Christmas is coming....

For the last few years I have given home-made gifts to my family and friends. Two years ago, I made food hampers with jars of home-made preserves, sauces, cookie mixes etc. Last year everyone received a sewn gift, handbags for the girls and pj pants and t-shirts for the boys.

This year, thanks to Pinterest, I have made bath products. 

I love a bit of kitchen chemistry, so trying my hand at soap making seemed a perfect way to spend an afternoon. I found a great tutorial via Pinterest and gathered my supplies. Go to Down to Earth to find the instructions.

My first batch was a triumph. I made a basic coconut oil and olive oil castille soap with lemon and grapefruit essential oils for that pick me up scent. My second attempt was not so good, a soap volcano erupted on my stove top as a result of the oils being too hot. Still, at least my stove top was sparkling after the clean up.

Eager to get back on the horse, I tried a slightly more difficult recipe using coconut milk in place of water. Again it was Pinterest to the rescue, and Hoegger Farmyard's site provided excellent instructions on how not to burn the milk when adding the lye. The end result was a bar of super moisturising soap with a great lather. 

After all that I was hooked, on making my own bath products and on Pinterest. Hours have be whiled away browsing through the DIY and Crafts section, pinning more tutorials and ideas than I'll ever have time to do. If you don't have an account already, I highly recommend getting one. Why not follow me here and see what I pin to my boards? 

I have also made, hand cream with the Local Kitchen Blog, coconut body scrub with Bath Body DIY, bath melts with Soap Deli News, lotion bars with Coconut Oil Blog and bath salts with Live Strong. 

All of these can be seen in the picture above. I used the tutorials as guides and modified the recipes to suit as I went along.  At the end of this post is a download of all the recipes and the accompanying directions as a pdf. 

Each hamper will have 2 bars of soap, a lotion bar, a jar of bath salts, a jar of body scrub, a jar of hand cream and a bag of bath melts. It will be wrapped in cellophane and tied off with a ribbon  The tags are made of cinnamon salt dough and shaped as Christmas trees. They can then be reused year after year as tree decorations and they smell amazing.

Hopefully the hampers will be well received and I see a soft and scented new year approaching. 

Merry Christmas everyone. x

Homemade bath products recipes and instructions

The Pencil Skirt.... A tutorial

Well it has been a while since I last posted. 
Life as been very busy with the usual mix of work, on call and essay writing. On top of all that I have been asked to present at this years British Society of Echocardiography conference. It is taking place next Friday and Saturday and as usual I have left it to the last minute to prepare my talk. A few tweaks to make to the slides and everything should go fine. 
I hadn't really thought about what I was going to wear, but when a colleague of mine pointed out that jeans probably wouldn't do, I went hunting in my wardrobe for something that would. Unfortunately as I pretty much live in jeans and jumpers or my uniform there isn't much to choose from. My interview suit is too formal, my only skirt is too informal. What a conundrum! 

ESPRESSO CUP TEA LIGHTS

A STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL 

Welcome to my first ever tutorial. I am not quite feeling brave enough to post a sewing project yet but I love to make teacup candles and thought they would make an ideal tutorial. 

I recently found these darling little espresso cups in my local PDSA charity shop and some yummy sweet fudge and vanilla scent oil in the 99p shop.

I love scented tea lights, and thought that these two go together like peas and ham, milk and honey or even sausages and marmalade, (try it before you wrinkle your nose).

Been away..... but not lazy

Well it has been a few weeks since I last posted. In that time the hubby and I have been on holiday in Menorca with family, and I have been busy at college.

Ciutuadella, Menorca - I miss the sunshine!

I recently found this lovely little shop on the way into Gosport town centre called Sally's Shabby Chic. This little place is dedicated to upcycling and community projects. Sally, the owner, is a lovely lady who passionate about bringing the community together through craft and restoring or upcycling old abandoned furniture. Pop in and have a look around, the shop is like an Aladdin's cave for anyone like me!

Sally's Shabby Chic

In between that I have managed to stitch together a few projects. A few pairs of baby shoes for various friends' babies, as well as a few burp cloths. I love these little shoes but I can't remember where I found the tutorial. I promise to post my own version of the tutorial at a later date.

one little shoe..... waiting for his partner!

Today is yet another On Call day, but so far all is quiet. I think the torrential rain is helping to keep people in doors and reluctant to call the doctor. As it has been so quiet, I decided to nip to the local fabric shop, Forton's Fabric, Gosport, and stock up on all I need to make a little dress for my nieces Bethany and Sophie for their upcoming birthdays. They will both be 3 within 10 days of each other and both love Minnie Mouse. I have wanted to make a pillowcase dress for ages now, ever since pinning one on Pinterest. So I made one in Minnie Mouse colours and hope that later I will have time to make some ears to go with them.

Minnie Mouse

This is the first one, and is destined for Bethany, and next Saturday I will make the other one in time for Sophie's birthday.
Tomorrow, if tonight is quiet and I get some sleep, I plan on making a baby quilt for a colleague of the Hubby's. She is expecting a new grandson and as a thank you for driving the Hubby home after work so I don't have to collect him, I though this would go down a treat. So thank you to the lovely Denise!

Need a cuppa now so off to fill the kettle and maybe settle down to a good book. No not the Fifty Shades trilogy (already read them!).

K. xxx

Big Week Ahead

So I haven't been too crafty this weekend. I just got back from a two day course at Milton Keynes Hospital on Contrast Echocardiography and have been a little tired. Learnt a lot and I got to catch up with my very best friend in the whole wide world, Kim, I love you!
I have a busy week ahead. On Monday, I have an interview for a promotion and am competing for the post against three colleagues. I'd love to be conceited and categorically state that I am the best but i can't as we all bring something different to the job, so I have a 25% chance. I have to give a presentation on the affect of foundation trust status on our department. I can honestly say that I really have no idea and will be winging it during the interview. So wish me luck.
On Tuesday night I have to produce a tutorial with pictures for my first ever sewing class on Wednesday. I will hopefully be teaching a small group of five how to sew a reversible tote bag. This is taking place at The Art Place in Gosport.
Thursday night I believe I am on call but I need to check that and then I get the rest of the weekend to myself as the other half is working. I unfortunately do not get the Bank Holiday Monday as I am covering the inpatient urgent echo service at the hospital. I am looking forward to spending the Jubilee Bank Holiday with the other half though.
On to the crafty stuff. As I said this has been limited this weekend. I promised a friend's little boy that I would make a new outfit for his teddy bear. This bear came to me looking like a pimp in a leopard print jacket and hat

Pimpin'

So I made the little bear a pair of jeans and a very preppy argyle jumper. He looks so much more sophisticated now!

My only other craft thing was to cover a notebook for my friend Vani. She has just received her national training number in cardiology - for those un-initiated in the ways of the NHS, this means that she is well on her way to becoming a Cardiologist, and a very fine one if you ask me!
She has to learn how to echo and more importantly how to report, so I bought her a notebook to write down all the pearls of echo wisdom I have to give and I embroidered a crude rendering of an Apical 4 Chamber echo window on the cover. I hope she likes it.

The front was a little wonky but this is the first time I have used a glue gun. At least I didn't glue my fingers together!

So that is all for this week. Hope to be able to post my first tutorial sometime next weekend. 

K xxx

Quick gifts for my big brother

It's my big brother's birthday this weekend but what with college work and on call commitments, I have been unable to get to the shops to get him a present. So I decided to make him one. He and his lovely wife have just had twin girls, they already have a beautiful three year old daughter and now their family is complete. My brother is a big tough marine so trying to think of what to make him was difficult. I found this create collection of Subway Art printables on Today's Fabulous Finds that just seemed to be my brother right down to his toes. I printed it on high quality photo paper and mounted and framed it. It is all about protecting and loving his girls. To go with this art I remembered that I had bought 39 feet of para cord at Xmas with the intent of making him a survival bracelet and keg fob. I never got around to doing if so made them now. Here is a picture of the finished articles.

K
Xxx

Another weekend on call

Yep, that's right folks, another weekend on call or rather a Sunday on call. As yet no call outs but the day is still young. For all those who don't know me, I am a cardiac physiologist. That is just a fancy name for a cardiac technician. Part of my work is to provide heart rate and blood pressure monitoring during angioplasty. The hospital I work in runs an emergency 24 hours angioplasty service for patients having heart attacks. A very useful thing for the patient but it does mean having to drop everything at a moments notice, gun it to the hospital and try to help save the patient's life. This can really restrict a person's activities.
Still I have managed to do a bit of sewing this weekend. On Friday night I made two little summer weight blankets for my two new beautiful nieces. On Saturday I spent about £50 on fabric at the local fabric shop. Then I made an underskirt with some blue tulle for my sister. She had bought a dress off Ebay that just looked a little flat, so asked for some help.

Just a little flat

I had no idea how to make the underskirt but just made it up as I went along. Luckily Sian (my sister) was able to be my model throughout the sewing procedure, and here she is modeling the finished article

Blue underskirt

A poufier skirt

This gave me an idea on how to make a ballet tutu for my other two beautiful nieces who turn three in a six weeks.

On to my main project of the weekend. Last week I posted about my new little handbag. I have been using it for work and have recieved lots of admiration for it. One friend in particular loved it so much that she asked me to make one for her, but to make it bigger to be used at work. As she is a nurse, it need to be big enough to carry her uniform, lunch and all the other essentials that a lady carries.
Her main stipulation was that the fabric had to be pink and purple.

I found this gorgeous fabric on Saturday in many different shades and just knew it would be perfect if teamed up with a plain baby pink cotton.

I also got over my fear of button holes and added a button closure.

So that is my Sunday on call so far. I am sure I will not get through the night with no call outs but ultimately it will help to save a patient's life so I can't grumble too much. It is nice to be part of the bigger picture sometimes.

K xx