Inspiration

There's nothing like a bit of travel to whet the creative juices, and fresh back from our holidays to the USA, I thought i'd share with youa few shops which took my eye:- (click store name for link to their website)

RENEGADE HANDMADE 1924 West Division Street, Chicago
Loved this shop!!! bursting with fresh ideas and talent, some of the prints were amazing! they have an online shop and a blog too!

Paper Doll W.Division Street, Wicker Park, Chicago

what a treat!! I wanted everything!! Unfortunatly for us Scots, no online shop but they have a blog!

Nina -1655 west division street chicago, illinois 60622

Like no yarn shop I have ever been into before, lovely space, georgous wool, inspiring projects on display, I could have stayed all day!! how I wish it was just down the road in our local town...sigh..

Proper Peppermint Creams

When the sun doesn't come out in summer I get a strong urge to bake. I also get a strong urge to eat completely scrumptious things, but that's a year round thing.


My daughter and I made these peppermint creams at the weekend. Technically this isn't baking but they are most definitely scrumptious. These little lovelies made the perfect accompaniment to a fabulously massive cup of fresh coffee and a warm seat in front of the window watching the rain tip down.

Ingredients

• 1 egg white
• 400-420g of sifted icing sugar, plus extra
• Few drops of peppermint flavouring or peppermint oil
• Pink and green food colourings (optional)
• Good dark choc for melting
  

Beat the egg white until it's just turned frothy and then add to 300g of sifted icing sugar. Add about 3 drops of peppermint oil or flavouring and a drop or two of food colouring. Fork the ingredients roughly together and continue adding tablespoons of sifted icing sugar until the mix is stiffening and can be handled into a rough ball shape. Taste and add a one or two more drops of peppermint if required. Knead the ball for a minute or so and add more sifted icing sugar if the dough feels too sticky or wet.

Lightly oil a piece of parchment paper and lay out. Shape the sweets as desired (sift sugar on worktop if rolling dough or else it will stick) and air dry the cut/shaped sweets on the parchment paper for 20 mins before decorating by dipping or dripping dark melted chocolate. We shaped our sweets by rolling balls of dough and then squishing them gently between thumb and forefinger.

I'm going to have to make and eat these again very soon, I miss them already.

1. 2 . 3 .4...I declare 'Thumb War'.......

School holidays have arrived, lots of relaxing and free time to spend with my little ones. I think crafting with boys is always slightly more challenging, I really have to pick something that will capture their imaginations for longer than 2 minutes. Enter our Thumb wrestlers!
A happy hour was spent this morning, cutting out felt, sewing together the 'thumb' and then sticking felt scraps onto the thumb to make the details. We used this programme on CBBC to get some ideas for designs http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/#/lb/games/play/maskmaker

These lasted two weeks and were beautiful.

GWI Al Fresco

With the novelty of a heat wave during a Scottish Summer - GWI took to the garden, can't think of a better way to spend an hour or two:- Friends, crafting, coffee and Pams homemade biscuits....

Bodie and Fou

Oooh get a coffee and get a load of this website. Jaw droppingly gorgeous stuff - very inspiring.

The company is run by two sisters and they also have a blog which gives a bit more background info about the company, the products and THE SALE which starts on the 1st of July.

Hello, I'd just like to say that I had a look at the blog recently and am well impressed by all the stuff you lot have managed to upload, I don't know just what the **** I've been doing all this while but I can say I've been drinking a lot of coffee and eating a lot of cake and downloading tracks form I-tunes. If this doesn't inspire me soon to spring into action and create something for the GWI blog I don't know what will.... maybe a poke with a sharp stick?

Doodle Bread

Cute little concept here for fun baking, with or without kids. Something a bit out of the ordinary as a gift idea too.

Monkey Business

My first completed amigurumi - a little monkey for my little fellow, who is turning 5 tomorrow - Easier than I expected to make up, but quite small and fiddly to work on. The completed monkey sits at about 30cm. Click on here for link to blog where pattern can be found

Printing With Fabric Paints

I've been searching for a 'big old' table cloth for a while now, something fresh and light that I can throw over our kitchen table to brighten my mood or to use out in the garden on our big outdoor table on a summers day. A month or so back I bought a couple of wood block stamps (fairtrade) from Newton Dee's gift shop and thought that the pattern would look lovely on a plain white piece of fabric as a table cloth.

Dylon do a fantastic range of fabric paints, where all you need to do to 'fix' the paint is to iron it. So, this morning, on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor I stamped out a central pattern on a white sheet I had aquired from a local charity shop, left it to dry and then ironed and washed the sheet. My new table cloth certainly freshens up the kitchen, but it was whisked away immediatly at the mention of 2 small children sitting down to eat their pasta for tea....