Craft Bug

Walnut Christmas ornaments

2011-11-21T18:55:00.003+01:00

My parents have a big walnut tree in their garden so there are always walnuts in the house. I thought it would be fun to hang some on the Christmas tree and came up with this easy walnut Christmas ornament.

Materials:
Walnuts
Gold or silver spray paint
Old newspaper
Artificial gold holly berries on wire
Wire cutter
Glue
Ribbon

Directions:
Dry and clean the walnuts so they are pretty and brown like the ones in the picture below.

Cleaned walnuts

Place the walnuts on an old newspaper and spray paint them the color of your choice. I simply poked mine with a stick to get them to turn over when I had sprayed one side.

Gold painted walnuts

Let the walnuts dry properly (mine took about an hour). Meanwhile, create the top of the ornaments:

When the walnuts are dry, apply glue to the area of the gold holly that will touch the top of the walnut and glue them on, pressing down on them for a few seconds until the glue kicks in.

Gluing gold holly on the painted walnuts

When the glue has completely hardened, add ribbon to your walnut ornaments and you're done!

Adding ribbon to the walnut ornaments

Recipe: Pineapple sorbet "ice cream" with caramel oat cookies

2011-10-06T14:29:00.002+02:00

This is one of my all time favorite desserts and a delicious alternative to ice cream.

Pineapple sorbet and caramel oat cookies

6 servings
Ingredients for ice cream:
350 g chopped pineapple
1 vanilla bean
100 g powdered sugar

Ingredients for caramel oat cookies:
½ dl cream
½ dl syrup
125 g butter
175 g (2 dl) sugar
60 g (2 dl) oats
125 g (2 dl) flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Directions:
Freeze the chopped pineapple until completely frozen (it takes approximately 3 hours).

Mix cream, syrup and butter together in a pan and melt at low temperature. Take the pan off the heat and add sugar, oatmeal, flour, baking powder and vanilla powder while stirring. Place small amounts of the mixture on the baking sheet at least 10 cm apart (when the cookies melt they become much flatter and larger). Bake the cookies at 200 ° C for 5-6 minutes.

Allow the cookies to cool off on the baking sheet before placing them on a wire rack to cool.
To make the pineapple sorbet "ice cream", cut the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the vanilla. Mix vanilla, frozen pineapple and powdered sugar in a blender at high speed until thick.

Serve the sorbet in tall glasses with oatmeal caramel cookies and fruit. Enjoy!

DIY: Organizing your jewelry supplies

2011-10-04T10:27:00.000+02:00

I bought a drawer storage chest for all my jewelry stuff a while back and I'd sort of just dumped everything in there because I didn't have the time to organize it. But today was to be the day! So here are some tips for organizing your jewelry gemstones, beads, charms, etc.

Materials:

Drawer storage chest (available at most hardware stores)

Paper and tape or label paper

Pen or marker

Cardboard or dividers for the drawers

Small plastic containers or other (optional)

Directions:

Most of my gemstones and beads were already sorted into little bags, so I didn't have to do too much actual sorting. Good luck if your's is one big mess ;) My stuff was just dumped into the drawers randomly.

Gemstone chaos

First, sort your stuff into groups. I sorted mine according to their gemstone type and some by size. Put all your really small beads and gemstones in small plastic containers as the dividers for the drawers aren't always completely level at the bottom. I got my plastic containers at a jewelry supply store here in Copenhagen, but Firemountaingems (US) or CJ Beaders (UK) carry a very nice selection.

Next, label your containers. I labelled mine with numbers that fit with my stock supply list, but you can write whatever :)

Labeling a plastic container for amethyst gemstones

If you've used label paper, simply remove the label from the back sheet and stick it on your container. If you like me used regular paper, stick it on the plastic container with tape.

Labeled plastic container

Repeat this process until you've labelled all your plastic containers.

Next, place the larger gemstones and items in the drawers, using the dividers that (most likely) came with your drawer storage chest. I ran out of dividers at one point and simply made my own out of thick cardboard. Label if necessary.

Gemstones in a labeled drawer

Full jewelry drawer

If you plan to store silver or gold items in your drawers, remember that they will wear over time if they are not kept away from air, so put your charms, earrings and more in little plastic bags and seal tight. You can label these with a permanent marker.

Gold and silver jewelry findings in small plastic bags

I like having a nice overview of all the small charms, o-rings and other stuff I have, so I keep most of my gold and silver findings in a see-through storage box. I got mine on eBay, but Firemountaingems (US) has a nice selection of these.

Gold and silver findings in see-through storage box

When you're all done sorting your items, cut out labels to stick to the front of the drawers. This way you can quickly find what you're looking for. Again, I had no labels, so I used paper and tape.

Writing labels

When you've finished all the labels, stick them on to the drawers, and you're done with your new jewelry storage drawer chest!

Here are some more tips for organizing your beads and findings:

I have a looot of swarovski beads, so I've chosen to group these in these brilliant Beadalon Stacking Containers. I've stuck labels with the color name at the bottom of these.

Swarovski in Beadalon Stacking Containers

I also have a lot of tools for making jewelry. I've organized these in these really cool (but expensive) plastic organizers from the Swedish company Ordning & Reda. The tall ones contain all my pliers, mandrels (most of which are home made by the way - just buy some smooth mandrels from your hardware store and label them with diameter size!), jewelry hammers, etc. I store all the rest like glue, jig, polishing cloth, etc. in the wider ones.

Organized jewelry supplies

My organized jewelry closet!

Recipe: Medal cakes with whipped cream and strawberries

2011-10-03T20:50:00.003+02:00

My mom served these delicious pretty "medal" cakes at dinner this weekend and I thought I'd share the recipe (from Mette Blomsterberg at DR1 - Danish link).

Medal cakes with whipped cream and strawberries

Ingredients for 10 cakes

Top and bottom cookies:

300 g flour

100 g powdered sugar

150 g butter at room temp.

1 egg

Vanilla pastry cream:

2½ dl milk

½ vanilla bean

35 g sugar

20 g corn starch

2 egg yolks

Frosting:

150 g powdered sugar

a little water

Decoration:

150 g strawberry jam

4 dl cream (for whipped cream)

Strawberries

Directions for cookies:

Mix all the ingredients together until it makes a smooth dough. Leave it in a cold place for about half an hour. Then roll the dough thin and cut out 20 circles (approx. 7 cms) using a cookie cutter or a glass. Bake the circles on baking sheet at 200 °C for 8-10 minutes. Let them cool off on a wire rack.

Directions for vanilla pastry cream:

Heat 2 dl of the milk in a sauce pan. Scrape out the vanilla seeds from the vanilla bean and mix them with the sugar so that the seeds are seperated. Mix the vanilla/sugar with corn starch and the rest of the milk. Finally, add the egg yolk and mix well. When the milk reaches boiling point, pour the mixed ingredients into the sauce pan. Mix consistently until the cream thickens, then pour the cream into a container and let it cool off in the fridge for at least two hours.

Directions for assembly:

Whip the cream to a nice, soft whipped cream. Put it in a piping bag with a star tip and spray around twice on each of the 10 bottom cookies. Place a teaspoon of strawberry jam in the middle of each whipped cream "ring". Fill the rest of the middle with pastry cream. Cover the top cookies with frosting and place them on the whipped cream/pastry cream filling. Finish off with some strawberry slices. Keep in the fridge until ready to serve!

New blog!!

2011-10-01T20:44:00.001+02:00

Yay! New blog!

My intention is to share the projects I get myself into, including home decor, painting, crafts, computer fun, cooking, baking, jewelry making and much more :)

Projects