Invitation from Ni to participate in ‘Send Your Mates Chocolate’ Day (her own invention) so dusted off the old chocolate cookbook and ventured a first attempt at chocolate truffles! Grossly underestimated (aka ‘didn’t really read the recipe’) the sheer amount of chocolate I would need to dip the truffles in so most are sitting patiently in the fridge for their final coating.
yum!
Oh dear I have to bite one for a photo? Woe is me!
Mon 21st
Exchange of chocolate! Verdict on truffles: very good but the hard outer shell is a little too thick. Bought three more bars while out and returned home to finish off the others. Found I was making the coating just as thick as the first time! The chocolate gets more sluggish as it cools and so refuses to drip off the truffles, but if you warm it up then there’s the danger of melting the truffle centre! Any advice, keen cooks out there??
There was some molten chocolate left over at the end so I popped some corn and drizzled it over.
yummy but gets a bit messy when you grab a handful!
Tue 22nd
Panda nails! Had to use dark blue as my black has run out, but pretty pleased with how the nail gem eyes and noses worked!
cute!
Wed 23rd
Good deed for the day: ran after a car to let the guy know he was driving off with his petrol cap wide open.
Drawn Together at Quad in the evening, very happy to pay just £2 for 2 hours with a life model, hope this continues to be a regular thing!
click to enlarge
Complimented by a stranger on the way home for my panda nails, made my day :)
Sew Darn Crafty time again, a really lovely evening to meet up and there was even a new face which is always good news! I worked on a crochet scarf while Faye made soctopi, Emmie knitted a chunky scarf with needles as wide as a thumb, and Ni worked on commissions for Christmas stories. The best thing? Labyrinth was playing on the big screen :D
We have another craft fair coming up, this time indoors and even closer to Christmas so fingers crossed for a good turnout!
Thu 17th
Began my new job at Sainsburys :)
Fri 18th
Festival of Light Derby lantern parade, didn’t stay long but saw some beautiful creations!
a bear and a fern, I think
click to enlarge
Came home and doodled in front of a Nicholas Cage film on BBC iPlayer, see what you think, recognise any influence?
On a request from local art and craft seller extraordinaire This Is Bazaar, I made myself a Facebook page for my crafts. Check it out here!
current page profile picture, tablet drawing I did of myself meeting a horse
Sat 19th
Took some of my felted woolen jumper Christmas decorations out for a photo shoot on Markeaton Park, although I got there a bit late so there wasn’t daylight for long enough to get many good shots. Think that will be a job for next week!
Also I made a double glove so Jim and I can hold hands and stay warm :)
you could also wear it just yourself like a muff
Began making my fly mask by plastic-wrapping my face (with air holes! Don’t do this at home, kids!) and using lots of sellotape to hold the shape, and taping on a few bits of cardboard for extra strength. I’m sure there’s a better method but this is what my brain came up with in panic mode, and it is so nice to finally have a mask that fits perfectly!
Stayed up late making flour paste glue from scratch and adding a layer of papier-mâché to the fly mask. Looked again at photos of houseflies and discovered they don’t have antennae, so that’s one less thing for me to make. Hooray!
Flour Paste Recipe
(makes enough for a large papier-mâché project)
1 cup plain flour
1.5 cups water
Add both ingredients to a saucepan and stir well to get rid of any lumps
Heat the mixture until it starts to boil, stirring continuously (especially at the base of the pan)
Continue stirring on a low heat for another 20 mins or until it becomes clear
Allow to cool before use. Store in the fridge and use within 2 weeks (ish)
Sat 29th
Rushed to finish off the mask with a coat of black poster paint and some acrylic brushed on for texture in places.
mask progress shot
Hot glued some hot pink fabric from an old top for the faceted eyes.
almost finished!
Used my new tiny-hole punch to make holes for ribbon on each side to tie it on. Finished! Jim was also working until the last minute on his ‘end-of-show’ Riff Raff (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) costume:
lots of detailed sewing!
Dr Sketchy at Quad Halloween special: we were given a jackalope, two zombies and Velma from Scooby Doo to draw. Laura was there too and won a prize for her picture, well done!
jackalope in shorts
in its natural habitat of .....cubes? o.O
ready to marry Mr Jackalope
Miss World zombie will pose for brains
all this nomming makes me tie-tie
Halloween party in Hounslow with an 80s Horror theme! Other costumes included Lestat from Interview with a Vampire, Borg drones from Star Trek, Kiefer Sutherland from The Lost Boys and the little girl from Poltergeist.
Borg taking a break from assimilating
Riff Raff and Lestat
me winning a bloody heart in a sack.... just what I wanted!
I brought homemade 'stained glass' pumpkin cookies!
Sun 30th
Spent the day with my family at Farnham Pottery where people were having a party to celebrate a local potter buying the building and thus securing its future. Lots of good food and cake, and I had a go at throwing a bowl!
me eating cake ^__^
inside was decorated with lots of candles in jars
... which was pretty!
oh this doesn't look dodgy at all!
this was when my bowl was looking at it's best... I promptly ruined it after this picture was taken!
Mon 31st
Second Halloween party in Portsmouth hosted by Jim’s little brother Ed and his girlfriend Kiana, very impressed with the decorations and homemade foods.
We played a game of Pictionary and had to make up creepy things for the other team to draw for each other, scraping the barrel I suggested Pedobear and I am very pleased with their result!
genius!
Tue 1st Nov
Searched ASDA for Halloween sales, got myself some spiderweb coasters, a candle holder and a food tray for £1.75 :D
Finished off my stag cushion, finally!
stag cushion in its rightful place on the sofa
fastened with buttons and crocheted button-holes
Jim has decided to participate in Movember, which is brave as he hates having a scratchy face. He’s decided that he may as well go the whole hog and get the worst moustache style he could think of, which I can confirm is quite terrible. (Photos to follow once it’s grown a bit!) Hopefully he will be able to raise some awareness and money for prostate cancer, or I will have endured a month of hedgehog kisses for nought! Jim has made a video to explain more about Movember and his place in it. Follow this link if you find yourself with excess money and are in a sympathetic mood!
from http://tinyurl.com/dyc3pnj
Wed 2nd
Sew Darn Crafty night at Bar One, more people than the previous few weeks which was lovely to see. Among them were Faye making fabric moons, Emmie knitting a chunky scarf (of the awesome kind), and Jim and Ni planning their plots for NaNoWriMo. I brought along the rest of the jumper that I used to make my stag cushion and made a couple of heart-shaped Christmas hanging decorations.
Came home to find that there had been a resurgence (or should that be surgence, since it was relatively unnoticed when first posted) of interest in my Park Face. One day I got bored and drew a park on my face with eyeliner, and this is the result!
duck pond, playing football, throwing stick for dog, feeding ducks, flying kite
Very pleased to have people say nice things about my art, even when it is several months after the event! Beggars can’t be choosers :)
Thu 3rd
The collection of upcycled woolen jumper Christmas decorations is growing, will have to go by Pretty Things soon and see if he wants some to sell!
heart decorations
stockings
I made small hearts to use up the material scraps too :)
Fri 4th
Found a ghost cookie kit at Lakeland for 99p!
they fly like Superman!
Sat 5th
Compassionate Derby event with lots of vegan food stalls and a baby hedgehog! I won a tin of lentil soup at the raffle. Score!
Sun 6th
Collected some party poppers from a nice lady I met through Freegle. Good times. Now I just need a party!
Mon 7th
Made cookies for Jim’s upcoming third and final screening of Myth-Covered Peaks at The Brewhouse in Burton this Friday. Simplified the ‘peaks’ logo and frosted just the tops like snow, and made a Day of the Dead ‘sugar skull’ with the leftover dough :D
all cut individually as there wasn't a cutter
if I ever get my Day Of The Dead Halloween party...
Wed 9th
Watched The Adventures of Tintin at the cinema, thought it was very good and faithful to the style of the original comics but couldn’t help being freaked out by the uncanny valley-ness of the characters :S
Thu 10th
Made an owl Christmas decoration with a how-to from Prima magazine. It was meant to use mini pom-pom trimming but I didn’t have any in my stash so I made one big pom-pom instead!
Fri 11.11.’11!
Corduroy day! That is, according to The Corduroy Appreciation Club, who take the love of cords and numbers and animals that look like cords to a new level. This I approve of! (Of course, it was also remembrance Day, so I hope y’all remembered to remember.)
It was also Jim‘s third and final screening at The Brewhouse Art Centre of his documentary Myth-Covered Peaks, and despite all the equipment being locked in another room with no-one around knowing the keycode, we eventually managed to get things set up and have the most successful screening yet! Jim showed several short films from other local film-makers first with the theme of ‘storytelling’, and then we saw the main feature, which has been improved since last time with artwork to accompany the introduction. My cookies went down well too!
I decorated a collection pot which Jim took along to raise funds for Movember.
you can't see it, but there's tiny flying mustaches around the edges :)
Sat 12th
Finally made use of my DIY Weaving Loom I was given by fellow Derby creative Su Mwamba to make a simple panel of red acrylic wool, which I used in a wristwarmer :) Free instructions for weaving if you follow this link.
Also found a reduced bat cookie kit at ASDA, couldn’t resist :D…
grumpy bats will bite you!
the cutter is also good for making owls :)
Sun 13th
Saw Super 8 at Quad cinema, really fun film to watch and as it is about a group of film-makers I recognised some of Jim in there too (A train’s just crashed and we barely escaped with our lives? We could film there!) :P
Met up with a friend in the cafe afterwards and made a doodle of a lady with a beehive hairstyle.
Mon 14th
Took apart a woven bag handle to do some macramé, which took a good few hours but with nice results :)
parts from bag handles, old necklaces and a decorative frame. These cost me £0
