Handmade at home - can not wait any longer

I am rather happy about my new creation. I have my sister Helen to thank really. You see I made my niece jessica bunting for Christmas, and did not know what I could make James my nephew. I asked Helen if there was anything he might like that I could make for him. Helen said he could really do with a notice board, you could do that, a little voice said in my head, OK I will make him a notice board. How I am I going to make that I later thought. After a bit of fiddling I had made one notice board for my nephew.

Well then the alarm bells began to ring, I could make theses in some vintage fabric and sell them in my Etsy shop. It gave me a real boost, as my shop had had only one sale, and I think the notice boards may have real saleability.

I now have about ten made and I am busy photographing them and getting ready to post them on Etsy. I have this orange and yellow fabric board on Etsy now, it is the same fabric as the bunting I posted about last week.

Instead of making just a fabric notice board, I have made half into to a pegboard, some where to keep photos or other memento's you do not what to put a tack through. Will show you the other colours soon and I have some very nice tack's to show you too.

Home-The long wait is now over

We have been very patient, waiting for our Lavender Araucana to lay a prized blue egg. On 15th February we finaly have a beautiful blue egg.

I was so happy when Adam came in the house and said that he had found a blue egg. I had heard an old wives' tale that says chickens start to laying eggs on Valentine's Day. Did not quite make Valentines, but the 15th will do for me(we get engaged on the same date nearly 8 years ago)

Who gets to eat the first one?

Handmade at home - Re-opening my Etsy shop!

It has been quite a while since I had anything in my shop on Etsy, (or posted to my blog) but I have started to list new items in the shop. (and have a new focus for my blog)

With spring in full swing It is time to get the bunting out, so that is what I have been busy making, lots of bunting, not any old bunting, this is very special, as it is not only handmade by me in Cornwall, the bunting is made from vintage fabric.

The bunting above is made from material from two vintage duvet covers. The orange one is from the 1970s' and was sold by St Michael known today as Marks and Spencer. The other was raided from my mother-in-laws laundry cupboard (she did say it was ok) and is well over 30 years old, for the age of the material it is in amazing condition. I have lots more to make and post so will keep you updated of new items.

Look

Look first time. I am on The cup cake blog so existing to see thanks so much!

Turkish delight and chocolate cupcakes.

Made 32 to put in the freezer. Very satisfying, keeps the man happy when he knows there is cake close at hand. I do love the colour combination of the brown and pink.

Turkish delight and chocolate cupcakes.
Originally uploaded by amooma

Good news bad news.

I have been chained to my computer helping my husband with his new venture, I will tell you about that another day. So much has happened over the last few months, the biggest news being that we had all seven of our hens killed by Mr. Fox.

At least he took them away to feed his cubs. He was kind to leave us with our Araucana cockerel Woody and the mini cockerel Little Roo.

Good news follows bad-we have got new hens. We found this lovely place on the Internet that is about and hour’s drive away, where he had just what we wanted.

We left with three Speckled Marans, then two weeks later picked up three Araucana for Woody to play with. The Marans have not been to kind to the little Araucana.

I suppose this is the way of the chicken, the same as the instinct of the fox. We are now waiting for them to lay some eggs. I cannot wait to start baking again; my cake tins have been very light of late. I have also got some very good friends coming over and was hoping to give them some eggy brioche and crispy bacon with lashings off maple syrup. Yum! I have also been very busy crafting which I hope to tell you about later this week.

So many eggs

I have been baking my own bread for about 8 years in a bread machine, now I have my Kenwood mixer I have advanced to making my bread by hand (well the mixer does all the hard work)

I decided to treat myself to a book dedicated to the world of hand baked bread. After looking at few books I settled on Bread by Daniel Steven No3 in the River Cottage Handbook. There are some really lovely recipes, the photography really complements them, not sure who took them but they have really captured the simple but elegance of the humble loaf of bread.

After making a few white loaf's I thought I should turn the page and fined somthing else to make. I came across brioche and saw that 4 eggs where requied, I thought to myself "ooow if I double it thats 8 eggs, oh yes then I can put one in the freezer. Perfect." You see when you keep chickens you can not look at a recipe without looking to see how many eggs it uses folowed by "that will get rid of a few"

The brioche dough was very soft, so my mixer was very welcome to do all the kneadding. It was quite easy, kneed all the ingredians for 10 muinets, leave in the frige over night. Then in the morning leave to rise for 3-4 houres and cook. Easy!

What we like to do in our house for a nice late Sunday brunch, is to soak the briosh in egg, then bake it in the oven, along with some streaky bacon till the fat of the bacon is golden, and then drizzle over some dark golden maypul syrup, Sunday heaven.