Infused Booze - 50 makes of Christmas11/50

I am sharing this one with you nice and early as it needs a little bit of prep in order to gather everything together eg saving the right bottles, harvesting the berries, picking up the gin when it is on offer, allowing the flavours to develop

Hubby is rather partial to the odd drop of sloe gin, and I had hoped to locate some local blackthorn trees in readiness to collect the sloes in Autumn to make my own. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any on my travels so far, so I have looked around for alternatives.  My aim was to use some of the soft fruits from the garden but the birds got there before me!



PINK GRAPEFRUIT GIN

In the absence of garden produce I have gone for a recipe that uses as few ingredients as possible  = Gin plus Grapefruit.  I picked out the recipe from the blog of one tomato two tomato pop in and have a look around she has some really interesting ideas.

I began by rolling the grapefruit across the counter a couple of times as this is supposed to increase the amount of juice you can squeeze. Then I gave it a wash, the recipe uses both the skin and the juice.

Remove the zest from the grapefruit, avoiding the white pith, I have used the strip shown in the picture that has a small amount of pith, I will report back if this impacts the taste.

Put the zest in a jar or other suitable vessel

Squeeze the juice from the grapefruit

I popped the sieve over the top of the jar to ensure that I didn't get any pips in when I poured in the juice.

As a guideline this was the amount of juice I got out of my grapefruit

I put in two small bottles of gin as this is what I had in (Hubby picked them up for a bargain price from a My local that was shutting down)

I just popped on a label showing what it was in the jar, on the reverse side I gave  myself an instruction that it needs to infuse for a month and that I should wait before testing.  I have stashed it in the pantry where it will be cool and dark(ish).

In the interest of research I will do some testing once the month is up and if it has been successful I will bottle and put away, if not I will be researching cocktail recipes that I can hide it in!

These are the other recipes that I liked the look of both gin based but I think that they would also work if you use vodka.


BLACKCURRANT GIN

I am torn between these two recipes this one which encourages the use of a potato masher which I quite like the sound of or This one that suggests covering the spent berries in chocolate which appeals as I hate food waste and I love chocolate




BLACKBERRY AND APPLE GIN

A Larderlove recipe that I have bookmarked to try is this one that has a nice Autumnal sound to it. It will be dependant on me foraging enough blackberries as I really can't bring myself to buy them in the supermarket unless they are drastically reduced at the end of the day as I regard them as "free" food.


Make number 11 completed, just 39 left in my 50 makes for Christmas


Do you have any tried and tested recipes for Sloe gin that are part of your Christmas preparations?

From tea towels to Christmas Cushions - 50 makes for Christmas 10/50

Make a Christmas cushion cover has been on my "to do" list for about 3 years and I am so happy that I have finally managed to do it not once but twice!

It is made from a set of tea towels that I picked up from H&M a short time before Christmas, they were reduced and you know what I am like for finding a "bargain", so I couldn't resist, in fact I brought two packs giving me four tea towels in total. I did think about using them for their intended purpose but saw the potential to become cushion covers straight away.

This is what I did......

Measured the length of one of the "Holiday"tea towel around the cushion pad and found that it was well short of what was needed.

The solution  was to cut one of the striped tea towels in half giving enough additional fabric to make two identical envelope cushion covers.

• I trimmed the top seam from the "Holiday" tea towel using my pinking shears, this is where the other piece of fabric is going to be joined and it would make the seam too bulky.  
• Rather than just join the two raw ends together it is important to work out the overlap that creates your "envelope" fastening. Insert your cushion pad work out an overlap of about 3 inches, I was helped here by the design on the tea towel, pin in place.
• Pin the side seams, again the fabric of the tea towel was very helpful as I just pinned along one of the red lines. 
• Pin along the top
• Remove the pins from the "envelope" fastening and remove the cushion pad
• Turn to wrong side and "transfer" the pins to the inside so it is ready to be sewn.
• Before sewing pull though and try the Cushion pad to check that the "fit" is still good, adjust if necessary.
• I sewed the top first and then the sides, I don't know if there is a proper order for this but it seemed to work for me.
• I tried the cushion pad and was happy with the fit so I trimmed the excess off with my pinking shears and gave it a good press

I am really happy with the result and now just need to find some time and some motivation to make another pair of cushion covers ready to put on in the new year when these get tucked away ready for next year.

This is the tenth make of my challenge so just 40 more to go to reach my goal of 50.

I have one of the stripey tea towels left in tact so I will leave that to one side and have a little think about another project, unless any your lovely readers have any good ideas??

From tea towels to Christmas Cushions - 50 makes for Christmas 10/50

Make a Christmas cushion cover has been on my "to do" list for about 3 years and I am so happy that I have finally managed to do it not once but twice!

It is made from a set of tea towels that I picked up from H&M a short time before Christmas, they were reduced and you know what I am like for finding a "bargain", so I couldn't resist, in fact I brought two packs giving me four tea towels in total. I did think about using them for their intended purpose but saw the potential to become cushion covers straight away.

This is what I did......

Measured the length of one of the "Holiday"tea towel around the cushion pad and found that it was well short of what was needed.

The solution  was to cut one of the striped tea towels in half giving enough additional fabric to make two identical envelope cushion covers.

• I trimmed the top seam from the "Holiday" tea towel using my pinking shears, this is where the other piece of fabric is going to be joined and it would make the seam too bulky.  
• Rather than just join the two raw ends together it is important to work out the overlap that creates your "envelope" fastening. Insert your cushion pad work out an overlap of about 3 inches, I was helped here by the design on the tea towel, pin in place.
• Pin the side seams, again the fabric of the tea towel was very helpful as I just pinned along one of the red lines. 
• Pin along the top
• Remove the pins from the "envelope" fastening and remove the cushion pad
• Turn to wrong side and "transfer" the pins to the inside so it is ready to be sewn.
• Before sewing pull though and try the Cushion pad to check that the "fit" is still good, adjust if necessary.
• I sewed the top first and then the sides, I don't know if there is a proper order for this but it seemed to work for me.
• I tried the cushion pad and was happy with the fit so I trimmed the excess off with my pinking shears and gave it a good press

I am really happy with the result and now just need to find some time and some motivation to make another pair of cushion covers ready to put on in the new year when these get tucked away ready for next year.

This is the tenth make of my challenge so just 40 more to go to reach my goal of 50.

I have one of the stripey tea towels left in tact so I will leave that to one side and have a little think about another project, unless any your lovely readers have any good ideas??

........... a haphazard gardener

I enjoy pottering in my garden but I think I fall a long way short of taking the title of gardener, I prefer to think of myself a haphazard gardener. My gardening method is more a case of put it in and see if it grows rather than researching if it is suitable for the type of soil we have, does it need to be in the shade or the sun etc. So naturally I have mixed results.  We grow mostly food as nothing beats going into the garden to pick your own food, it tastes great (mostly) and has zero food miles.

Home grown veg

Hanging basket Tomatoes

Fat green tomatoes

Plenty of runner beans

Can you beat the taste of fresh poddy peas

2nd crop of rhubarb

We also have room in the garden for a few flowers

Red Geraniums

Cottage garden plants

Bees loving the lavender

Despite all this green loveliness growing away my gardening my obsession this year is getting my compost bin working well!! We had an ants nest in there and I was told it was too dry and that I wasn't incorporating enough "brown" items in my mix   I found this site from the master composters to be very helpful.

So in the words of the nursery rhyme "How does your garden grow?"

Decoupage Christmas Ornaments - 50 makes for Christmas 9/50

When I posted this earlier in the month it reminded me that I still had some clay left in the fridge.  I can happily report back that keeping it in a zipped up bag in the fridge has kept it fresh and ready to use.  I would recommend leaving it to come up to room temperature before rolling out, I was a little impatient and it was jolly cold to the touch.

I cut some simple disc with a very small scone cutter that I have never used but looked an ideal size for these little decorations. I left the clay to dry out for a few days and then upgraded them with a little decoupage.  The decoupage idea has been percolating in my head for a while since I saw someone on TV use a paper napkins to decoupage a piece of furniture.

You need to select your napkin design carefully, I was lucky enough to have picked this design up in the January sales which suited this project really well.  Start by separating the layers of the napkin, all you need is the top printed sheet.

I chose to tear around the designs before sticking them onto the discs.  Because the paper is so thin and I am sticking white to white the background kind of melts into the disc.

A bit of red and white twine gives them a great festive touch and they are ready to be hung on a branch.  They would also work as gift tags if you only decoupage on one side.

We seem to have been quite busy over the last few days so it was nice to sit down and do something calming and of course it is another make off the list.  Make number 9, the last of the single figures so just 41 makes left in my 50 makes for Christmas challenge.

Washi tape pegs - 50 Makes of Christmas - 8/50

I made some of these last Christmas as part of my Advent Adventure.  Really easy to make provided you have all the bits and pieces to hand

You will need

Nippy pegs - I got mine from the poundshop a couple of years a go

Washi tape or any decorative tape you may have, you could also use duck tape

Magnetic paper (optional)


This is super easy as all you need to do is attach the tape to the peg, not strictly for Christmas use so these can be used all year round.

It can then be used for


Holding Christmas cards on strings,

Holding baubles onto trees,

Gift tags onto gift bags

Book marks

Attach a name tag to a napkin for your Christmas dinner table

Keeping your coupons and vouchers in one place

Fastening the bread bag

If you have the magnetic paper cut out a strip and attach to the back of the peg, I use two layers as my paper is quite thin. these can then be used to hold important or not important  bits of paper on the fridge door.

Depending how these are going to be used they can be further embellished with

buttons,
pom poms
Any shapes you have punched out of card or heavy paper
Anything interesting you have laying around.

I would love to stick a small car on one but It would need a ridiculous amount of magnetic paper on the back! So I need to park that idea for another day.

These make nice gifts and if you don't use Christmas patterns they can be used all year round.

That is make number 8 of my 50 makes for Christmas, almost at the end of single digits

When blackboard paint meets air dried clay ornaments! - 50 makes of Christmas 7/50

Last year one of my Christmas makes were these ornaments made with "DAS"air dried clay.  They are incredibly simple to make, just roll out the clay and cut out the shapes using "cookie" cutters. Pop a hole in the top using a straw and leave to dry.  One pack makes loads of ornaments and I still have almost half a pack of Das sitting in my fridge, I guess I should check it is still OK!

Lovely as they are all in white looking simple and stark I wanted to give some of them a bit of a make over so my trusty and seemingly never ending pot of blackboard paint came out again.  Inspired by my first make of the 50 -  dipped gift tags I gave some of them a little dip.

And once a little dip has been done a full immersion followed!

To dry them off I strung a piece of string between two regular size tins with smaller tins sat on top to keep it in place.  Initially I threaded the ornament on the string like I had done with the tags but found this didn't work as well so unfolded paperclips and used them as hooks which did the job pretty well.  For the items that were fully immersed I put them on the hooks and then dipped them in to the paint.

I am really pleased with them, I think it gives a new look to something I already had and I may go up in the loft to find some baubles to see how they would look with a dip.  I did loose a couple that had been rolled very thinly in the first place and they went soft and soggy when they had been dipped.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted a second set of dipped tags, I want to play around with a few embellishments, I will post up the results later.

That is make 7 out of my 50 makes for Christmas just 43 more makes to go!

Have you dipped or painted anything like this? have you double dipped?