After almost 2 and a half years since my last post this blog is definitely well overdue an update! Although some great things have happened since I last wrote a post - Tom's sister's wedding in 2013 for example - the last 12 months have been pretty challenging to say the least. Those of you who know me will know my family suffered a real blow in January 2014 - my older sister Jane lost her battle against Bowel Cancer. Whilst Jane and I hadn't been particularly close for a number of years, something I really regret, it of course had a huge effect on me and my family. Thankfully I was able to visit her in the hospice to say my final goodbyes which was possibly the most difficult experience of my life so far, but at least I got to say goodbye. Even typing this now, almost 12 months down the line, it's hard not to feel sad and I can feel tears begin to form, but Jane's death has had some positive side-effects - her husband Al raised a phenomenal amount of money for Beating Bowel Cancer by running the Bupa 10k in May last year, and my younger sister Annie and I both ran the Cardiff Race for Life 10k in July in aid of Cancer Research UK. Whilst the money we raised was considerably less than Al's stellar fundraising efforts I know that every small amount of money contributes and makes a difference in groundbreaking research in the fight against cancer.
Aside from anything else, training for and running a 10k was the single hardest thing I've ever done physically, so I feel really proud of myself for sticking with it and for making it over the finish line with Annie. I worked out that I ran over 217 km during my training which is the equivalent of over 10 half marathons (or 5 full marathons), and given I was a self-certified couch potato who had never done any running before, I was understandably really chuffed with this achievement. It proved that I could actually do something I had previously thought myself wholly incapable of doing, so this is an important lesson I am going to keep in mind for 2015!
My medal reminds me what I am capable of.
This year has also been challenging for work-reasons - I don't want to go into great detail but after almost 9 months of stress, anxiety, and generally feeling miserable and worthless I ended up leaving my job in November. I didn't have anything to go to which was scary, but I've survived and I'll continue to survive, and hopefully this will lead to something even better. Financially it's obviously not a great situation to be in but I have some savings and my family have been extremely supportive and most importantly I am building up my confidence and self-belief again.
Although I am currently feeling a little precarious, I have options and I don't feel anywhere near as stressed as I did 2 months ago. I took a temporary job selling books over December which was hard work but I loved every minute of it, I met some great people and I made a good impression on the managers, who have said they'll definitely let me know if any more work comes up, so at least there's that. In the end, there seems very little point being desperately unhappy on a daily basis just for the sake of a job that only looks good on paper. I'd much rather be earning less in a job that actually makes me happy and that I look forward to every day. So for the time being I'll carry on working hard applying for jobs, helping my Mum out with her various businesses, and also doing volunteering for the National Trust which has proved to be pretty cool (sometimes literally!).
Stewarding at the Illuminated Gardens event at Powis Castle
at the end of November - beautiful but freezing!
Some good things did happen in 2014 though - Tom got a job with Open Reach which has it's own challenges, but he gets to work outside instead of being desk-bound all day, he gets to drive a big white van and work with some pretty cool tools, and he gets paid to climb things! I am so proud of him for working his a** off and beating the competition to get his place, for making it through the long training period in Leeds (which sucked being apart all week), and I hope he enjoys it more and more as time goes on. My big brother Jonjo also bought his first flat and we had a great weekend visiting him and seeing his awesome new pad.
Some college friends also got married in June, and we had our 10 year college reunion in July which was brilliant, although my hangover the next day was a pretty horrendous! My sister Susie also had another little girl in April, Sophia, who is just gorgeous and amazing and they also moved house in the summer so I hope we get to go visit them in France again sometime soon when money permits!
I'm sure I've forgotten some other big things, and I haven't yet finalised my resolutions for the year, but in order to help me remember and cherish the good times of 2015 I've created my own memory jar for the year ahead. The idea is to write down on small scraps of paper good things that have happened throughout the year and pop them in the jar to read again at a later date. It doesn't have to be the big things like weddings and babies, even little things like a catch up with a friend, a walk in the woods, pottering in the garden, or a craft project like this memory jar itself - all these things contribute to making me happy, so they are worthy of going in the jar. Some people don't read the bits of paper until New Year's day the following year, but I like the idea of dipping in and out of the jar throughout the year to remind myself of moments that have made me smile.
Not finished yet - need to decide what
colour to do the lettering.
Vintage-style pocket watch stamp that I
got this Christmas. It seemed appropriate.
That's it for me for now. I'll try and do a post on how I made the memory jar soon, and will update on my resolutions as well soon. Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Year, and here's to making the most of 2015!
Hi everyone!
I just updated my cooking challenge page with a few new recipes ticked off the list - I've now completed 31 recipes so far with 41 to go. I've been going a bit Eastern crazy lately as I've done the Thai Green curry and more falafel (but baked this time which made me feel a lot better about the calorie content!) and I'm thinking of doing a chickpea and potato curry in the next week or so. Check out my Cooking Challenge page if you have a moment!
In other news, Tom's birthday has been and gone - we went to Silverstone to see the Free Practice for the MotoGP. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the actual race on the Sunday as Tom had to work but we still had a brilliant time (despite the typical British weather that somehow left me drenched and sunburnt in equal measures) and we're already thinking about booking the whole weekend away next year.
Free Practice on the Friday at Silverstone
Because of our trip to Silverstone I thought Tom's birthday card should have a MotoGP theme to it, and after wracking my brains for days I finally came up with a design I really liked involving a hidden message - the design had checkered flags on the outside, and images of one of Tom's favourite MotoGP riders, Casey Stoner on the inside, and a hidden message in the folded part...
Checkered flags (which took ages...)
MotoGP winner 2012 Casey Stoner
Before he won the Championship last year Casey Stoner's rider number was 27 so I thought this would work well seeing as Tom turned 27 this year.
And now that Stoner is the reigning champion he is now riding under the number 1, so I thought I could play on this to write a cheesy message on the inside of the hidden part of the card.
It's small but the blue number on the bike is 1
I found the hidden message card tutorial on Youtube here (it takes a second or so for the video to start) and even though the original design on the video was quite feminine, the basics can be applied to any kind of card like the one I made.
In addition to the recipes on my Cooking Challenge list I also baked some toffee brownies as a late birthday treat for Tom. Absolutely, unbelievably, sinfully delicious, but so, so bad for you it doesn't bear thinking about (seriously, a whole stick of butter and 3 and a half bars of chocolate went into it!).
In other news, I'm going to be working at another Flower Show in London next week (Hampton Court) which also coincides with a family party to celebrate my cousin Jenny's end of treatment for breast cancer and her 40th birthday, so I'm really pleased I've managed to coordinate things so that I can work on the stand and do the family thing as well.
What else? Oh yes, we had Australian Christmas last weekend which was great fun - it's essentially a big get together for friends who we might not see on a regular basis and we have a bbq and just pretend like it's Christmas in Australia (but without the presents). There's been so much going on in the last month that it's been quite hard to stick to my budget so I'm hoping the next couple of weeks I can get by without spending much and slowly get more out of my overdraft. There's more birthdays coming up in July (including mine) so I'll still have to be careful about money for the time being.
And finally I got to see a specialist about the on and off dizziness I've been having, and he doesn't actually think I have labyrinthitis, which is good news in one sense as it means I won't be left with lasting damage to my inner ear. Unfortunately though he believes I'm been getting vestibular migraines which are what is affecting my balance, and which means I might need to be on medication for the rest of my life (boooo), and also means I have to completely cut out caffeine. Now I can cope without the stimulant side of caffeine as I don't drink much real caffeine these days anyway, but I just really like the taste of coffee and tea, so not sure how I'm going to cope without that. The bit that really upsets me though is.... *pause for dramatic effect*..... no more chocolate either!!
CURSES!!
He's definitely missing his Cadbury's Caramel
So that's my life in a nutshell for now. I'll try and update more as the weeks go by on everything (Cooking Challenge, decaffeinating myself, and getting out of my overdraft).
Here's some more homemade birthday cards and gifts I've recently made for friends.
This one I made for my best friend Amy's birthday. For the paper flower I followed a tutorial I found on youtube (with background music from Emilie Simon which made it even better!), and I then stuck a piece from a broken bracelet in the middle with sticky pads.
I also made some photo-candle-jars or whatever you want to call them using some old photos of us and our friends from over the years which I printed on normal paper in black and white and glued onto a clean jar on top of some old book pages I'd already glued on. I then tied some cream ribbon around the neck of the jar added the tea lights and voila!
That's a photo of the cardamom biscuits we made together in case you were wondering...
It was also my friend Becky's birthday a few weeks ago but because I was away working at the Chelsea Flower Show with work I didn't have time to work on a nice card before her birthday, which I felt pretty bad about. So since we were going to her Dad's birthday this weekend I decided to make them both a card.
They're both very musical so the cards had to have a music theme. With Becky's I decided to make a heart shape out of a treble clef and a bass clef (I've seen it on a tattoo before and it looks cool) which I made a stencil for and then cut out of book pages (I love using old books for craft projects, in case you hadn't noticed!) and stuck onto some nice red card and added some more book paper to the edges. It was pretty tricky tracing the treble clef and cutting it out so I'm even more proud of how it turned out (even if the whole thing could have done with being a tad more central).
I then cut out a happy birthday message from the remaining red card for the inside, which again I stuck on top of old book pages to make it stand out more against the black card. Ideally I would have liked to have used old music scripts but I just don't have any lying around and didn't have time to go hunting for some.
For Becky's Dad I decided to make a piano themed card from some ideas I'd seen on the internet and this is how it turned out.
It might seem pretty simple but it was actually quite tricky making sure everything was the exactly the right size and getting the white keys to lay out right without either overlapping each other at the bottom or leaving really big black gaps at the top. I probably should have made the curve a bit less pronounced, or made the keys themselves narrower, but it didn't turn out too badly in the end. I was going to add in black music notes to the red section at the top but it would have been very fiddly and I didn't really have all that much time before the party in the evening (which was a musical extravaganza itself!). Both Becky and her Dad liked their cards which is the main thing anyway! :)
Right that's enough blogging for one day I think. If you have any comments or questions about any of these cards or the photo jars, just leave me a comment below!
I've been getting into my papercrafts this year and have already made a few bits and bobs - for Valentine's Day I made a nice card with buttons and red ribbon, as well as the book I made for Tom (see my post on Valentine's ideas), and I've had a lot of fun getting creative.
I had a friend's birthday party yesterday so I'd decided I wanted to make her a card rather than buy one. Now before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm not a compete stingy miser, I'm just trying to be a bit more careful with my money right now, and I personally think the greeting cards that you can buy in the shops are a complete rip off, and I don't know many people who actually keep them, so it's not very environmentally friendly either.
I'd had a couple of ideas in my head of what I wanted the card to look like roughly - quite simple but vintage colours and style as my friend is quite stylish and artistic (her and her partner run a photography business and she is also a trained make-up artist).
This is what the final product looked like and here's how I made it.
After having a quick look at some magazines for references, I decided to use up some of the book pages leftover from the book I made for Tom (there's a reason I can't throw anything away), to create a nice background on top of some nice black card, which I made by cutting strips of text out of a couple of pages, and then glueing them down with pritt stick. I didn't want them to look too straight and tidy, so I just used scissors rather than the stanley knife. When I stuck them down I didn't glue all the way to the edges as I wanted the edges to curl up slightly to give the effect of being aged.
I then made some paper flowers to sit on top of the book page strips - I did this by cutting out a medium sized flower outline in some dusky pink paper, and then used that cut out as a template to cut one exactly the same in the same paper. I then used some patterned reddish paper and cut out individual petal shapes (with tabs on the bottom so I could stick them down) and glued them on top of the pink flower outlines with pritt stuck.
After that I sewed on a nice pearlized button in the centre of each flower. To get it right in the centre I placed the button on the reverse of the flower and pushed a pencil through the holes to mark where the needle needed to go through the paper.
I had some more patterned paper which I cut into strips to make the flower stems, and once I'd decided where I wanted to stick the flowers I stuck down the strips and glued the flowers on top. Once they were stuck on I used my fingernails to bend the petals into a more 3D shape.
To finish it all off, I just sewed a border around the front of the card with plain white thread (running stitch) which looked really nice against the black card. The whole things was a little rushed because I hadn't left myself much time and I needed to get on with baking for the birthday party, but I actually don't think it would have looked much better if I'd had the time to complicate it by adding in more elements - I think the vintage feel patterns and colours contrasted nicely with the simple black background and overall it had a nice collage effect.
Most importantly my friend really liked it so overall it was a success - I just wish I'd made two cos I want one now!!
I know I haven't updated this in a while but I have been doing a fair bit of cooking lately (not always things from my Cooking Challenge list).
Ones I have managed to tick off the list are (I'll update the totals on the Cooking Challenge post):
Jamie Oliver's Chicken Korma which I made completely from scratch including the curry paste - ended up being a bit hotter than a normal korma (had to add loads of yoghurt to cool it down) but still very tasty. I did serve it with plain rice and naan bread but I couldn't get a decent picture of it sorry.
I didn't make those biscuits!
Rhubarb fool from Annie Bell's Gorgeous Desserts book which I made for my friend Helena's birthday yesterday - didn't look much like the picture as the lovely homegrown rhubarb from my friend Amy was more green than pink, and I used Courvoisier rather than Cointreau in the cream, but it still tasted really nice! I did make some poppy seed biscuits to go with it, but didn't manage to get a decent pic last night so here's one I put together today (with yummy French gallettes, I can't claim to have made those!). I've got a load of the fool leftover in the fridge now, so I'll most likely have some for lunch!
I also made a paella with roasted veg a couple of weeks ago - based on a recipe from Ravinder Bhogal's book Cook in Boots which again wasn't on the list, but tasted delicious. Surprisingly easy, although makes a real mess of the wok, and it's just as nice reheated as lunch for work. I'll definitely be trying that one again!
To continue my efforts to actually use the meat in our freezer, I tried my hand at slow cooking with a recipe for breast of lamb with baked onion, which I was pretty pleased with. The lamb was really tender, and the onions were delicious. I probably should have served it with potatoes, but didn't have any in, so made a ratatouille and added some plain pasta to the side.
Ratatouille with melted cheese
The leftover onions and ratatouille I added to grilled bread with melted cheese on top and that was delicious (and frugal!).
Baked onions with melted gloucs cheese and chives
Butterflied Toffee Cupcakes
As well as the Rhubarb Fool, I also attempted Toffee Cupcakes for Helena's party (again not on my list), which ended up being delicious even though we had to digress from the recipe slightly when the toffee cream I'd slaved over curdled (damn it!) while we were whipping it. The toffee sauce was amazing though!
Really glad I've learned how to make toffee sauce now - it'll be a good one on ice cream in the summer! Yum!
I love how this simple card turned out
As well as the baking I also decided to make a card for Helena's birthday since I'm trying to be good and get out of my overdraft by restricting my 'spending money' to just £10 a week. Given I didn't give myself enough time to properly plan anything, I'm super happy with how his turned out. I'll post separately about how I created it.
That's it for food updates for now - I'm making myself hungry thinking about it, so I better get something cooking!
Hi there,
I know I've not been updating the blog (especially the Cooking Challenge stuff) very regularly lately and that's because I've been working a lot on Tom's belated Valentine's present in the evenings when he was out climbing, and on weekends when he was at work, but it's finally finished (in the sense that I'd done as much as I could do) and although it took many, many hours (and involved a bit of cursing) I'm really pleased I stuck with it.
Cutting that window and lining up the photo required a lot of patience
Basically it's a scrap book of our relationship (soppy I know) but I read about getting a book made in a print shop of your relationship, and saw a video about making art out of old books so I thought I'd just combine the two ideas. I didn't know who the poet was whose book I was butchering, but I wanted a nice looking, sturdy hardback, that someone else had written notes in, and at £2 from the market in Welshpool, this was perfect. I may well add a 'title' of some sorts over Cowper's name on the front at some point in the future, but for the time being I'm happy with it. I've filled it with our background story (condensed version: we met at high school and liked each other, but never got together, stayed really close friends, and eventually got our act together 8 years after we first met), photos, poems, and memorable moments from our past as friends and since we got together, like concerts we went to, when we moved into our house, and so on. The idea is that as time goes on, I'll add more things to it, hence why it was never going to be finished in the proper sense of the word, as that would imply our relationship was over!
I'm not going to include pictures of everything I included because, well, it's personal, but I just wanted to share the idea as I really enjoyed coming up with all the different things to include and different ideas of how to present them. It's a little bit messy in places as I kept changing my mind about how much writing to include, and how to include the writing over the original typed text, but it gradually became more like a diary summary over the past two years so I needed to write more. To do this I cut out pages of my current journal and just glued them over the book pages, and wrote in them like a normal diary (I used my journals to remind of dates etc). I also made use of some nice paper that I got free with a load of craft magazines I bought when I was researching the industry for a job interview back in November, but I didn't want to make it too girly, because it was supposed to be a gift for Tom, although I couldn't resist a bit of vintage floweriness in places(see below).
I tried to include as many pictures in the book as I could but when I took my original batch of photos to Boots to develop, I realised that it would have been absurdly expensive to print them all, so I had to cut back and just print the ones I thought were most appropriate. I also experimented with creating windows in the pages with glued in photos showing through the gaps, but the pages turned out to be quite difficult to cut without tearing and making a mess. Even with brand new Stanley knife blades it posed quite a few difficulties.
When I first started the project I also purchased a glue gun with the idea of sticking in photos, or glueing pages together with it etc, but it proved to be far more hassle than it was worth. Maybe the equipment I bought was too cheap, or maybe I didn't allow the glue to warm up sufficiently, but it just came out really thick and then seemed to dry and harden ridiculously quickly, so it was pretty much impossible to use. I initially stuck the front cover image on with the glue gun glue but it very quickly lost it's stick, so in the end I just used god old reliable Pritt stick!!
I love this poem by Carol Ann Duffy (Poet Laureate) from her collection Rapture; in fact it was this collection of poems that got me thinking about a special Valentine's present in the first place. The bit didn't quite turn out as tidy as I wanted, but I basically wanted the verses of the poem to stand out as being on top of the original type (which was itself the first poem of the original book), and going round the edges of the journal paper with a black felt pen actually gave it quite a nice, almost reverse-emboss effect, it just could have been a bit tidier. I might go over it one day if I get round to it.
One of my favourite parts of this project was cutting the photos into different shapes and sizes to fit with the words I wanted to include. Once I got the hang of the Stanley Knife it was really quite easy and weirdly satisfying slicing through the photographic paper. What wasn't quite so easy was the mini-project I decided to do at the last minute and which took absolutely forever to finish.
I'd read another poem by Carol Ann Duffy in Rapture called 'Finding the Words' a few months previously and just felt that it completely reflected what I felt when Tom and I eventually got together. I'd been really hurt by my ex and had been in a place where I could see myself becoming really cold and emotionless about guys I was dating before Tom and I started going out, and this poem just seemed to convey what it was like to find that I could love and be loved again.
Because of the name and nature of the poem I wanted to try to compose this copy of the poem with words 'found' and cut out of the original typed text, but this proved to be a mammoth task. I had to cut out pages and pages from the back of the book (I didn't want to use the Stanley Knife directly on the book itself as I was afraid of tearing the old paper) and ended up learning an awful lot about this Cowper chap through repeatedly scouring his letters for the words of the poem. In the end I had to construct some words out of other words. I became disproportionately excited when I found a word I could use (a certain Mr Palmer very kindly donated the 'palm' and Wordsworth lent his 'Words'. The letters for the title I managed to glean from the headers of his letters, and 'Oxford University Press' lent it's letters towards 'Our Story' at the very front of the book. This might seem sad, but having set myself this stupid task I was damned if I wasn't going to finish it, so every new discovery was a small victory of sorts.
I particularly liked this idea of drawing a calendar page for a memorable occasion, although again, I'm sure someone with more natural artistic talent than myself could achieve much better results. On this day for example we drove up to Manchester to see The Hold Steady and it was one of the most fun concerts ever. Afterwards, we chilled out in the Thirsty Scholar (the pub under the railway lines at Oxford Road station), and then I drove us home with cool music on the stereo and we saw in Valentine's day on the journey home. It might not seem like much, but it was just the coolest experience.
I subsequently decided to add the little calendar pages over photos I'd already stuck in as another scrapbook-style element.
Like I said I didn't want to include too many personal elements of the book (some of it is copied from old diary entries), but I just wanted to show some of the different ideas I had. As a first attempt I'm really pleased with how it came out (even with my silly stick drawings illustrating the first night we kissed!), but I'm looking forward to adding to it, and developing techniques and other interesting ideas for other projects as they come along. I really enjoyed going back through my journal and sharing thoughts and feelings that I might not otherwise have shared with Tom.
I'm not going to lie, it was a little scary including some of my most private thoughts in the book, and though I'm definitely a believer in maintaining hobbies and doing some things as individuals (basically not becoming one half of a relationship) that it's still important to share your feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams with the ones we love the most.
Anyway, this has already become a pretty long post, so I don't want to harp on. Hope this has been interesting in some way!
I hope you're all having a pleasant weekend? I've been having a lovely Sunday just chilling out at home with Tom (we've not got many days off together now I'm back to working 5 days a week).
As I may have mentioned previously one of my favourite books is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon in the original French) by former Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered a stroke in 1995 which left him mentally intact, but entirely speechless and completely paralysed with the exception of his left eye. This is what is known as 'locked-in syndrome'. The entire memoir was composed one letter at a time by the blinking of Bauby's left eye to indicate which letter he wished to select as a partner or nurse slowly read them out to him. He died two days after the book was published in France in 1997. If you haven't read it before, I cannot recommend it enough.
The only thing I would say is please don't read it too quickly. It might not be very long superficially, but it took 10 months to write, with Bauby composing the sentences in his head and then 'dictating' them over a four hour period every day. On average one word took two minutes to dictate, so every one of them is precious.
Anyway, I had the thought about a week ago of drawing or painting something to do with the book, so having 'pinned' lots of images of diving bells and suits on my Pinterest page for inspiration, I went out and got some sketching pencils (bizarrely the only ones I had in the house were weird bendy ones which were no good for anything) and have spent the last couple of hours happily sketching away and getting my hands covered in graphite :)
I'm not an artist at all, parts of it are wobbly or not quite evenly sized, and I can't draw smooth circles to save my life (as you can see), but I'm relatively happy with how this first attempt turned out given that I probably haven't drawn anything properly since I was about 17 or 18. I know it'll take a lot of practice to get something that I'm genuinely happy with, but so far I'm having fun trying, which is what really matters.
The eventual plan is to try to create something a bit like the 'Livres d'artiste' that became popular in the early twentieth century, with perhaps a few different pieces with images inspired by the book either next to or overlaid by excerpts or quotes from the text. But like I said I want to practice a lot before getting to that point.
Over this week off before starting my new job, I've spent a bit of time indulging my inner child and getting crafty!
You might have seen the little postcard hangings I made for the house a few months ago, but recently I've noticed a few tutorials on the web for how to make infinity scarves (or circle scarves) out of old T-shirts. Since Tom had several bags full of old clothes that we were just going to recycle at the Cash for Clothes place, I decided to see if I could nab any with nice colours that could potentially be made into scarves or other items of clothing. Upcycling is the new recycling!
I followed a few different tutorials that I found on Pinterest, and after a few botched attempts using the wrong kind of shirt (turns out you really need 100% cotton T shirts or the strips won't roll up correctly) I managed to get two acceptable scarves in quite nice colours in next to no time. All you need is a cotton shirt, a pair of scissors, and a surface you can cut on, so there's absolutely no sewing involved!! Remember if they're second hand shirts you probably want to wash them first...
Here's a couple of links to some tutorials I found useful:
And here's some pics of what I managed to make once I got the right material:
This one I made with two different shirts, one that was striped blue and cream, and one that was plain blue. One thing I learned was that when the cotton strips are stretched and roll back on themselves, they more often than not roll inside out so you only see the colour that is on the inside of the T-shirt. So in the case of my blue and cream striped T-shirt the strips came out quite muted (the colour was printed on the outside of the shirt , rather than being dyed all the way through). That's why I added strips from the darker blue T shirt. As I didn't have any T shirts without seams, I had to hide them under wrapping at both ends of the scarf, but if you manage to find a T shirt without seams then you can make more necklace-style scarves (like in the A Pretty Penny blog above).
Here's the finished product!
I also made another scarf out of a striped T shirt in two shades of grey. This was a larger shirt so it turned out longer than the blue scarf.
Again I had to wrap it on both ends to hide the seams. Because this shirt was striped in two shades of grey I thought it might be quite cool to try to cut the strips so they had both shades (rather than being one or the other), so that's why it looks like I've used two different coloured strips on the wrapping.
One thing I found really helpful was hanging the strips across coat hooks to arrange the seams and then to wrap each set of seams in turn, as it keeps the strips from getting tangled. It was also helpful for stretching the cotton strips initially as it's easier to see if they're roughly the right length or not. Plus it's strangely fun hanging off a coat hook...
I also made a loose headband from some strips from the sleeves of the darker blue T shirt. Sorry for the poor quality images!
Really bad image, but it shows the mix of colours in the blue-white scarf quite nicely
Next time I might use strips to plait a headband so it's a bit more substantial. This one is probably just something I'd wear around the house, but you can quite easily make them more stylish to wear out in public!
You could also use the same sleeve strips to make a simple wristband:
That's all on crafty stuff for now, but I have some more cooking-based stuff to write up so I shall be back again very soon!
So, this is a couple of days late but I only really thought about doing this on New Year's Eve during a Quiz based on memorable events from the past year (which none of us were particularly good at actually).
Anyway, in loose chronological order here are some of the more memorable events in my life from the past 12 months.
1. We bought a Wii Fit just after Christmas 2010 and I got a bit addicted and managed to get quite fit and supple, but got out of the habit half way through the year and have only recently got back into it. I definitely need to use it more this next year!!
2. Tom and I went to see The Hold Steady in concert in Manchester the day before Valentine's Day. It was one of the most fun gigs I've been to in a very long time.
3. We also saw Funeral For a Friend in Aberystwyth on the first night of their tour in March. Not many people will know this, but this particular band holds a special place in my heart as it was when Tom and I first went to see them together as friends a few years ago (also in Aberystwyth as it happens) that I started to realise that maybe we really were supposed to be more than just friends...
3. Speaking of friends, my friend Victoria and her husband James had their first child, a gorgeous little girl Ffion Emma, in March!
4. Still on the theme of relationships, Tom and I decided to move into our own place and after a long search we eventually moved into our awesome house in May - happy days! Thanks so much to all our friends and family who lent us furniture and helped carry heavy and/or bulky things in and out of vans and up twisty stairs all day!
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
5. It was the year of weddings and engagements as one of my oldest friends from primary school got married in July, followed by the wedding of one of my close friends from work in August, and then finally an old friend from the Netherlands got married at the end of August. Our friends Jemma and Steve also got engaged as did Tom's sister and her fiance Nick!
6. (Related to no. 5) Tom got asked to be a groomsman and I got asked to be a bridesmaid for Jemma and Steve's wedding next April. I'm happy that I got to spend some quality girl time with Jemma and Maid of Honour Cassy (including watching the Wedding Singer for the first time!) and we went to The Wedding Show at the NEC and successfully found the perfect wedding dress for Jem.
7. Going back in time slightly, I took Tom to see Bon Jovi in concert in Manchester for his birthday in June. We were right in the Gold Circle which meant we had a great view of the band and Jon Bon Jovi himself walked right past us during one of the songs. It might have rained all afternoon, but it was a great concert nonetheless! Here's a link to some pics I took. (Yes, it was before Tom got his hair cut...)
8. I nourished my latent creativity by making wall hangings from my postcard collection and I also made a cool book as part of Tom's Christmas present. I'm taking him to see Alkaline Trio next May but won't get the tickets until next year but wanted to give him something related to it... The words are the lyrics for the song 'Private Eye' which I cut from paper clipppings (seemed appropriate).
One of my proudest achievements :)
9. It was a great year for cooking as well, although there have been a few narrowly avoided disasters including the recent 'Chocolate Pudding Incident' in which I couldn't figure out why my cake mixture tasted so awful... until I realised I'd forgotten to add the bowl of sugar that was patiently waiting on the sideboard... Doh! I've been given so many awesome recipe books this year and also discovered loads of cool and interesting recipes through Stumble Upon and Pinterest. Some of the recipes I've written up on here, but there are loads more I've tried and not had time to write up but I'll try and get round to as many as I can this next year.
10. Speaking of which, another important event was starting this blog - yippee! It's been great learning how to use all the features on here and I've really enjoyed the opportunity to get back into writing more regularly. I hope if you've read any of it that it's not been too boring...
Inside Bath Abbey clock tower
11.To counteract all the time spent indoors cooking, writing, and looking up recipes on BBC Food, we did however visit some brilliant places this year. We had a great weekend visiting my uni friends in Brighton, and spent our holiday in Bath Spa where we saw some truly amazing things like the Roman Baths and beautiful country parks, and climbed up inside the Abbey Clock Tower. We also went to my friend's wedding in Holland which was really good fun, and we explored places closer to home like Barmouth, Llandudno, Llangollen, Pontcysyllte, and Llandegla Forest for some great walks, day trips and weekends away.
12. Upon my return from Holland though I got labyrinthitis and ended up being off work for two weeks, which was the longest period of sick leave I've ever had to take in my life so it was very weird. I couldn't read or watch TV, and I struggled to cook or even get around the house and do basic tasks so it was a really frustrating time in my life, having to rely on other peple to help me with almost everything. I still every now and then feel a bit dizzy, but for the most part it's gone so I'm really pleased it's over!!
13. As I started to recover from my labyrinthitis I got seriously addicted to the TV series Lost, having previously only ever watched a spoof version of it on Youtube by Tom's sister and her friends (see youtube video below). Despite the spoilers, I did still sob my heart out everytime someone died, especially like during the finale.
14. Back in the real world, sadly a few people passed away including my nieces' grandmother Sandy, and a friend of my mother's also lost her husband. My lovely cousin Jenny was also diagnosed with breast cancer this summer. However, as I mentioned in a previous post she seems to be going strong and has recently finished her chemotherapy, so we're all hoping the next few stages of her recovery go smoothly and are sending our love and messages to her via Caring Bridge.
www.cricbeat.com
15. We were also saddened by the tragic death of MotoGP rider Marco Simoncelli this year. I've really enjoyed watching the racing on iPlayer with Tom this year so it was a real shock to hear about Marco's awful crash. He was very young and had already achieved so much in such a short amount of time. I'm reminded of a phrase often used to describe the short-lived career of 19th Century French poet Artur Rimbaud, "meteoric".
16. Speaking of which, we also had a brilliant couple of nights star-gazing and watching the meteor showers with some friends and I also went on a night ride up to the Horseshoe Pass with Tom to see if we could see any more. That is one of the best things about living in less built-up areas, the stars are so much more visible than in urban places.
17. I had my uni friends over to stay and we went on our first ever Valley Run (a pub crawl on minibuses around village pubs in the local area). It was just fantastic seeing my friends again, and it was well timed as I'd been going through a tough time at work so it was something fun to look forward to. It unfortunately coincided with our shower choosing to leak everywhere and drip water through the living room ceiling - aghh!
18. My younger brother Patrick became Programme Director for and helped launch a Not-For-Profit enterprise Spectrum Designs Foundation which provides employment opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities such as Autism. I even appeared in the September issue of their Newsletter in one of their shirts. Here's a promotional video below to explain more about what they do and why!
19. My friend Tammy kindly lent Tom and me a tree and decorations for our first Christmas in our house!
20. I met up with old buddies from France for a weekend in Manchester before Christmas for a rowdy "Mulled Wine and Mariah Carey" party (Mariah wasn't actually there in person, but there was lots of singing along and dancing to classic Christmas tunes).
21. In some very, very exciting news, I also accepted a job offer for a position in a publishing company not far from where we live. People who know me will know how much I LOVE books, so this is a very exciting move for me, and I can't wait to start this new challenge at the end of the month. :D
22. Finally I actually got to see all my family on Christmas Day. Last year my brother Patrick couldn't make it back from the States because of the bad weather so it was amazing to have all the family together in one place over the Christmas period.
So there you have it. Some good bits, some not so good bits, but overall, I think I'm starting to move in the right direction. That's one of the things that's good about keeping a diary or writing a blog, is that you can look back at where you were at a while ago and check where you've got to. That's not to say I'm one for resolutions or that I've got a big strategic plan for myself, but I've certainly got some plans for next year and with a bit of work (and with the help of this blog to keep me on track) I hope I'll achieve them.
With that in mind I hope you've all had a wonderful Holiday and wish you all the very best for 2012!
Cheers!
x
