Crafty Mermaid

Some friends of ours came over last weekend and left some delicious virgin mojitos. I had to have one in a martini glass with some fresh mint and then couldn't resist the photo when I left my drink on the mantle to answer the phone! Oh what glamourous lives we lead :D

Colourful and bright :) Though I need to figure out how to make acrylic yarn not curl - spraying it and pining it didn't seem to work and it seems that 'blocking' only works with natural fibres. Oophs! Part 1 is here :)

Looks like I need to clean my camera lens! Just some simple cards. I love how the buttons one turned out :) The duck card was from a kit so was a very quick make.

I finally got around to finishing off my Cath Kidston Sew bag . I made a few modifications to it; swapped the buttons for nicer ones, added in a few extra button holes to adjust the straps, lined it and put in pockets and moved the logo to the inside rather than on the outside. I really like how it turned out and my herb stand in the kitchen is looking pretty good too. :) The bag isn't really my thing - it seems a little too fussy for my use, but I still really like it. Definitely think it'll make a good pressie for someone :)

A non vegan cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery book for a new colleague's house warming party (Don't worry - they weren't all for me! This is the leftovers!). A friend gave me the book as a housewarming gift. Great tasting cupcakes but I seriously cut down on the amount of icing they wanted to add to them, I only made up about a third of the recommended batch.

I've been trying to finish off the cross stitch kits I own and not start any new projects that require buying any materials.  I've stitched up quite a few of my kits but I'm running out of ideas for using up the finished pieces and this is too cute to turn into something more useful :)

Orange chocolate fully vegan cupcakes.  The cake was disappointing again but my vegan friend still enjoyed them :)  I gave up on trying to create smooth icing and embraced the wild side :p I asked my friend what I was doing wrong but it seems that they're not far off her versions. Although I used silicon cupcake papers/wrappers and I think that didn't help - the book specifically recommends that you don't.  I'm pretty keen on not wasting the paper cases though, so I'll have to try a few more options to see if there's other nice vegan cupcakes recipes that work with them.

From Vegan to meaty goodness...  I present a Lower Hutt dining pleasure... The Tiki Lounge Well worth a visit for their steaks with red wine juice served in a cute cup! We also had a yummy garlic bread for starters and the most amazing snickers milk shake for dessert (think peanuts, chocolate and milkshaky goodness)...

Gingerbread and mint chocolate vegan cupcakes. I messed up on their vegan-ness a tad.  The mint chocolate cupcakes required shortening and as I've never used it before I just bought the first lot of shortening I came across (in the third shop I visited mind!).  Unfortunately when I googled the ingredients later to find out what Suet was I realised that the book should have specified vegetable shortening and not just shortening!  The mint choc ones look nice but the cake wasn't so tasty.  The vanilla buttercream gingerbread was nice though - although serious amounts of sugar in the icing - and I didn't even use all of the batch that I made!  Of course the little silver ball decorations weren't vegan either - they contain gelatin. I have a vegan friend and was looking to make her something nice...  These got distributed around work instead!  Round 2 will be fully vegan!

A hot water bottle cover from stash and an old towel.  I may have a problem...  Not just throwing out an old towel...

I may have changed the wording slightly...  Hoping to make this into a shopping bag at some point.

Using up some old papers on hand (including maps and aerial photos!)

Toystory! :)

I spent a few days by myself in Shanghai just at the end of December. I had a great time and spent most of it wandering around the place randomly. I booked a cycle tour of the city - it was a blast! The traffic was crazy toons so I was delighted that I didn't venture out on the roads by myself. My photos aren't great but I really wanted to post something of my trip! I could have sworn that I took more photos of the sights! There was some magical moments; watching people practise Tai Chi in the park, go through the Bund fabric market and not get completely lost by pointing at the hotel name in Chinese! The third photo was so cute - a young couple taking a photo outside of H&M. :) I stayed in a very cute hotel called the Old House Inn .  Lovely old chinese furniture and really friendly staff.  Took a bit of  trouble actually getting there as the taxi from the airport tried to drop me off at the wrong hotel (one relatively near nonetheless!).  I could have sworn ...

I needed a bathmat during my stay in Ireland last year and made one myself - anything to pass the time, you know :P I love the colours but its not such a great pattern for water soakage!