Vanilla Extract - REALLY easy, saves a fortune!

I saw other people doing this and I couldn't resist, it sounded too good to be true! A bottle of cheap vodka, a pack of vanilla beans, and a 3month wait... and I could have a massive bottles worth of vanilla extract at a fraction of the super-market cost?

So I bought a £6ish bottle of vodka (1/2 a litre), £5 worth of vanilla beans (and I only used a third) and I put the beans in the vodka and waited... and here it is! It tastes delicious and rich, and at about £7.50 for 500ml of vanilla extract vs £5.51 for 118ml of the extract I used to buy... I think I've saved about £16? 

The right hand bottle is finished product, and the left hand one I topped up. By pouring out 80% and topping up the remaining 20% you can use the same beans for, according to some websites, up to a year. I topped it up with gin, as it was all I had, so who knows how it will taste in the end but hopefully the vanilla will overpower it anyway.

You can also use bourbon, or any other spirit, I believe. I want to try brandy.... yum!

Kung Pao Broccoli, Cashews and Noodles

I've got a sort of before and after going on here (the red pot is sugar)! I based this meal on this recipe from the BBC, but I left out the tofu due to my tofuphobic boyfriend, missed out the added greens because I was in a rush, added noodles because noodles are yummy (ready for wok ones, I used Sharwoods and I really like them - much nicer than dried noodles!). I also ran out of ginger, and cheated with chilli powder rather than crushed. Nonetheless, even all this recipe-butchery later, it was really tasty!

It was also  super quick (about 25mins start to finish), and only one pan, a knife and a bowl to mix the sauce for washing up... brilliant lazy day cookery!

Five miniute projects

Hello all, I am updating with some quick and easy five miniute projects and I promise I will update more often!

Striped Nails: You need: 2 colours of nail varnish, 1 of clear, and some sellotape cut as thin as you can manage!

 First paint them one colour, then let them dry and put on little lines of selotape over the nail (must be bone dry!) and paint over it with the second colour. Try to use as many strips as you can to get an even stripe-age. 

Peal off the tape when damp, let them dry, and paint a clear layer to make it last and look tidy! Voila!

This was my first go and unfortunatly my colour choices were both limited and dull... but with some bright colours it looks much funkier.

I use Barry M nail varnish http://www.barrym.com/nail-paints which are cheap, vegan and not tested on animals. They usually cover the nail in one paint, except for the light colours.

 Hair-band! Okay this is super simple. My hair is a bit fine for such things really, but I was bored!  There are lots of tutorials online, I picked a gathered one to stop me looking bald, but the straight ones are even easier!

Cinnamon Bread

Soooo today I made cinnamon bread! Yum! I've never made this before, and I used the recipe from the veganyumyum book.

As you can see from the left, I put the loaf in a loaf tin which is just blasted out of! It was massive, I was very impressed.

To help the appearence I think next time I will roll it out long and thin on a baking tray, rather than let it spill out the loaf tin!

Full of cinnamon, and just 5tbsp in all of dark brown soft sugar, this bread is sweet and tasty... I can't wait to try it toasted.

PJs!

PJs! I really wanted to make PJs so I made these following this guide http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Sew-Your-Own-Pajama-Pants/ and some cheap red fabric.

Glad I used the cheap fabric because as comfortable as these are, I made a lot of mistakes! The waist is over twice my own waist, which makes them really comfortable but would be a waste of more expensive fabric, I made the crotch to waist too small so they fit too low on the hips, and I sewed across the elastic stopping me from threading the ribbon the whole way through... and then sewed the ribbon on the back. Anyway a couple of alterations later they were finished!

I added the heart and extra ribbon to make them a bit more interesting and a bit less santa bottoms!

If I did it again I'd sew the heart on like applique, with a short zig zag around the edges, it would have been neater and smoother.

The material is so soft and comfortable, it cost £5 a meter and I used 1.75 meters...and that was to make PJs MUCH too big so I should be able to use no more than 1.5 next time and use some more expensive fabric... to create really pretty PJ bottoms!

Cookies!

Yum yum yummy cookies! These are my FAVOURITE cookies EVER. I used chocolate cut up because it's cheaper here, so they don't look so neat.

The recipe is from Vegan With A Vegance. Not a cookbook I generally reccomend but I do like the baking recipes. These are 1/3 bigger than the book reccomends... I think it's meant to make 24 dozen and I made 18. But I like them this size... even a little bigger! I was going to coat them with chocolate but I'm not sure they need it.

Anyway they taste fantastic! Delicious.

Long time, no type!

  

Hello hello, when I haven't posted for months I always feel silly posting again. But then, if I don't, my blog will dissapear into the bloggersphere and that'd be sad... I enjoy it! So I have been busy sewing sewing sewing! Here are my wears:

 

 PATCHWORK APPLE: I used the template produced here: http://woolfoodmama.typepad.com/ called "patchy produce", except I used seperate fabrics for each section, and used felt for the leaves rather than fabric. REALLY simple and they look really sweet.

Mini stocking - I just loved this fabric! Really simple, and partly stuffed to give it some body, ready to hang on the tree!

Hearts hearts hearts! I actually made these in the summer at my parents house. Stuffed hearts like this are EVERYWHERE in shops, especially at christmas, but also in pretty fabrics all year around. At between £2-3 roughly per heart, you save a LOT by using spare fabric, buttons and ribbon to make your own... it takes like 15 miniutes :)

Christmas puddings... attempt one and two. Okay I wanted to make little round christmas puds... but this first is a little stingy on the icing and the second is a funny shape as the cream fabric was stiffer than the brown... and there was too much! Ahh nightmare. I've kept them, they've grown on me in their endeering miss-match way... but I'm not sure they'll make it to the tree!

Christmas dove - this one was the easiest to make, it's a little wonky in the picture but because it was felt I could tug it a little untill it was round!

FINAL CHRISTMAS PUD! I like this one, it's simple but kind of... rustic-er looking.

Christmas tree! Just two peices of felt cut out and sewn together with cardboard inbetween to keep it stiff, siver stitching and tiny beads (that came off an old top) tiny buttons (spare shirt buttons) and a ribbon (cut out of a tshirt) to decorate - very cheap too! Star button on top :)

So yeah! I am a complete novice sewer... I did GCSE textiles and I did VERY badly, but now armed with a sewing machine and stealing creativity from shops and blogs I have created passable crafts and am very proud of myself! If I can do it... anybody can.