix.

Now add in your oat and milk mixture. By now the oats should have absorbed all of the milk. Mix together until the texture is consistent.

Lastly, add in the pineapple chunks and stir through the mix.

Spoon mixture into pre-greased muffin tins and put in the oven for approx. 20 - 30 mins.

Ta-da! All done. This recipe makes 2 dozen muffins.

Depending on your oven, the baking time may vary. Personally, most of my baking needs longer as the seal on my oven needs replacing. If you want a sweeter muffin without adding lots of extra sugar, try adding in a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Because these muffins are quite moist they do need to be stored in the fridge and consumed quite quickly. However, you can also wrap them individually and freeze them and then they will keep for a couple of months.

Hope you enjoy!

Bravery Rewarded

I took it upon myself recently to look into what was involved in entering an item or two into our local show. It turns out it was super easy and only cost $1 per entry. Then came the hard part, do I enter or not? After umming and ahhing for a while and asking the opinions of my mum and my hubby, I decided to go for it. I mean, the worst that happens is that I don't win anything and my ego is bruised - but regardless of the outcome it is a learning experience.

So, I entered. There were lots of categories listed and picking the correct one wasn't as easy as it would seem. This is because the description of categories was quite vague. I thought that I would fit in amongst the 'sewing' and 'toys' sections. Turns out I was wrong! Because what I do isn't knitting, crochet, bears or machine sewing, I had to enter in the category of 'handicrafts' and the section of 'other'. If I had entered anything else there was a high risk that my entry wouldn't be judged as it didn't fit the correct criteria.

So I filled out my form, transferred my entry fee and entered. The Canning Show (which is my local show) was on this weekend and today we went on a little family outing to check it out. And what a pleasant surprise when we went into the craft exhibition, I had won first prize!

There you go. A little bravery and hard work paid off. Next time maybe I'll aim to enter in the Royal Show and see how that goes.

First Ever Craft Market

Well, I did it, I went and had a stall at my first ever craft market! I was so nervous in the lead up to it and very stressed about how it would all go, but it turns out there was no need.

The market was a new one held at Mia Flora in Karragullen (sorry, they do not have a web page to link to). Mia Flora is a beautiful tea house and garden centre that I first heard about from my parents. Mostly the locals in the area go to have a nice meal in beautiful surroundings, and having been there myself now I can see why.

We had fantastic weather, with the sun shining, so there were a fair number of people who came. However, with it not being a well established market not many people seemed to be buying anything. I only sold a couple of items myself, but I'm taking it as a good learning experience. I now know how long it takes for me to set up a table and what people are interested in.

In spite of most people not buying, I did have a lot of people stop to chat to me and look at my animals. I now know that I should have a sign made up stating that my animals are made from socks as most people had no idea and didn't know such a thing could be done/existed! I also think that in the future I will make up a sign stating that I do take custom orders for animals as well (got a bit tired of repeating myself).

All in all I think it was worth going and now I'm starting to look around for a more established market to try again soon!

Not Just Sock Animals

Well, yesterday was my mums birthday and so we were having a family dinner at my parents house to celebrate. We were also celebrating my older brother’s birthday which is one week before my mum’s. Now, since we no longer exchange birthday gifts between siblings, I didn’t have to worry about a gift for my brother, but what to get for my mum? She continually tells us that we don’t need to get her anything, she just wants our time (as in, spend time with her). However, I already see a lot of my mum and so I felt that wasn’t really a big gift from me. So I decided that I would make her a gift this year.

I purchased a counted cross stitch kit that I was going to do for her for mothers day, but I had unfortunately misplaced it somewhere and so she didn’t get it. Thankfully it turned up just in time for me to make it for her birthday (I found it the week before). So, I spent all my spare time in the week leading up to my mum’s birthday making this beautiful cross stitch for her. In that week, I did also have a wedding to attend and spent most of the weekend doing that, and hanging out at my in-laws, so that cut into my stitching time – and I forgot how long counted cross stitch takes. This resulted in me being up quite late on Thursday night so I had it done in time to present it to my mum last night at dinner! 

I also baked my mum a cake for her birthday (and a spare one to take to work). My mum’s favourite cake is carrot cake, so that’s what she got. I tried a new recipe out for this cake as the previous cake recipes I’ve tried have been nice, but nothing special. This recipe came from a Planet Cake cake decorating book that I have at home. The icing however, is my recipe and is a beautiful white chocolate cream cheese icing. I was really happy with how it turned out and everyone at my mum’s work raved about the cake, and everyone last night really enjoyed it as well.

Icing Recipe:

Ingredients:

250g Cream Cheese

210g Nestle White Chocolate Melts

100mL Sour Cream

3 Cups Icing Sugar

1 – 3 Tablespoons Vanilla

Method:

Beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add sour cream and continue beating. Melt chocolate in microwave in 30 second increments, stirring until smooth with no lumps. Add to cream cheese mixture and beat until smoothly combined. Add icing sugar 1 cup at a time until your icing is a consistency that you are happy with. Add vanilla to taste (personally I like a stronger vanilla flavour) while the mixer is going. Ice cake!

Now, I used triple the amount of ingredients as I was icing two cakes and they were layer cakes. I also wasn’t measuring what I was using so the figures in my recipe are approximations. As with all baking, make sure you taste as you go to get a texture and flavour that you are happy with.

Hope you enjoy it!

Super mum? I think not...

So on Friday, I had a particularly productive day and was feeling pretty proud of myself. I managed a trip to the pharmacy, grocery store and pet store. Cooked a batch of chicken noodle soup and a batch of risotto, defrosted the freezer, reorganised the fridge and even had a nap. All while caring for my two boys, one of whom was pretty sick.

Now, before we all go and start heaping on the congratulations for being such an awesome mum, I want to take a minute to praise the man who made all this possible. My husband, Chris.

Every second Friday, Chris has a day off as he works a nine day fortnight (which I might say is super awesome). When after having gotten up at 5:20am with Jeffrey (who was unwell), I went in to Chris at 7am and demanded sleep, he got out of bed and took over the kids. He let me sleep until 10:30am! When Jeffrey woke from his nap with a coughing fit, Chris went straight in to him, and when Jeffrey proceded to projectile vomit all over the carpet, he happily handed him to me to clean up and calm down... And then proceded to immediately get a bucket and cleaning supplies, and clean up mass amounts of vomit from the carpet.

He was in charge of the kids while I did my running around, and my cooking etc. And he also did the laundry.

I often don't tell my husband how wonderful he is because I am too busy focussing on the little things, like how it drives me mad when he leaves his clothes on the floor beside the bed instead of putting them away or in the laundry. But Friday really reminded me of what a fantastic man, partner and father Chris is.

Big hugs and kisses to my wonderful husband, and I can only hope all women are blessed with the same.

Christmas is Coming!

Not much is going in in the land of sock animals as I’m waiting on some socks I ordered to arrive (still! Mind you, England is far away). So instead, I’m busy building up stock of animal types that I already make.

In the mean time – I have started thinking about Christmas. I know, I know, some of you (especially my husband) will be thinking “but it’s only September!”. And you’re right, it is early to be thinking Christmas, however it is my favourite time of the year. Also, if I am sending gifts to my family in Canada, I need to do that soon in order to make sure they arrive on time.

So this year Jeffrey will be making Christmas ornaments for family and as predictable as that is for his age, it has been so much fun making them! So far we have made two batches of ornaments. One has been made of salt dough (still need to find a recipe that I like), and one made from Das.

For those of you who don’t know, Das is a paper modelling clay. The reason I used the Das is because I just happened to have some in the house, so I figured we should use it. Not something I am going to do again! It was stiff and unmalleable, making it difficult to roll out flat to cut out the shapes. We used regular cookie cutters to cut out the shapes and acrylic paint to paint them. To finish off, we will simply add ribbon to hang from the tree!

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