pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

We’ve been on a real mango kick here. The boy mastered a gorgeous veggie & mango curry, we’ve been making mango frapuccino lassi in our new blender (we so love a good bargain gadget!) and with one mango left in the fruit bowl, cupcakes seemed a must.

Instead of icing, we served these with a marshmallowy sauce and mango puree. Summer yum. So I thought I’d share the love.

Mango Cupcakes
(makes about 20 standard sized cupcakes)

Ingredients:
1 US stick or 1/2 UK stick unsalted butter (about 125g)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut milk (or regular milk if you don’t like coconut)
1 very ripe mango, mashed
1/3 cup mango puree (tinned or fresh, although you may need to add a bit of sugar to the fresh)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Heat oven to 180C/350F and line cupcake tin with papers.

With butter at room temperature, beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar and mix on high for another two minutes.
Mix in egg yolks and vanilla until even.
Add flour, baking powder, spices and salt in alternation with coconut milk and mango puree. Mix on low until even.
Stir in mashed mango until well distributed.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.
Stir into the cake mixture.
Pour immediately into cupcake papers, about 3/4 full.
Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a chopstick comes out clean.

Mango Marshmallow Cream
(makes a big bowl)

Ingredients:
4 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 US stick or 1/2 UK stick unsalted butter (about 125g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup mango puree

With the whisk attachment on an electric mixer, whisk egg whites and sugar in a glass bowl, over a saucepan of simmering water. Continue to whisk until mixture is thick and hot to the touch.
Remove from heat and mix in butter, in small pieces.
Add remaining ingredients and continue to mix until well distributed, with a fluffy marshmallow consistency.
Let cool and serve over cakes, with additional mango puree drizzled on top.

Whatever your heart-shaped desserts this week, I hope you’ll share the love!

xlovesx

Comment [5]

When did you clear your fridge door? When I took everything off today, I was embarrassed that I was saving things long past their expiry date—and I don’t mean the food inside the fridge, but the notices, letters and coupons stuck to the front. In fact, we recently cleared our entire fridge and cupboards, doing some of that replacing that has to be done now and then…like when the herbs have just had it and you realise you are physically incapable of finishing a bottle of salad dressing before it develops a lifestyle of its own. But we didn’t clear a single thing from the door.

So that is what I did today. Because I don’t know about you, but I have days where I have trouble fitting it all in. (Please don’t tell. This has to be our little secret!) But I need a crafty fix to keep me smiling. Today I had ten minutes, but I also had some photos that were just sitting there, some stickers, some stamps and some fridge magnets. You have all that too, right?

Find a few photos, make a few captions and you’re off. I’m going for the happy kitchen effect. I stumble into the kitchen in the morning (so not a morning person!) so a few happy photos and pretty colours are way better for 6am me than a survey from the electric company and a so-so cherry crumble recipe that I haven’t found a chance to improve. You could even use magnet tape or the magnet cartridge on your Xyron to make your own magnets if you wanted something a bit more permanent. Or take your favourite letter stickers, laminate them on blocks of cardstock, stick magnets on the back and you’ve got your very own magnet letters to spell things out.

But I like using my own magnets because not only do I like my little magnets but then when I switch things around, I could use the captions and photos in my scrapbook easy peasy. So I haven’t wasted supplies. I’ve just made them dual purpose. The joy. (My dual-purpose supplies included Heidi Swapp and American Crafts stickers and stamps from Making Memories and Banana Frog.)

Speaking of photos, my friend, neighbour, magazine teammate and fellow unbelievably tall person, Cheryl, is running an online photography course. It’s ten weeks, with a new topic each week and an assignment to try. It’s not technical stuff and you don’t need a fancy camera. It’s more about what goes through your head when you’re snapping away—how to improve your framing, how to get cool looks with movement and light, how to take a picture with some power rather than something blah. I got a little sneak peek while she ran a guinea pig session and it was a blast. You’ve only got till the 4th to sign up, so have a read before it’s too late. And when her session is finding down, you can sign up for a favourite photos album here too, in case you want to tie the two together.

What are you waiting for? Get off the computer and clean your fridge. Or other central messaging point that needs a happy face. Share the love.

xlovesx

Comment [7]

If you ever want to alienate a teenager, get rid of your television.

The kids are continually amazed that I can exist without a TV (so are the folks at TV licensing, but that’s a different matter) and about once a week, a student will come up to me and ask ‘Is it true?’ When I confirm their worst fears, they immediately want to know what on earth I could do when I should be watching TV.

I suppose this is sorta it.

I tell them I have plenty of other things to do. So here is the first one: sewing little things from felt to wear. Because it’s Tuesday. You can totally do this.

You’ll need some felt, some thread, a needle, scissors, a safety pin, some sort of stuffing and a few buttons.

Since May is all about sharing the heart-shaped love, we’re going with a heart shape straight away. Using a template or freehanding it, cut a heart from felt in a size appropriate to what you want to make. Little for a hair pin, medium for a label pin and giant for a pillow. Once you get one heart just as you like it, use it to cut a second just the same.

Choose one of those hearts and add whatever decoration you would like. You might cut another smaller heart and stitch it on, then add some buttons. You might stitch your name or a word straight across the felt. Or you might wish you could freehand cut a bird, realise you have a bird the right size on a stamp, stamp that bird onto felt, cut it out and turn it over, then stitch it town and add some sparkly buttons for it to sit on. Or you might do something else.

Sew a safety pin to the back of the other heart (make sure you get the right side to make the two hearts line up). Or sew whatever else you want to attach here, like a hair clip or a shoelace. Don’t be tempted to sew the safety pin before your design—that will be the time you totally goof and want the other heart for a do-over. So safety-pin second just in case.

Then for the sewing…you’ll need plenty of thread (it takes more than you may guess) and a needle. Read Heather’s tutorial for the best knot ever. It really is.
Hold the two hearts together, just as they should be when they are finished. With that knot in your thread, go to the dip in the middle of the heart. Start with the needle in between the two layers, going up through the top one. Take the needle down to the bottom heart and push back up to the top so that first stitch is secure. Then just keep stitching around, pushing the needle up from the bottom to the top and back again. Stop when you get nearly all the way around, but not quite. You need to have room to add the stuffing. Push the stuffing in (these are little so you can use cotton balls or scrap yarn or whatever else is fluffy if you don’t have traditional stuffing handy) and move it around until you’re happy with it—it’s harder to even it out once it’s sewn in. Then finish your stitches around to where you started, and make sure the last few stitches are nice and secure with a knot. (Don’t worry too much—the back won’t show so if it gets a bit scary, just stitch through to the back and knot it there and no one but you will ever know.)

Pin to something and smile everytime someone asks you where you got such an adorable thing.

Now here’s the fun part: if you make something inspired by this, I hope you’ll share it with everyone! Here’s a badge you can display if you post it on your blog or something like that:

That way, you can share the love by linking back to the instructions if someone wants to know how you made it. :) Plus if you heart flickr, you can post your pictures in the Share the {Crafty} Love Flickr Group By the end of May, it should be filled with images, since there’s a project pretty much every day in May! {I’m just gonna keep saying that because it’s fun.}

And one more thing: I’ve got a lovely little sampler of felt to give to one lucky person who comments on this post. Entries will close one week from today, so 9am London time on Tuesday 8th May. (Just to clarify: you don’t have to be in the UK to win. Anywhere is cool!)

xlovesx

ETA: turning comments off as this one seems to be spam target o’ the day on the internets.

Comment [105]

So here’s the deal:
May is a beautiful month.
It is also completely insane for teachers.
May has two national holidays in this country, so therefore two beautiful three day weekends.
And SATs exams for all of year 9.
May has more weddings than any other month in England.
And the beginning of GCSEs.
May has parades and blue skies.
And lots of paperwork involving HB pencils, small bubbles and triplicate carbon paper.

Clearly I need something to divert me a little each day so I may keep my sanity.
Or lose it entirely.

And with that, I offer you…
A project pretty much every day. For all of May.

It will be a month of things to make with hearts. A different type of project for each day of the week. We have been missing the cupcake love here, so Thursdays are for heart-related cupcakes. Tuesday is for hearts of felt. We’ll scrapbook hearts on a Monday and knit them on a Friday…and so on and so forth. I heart handmade, after all. Little projects you can do with a bit of chill time. Crafts that go with a cup of coffee. Oh the happy.

Starting tomorrow, a project pretty much every day. Oh the goodness. And there is extra goodness I am not even telling you about yet. Super secret!

So rather than go insane with spring fever, let’s get crafty.
Who’s in??

xlovesx

Comment [35]

So happy to see so many Alice inspired projects this weekend. Definitely a happy thing!

So on to the real event of the evening: winners! We had guests, so I had them pick a number for each project, and our winners are:

For Drink Me, Nat is our winner! :)

And for Box of Sweets, congrats go to Sarah!

Please email me your snail mail address so I can get some prezzies out to you in the post! :)

Thank you all for your crafty goodness…I hope you had a wondermous weekend! (I am totally stealing the word of one of our dinner guests there, to give credit.)

See you tomorrow to announce the completely INSANE idea that starts on Tuesday. If I don’t chicken out tomorrow, that is! Oh, the suspense.

xlovesx

Comment [6]

Down the Rabbit Hole
‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); `now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! ALICE’S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ. HEARTHRUG, NEAR THE FENDER, (WITH ALICE’S LOVE).
Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.
-Lewis Carroll

Class Supplies
This is definitely a stash project. The only tricky thing you need is the photo—it needs to be the full width of your page. So if you’re doing a 12×12 page, you can use a 12×8 or similar size print. If you need to print on an A4 printer, you can do a 9×9 page with a 9×6 photo. You can even go as small as a 4×6 photo on a 6×6 page.

Aside from your photo, you’ll need the cardstock for your background, some patterned paper, some lettering for your title and some accents to match. I used scraps for everything aside from the cardstock rather than cutting into new sheets. I also used a journaling stamp from Banana Frog.

Instructions
This will definitely be less frustrating than stretched out Alice right now. The sketch is simple—one giant photo, plus a place for a title and a place for an accent. Your journaling can go in either of those two places, or in the gaps left either side. You can use the sketch for a landscape (horizontal) photo, or turn it for a portrait (vertical) one. The instructions are written for the horizontal orientation.

Choose a colour for your background and some patterned paper to coordinate. Cut a two inch strip of patterned paper as wide as your page. Place this along the bottom of your photo and place both of those on the page to judge the spacing. With a border of background at the bottom, adhere the patterned paper, then the photo over the top to leave enough pattern showing for your liking.

Cut a rectangle of patterned paper for the opposite side of the photo, where your title will go. Adhere this so it overlaps on top of the photo.

Choose one or more styles of lettering to layer your title on top of the patterned rectangle. Try letting some of the letters go beyond the patterned paper.

Choose some accents and secure them to the other side, overlapping on top of the photo.

Add your journaling. I stamped a box with lines on patterned paper, then cut it out. On this layout, I placed it with the accents, but on the second it fit right into the title box, so try it in both places to see what looks best with your photo. You can also journal straight onto the cardstock in the empty corners. Feel free to embellish to your heart’s desire, but this one is done! Go take a photo, upload and claim your points!

Here’s a second take, using a portrait photo and using a bit more embellishment. Adapt to your style however you like: the challenge is to use a BIG photo with two areas of embellishment to the page.

I hope you enjoy something bold but fast to create!

If you upload your page and post a link in the comments for the Box of Sweets post at shimelle.com, you will be entered in the draw for a bonus prize. Good luck!

For more information about the cybercrop, visit UKScrappers.

xlovesx

Comment [121]

Down the Rabbit Hole
It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
-Lewis Carroll

Class Supplies
If you have a kit, you should have a blank minibook, a strip of three transparent overlays, a strip of journaling words, a strip of three printed boxes, tulle netting in two shades of pink, some bright green dyed fabric, a length of ribbon, some buttons and a tiny glass bottle.

If you don’t have a kit, you can make a similar project using a few sheets of cardstock, some patterned paper from your stash, some buttons and ribbon.

From your tools, you will need scissors, trimmer, strong adhesive or needle & thread for the buttons, glue stick or other clear adhesive for the overlays, a black ink pad and a black pen.
You will also need 8 to 15 photos of things you like, printed or croppable to no more than 2.5” square. I found my photos didn’t lend themselves to square cropping, so I kept the standard ratio. I used iPhoto to print 9-up on a 5×7 and this size worked well.

Instructions
Let’s get all the trimming done straight away. Trim the excess from the three overlays to leave you with the frame. Trim on the black lines on the boxes printed on white cardstock. Trim the journaling words to a rectangle for each phrase. Trim your photos to size while you’re at it.

Use a black ink pad to ink the edges of the words and the cardstock boxes, and leave them to dry while you go on.

Next, we’ll make the cover. You need one photo to go in the space, so try a few until you get one you like. Stick it in place by putting adhesive inside the cover, so you don’t have to put it straight onto the front of your photo and risk getting glue in the wrong place. Then thread the ribbon through so your front cover is closed. Choose a word to put on the cover, and cut some netting as a mat for the word (don’t stress about getting the netting straight…you might be there all night) and add it to the bottom right corner. Add a button or two, then use a fine tipped pen to date your book or doodle.

Once you’re ready to start your pages, you’ll fly right through this. Put all your pictures in front of you so you can pick as you go through—the overlays may look better on some pictures depending on where the light and dark happens to match up with the text, for example. Here are some options for your page designs, layered from the page up to the top:

*Photo + caption + button

 *Photo + overlay


*Netting + photo + caption


*Box + photo + caption (play with tearing photos, cutting with edges, stapling, etc)


*Netting + photo + caption + button


*Box + handwritten journaling


*Box + handwritten journaling + caption + button


*Netting + box + photo


*Netting + box + handwritten journaling


*Fabric + photo + caption + button


*Handwritten journaling + netting + photo


*Box + photo + handwritten journaling

So it’s definitely a game of mix and match! Here are the pages from my book:

To finish, find a way to customise your tiny bottle. I found a few little silver beads in my stash, so added a few of those plus a tiny strip of cardstock where I had handwritten ‘smile’.

You might sign your name, cut a strip from a photo or two or have another idea completely. I also liked how it looked with cake sprinkles inside! Tie this to the ribbon closure or the centre. Be careful, as the tiny corks are pretty fragile, and the hook will fall out if pulled too much. You can always glue your cork if it needs a bit more stability.

To add your length of ribbon, pull the ribbon at the centre binding just enough to pull your ribbon through and knot it. Then you can knot the other end and have a way to tie it to something so you can see your book and smile often! You could even tie it to a handbag so when you fall down the rabbit hole, you won’t be quite as worried as Alice.

Tips for using your own stash
The pages inside this book are 2.5×5 inches. Cut as many of those as you would like, then score in the centre so they fold in half. Cut one slightly larger for the cover and bind with ribbon, stitches or a stapler. Then follow the basic idea using your own stash.

Prizes
If you upload your book online and post a link in the comments to this post, you will be entered in the draw for a bonus prize. Good luck! Drawing will take place on this Sunday evening, London time. You do not have to be in the UK to win.

xlovesx

Comment [101]

Gotta love it when things get so busy you are running to catch up with yourself. So I’m listing things again. Listing must be the sprinting event of writing.

*I listened to this when I was out in LA, crashing rental cars, following the satnav’s directions to china and forgetting the obvious. The boy has fallen in love with it and it is now our nightly chill out. Yum.

*Packed and mailed hundreds of teeny, tiny kits to scrappers in the UK for the Alice in Wonderland Cyber Crop this weekend. Thank you to my most amazing PA and her PA for their amazing mail room help. I’ll be teaching two classes on Saturday so bring on the queen of hearts and such. Maybe I need to get the boy to help me improve my chess game in preparation?

*Please realise that ‘improving my chess game’ would be me making three or more moves without asking what I can do.

*The boy has mastered making the most fabulous onion bhajis. I know you wanted to know.

*Our hallway is clean. This is a big deal.

*I think I could scrapbook like forever and ever. And it would be blinking brilliant.

xlovesx

Comment [3]