Chocolate Bark - mmm

The packaging with my little snowman dude:

Just out of the fridge and ready to be broken up:

I know, I know, it's Feb already! Well you can consider this either a "slightly" late Christmas post or a really, really early one!

Well for extra little gifts, Hubby and I like to make something for the family so this year as usual, Hubby made the booze (homemade Advocaat - yummm!) and I made Chocolate Bark goodness!

So, so easy and really tasty too! All it is, is a layer of melted dark chocolate, a layer of melted milk chocolate and a layer of melted white chocolate. I added some crushed nuts in with the milk choc and some crushed Candy-canes sprinkled on top. When it was set, I broke it up in to big triangular bits and wrapped in clear cello. I made the little snowman from some polystyrene balls, seed beads, felt and my trusty glue gun (Oh, how I love you, Glue gun!) I attached some ribbon to his head and tied him on to seal up the cello bags. I think they turned out really cute, it's just a damn shame I'm still soooo bad at taking photo's. Is that even possible? How can I still be so bad at it!? lol. The pictures don't really do it justice but you get the idea, anyway.

I also made some choc-dipped, brandy soaked cherries which I wrapped up similarly and they were absolutely delish! I should have made some for myself too, damn! Oh well, there's always next Christmas.

Happy Crafting!

Tweet Tweet! It's nearly Christmas!

Totally inspired by: http://knackstudios.blogspot.com/2009/05/little-birdie.html

I really wanted to do a Christmas themed bird. So I found the glass jar type thing in a thrift store, removed the horrible bright blue fake flowers that were in there and made the bird from some sculpey-like stuff, added some wire, beads and a Christmas pick and decorated the base. Too easy!

It's a little bit tacky to be honest, but I love it anyway. Christmas is supposed to be tacky, glitter, tinsel and lots of ornaments, that's what it's all about, right? It looks so much better in person and it really doesn't help that my photo isn't the best but it's soooo hard to take photos of glass things, there's so much glare! I'll get the hang of it one day.

Happy Crafting! :)

Little Christmas world in a jar

I was inspired by quite a few Mason jar scenes I have seen while lurking various craft sites so I decided to make my own. I'm really happy with how it turned out and can't wait to go to the thrift store to get more jars (if they have any).

The little "gingerbread" house is made from chipboard and painted. The little mushrooms and candy cane are both made from salt-dough and also painted and everything is hot glued on to a circle of white felt. I lightly sprinkled some glitter over the top but I had huge amounts of self control for once and didn't go all Vegas on it. Gosh, that was hard because I really, really love glitter! Besides which, I'm having a hell of a time finding the glitter that I normally use, it's a 3D white glitter but it changes colours depending on how the light hits it. I used to get it from my local Spotlight store but they've stopped stocking anything that's not Martha Stewart now which sucks because as much as I love Martha, her stuff is super expensive and I just can't justify $13 for a small pack of glitter, considering the other one I used to get was $4. Ugh, anyways, sorry, enough of the rant.

So, that's it! I'm definately going to make some more and I'll make some non-Christmas ones too because I want a little world to peer in to all year round so I'll post them as soon as I've made them.

Happy Crafting!

:)

PS. I'm sorry about my lack of camera-skills. I know, I totally suck at taking pictures!

I know, I've been kinda M.I.A

So, I've been M.I.A for a couple of weeks now but we had to move out of our house while the wood floor was being sanded and resealed and what we were told was going to be 5 days turned in to just over 2 weeks! Agh, what a drama! I am now going to impose a socks-only rule so that we don't have to go through that again (who am I kidding, how long do I really think that'll last!?)

Anyway, not to worry, the floor looks beautiful and now that I've gotten my craft room and supplies back, I've been a busy girl. So, in the last week I've made some Christmas dec's, a zombie Barbie and I've ceramic-painted a zombie mug too!

So, lots to catch up on and I will post as soon as I get some decent batteries for my camera as it's so dead it won't even turn on at the moment!

Happy Crafting! :)

Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan (so to speak)

Before:

I was looking at the Martha Stewart website a while back and I saw these beautiful glittered birds for Christmas decorations and I really, really wanted them. I searched high and low for some little birds that I could decorate and finally found them in my least-favourite department store at 2 for $2.00 which I thought was a total score! So I grabbed all they had on the shelf, took them home and went crazy with the glue, glitter and feathers (oh and little black seed beads for the eyes) and this is the result:

After:

I love the way they turned out and I plan on going back and getting some more little birds and maybe the next lot I'll do in Mica instead of plain old glitter. If you would like to see the original Martha version it's here: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/glitter-bird-centerpiece?lnc=d3d67c769e7ee010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD

Happy Crafting! :)

Felt Christmas Stars

My Mother-in-law requested these little stars for her Christmas tree so being the good daughter-in-law I am, I obliged. They are made of felt and are machine-stitched together and hand embroidered. I really would have liked to have blanket stitched them all however I had a lot of them to do and I would have been there forever and day otherwise.

I think they turned out pretty good all in all and they look homey and I like that there is a star for everyone in the family. I even made a star for my husband's late Grandma and Grandad who had recently passed. They are still in our hearts and memories so they definitely deserve a star on the tree.

Until next time, Happy Crafting! :)

P.S. Please excuse the so-so photo's, I'm still learning how to take a half-decent picture.

Miniature Christmas Village

So, now that I have got my stuff together I can show you my favourite thing made by me so far. I made this little Mini Village last Christmas based on an idea I saw here: www.marthastewart.com/article/winter-village

I love the idea of a little Winter village all lit up especially seeing as here in Australia our Christmas is usually around the 35 - 40 degree(Celsius) mark. So I scoured the very limited number of craft stores we have here and finally found some "chipboard". I personally would just call it thick cardboard but anyway.

So I liked the look of Martha's Village so I printed up some templates and made some of my own and then away I went. I glued and painted and glittered and decorated my little village and put it atop a cut up box covered in felt and then poked fairy lights through the bottom of the box to light the little houses. This year though I plan on adding to my little village and putting it on my sideboard cupboard so I will have to think of something else for the lighting otherwise there will be horrible wires everywhere, ugh.