Playdough recipe

Hey guys,

I hope you're ok with the change in schedule for these posts, it will only be whilst I'm on holiday (which I am currently in the car on the way, woo!). There will be posts up on the 4th, 8th and 13th, after this one. I get back on the 13th and then there will be a post up on the 15th and the normal schedule will resume. I hope you like the posts that will be going up, I was going to try and post every 3 days, but that was just too much for me to do in such a short space of time. I will be scheduling them this week to go up on the dates above, which may mean that there won't be any tweets about them when they actually go up, I will try to, but I haven't yet figured out how to get the links to posts before I actually post them. I think I will probably end up just putting a link to the home page where you can find the post. Anyway, let's move onto the actual post now...

When I was younger I absolutely loved playing with playdough (like most kids out there I guess)! My favourite thing was to make 'food' from it and run my own little restaurant. I would even make little menus for my family and take their order! I have so many photos of me playing with it, and creating little people. The only problem I had was that I used to forget to put it away a lot so it would end up going hard pretty quickly, and I just used to end up with a brown blob after a couple of times playing. My mum decided she was going to start making her own, to save having to try and buy it all the time for me, it meant I could play with it any time, rather than just whenever we managed to find somewhere that sold it.

I think she just did a google search for it, but it may have come from a specific book or something. I'm not 100% sure as it kind of surfaced around 11, maybe 12 years ago, and I can't remember that far back.

I know the measurements are in cups, so if you're not used to working in cups, then when measuring out all the ingredients, make sure the cup you use is the same for all of them, so this will ensure that they are all in proportion to each other. you will need: 2 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of salt, 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil and 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar (this is optional, it just helps with the elasticity of the dough). You can also add a few drops of whatever food colouring you want, or separate the batch after it has formed dough and create different colours.

When my mum was making it, she would mix the salt and water in a pan over a low heat, then add the cream of tartar, food colouring and sunflower oil and mixing it all together before  adding the flour. I think this just made it easier to mix together before  it became a ball of dough (this should only take a couple of minutes). She would then wrap it in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for a few hours to make sure it was cool enough to play with. If we were being particularly impatient she would put it into the freezer to cool it down quicker. However, you do have to be careful not to let it freeze or else you will have to wait for it to thaw out again.

This recipe might come in handy if you have kids yourself, and need to try and keep them entertained during the summer holidays, or if you just really want some playdough to play with but don't want to buy some. Just remember, it isn't edible, so keep it away from pets and ensure children don't eat it as the large amounts of salt may cause imbalances in the body.

I hope you all have fun if you try this out!

Love you all 

x

DIY enamel dots

Hey guys,

As a quick warning, this DIY didn't really work all that well, so I wouldn't get your hopes up for seeing perfect little dots that can be used for delicate things. They kind of look like little slightly-coloured splodges...

I saw this idea on Pinterest, and I thought, 'yes, I can do that with my glue gun' (I actually can't, and I burnt myself a few times). I have since done a little more research into it, and the ones I saw were actually melted beads. Pinterest: 1, Megan: 0... However, I thought you might like to see my attempt!

I was using my glue gun for them, but you definitely need to make sure it is very very hot so the glue forms a dot, rather than something that resembles a Hershey's kiss (If you don't know what that is, its a little teardrop shaped chocolate with a flat base). I was gluing them to the back of an old notebook I have (yet another mistake!) which turned out to be a really bad idea, because I couldn't get them off very easily. I had to try and pry them off with my nail and ended up breaking some of them in half. Oops!

The ones I did manage to get off were ok I guess, they were quite cool little blobs. I painted them with a coat of acrylic paint (not a good idea to do it after you take them off the sheet), which looked a little bit patchy in the end. By this point though, I was so done with the whole thing that I just gave up and have since decided that should I need any enamel dots in the future, I will be buying them, and not trying to make them with a glue gun. The only one that came out ok was the tiny red one on the far left of the row! I might keep that one, but the rest will be being relocated to the bin very shortly!

Don't you just love it when a DIY fails! (That was sarcasm, I don't actually love it)

I am going away on Saturday, so hopefully I will have written the posts for the next 2 weeks by then, I'm also hoping to post twice a week whilst I'm away, so stay tuned for some great ones! They will be scheduled, so there may or may not be any tweets about them, and I'm not 100% sure which days they will be up yet, so I'll let you all know closer to the time! I hope if you try to make enamel dots that they turn out a lot better than mine did!

Love you all 

x

Rock monsters

Hey guys,

Sorry this didn't go up yesterday! The paint I used took slightly longer than I wanted it to to dry.

I saw some rock monster photos on Pinterest a few weeks ago and I really loved the idea of them, so I decided to go out and find some random stones in my garden and put them to good use. I found 3 of various sizes so I could try out some different looks. I think they went pretty well actually.

Before I painted them, I had to wash the rocks slightly as 2 of them were covered in moss on one side from where they'd been in the garden quite a while. They were still pretty green, but I figured that since the paint I was going to use was acrylic, it would cover over it.

 

 

Depending on which paint I was using, some needed 2 or 3 coats, whilst others only really needed 1. I painted all of the rocks first, then drew out a few face ideas on a piece of paper so I could decide which ones I liked best. To draw on the faces I used black sharpie for the blue and red rocks but black acrylic paint for the purple, as the sharpie didn't really show up very well. White acrylic worked well to create the teeth, but I would suggest using a thin brush, as bigger ones are a lot harder to be precise with.

For the eyes I decided to use 2 different sizes of googly eyes. They look super cute stuck on (I could only find super glue, but I'm pretty sure any other type works just as well) and give them a cute yet fierce look.

I hope you enjoyed this post, I would love to see if you decide to make these, so feel free to tweet me (@_littleblog)! I hope you all have a lovely rest of the week, I hope it's not too hot or too cold for you all!

Love you all 

x

A lantern of joy

Hiya,

Back at the beginning of May, it was one of my friends' birthdays. She was the friend that I made this for all the way back in 2014, and since I try to make different and more personal presents for each of my friends, I had to try and top it.

I ended up looking for ages and trying to think of something to get her, but I just couldn't think of anything, until I saw this little lantern and knew I wanted to use it.

In the end I decided to fill it with different sweets that she likes, which happened to be chocolate raisins and m&ms, which actually created quite a good contrast of colours. Before I put the sweets in I filled the bottom with all different colours of confetti made from hole-punched paper. I think I had the whole 'festival vibe' thing going on, because the confetti reminded me of festivals and summer.

To create the little parcels I found some little zip-lock bags and filled them so they were fairly full, but not entirely full so I could fold the end over and selotape it down to keep them as sealed as possible. To then make them look slightly more pretty and 'present-like' I tied small different coloured strands of ribbon around them and then stacked them all into the lantern.

Just to add an extra little touch, I made some tiny washi tape bunting to go round the top and make it extra cute.

My favourite thing about this present is that she can eat all of the sweets, and still have a lantern for tea-lights and other things. I also gave her a little anklet as an extra little gift with it and so she had something else to actually unwrap.

I thought this was a cute little summer present idea, and it probably would have looked slightly better with it totally full, but I just couldn't figure out how to make it still look great, whilst being very full and without the glass panels breaking.

I hope this inspires you to have a go at making something cute for a friend or family member's birthday, or just as a little gift for someone! I will see you all again next week! 

I love you all!

Nutty Putty Review

Hei,

I hope you guys have had a great few weeks, sorry there wasn't a post up last week! Sorry about the quality of the photos, I took them with my phone and, even though I try really hard, they never come out how I want them. Today's post is all about Nutty Putty.

Nutty putty is a mouldable 'clay' that goes rubbery when it is bakes. I say 'clay' because I'm not actually sure whether that is what it's supposed to be called, it can be used to mould things, like clay, but it has a putty consistency (hence Nutty 'Putty').

We brought the box with 8 colours for £18 at Christmas and gave it a go. It was actually really fun to do. The putty has such a nice feel and you can mould it into so many different shapes! In the box you get plastic knives and spatulas, a rolling pin, a play mat to use it on, so you don't damage any surfaces, a baking sheet and small shape cutters, like a dolphin and heart. The colours you get are: red, blue, green, yellow, pinky/purple, black, white and a glow in the dark one. They come in little re-sealable bags so you can keep them from drying out between uses. 

Myself and my brother had a great time making all of the little creations and they are randomly dotted around the house at the moment. They go pretty solid but still squishy and rubbery after baking, which meant they couldn't be broken so easily! It is a great set for pretty much any age and is great fun too. It would also be good for children (over 4) to develop how they use their hands and really help their imagination! 

Sorry this is such a quick post today, and sorry for any spelling errors, I tried to type as quickly as possible as I'm now going out to a concert with my cousin and am pretty sure I'm already late! Oops!

I hope you guys have a really lovely week, and don't forget to guess this week's language!

Love, Grace x

I destroyed a book...

Zdravo!

Now, you are probably looking at the title and thinking 'WHAT?!' 'ASDFGHJKL' 'I can't even...' and all sorts of other things, but I assure you, it was for a good cause! And that cause happened to be my friends birthday present. Before you start kicking and screaming, let me explain... (Also, please excuse the dodgy photos, I've managed to lose my good ones and only have the ones from my phone to use.)

A few years ago (I think) I saw a photo of a book safe. (If you don't know what a book safe is, it's basically a hollowed out book that can be used to store stuff and keep things safe.) I immediately fell in love with the idea and actually brought a 'fake' one last year whilst I was away. It was never actually a book though, but was designed to look like one.

Anyway, back to the present story... For this friend, I knew I definitely wanted to make her something cool, and something she would like. So I decided on making a book safe. I know that she really likes reading, and positive quotes, so I put them together and came up with a book inside a book. I found a tiny book full of positive quotes that I wanted to give her (and some little chocolate bunnies) and then proceeded to try and find a suitable book to hollow out. It's actually much harder than it looks...

I didn't want to buy a brand new one, I wanted to find one that was slightly older and had a bit more character. Also, buying a book that had already been owned and read made me feel slightly less bad about cutting it up, because at least it had already fulfilled its purpose. I found this book 'Firesong' in a local charity shop, and instantly loved the cover beneath the dust jacket! It was actually the main reason I chose the book in the first place. It was a perfect size and thickness for what I wanted to use it for. (I also tried to read a little of it, but didn't like it at all, which is another reason it was perfect to cut up!)

I made a template from some old card to the size hole I wanted and used a Stanley knife to cut. Be sure to make sure you have a sharp knife or you will end up with some very jagged cuts, like mine did! I only cut through about 5/6 pages at a time to try and keep it as straight as possible. You can choose how deep to cut, I chose to stopabout 3/4 of the way down because it was deep enough to fit the little book (which I also seem to have lost the photo for too! Sorry)

Once I had finished cutting the pages out, I tidied the edges up a little and used a makeup brush to remove all the excess paper from between the pages. The hole was just big enough for the little book of positivity to fit in once it was wrapped, and to make sure it held properly, I tied it shut with a big silver bow, just to make it look even prettier.

I hope you guys have forgiven me for cutting up a book, it did make a nice present though! Last weeks language was Turkish, as guessed by the lovely Nicky over at teaandtakeaways.wordpress.com, who says that it is her favourite country! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Grace x

Heart Balloons Card

Bonjour,

This week has been seriously long! It just feels like it's been dragging along, and even now, I can hardly keep my eyes open as I'm typing.

This card is cute for birthdays, Valentines or even Mother's Day (hint, hint, it's tomorrow if you're from the UK). It can be used for any age group, but is probably more suited to girls. Instead of the heart shaped balloons, however, regular round, wavy or oval balloons could be cut and used to make the card more fitting to a wider audience.

To start out, I'm using plain white card, but you could use any colour and thickness for this. Using a darker colour and white, cream or pastel coloured balloons would look pretty cool. I'm just using half an A4 piece for this, but any size would work, you would just need to either alter the size of the balloons or how many there are.

To cut out the balloons, I cut out small squares of coloured paper and folded them in half, before drawing half a heart shape and cutting it out to get an even shape. I have one of each colour, but if you're going for a specific colour theme, then use the best colours to fit your design. To finish off the card, glue the balloons in a shape of your choice and add some string or embroidery thread to make the balloon strings.

The card's actual look is down to you, whether you want just one balloon or multiple in a cluster. I hope you have someone to give this card too, and can try to make it yourself.
 

Don't forget to guess this week's language, either comment or tweet me @_littleblog. Last week's was Spanish. The lovely ladies, Hager from bmobshelldrawer.wordpress.com and Mel from www.melberryy.com guessed it right, so well done girls! And thank you for guessing!

I hope you guys have a lovely week!

Love, Grace x

A Year of Happiness

Hey guys,

This December I will be 18. I decided around October last year to keep a memory jar, but didn't want to just start on a random date. I had one in 2013 and it ran from January 1st to December 31st, this one, however, I wanted to do from my birthday for a year. It meant I could write every happy thing that happens in my life throughout the year and read them all back on my birthday this year. I did a similar memory jar in summer 2014 (here), the only real difference being the size of the jar! In an effort to be more positive and optimistic, I decided to use a huge jar that my friend gave to me full of gummy bears. It has just sat there for almost a year and a half without much use, but now it is perfect.

After it became my memory jar (ignore the post-it for a label, I couldn't find any stickers!), it sat on my windowsill for 2/3 weeks looking a little plain. Also on my windowsill is a jar full of sharpies in all different colours, so I put 2 and 2 together, and realised, the sharpie wouldn't come off if I drew on it!

Having a memory jar is a good idea if you really struggle to remember the happy things happening at the moment. Even if it is just something as small as getting out of bed, trying a new food, going out or reading a really great book. Anything, small or large, that makes you happy, is a thing to write down for the jar. If you need some motivation that day, or week, then choose a few slips and read them, to see all of the things that have been good recently.

I challenge you all to start a memory jar and stay positive with all of the things you write, whether it lasts for a month or a year, it will be worth it!

I hope you all have a lovely week!

Love, Grace x

Candy Cane Place Cards

Hey guys,

Today's post is going to go up when I'm at work I think, so I won't be able to tweet about it. Sorry!

Candy canes are pretty much only seen at Christmas time, so they're seen as a very festive thing. They can also be used for more than just eating! They can be used to hold place cards for people if you are having a big family meal on Christmas day or Boxing day. You will need 3 canes for one place card, which seems like quite a lot if you have a lot of ones to make. However, you can get a box of 15 for 99p in the 99p store. Plus, you can eat them once you are done!

I first taped the canes together so that it would be easier to tie them together with more ribbon from my random stuff drawer. (I tried just tying them together but it failed a little bit). You will also just need to write out a card with each person's name on it, to sit on the cane curve-y bits.

I think these little place cards would look so cute on a Christmassy table setting with cute little names on cards. I just wrote 'reserved' to show you, and drew a little santa hat on the 'R' to make it look extra festive. I hope you like my little Christmas backdrop for the photos.

Have a lovely day! I will see you all tomorrow after my driving lesson! (Woo! Driving lesson numero tre!)

Love, Grace x

Jars and Stuff...

Hey guys,

It is officially the Christmas holidays! Woo! It's also only 6 days until Christmas!

Today features another jar, however, it wasn't me who made it. It was actually my friend and she gave it to me for my birthday. It is a Jar filled with malteasers and little red strawberry sweets. It's a jar of reindeer noses! I absolutely love the idea! (Plus, I love malteasers... a lot!)  It's very festive and cute! She cut out (I think) a reindeer face, complete with little antlers and ear bits and stuck it to the front.She even added a cute little red button for a nose and eyes and a mouth. It's just so cute!

Another jar idea is to fill one with different layers of the ingredients for cookies or cakes. The idea is to put all of the dry ingredients in the jar in layers (like, flour, sugar or cocoa powder). It creates a pretty jar of ingredients that takes away the work of measuring out the ingredients for the recipient of the jar. You could probably add a wooden spoon and tie ribbon around it, rather than wrapping it up completely (the person might tip it up by accident, mixing up the layers). You would need to write a not explaining how much butter or how many eggs the person needs to add in, depending on your recipe.

The last idea isn't jar related at all, it involves a toilet paper roll, made into a little present... thing. It may not be the coolest thing, and you may not want to give someone a toilet paper roll. Obviously, it's probably best to either paint it or decorate it with ribbon and things. It is a good idea for putting small gifts that you don't have a gift bag or box for. I just used a couple of bits of ribbon that I had in a drawer to make it look a little prettier!

I am going to try and post every day up to Christmas eve! I have planned them and taken some photos, I just have to write them. So. I will see you guys tomorrow.

Love, Grace x

Spooktacular crafts

Hey guys!

Happy Halloween! I hope you've all got your costumes ready and carved your pumpkins. For the first year in a while I'm not actually going to be at home this evening, I'm going to see Spectre instead (Please don't tell me any spoilers!) and I'm super looking forward to it.

This post is just a few crafts for Halloween that I saw on Pinterest and knew I had to try out. Mine didn't work as well as I wanted (basically they failed), but I sort of know what went wrong, so I can pass on my tips for them.

First up is a spooky ghost lamp. It is essentially just a white plastic cup over the top of an LED tea light. I've had this cup for a few months and it's just been sat on my bedroom floor waiting to be used for something cool. I basically just drew a ghost face onto the cup and it looks quite cool when it's dark! If you fixed some smaller cups onto a string of fairy lights, you could make a cool string of little ghosts.

The next one is the one that totally failed! Jelly worms. To try and make them, I bundled some straws together in a glass, and tried to fill them with jelly. This was the first of my many issues with the worms. The jelly didn't stay in the straws, it just bled out into whatever glass I put it into, even when I put clingfilm over the end. Looking back, I probably should have put a layer of jelly in the glass first and then pushed the straws into it, but didn't. Let me tell you, when liquid jelly is around, kitchen counters get very sticky and jellied! The next problem I had was HOW TO GET THE JELLY OUT! It was next to impossible without breaking them or smushing the worms into mush... I think I definitely chose the wrong sized straws. They were very thin, which didn't really help the issue. If you're going to try this, you may want to think of a way to get it out, because I have no solutions. It seems almost impossible to get them out.

(sorry this photo is sideways!)

Finally, ghostly garlands. This one can be used like bunting for a party or to decorate for trick-or-treaters. I used small gemstones I used to collect as a kid but they were way too heavy, so I'd suggest maybe using a balled up piece of tissue or light bead. This should mean the bottom of the tissue hangs better to look like a ghost, rather than the upside-down one I ended up with.
For the ghost I tore a square of kitchen towel into 4 pieces, because it was 2-ply (I know, fancy right!) I also separated the layers to make it thinner. It was pretty easy to tie the bit of ribbon around it once I'd bunched up the tissue below the stone for the head.

Out of the crafts on here, I think the ghost garland is definitely my favourite. It's such a cool idea, and very simple and quick to make.

I hope you guys have a lovely week, and don't eat too many sweets this weekend!

Love, Grace x