Cup cakes and a sponge cake

For my birthday this year I got lots of cooking stuff, and moreover, cooking stuff that aren't necessary, but so much fun! Today when I got home from school I kind of went into a frenzy of cooking, making cup cakes, a sponge cake, and also oven-cooked vegetables and a fish au gratin with rice. So, even though it's late and I'm really tired, I now feel very happy as I sit here with several lunchboxes in the freezer and half a bakery on the kitchen worktop, about to ingest dangerous amounts of sugar together with my roommates*.

*My roommates, who by the way are the best friends ever, as they threw me a great birthday-surprise when I got back form my family. As I entered the apartement I found a homemade cake and presents, and they were all lovely. <3

Bow

Mairuru's blog is fantastic, and a great source of inspiration! It's often updated, and filled with cute and colourful handmade things. Her sewing-by-hand is crazy, and makes me wish that I'd rather sew *more* by hand whenever i fail, rather than turn to my sewing machine whenever I see the result of my hand-stitching..
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Today, I found an old post of hers, where she makes cute bows for barettes. Inspired like crazy, I pulled out like half of my pottering-shelf to find something to use. I was planning on using white fabric, lace with a pink ribbon, pink lace and pink buttons, but ended up using only the first two. This as it took longer time than expected (as mentioned, my sewing-by-hand could be *somewhat* improved) so I made it a bit smaller, but also as it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted. It's cute already, I just think I might do some more before I get the hang of it... *Glances at the sewing machine* ..What if I could make the seams more even and.. No, not this time, right? This time I'll have to do it the hard way.
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Love,
Ellinor

Skirts

As I'm sure I've made obvious by now, I'm a big fan of cute stuff. And these skirts are both cute, and almost ridiculously simple to make. It's basically a cylinder (or two, with differrent lengths) with a channel for an elastic ribbon at the top. Any uneven seams (they do exist, even though I sometimes claim that they don't) can easily be covered with lace or another ribbon.

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A skirt of this kind might very well have been the first piece of clothing I ever made, although I'm pretty sure that one was in only one layer. I might still have it, if I find it I can publish pictures of that one as well..

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Love,

Ellinor

Apron

Not much to say really.. Finished this project, which has been lying in my craft-shelf for what seems like ages. I'm kind of happy with the result, but I really hate the crappy webcam-quality of my pictures. But I can't do anything about that right now, so I'm just going to stop whining and start doing something constructive instead.

Love,

Ellinor

Happy Halloween!

Halloween cards and cup cakes, that's the most creative thing I've in the last week or so, I'm afraid.. And the cup cakes didn't even turn out exactly how I wanted them, the liquorice sauce was a little more more.. fluid than I thought. So I'll remember that until next time, perhaps melted chocolate would do better?

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Althought, there is plenty of inspiration to find, among the colourful leaves, that are torn away from the trees by the cold and merciless winds of November; in the steel gray mornings, when the sky is high and the sun is slowly rising in the distance; or in a plain cup of warming tea, cuddling under the blankets a dark autumn evening. I couldn't complain, really ^_^

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Another great source of inspiration is Gublerland, Matthew Gray Gubler's website, and particularly beautiful is where he reads Anabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. It's a little bit tricky to find, but follow the link and scroll down until you find it (it's totally worth it!) :)

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Love,

Ellinor

Christmas decorations: serving sweets

For some time now I've been longing to do some crafting with paper, which I actually don't do that often.. I think it has something to do with the (lack of) lasting quality of paper in general, that it's not that much fun to do things that you know might very well break after just a few days. However, I usually make these kinds of boxes and bags, for the holidays during which sweets are to be served. I made these today and I'm pretty sure that there will be some more done before Christmas. At least the boxes will get lids and some decorations.. Did I mention that my roommates probably will go crazy about the amount of Christmas decorations I'm planning to put up this year? ;)

Cute things for my hair

This was super-easy to make, and so much fun! Inspired by this, I searched through my sewing/knitting/pottering/etc.-shelf, and soon I found a piece of dark red silk ribbon, some lace, and a white bow which I thought would go quite nicely together. I also found an empty barrette (read: an old barette whose decoration had fell off), and it took perhaps just an hour or so to stitch everything together. The decorations are stitched to a round piece of fleece, which is sewn togeher with another piece of fleece, which in turn is attached to the barette.

It was so much fun, and simple, and I just love the way it turned out. I think I will probably make several more of theese! (As soon as I've gone out to buy some empty barettes, that is ;)

Love,
Ellinor

Christmas stockings

It's never too early to start preparing for Chrismas! These Christmas stockings are made from fleece, which is really simple to work with. It's not fragile at all, and the result usually turns out much better than expected!

I'm also planning on making an Advent Calendar in fleece, from a pattern I found in someone's blog some time ago. Hopefully I'll be able to start with it soon :)

Love,

Ellinor

Wrist warmers

Thinking about the fall and winter almost always makes me want to create some warm clothing... Wrist warmers, for example! And as it's slowly getting colder outside, I find a lot of inspiration these days...

I had some beautiful gray yarn, and started knitting on garter webbings, to create wrist warmers that wouldn't need sewing-together when all the knitting was done. Of course I couldn't just settle with ordinary rib stich; I made a brede on one of its sides, and then tried to crochet some lace at the ends of it. I think it came out kind of cute, however I had to start over several times to get the size right, and it still turned out way too small to be comfy, as it's apparently more or less impossible to estimate the finished size when doing it like this. And it doesn't have a hole for the thumb, either.

I then decided to go for the kind of wrist warmers that are to be sewn together..

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I used knitting needles in sizes 4 mm, and with 35 stiches on each row, I knitted one row even, one row uneven, X one row uneven, one row even, one row uneven Y, then repeating from X to Y until the pieces were long enough to reach around my wrists. I made sure that I ended up with even rows at both the beginning and the end of the piece (at the same side).

Eventually I sewed them together when inside out (with the ending even rows outwards), leaving room for the thumbs, and turned them the right way out.

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Crocheting lace really isn't one of my stronger sides, and I think it was part reason for why the grey one turned out so small, so I decided to simply thread some satin ribbons around these and finish with a bow. The ribbons can easily be removed, if doing winter activities that would jeopardize their lasting.

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Last but not least: it's one of my best friends' birthday today, and the blue pair is intended for her. The black ones, I think will be a Christmas gift for myself!

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Love,

Ellinor

T-shirt text

You know that feeling that you have a message that you ought to give the world, only that the world isn't listening?

I simply wrote my message on a t-shirt, with some of that colour paint that you let dry, and then iron on to make it stay.

This particular text is in latin, and it says "Man is a wolf for man". A little misantrphic perhaps, but it's what I wanted to say.

I'm kind of thinking on adding some flowers on the lower part of the t-shirt, I'll get back to you if I actually decide to do so.

Love,
Ellinor

Stuffed animal made from a pair of socks

I made this stuffed animal for my cousin's newborn baby some time ago. Since it's colourful, cute and cuddly, I think it's the perfect thing to put in the very first post of this blog; those are all the kind of qualities which I want this blog to be pervaded with.


I used a pattern which I found on the internet a really long time ago, which of course is why I can't find it again now. Anyhow, if you Google for it, a number of different patterns show up.

The pattern was for a monkey, I however think that in this case, it's better to let the child use it's imagination when it comes to deciding the species of it...


It's made out of a pair of very colourful knee-socks, which I think worked out quite well. I believe that it's easier to make the animal look proportional in size if using a pair of knee-socks, than is using a pair or regular ones. Obviously this might vary depending on what kind of animal you're making.


The colours you can of course choose as you like; a tip is however to pick socks with a different colour on the toes and heels, which then distincts the nose, hands, feet, bottom and perhaps also the ears of the animal.


Love,
Ellinor