Dried Orange Slices - 50 makes for Christmas 22/50

I had a go at drying orange slices a couple of years ago with mixed results, batch one I thought was a little over done as the slices looked a little darker than I expected and the second batch I under baked so when I took them out of storage to put on the tree they had gone mouldy, yuck! So this year it is time to give it another go.

I consulted Pinterest and of course there is a myriad of advice to follow, here are a few

this one from Mum in the mad house

this one from design Megillah

this one from the spotted Hare

and this one from thinly spread

The advice seems to vary so I will add my own experience into the mix.


I was aiming for a slice of about 1 cm but unfortunately what I did was a bit inconsistent, room for improvement on another batch.  I blotted them on kitchen paper to help take some of the moisture out before putting them on cooling racks on top of baking trays.

 I baked them at less than gas mark 1 ( approx 225f or 110c) for just under 3 hours some of them have gone a little bit over, so try and keep a closer eye on things towards the end.

It was cold enough for me to light a fire in the log burner last night so I popped them on the top when I went to bed so they could get the benefit of the last of of the warmth, I will leave them out around the house for a few more days so they can continue to dry out, I am probably being overly cautious in doing this but am still scarred by the previous mouldy batch!

I have a number of uses in mind for them, although not all my come to fruition

• Hung on the tree as they are

• Add to the pine cone firelighters

• On a wreath

• On gifts wrapped in brown paper

• In my table centre piece

At the end of Christmas when everything gets tidied away I will pop them on the fire to make the house smell lovely.

Make 22 done with 28 remaining in my 50 makes for Christmas challenge.

Has it been cold enough for you to put your heating on or light a fire? we seem to be having OK days but chilly nights.

Twiggy Christmas tree - 50 makes for Christmas 21/50

This is a bit of a left over from last year, we went to the Norfolk coast in December and collected sticks and twigs off the beach with this project in mind.  Good old December filled up with lots to do and that ate up any spare time that I had so the sticks were put in the log burner and the project stayed in my mind.  No trips to Norfolk this year as our first grandchild is due at the end of November and I certainly wouldn't want to miss out on that! So I raided a few apple tree sticks that had been cut down last year and were destined for the log burner.

I selected enough sticks to make a pair of hanging trees, I tried to go for ones that are quite straight but still had a few bumps to add a bit of character  So all I have to do is add the string

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Attempt number one involved lots of pieces of string tying the branches to the one above.  It is pretty sturdy but there is rather a lot of string and I think this detracts from the shape.

I am not really happy with the result and so I tried a different method,

This time I went for a continuous piece of string, it was much quicker to do and I think I prefer this one out of the two, but I am still not quite happy with it.  I will have a chat with Hubby as he often helps me find a simple solution to my crafting dilemmas.  If all else fails the sticks will just be put back in log basket and we will pretend this never happened.

These are some of the Pinterest post that inspired this make









That concludes make number 21 with 29 left to go for my 50 makes for Christmas challenge.

Any advice or suggestions on how to improve these would be much appreciated.

50 makes for Christmas 11 to 20

A quick catch up on the last 10 makes, the little olive tree on my patio is getting a fair bit of  exposure in this group it has made its way into several of these posts.

I am working out the next ten makes and looking at the long term goal and wondering if I will actually get to the end of this challenge. With the very important impending arrival of my first grandchild at the end of November I think my focus is going to be channelled in that direction once she arrives.  So my plan is to get stuck in and see if I can get to the end of the next ten and then take it from there

11)  Chin chin anyone for gin

12)  Anyone who had heart

13) When you wish upon a star

14)  Button it

15)  Feeling the felt Toadstools

16)   Feeling more Felt with a  flowers brooch

17)   Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer had a very shiney nose

18)    Did someone mention Chutney

19)    Get your POM POMS out

20)  Relight my Pine cone firelighters

I am not sure which is my favourite out of these ten makes but my top three are the firelighters, the flower brooch and the felt hearts, this will probably change once I have tested the gin!

In case you missed them here are the first ten makes

Pine cone firelighters - 50 makes for Christmas 20/50

Now that the temperatures have started to drop and there is a distinct Autumnal feel in the air it is only a matter of time before we will be closing the curtains, lighting the fire and snuggling down on the sofa.  With this in mind it seems like an ideal time to share this make, I have seen these posh firelighters in the shops around Christmas time but can never bring myself to buy them as they are ridiculously expensive for what they are.  In theses circumstances of course you consult the oracle that is Pinterest and Pinterest says yes Sandra you can makes these yourself,

There seems to be two methods of making these either drip hot wax over the cone or melt a tea light in a cake case and place the pine cone in the melted wax, these were made using the second method.

Heat the oven to gas mark 4.  Take the tealight out of the metal case and stand it in a cupcake wrapper and place in a muffin tin. I used silicone cases for mine, they were brought a few years a go when I was experimenting with making my own candles but they never got used.

Pop in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, you need to keep a close eye on these as you only want the candle to melt to a liquid state.  You most use extreme caution as hot wax can burn quite badly and is highly flammable, after the falmmability is what we will be harnessing!

Remove from the oven, push the wick in the metal disc to the side of the case using handle of a spoon (or other), this will be used to light the completed firelighter.  The wicks are very short and a couple did separate from the disc, I still poked them to the side and I am hoping that won't create any issues when I use them.

Place the pine cone in the melted wax and leave to cool.  You can either leave in the paper cake case or peel it off, the removed cake cases will also be good to help start your fire, they do look very nice once "peeled" and more like the shop brought ones.

I will be bagging some up as gifts and keeping some to use myself.  You can add spices such as cinnamon to the melted wax for a Christmassy smell.  I am planning to dry some orange slices as part of my 50 makes for Christmas and I think I might quarter a couple of the slices and add them in to a future batch, they will look pretty and should smell nice too.

That is make number 20 completed from my 50 makes for Christmas challenge.

Has this inspired you to have a go or do you have your own method of creating home made fire lighters?

Paper pom-poms - 50 makes for Christmas 19/50

I have a small stack of paper cake cases that have "spread" as I didn't store them in the box they came in, I can't even remember why they were taken out in the first place!   They have been knocking round one of the kitchen cupboards for a while and I didn't want to throw them away as I was sure that they could be re-purposed.

I was inspired by this giant pom pom made with coffee filters, I think they are the same shape so I guessed that they would work in a similar way.

They were pretty easy to make, I just folded/pinched the centre and put in a couple of stitches to hold, the second one was attached to the first and then I just continued adding on until I felt that it was "full".  

I tied off the the thread and will use this to hang it up.

These are going to be used at a baby shower that my daughters friends have organised for her so I introduced a few pink cake cases into one of the pom poms but I don't feel that this has worked very well as the pink cases are larger than the white ones and I am  not entirely happy with the end product.

I think the white ones look like paper snowballs and will be a great addition to my Christmas decorating stash.  I think they would look good strung together to make a garland or a few hang in the window would be quite cute.

I am pleased that I have been able to find a use for some of the squashed cake cases and I will have to try and think of some other uses for the remaining ones.  I could of course make a huge stash and start a paper pom pom snowball fight!!

That is another one ticked off the list and one step nearer to achieving my goal of 50 makes for Christmas.

Do you have something in the cupboard that you just can't bring yourself to throw away because you are waiting for the right project to come along?  or is it just me?  

Chutney - 50 makes of Christmas - 18/50

I love making chutney, especially using ingredients we have grown ourselves.  Hubby is now the tomato grower in our household and it makes me smile to see him lavishing them with love and attention.

I love this recipe for Autumn Chutney that uses both tomatoes and apples from the garden, it doesn't take ages to cook, tastes nice and light making it good to be used all year round.  I particularly like it on a cheese sandwich made with Hovis bread and a nice mature cheddar..............drool

The apple chutney recipe I used last year resulted in a very sticky, toffee like, sweet and very dark chutney, it received mixed reviews but was a surprising star with Colton Basset Blue cheese.  So this year I am interviewing new recipes as I am looking for something that is a bit more versatile and is a good all rounder.

One of the things with chutney making is that you can't be sure what it is going to be like until it comes out of the jar once it has matured.

This year I am going to try this recipe from Gemma Garner's blog post from 2013, it has no sultanas so it will be a nice contrast to the Autumn chutney I am making, it doesn't have a million ingredients which I see as a good thing, it means you don't buy something like Outer Mongolian Camel dust that you only use once then it sits in a jar in a cupboard until five years after it has gone out of date then you finally give in and throw it away.

I am hoping for a last flourish of sunshine to finish off the tomatoes so that I can get stuck in, I will try and remember to post an update once we get round to testing it at Christmas.

This will be make number 18 so just 32 more to complete the 50 makes for Christmas.

How is your harvest have you already picked all your homegrown goodies?

Rudolph gift tags - 50 makes for Christmas 17/50

These gift tags are really cute and easy to make so this is ideal to get children involved in.

In keeping with my plan to use up things I already had in, the tinsel pipe cleaners these were brought for 50p in the sale about 3 years ago, the googley eyes are from a kit I was given last year and the the red pom poms are recycled from last years Advent Adventure

I poked the pipe cleaner through the hole at the top for the string, it needed a little bit of gentle manoeuvring so small children may need a bit of help with this.

 

Snip about an inch to an inch and a half of the top of each side

Twist the bit that has been snipped off onto the top of the pipe cleaner to create the antlers

Work out the position of your pom pom nose and googley eyes

Or in my case work out where you want to stick them and just plonk them on wherever!

I used evo stick glue as that is what I had to hand but I think sticky fixers would be better if doing this project with children.  They have not been tested under the tree so I don't know how robust these will be.  We always seem to end up with at least a couple of presents without tags.  

We did have fun one year when my daughter carefully wrote out the gift tags to both her Grandmas with "to Grandma" they were sat side by side on the sofa and kept undoing each others presents :)

So that is make number 17 completed and I am well on my way to completing the first 20!

It looks like the sun has decided that it has done enough shining and the rain is making up for lost time.  I think that Nottingham has been quite lucky compared to other parts of the UK, over that past couple days of days I have seen some real horror pics on FB with lightening strikes, flooding and a train derailed due to a landslide!  I hope you are all safe and dry and that the weather doesn't hinder your weekend plans.