Tuesday 16 July 2013

Octopus number 2

I whipped up another octopus this week for my friend's 19th birthday. I was really surprised with how quick it was to work up.

I used a slightly different pattern than for my last octopus. When I went back to the pattern I've used before the webpage wasn't there any more, so I did a quick google search to find another.

The new-to-me pattern makes the body and the tentacles separately so that you sew a circle of tentacles on to the body at the end. Easy-peasey :)

The pattern can be found here.



Monday 15 July 2013

Week 7 already!

I can't believe we're already on the 7th week of the CAL already. This also means I'm in my 7th week of living in this house! All of it is going well, which is always a good sign.

I am loving my blanket at the moment, and it seems to grow a lot every week.

Here are this week's rows :)


And here's my ever growing blanket!


Saturday 13 July 2013

CAL week 6

Oops I've done so much in the way of crafting this week that it's taken me until now to get around to finishing week 6's rows and posting them!

I finished them off this morning before starting on week 7.

Here are week 6's rows:


And here is the entire blanket so far:


It's getting so big now! Exciting stuff :)

Monday 8 July 2013

Easy lemon and blueberry mug cake

After trying this lemon mug cake last week, I decided there must be a way to make a version with blueberry added in!

I used the same basic recipe to make mine but there were a few tweaks.

The ingredients I used were:

4tbsp of self-raising flour
3 tbsp fat free blueberry yougurt (I used one from ASDA)
2 and a half tbsp of caster sugar
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 tbsp lemon juice (I used the stuff you buy in the supermarket, rather than freshly squeezed)

  • Add all ingredients to a microwave-safe mug

  • Mix well making sure all the flour from the bottom of the mug gets combined
  • Microwave - times will vary depending on your microwave. I used trial and error to get the timing right anyway but mine took between 45 seconds and 1 min


The top of the cake doesn't look great, but once you tuck in..



A quick dessert, and as the yogurt is fat-free.. it can't be that bad for you.. can it?

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Coral crush

I have now worn my other Miss Sporty nail polish and have to say, this one impress me more than the last.

Here are the swatches of Coral Crush.



The formula of this polish was much nicer, less "gloopy" than Popcorn was.
It only took 2 coats for me to be happy with this one.
It lasted well for 6/7 days (without a top coat) and started to chip on the very last day of wearing them.
I'm starting to believe though, that this may not just be down to the formula, having been asked this week how I stop my polish from chipping!
Honestly.. I don't know, but polish always seems to last well on my nails. I guess I'm just lucky there!

Monday 1 July 2013

Week 5 of the CAL

I went to start this week's rows when I realised that I had missed the last one from last week!

So, I started with that.. and here was my blanket after last week's rows.


 Now on to this week's rows..
A double crochet row..

The "Mirrored chevron" rows:





A row of half double crochet (HDC):


Another DC row:


Another HDC row:


And my blanket progress so far!


I really liked the mirrored chevron rows.. I love how they turned out!
I think they might even be my favourite part of the blanket so far :)
Happy with my colour choice with those rows too.
Definitely the right decision to add in the turquoise-y colour!