CraftyGuider – Page 5 – Blogging about crafting, volunteering and trying to fit in the family bit too

My battle with an Elsa dress

Do you ever find that there is something that is stopping you doing something? I don’t mean something physical like a broken arm or your sewing machine being away for a service for a few days. I mean something in your head that is usually completely trivial. A mental blockage.Like lots of people, I’ve been enjoying the Great British Sewing Bee on TV and getting inspired to sew. I have lots of dress patterns that I want to try, and some of them have gone as far as being packed in project bags with fabric and all the notions to complete them.However, I am being thwarted by an Elsa dress. Eldest Craftyguidelet wanted an Elsa dress last year, and we couldn’t get one. Now they are everywhere, but I have all the fabric cut out to make her one. Youngest Craftyguidelet has hers made already as she went to a Frozen party last year, but eldest is still waiting. No deadline so no dress.I have the fabric and pattern. It’s all cut out ready and sitting in my craft room. I’ve already made one so I know what I’m doing. I’ve even got the basics sorted for my overlocker. I’m just not making the dress.

This procrastination over the dress is stopping me making other things. It’s fixed in my brain that I have to finish this dress for my little girl before I can start on something else. All sorts of thoughts are going round my head about prioritising something for my girls over all the other stuff for me, about getting it completed and ticked off the WIP list. It is totally illogical and is annoying me and I’ve only got myself to blame.

So readers, I’m going for it. This Elsa dress won’t beat me. And then I have some Liberty fabric waiting to be made into a blouse…

Guides do : Chinese Year of the Sheep

On the 22nd February every year, Girl Guides and Girl Scouts are encouraged to think about all their fellow Guides and Scouts around the world. The day is named World Thinking Day and was chosen because it was the shared birthday of both Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting, and his wife Lady Olave Baden-Powell, the first World Chief Guide.Another Guiding tradition is the donation of the Thinking Day Penny. It was suggested that as it was the Founder’s birthday, Girl Guides and Girl Scouts could send gifts in the form of a voluntary contribution. Olave Baden-Powell suggested a penny, and the money has gone to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) ever since to support girls and young women around the world. Even though a penny could have got you much more in those days than now, we still collect pennies to donate to the World Thinking Day Fund. We don’t get the Brasso out and shine them any more like I used to in the 80’s though!For the international element of our meeting, the adult leaders had already chosen China as a theme due to the Chinese new year being next week. We then handed over to the two Young Leaders to choose some extra activities with the Guides, and then I was despatched to Hobbycraft with a list for the following week.As it is going to be the Chinese Year of the Sheep, I’d already decided to contribute this decorated cupcake idea that I’d spotted on Pinterest. See – all that procrastinating does pay off!I’m not sure how many sheep made it home in one piece, so I made sure I emailed pictures to the parents to show them that the Guides had actually done something!Another idea was making lanterns which turned out really well, especially with the battery powered tea lights in the bottom.Not so successful were the fortune cookies. I was a bit dubious when I was asked to provide ingredients, but one Guide told me she’d made them at Brownie Pack Holiday once. If a Brownie can make it, it must be easy. They’d obviously had more experience, or not used the recipe I found online. They tasted nice though and the Guides all swapped fortunes which they’d written inside.Our finale was our Chinese dragon. The Young Leaders asked for boxes and bottles, and I think the Guide parents took the opportunity to lighten their recycling bins this week. Not many were used in construction, but it had a head, body and tail, and every Guide managed to get underneath so a success!

If you think that you would enjoy being surrounded by icing, despairing over cracking fortune cookies and helping to engineer lantern bases, come and join the fun! Click here for more details.

Messers Valentine and Valentine (and Valentine…)

February 14th is on it’s way and millions of people will be exchanging cards, men will be raiding garage forecourts for flowers and fretting over what size their other half takes in uncomfortable lingerie, all in the name of St Valentine.

However, did you know there is more than one St Valentine’s Day and more than one St Valentine?

Here in the West we celebrate on February 14th, but the Eastern churches celebrate twice in July, and Brazil chooses June 12th. Furthermore, there are two Saint Valentines celebrated on 14th February. A whole lotta love!

Over the centuries, St Valentine’s Day has moved towards a celebration of romantic love through traditions and literature. The tradition of giving cards and gifts started in the UK and then spread worldwide.

This year, perhaps look out for something handmade rather than a mass printed card from the supermarket, or have a browse online for ideas to make yourself. I’ve pinned some ideas on my Pinterest board, and I’m sure there is plenty more “research” to be done!

Follow Louise Craftyguider’s board Valentines Day on Pinterest.

#SBSevent2015 – Meeting Theo Paphitis

On January 30th, Mr CG, the monkey and I headed to the ICC in Birmingham for the #SBSevent2015. For those not in the know, #SBS is the twitter hashtag for Small Business Sunday, an initiative set up by Theo Paphitis. Small business owners tweet to @theopaphitis on Sundays between 5pm and 7.30pm. He personally chooses 6 winners and retweets them to his 462,199 followers (at time of writing). I won on 6th January 2014 and for a week my twitter feed went mad, I wrote press releases for the local paper and the national Guiding magazine and tried to put Craftyguider out there.About every 12 months or so, all winners of the #SBS awards get to go to a big event for networking, Q&A and meeting the man himself. I felt a bit out of my depth as I’m not a career woman any more. Craftyguider is a fundraising venture and I take no money from the business other than material costs. It’s lovely when people do buy from me as it means a lot that someone has appreciated something I’ve created, and it means a lot to my Guides who benefit from the money that I invest in the unit.

After the networking session, Kypros Kyprianou, Group CEO of Ryman Stationery (and fellow Spurs fan!), took to the stage to introduce the next part of the day, and then his boss, Theo Paphitis.Theo talked through some of the great things that were happening with SBS, including the newly updated SBS website. I’ve been on and updated my profile page already.

After lunch, there was a Q&A session with Julien Callede, co-founder of Made.com, Judy Naake who introduced St Tropez tans to the UK, and Rob Forkan, co-founder of Gandy’s flip flops.

Towards the end of the questions (which overran their time slot), some people started queuing for their photo with Theo. I didn’t as I thought it would be a bit rude to walk out on the session, and I was interested in what people were saying. Some people had long journeys ahead of them though, and with the cold weather, they probably needed to get away as quickly as possible.And this is me with my certificate and Theo. By this time, I managed to squeak to him that I was Craftyguider, a Guide leader who made things, before my voice gave out completely! Mr CG has had the benefit of me being almost silent for more than 48 hours now. We collected our goody bags and fortunately had a clear journey home to relieve my parents from their 24 hour babysitting stint.

And when I got home, I found I’d been nominated to receive a Certificate of Good Service from Girlguiding Hertfordshire “for being totally devoted to Girlguiding and for helping in many and varied roles”. Whilst my #SBS is fantastic, this Guiding award is more special to me. It means that 2 people have taken the trouble to write nomination letters for me, my commissioner has agreed the nomination, and that the awards committee have approved it.

I’ll be back at #SBS next year. Mr CG has said he might want me to try and get an #SBS for his company, and eldest Craftyguidelet will shortly launch her polymer clay jewellery. #SBS winner at 8 years old?

Review – Cath Kidston Sewing Book

Father Christmas was very generous this year and got me the latest Cath Kidston Sewing Book. I have other Cath Kidston books in the bookcase already, and this one is a similar format. The book comes with a kit using Cath Kidston fabric, and a variety of projects with patterns to photocopy at the back.There are more than 30 simple patterns in the book for a wide range of projects, together with basic techniques explained at the beginning. I started with the kit supplied with the book which was for a pocket sewing kit.The fabric was pre-cut so I didn’t need the pattern which I photocopied from the back. However the fabric was cut incorrectly. As the very lovely bird fabric is directional, the outside panel needed to be cut a certain way so that the bottom pocket was the right way up. This is clearly explained in the instructions, however the manufacturer obviously didn’t read them! It meant that there was a curved edge where there should’ve been a straight edge, and so there was a gap at the edges.I did find some of the instructions a bit vague, but the finished product is nice. It has one zipped pocket, one open pocket and one buttoned pocket. The instructions tell you how to make buttonhole loops but I put in machined buttonholes for speed. The book seems aimed at beginners, but I found I needed some experience to make sense of some of the stages.

What crafty presents did Father Christmas bring you?

Disclaimer: I own this book and I haven’t been asked to review it, or been paid to review it. All opinions are my own, and I have added some links to the normal Amazon site where I bought my copy. They are not affiliate links and I don’t get any money if you click on them.

Procrastination be gone

Everyone has 24 hours in their day to fill, whether you are Beyonce, the Queen or the greengrocer. You have certain things that you have to do each day such as eat and sleep, certain things that you should do such as exercise, and certain things that you want to do such as play with kittens.At the beginning of last year I bought Leonie Dawson’s Life and Biz Workbook 2014. I wanted to focus my attention on creating an amazing year, and people had said that it was a fabulous planning tool. I didn’t fill in my workbook much, so I thought I’d revisit it this year.

One of the exercises is to fill in a pie chart with how you spend your time and another with how you want to spend your time.My days are so varied, but this is a rough approximation of a typical weekday. I might craft in front of the TV, I might snatch an hour to blog instead of housework, but I don’t dedicate my time to doing enough to make a difference to me. I want a clean and organised house, crafting makes me happy, being prepared for my Guiding responsibilities is important to me, but I don’t make an effort to ditch the procrastination and get on with it. Instead of getting on with my Christmas crafting last year, I organised my Distress ink pads and researched racks to put them on. Very satisfying, something that was nice to have done, but not the urgent task in hand.

This is what I’ve come up with for how I want to spend my day.

I’ve swapped the procrastination for me time, and prioritised my crafting and blogging. I’ve got the TV on as I’m blogging at the moment, but Phil Spencer doesn’t need my full attention.

I need to exercise more. I do about 30 minutes a day during the week but I could and should do more.

I also want to drop some volunteering time. I spend about 4 hours a week at meetings with the Guides and Rainbows, plus the occasional District team meeting or training course, plus my WI commitment. The key word is ‘volunteer’. There is a certain amount of work that has to be done every week, but I need to concentrate on the essentials and know that I don’t have to sort out everyone’s problems as well as my own.

Some days it will happen. Some days it won’t. I know that I’ve probably forgotten things like long baths, reading and shopping, and sometimes my crafting mojo will leave me, but I have to get some focus back in my life.

Is your year still on track?

Review – Sweets Made Simple by Miss Hope and Mr Greenwood

Last year I was blown away by the BBC2 series ‘Sweets Made Simple’ with Miss Hope and Mr Greenwood. I loved the variety of sweets and the way the programme was presented. I downloaded the book to my tablet but found that it was neglected. Just before Christmas I treated myself to the hardback copy and was able to appreciate the recipes much better.The first part of the book has some really helpful notes about the alchemy of sweet making: important things to remember when working with hot sugar, what the difference between soft ball and hard crack is, the ins and outs of using chocolate, and how to store your creations when you are done. Who am I kidding? Storing the sweets? They’ll all be gone before they need to be stored!The first recipe I tried was Raspberry Marshmallows. Even from the first stage of making the raspberry coulis (or lovely ruby-red mush as described in the book) I was hooked.You need to devote a good hour or so making it, followed by a couple of hours sitting on your hands, resisting the urge to dig a spoon in and eat your body weight in creamy, sugary loveliness.This marshmallow is GORGEOUS! The raspberry coulis is marbled through the soft creamy marshmallow, and the fresh raspberries are juicy little accents. I think this should be one of your five a day.There are so many recipes I’ll be trying in this book. Next on the list is Penuche which is a type of fudge, and I’ve got enough ingredients in the cupboard to try making Cinder Toffee. Looks like the Slimming World target is slipping further away…

Review – Gluten Free Baking by Michael McCamley

In my quest to use more of my book collection, I had to start somewhere, and cake is a very good place to start.

Mr Craftyguider has a gluten intolerance, so to make sure he can share some of the responsibility of consuming cake calories, I mostly bake with gluten free ingredients. Because of the nature of gluten free ingredients, I usually follow recipes that are specifically gluten free rather than just substituting gluten free flour for wheat flour in standard recipes.

Michael McCamley’s Gluten Free Baking book was recommended by someone on twitter and there is a wide variety of bakes inside. I am after the elusive recipe for decent gluten free bread and pastry I can bake at home.The book starts with an introduction on what gluten is, the different problems people can experience with an allergy or intolerance to gluten, where to look for gluten in foods, and what alternatives are available.I chose the recipe for banana muffins with maple cream frosting from the first chapter as I had all the ingredients to hand, as well as some very spotty bananas to use up. The recipe method isn’t as detailed as some I’ve used in the past, and the mix looked wrong at some stages of the process. However, I trusted the recipe and got to a mix consistency I recognised as cake batter at the end.The resulting cake tasted as good as it looks, and I couldn’t tell that it was a gluten free cake. It was lovely and moist, had loads of banana, and the maple syrup cream cheese frosting was divine. We ate them over 3 days and they kept perfectly well in a tin in the fridge.There is a wide variety of cakes and biscuits in this book and I will definitely be trying more out based on my first success. The book gives recipes for flours to blend at home to make the various mixes (e.g. bread flour, self raising etc.), but I prefer using the Doves Farm branded pre-blended flours available from most supermarkets where I can. I once counted 19 different types of gluten free flours and standard wheat flours in my baking cupboard when I used to do home blends. That was too much to store and keep track of, so I’m currently at about 8.Breads and Savoury Pastries are the gluten free recipes I’ve never mastered. I think that the structure the gluten gives them is more important than in a cake. Perhaps this is the book that will solve these problems.These Phil Vickery books were the first gluten free books I tried that I had success with (and also the reason I had lots of flours to blend in my cupboard!).My go to book for easy baking is the Cake Angels book by Julia Thomas. It uses basic ingredients that are easy to get hold of, the instructions are simple to understand, and there is a wide range of cake recipes. Again, the recipes don’t taste like they are gluten free. She does also make the recipes dairy free, but I sometimes substitute the dairy free ingredients for ones that contain dairy as we don’t have a problem with lactose.

Do you have a favourite gluten free baking book which always gives you good results?

Disclaimer: I own all of these books and I haven’t been asked to review them, or been paid to review them. All opinions are my own, and I have added some links to the normal Amazon site where I bought my copies. They are not affiliate links and I don’t get any money if you click on them.

Craftingspiration – Craft Books

I love craft and cooking books. They give me inspiration, techniques, ideas, instruction, patterns, recipes, hints and tips. Some have been recommended to me. Some are from TV series I’ve enjoyed. Some are gifts. Some are swaps. Some are prizes. Once they are in the house, I won’t let them go.

I’ve found that I either just use the same couple of pages over and over again, or don’t use them at all after the initial look through when they first come to me. Looking at some of these afresh, I am determined to use them, and in doing so, I might clear some of my crafty stash as well.

I’ve decided to start with cake. Ingredients are ordered. Ready, set, bake!

Are any of these on your shelf?

#SBS One Year On

One year ago today, I sent a tweet to Theo Paphitis for his Small Business Sunday (#SBS) competition. I wrote “When I was a Guide, I earned 2 Craft badges. Now I’m a leader, I design and make badges.” I was hoping to be one of the 6 businesses to earn a retweet from him the next day, and my aim was to keep trying every week during 2014. I couldn’t possibly imagine that he would choose me as the first winner of the new year.

I can’t say that it has changed my life. Craftyguider.com is strictly a fundraising venture for my Guide unit. I don’t earn a penny from it (as all profits go into my Guide unit), and I don’t want to as long as I can recoup my costs. I am interested in making it a success though, and I do get a buzz when people buy from me and give me positive feedback. 2014 was by far my best year and I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me.

One result of all this is my 8 year old is already planning her business empire. She wants a career involving music, singing, polymer clay and chocolate. She wants a business like mummy, and is keen to help out. She was there on my stall the day Craftyguider started up in September 2011 when she was only 4. She’s already asking for a twitter account so she can enter #SBS too.

On January 30th, I’ll be at the SBS Winners Event picking up my certificate and having my photo taken with Theo himself. Perhaps Craftyguidelet can make it a family thing and be there in her own right the following year? She’s already got 2 Brownie Craft badges so she’s got a head start on me already.