Colours and inspiration

12th February

I have been 'off ' my game so to speak this week AGAIN!  Beginning to wonder if I am suffering from S.A.D so I turned to old photographs to inspire me and bring back my enthusiasm which is normally oh so me.  Are you inspired by colour and nature?  Everywhere I walk, drive, visit becomes this wonderful mind map of colours and inspiration, sometimes I am able to capture it in a photo to remind me later and other times I try and commit it to my memory. My cup over flows with all these colours whizzing and swirling around wanting me to put them into a crafting make...  Sharing with you today five colours that I hope can in someway inspire you too...


PINK

 GREEN



RED

WHITE



BLUE

 YELLOW

Sharing my colours that inspire today and joining in with

Amy at Love Made My Home, pop over and see what others are sharing

 

 

 

♥  Hope your weekend is filled with Valentine love  ♥

British weather, food and crocheting!

3rd January


Bent sign from the hailstones, but I was glad to be back home!

The Queen would hate me as I hear she cannot stand it when people make small talk about the British weather, but in days like these (sure that is in a song somewhere...) where the weather is so amazingly quick at changing from glorious blue skies to dark foreboding ones, why not!  Having spent an enjoyable day and night in London yesterday accompanying my daughter and her friends, the journey home this morning was in brilliant sunshine, until the last five minutes of motorway driving, when the largest hailstones I have EVER seen in my life descended from the heavens above.  Driving became difficult and the three girls who were singing at the tops of their voices along to the radio did not notice my hands clutching the steering wheel very tightly and that we had slowed down to a snails pace.  The wipers could not keep up, the road was wet and slippery and the surface water made the drive more like a skating rink. Genuinely glad to arrive home today, I made them all hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallow as a treat and myself a VERY strong coffee!







The largest hail stone I have ever seen!



Hot chocolate with marshmallow and cream.
♥Just what was needed♥

 

The year has however started well and I am excited about the year to come, leaving home yesterday to take the girls to London, I had not thought about any craft work to do whilst they were gallivanting around the sales, so I just grabbed the closest ball of wool and a crochet hook as we bundled out of the door. Whilst they were shopping, I sat myself down to a coffee and looked to see what I had brought with me, it was Christmas red! Not really what I would have liked to have worked on and so pondered as to what I could make. I came up with the idea of a crocheted basket for my make up and so settled down to begin. A coffee later and I was hungry so I ordered Vietnamese soup, A Pho chicken with extra chili, it was delicious and a great warming dish.

 

I did receive some very funny looks from people with my large bowl of soup and crocheting. Thank goodness Mr H was not with me, he would not have been impressed. In fact he made a sign over Christmas and hung it on our front door, want to see it...



 

 

But 'tension' does not stop me (Mr H is secretly pleased that it makes me happy, he is just a tad worried that the house might be taken over by crocheted this and that though...) so in bed this morning, after he had left for work,  I continued with the red crochet basket as the girls watched movies.  After all, is this not what the new year holiday is all about, relaxing before we all hit the clocks that rule our lives again.  I am hoping that the basket may be finished tonight and my make up  will be beautifully organised, a sneak peak so far...

 

 

 







Third Advent in Christmas & Crafting (Part 3)

15th December

Norwegians have always been a crafty lot?!?! And have always knitted and crocheted.  Although not a dying trend, its hay day has been and gone, but a slow burn second revolution of the next generation are beginning  to pick up their needles and hooks.  Most little girls in Norway will have homemade clothes for their dolls and blankets for their teddies, lovingly knitted or crotcheted by their Besetmors and I was no exception.  I was dressed in jumpers you would die for now and even had a few hand knitted dresses right up to the age of about 8. I can particularly remember one that used to swish around my knees and another beautiful pastel one.  How I wish I could knit as well and undertake such  large projects.  My two children were also dressed in traditional jumpers and cardis with the typical Scandinavian pattern.  I have lovingly kept them and hope that maybe in the future they may be brought out again.  Coffee mornings are the norm in Norway and most ladies of a certain age will always come along with their handicraft project and work away whilst chatting.  Here in the UK, apart for a select group of women, that would not occur.  This is perhaps why there are so many Norwegian Christmas decorations, the Norwegians are crafty!



Stockings over the fire place.  Bunting line is
crocheted, quick and easy.



As I mentioned earlier, my knitting skills leave much to be desired and so I did not dare to attempt these beautiful mini stockings in typical Scandi red and white, until mamma was in residence, just in case I needed help and advice.  I did!  Lucky I waited.   I would suggest these are not a good idea for a beginner, they are fiddly and you need to concentrate on the pattern, so wait till you are more confident. Old hands at knitting will find these very quick and easy and VERY ADDICTIVE.

The beautiful mini stocking pattern can be found at Little Cotton Rabbits made by the talented Julie Williams, her blog is well worth a visit for those of you who have not come across her.  

http://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/free_knitting_patterns/mini_knitted_christmas_stockings/









Close up of some of the different patterns





For me crocheting is fast and fun and suits my style of life.  This heart garland came about after I made a 5 m long big heart bunting in the summer of bright bold colours.  I loved it and wanted to make something like it for Christmas.  I scoured the 'net' and found a glorious  and unusual heart pattern that was crocheted and decided all the hearts would be red and the bunting line green.  All set and ready to go and BANG!  I managed the first heart and then after that blank, could not get the pattern to work anymore.  Something just stuck with me, and so in a huff I abandoned it.  But that niggling feeling of wanting a heart garland for Christmas would not go away and so I decided with the time I had left there was only one solution:  go mini and here it is, think it worked out rather sweet and is a fitting size for the small fire place, it was obviously meant to be.

For a similar heart pattern you could use this one:

http://www.crochettoday.com/files/patterns-pdf/CrochetValentine_0.pdf


Crocheted mini heart garland



A splash of Christmas red, cheers a room up



In Norway as I mentioned in my very first posting the kitchen plays a central role and is decorated from December 1st.  A quick and easy way to decorate without taking over is to edge any shelves that you have with ribbon.  In Norway, you can buy such ribbon just for this purpose, but anything would do.  The photograph on the right shows how it should look with matching ribbon and the photograph on the left shows a selection of different ribbons that could be used.  Note I have added a black pom pom ribbon on one of the shelves, Christmas does not have to be red, but I think it is best! 

Have a go and Scandi bling your kitchen shelves!



Tonight we light the third candle and know that Christmas really is just a few days away, I am sooo excited ♥





Christmas Cookie making Number 2

6th December

Did you see the sky yesterday morning, it was worth getting up for!

I woke up yesterday to the most glorious sky, the pinks, oranges, purples and golden hues made for a dramatic scene and I thought today can only be a good day after such a beginning.  I was up early and decided to grab some Christmas books to work out which of the seven biscuits I would make today, there are so many to choose from, but became sidetracked when I realised how many Christmas books I own.  I had not before had them all together,  as I squirrel books away in different rooms, I love books, don't you?  But I think maybe I have a problem, look at just some of the books I have on Christmas...

A selection of my Christmas literature!

Today is day 2 of making our seven lots of Christmas biscuits or as the Norwegians would say 'Julens småkaker.'   As I was off out for a girlie breakfast, I had decided to shop for todays' ingredients that I had chosen from one of my 'Jul' (Christmas in Norwegian) books afterwards in the local supermarket.  However, the car would not start, thus putting a spanner in the works literally.  So a couple of phone calls later, the RAC were on their way and so too was my girlfriend who was to have made me breakfast!  A quick frantic dash around the house to make it look presentable, including me on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor as I decided it looked too dirty for visitors, a frantic bleach of the downstairs toilets and some throwing of laundry clothes in the cupboard and I was ready to make breakfast.  I too had to dash to the little corner shop as I had nothing to offer for breakfast other than some old weetabix and porridge.  The good old shop provided me with smoked salmon and I made scrambled eggs, courtesy of my unexpected breakfast guest it was accompanied by rye bread and avocado.  Lovely coffee and fresh juice to wash it all down with and we were 'god og mett' (full up).  After breakfast and a good old chit chat in the warm Christmasssy kitchen, I still had no ingredients to make my biscuits.  In the meantime, the lovely man from the RAC arrived and jumped in the car and it started for him immediately, I did feel like a dizzy blond.  I felt too that time was ticking and so I should raid the cupboards instead to see what I could conjure up and perhaps make a different type of Christmas biscuit to that which I had intended.   Now,  I have told you I am a collector and hoarder so consequently I had everything I needed for hasselnott meringues!  No surprises there really.   These are lovely and a basic quick hazel nut meringue in biscuit form.


Hasselnott meringeus

You will need:        OVEN TEMP: 180 Celsius for 18 mins
250g hazelnuts, ground, plus 20 whole nuts
250g icing sugar
3 egg whites
chocolate for drizzling

♥  Grind the hazel nuts if whole, reserving 20 for decoration

♥  Whisk the 3 egg whites until stiff

♥  Mix together the ground nuts and icing sugar

♥  Add dry ingredients to the egg whites and mix well, try not to over mix if possible

♥  Line baking trays with greaseproof paper and with two spoons, place  heaped spoon of mixture onto the tray.  The mixture should spread a little, but not much on the tray even before putting in the oven.  You should be able to make 20 biscuits.  These do spread out further, so leave large spaces, I manage to fit about 8 or 9 on a baking tray. (See below)

♥  Place a nut in the centre of each biscuit.

♥  These biscuits should not be dried out in the oven and so place in the oven for 18 minutes only

♥  Remove from oven, immediately put onto cooling rack,
they will be very soft and pliable, so BE CAREFUL, whilst cooling, they will harden up

♥  Once cooled, melt chocolate and drizzle over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

♥You have your second Norwegian Christmas cookie♥

 

Anyone for coffee?