Homemade valentines

(Homemade red velvet cupcakes, the sprinkles say ME LOVE YOU with hearts at the end of the lines).You may remeber that last year I made these cute heart shaped tea bags for Jam. Just like the presents I made for our 1 year anniversary last week I was certain that for valentines this year I wanted to avoid the tat and make Jam his valentines gifts. His major present took a bit of work to pull together but I think it will be worth it. I bought a 600 photo classic black photo album from paperchase that you can slip photos in (rather than the ones you have to glue the photo to the pages in, which I'm not too keen on). We had loads of photos of us together doing stuff from our Awesome things to do list (stuff suggested by each of us that we would like to do with the other person, the stuff on it ranges from going ice skating together, to taking a hot air balloon ride to visiting the science museum and cooking monster cupcakes, to name but a few). I saved a selection to my memory stick and got them all printed out and then placed them in chronological order in the album (with plenty of space left to add new photo adventures).

 I added a further homemade touch by cutting letters out of handmade paper and sticking them on the front with my faithful copydex (there is a clear plactic layer that goes over the outside of the album which should help protect this quite delicate paper). Now its clear who the album belongs to and also what the contents are inside!

 The other two things that I made to go with it was a massage balm using the recipe here. Because Jam sits at a computer all day (and slouches) he gets pains in his back so I wanted to make something that I could use that I knew contained only 'nice' ingredients and hadn't been harmfully tested.

My final suprise of the trio were some homemade red velvet cupcakes which although not the really really red colour that I had envisaged didn't last that long at all (I had to almost push Jam out the house in order to get them made in the first place).

For my present I got  a bottle of my favourite malt whisky Talisker (it's brewed on the Isle of Skye which is lovely), some of my favourite perfume and an automatic door opener for the chickens (so I get my lie ins back!) I also got bought a fantastic underwear making course with the quite simply brilliant Emiliana Underwear. If you haven't visited their site you really should, they sell kits to make your own pants and reuse clothing material to do so making it ethical & green. The actual course is today and I'm sooo excited to be taking part (full write up in due course, must remeber to charge & take the camera). Happy Valentines everyone & remeber to treat yourselves as well as your loved ones this holiday!

Exhibit

Although Christmas was supposed to be a lovely break form work I found myself using the time to catch up on projects instead. I thought I'd be mostly knitting I seem to have crammed quite a few other crafts in as well. I went to Ikea with Trisha and ended up buying this fantastic little greenhouse, perfect for nurturing my little cacti till they are as fully grown and as big as these guys.

I did do some knitting, still working on a cozy pair of socks for Jam but I managed to get this scarf finishing for Claire

(the yarn is really pretty containing not only wool but sari ribbon as well in a contrasting blue/green shade). I'm hoping ths will help her feel better and take away the winter sniffles which she has been suffering.

I've been doing a few more cards as well with the orchids that I pressed a while ago. This one was a bit of an emergency one for Jam's sister Teagan (I thought I had 4 days to make it, turns out he got the date wrong so I only had a night).

I've been having a bit of a think about taking a stall at a local craft fair, selling my home bred plants and paper and material bits and bobs, but I don't know whether my stuff is good enough, it seems quite ordinary to me I suppose but I would like to see what ye general public think (so all feedback greatly appreciated!).

And last but not least is this little box, it started out as plain paper mache but I transformed it (using some inspiration from the rug in our living room and a selection of nail varnish) into a trinket box. The problem is now its all done I don't really want to sell it/gift it. Gonna have to get better at this if I'm ever going to have any stock!