Make it yourself... Heart Shaped Crayons

I'm very excited to blog my first how too! I feel a bit cheeky doing this one as I actually found pictures of these online and that's what inspired me to make them myself. However they are so fun and easy I couldn't resist sharing them.

Supplies:

1. A lot of crayons in all different colours.
2. A silicone mould that can be put in the oven. I used some heart shaped silicone cup cake cases but have a look around as there are a lot of different shapes out there. If you can't find anything you could always use some silicone re-usable cupcake cases and make circle shaped crayons.
3. A sharp knife.
4. An oven (pre heated to 110 degrees Celsius)
5. A chopping board.

Step One - Chop your crayons into small chunks (about 5 per crayon)

Step Two - Fill your moulds with the chopped up crayons. You can use as many or as few chunks of crayon as you like, depending on how thick you want your crayon.

Step Three - Put the moulds on a baking tray and place in the oven for 15 minuites or until the tops of the crayons become flat.

Step Four - Carefully remove the tray from the oven. Remember at this point the crayon is still liquid so be careful not to spill.

Step Five - Watch some TV while waiting for the crayons to cool, preferably Greys Anatomy or Friends.

Step Six - When you are sure the crayons have cooled and hardened pop them out the mould and draw a beautiful picture. It might take a while to find the right angle but once you do it's very fun!

Good luck! And please comment if you decide to make them.

Love Scarlett.

Lots of Puppys

OK... I have a confession to make. Up until very recently... I was NOT a dog person. In fact I was pretty much what you would call the opposite of a dog person. We had 3 cats, had never even considered getting a dog, and to tell you the truth dogs mostly terrified me. When I was one year old (I am told) I was sitting on beach when a large dog decided to dig a big whole right by the place where I was sitting, he chucked a mountain of sand up into my tiny sun burnt face and I have pretty much been terrified of dogs and sand ever since.

Then a few months ago everything changed. I spend a lot of time on my own (as you can probably tell by the ridiculous amount of craft and movie watching I do) and the cats just weren't proving the best company. So it occured to me that a dog could be exactly the companion I was looking for... and then we found...

(its actually meant to be spelt POSY but I got so excited about biscuit making that I spelt it wrong)

Tomorrow is our official two week anniversary together and I am in shock every day at how well its going and how much I love her. She has settled in AMAZINGLY and is already about 80% house trained. She seems to spend most of her time either sleeping on my bed or trying to kill my feet and running around like a mad man. She has a little pen in our kitchen and there has not been one person enter the house so far who has not fallen in love with her. Its official.. I'm dog crazy.

Here is a little fact file so you can get to know her better.

Name - Posy Kate Middleton Freud Curtis

D.O.B. - May 3rd 2011

Mother - Apricot Toy Poodle named Coco.

Father - White Maltese Terrier named Santos.

Favourite Food - Chicken and Chedder Cheese

Favourite Colour - Pink (obvi)

Favourite Things - Her Donut toy, her mini tennis balls and my burts bees lip balm which she takes everywhere.

Mortal Enemys - Yarn and my feet.

Favourite Book - Ballet Shoes (her namesake Posy Fossil)

Favourite Movie - she hasnt managed to stay awake for an entire movie yet but lets assume we have similar taste.

I know I may seem a little puppy crazy at the moment and I'm pretty sure my endless tweeting is going to cost me a few followers but believe me, if you met her, you would be too. However I do swear this shall be my most Puppy filled blog and then I will try to go back to normal.

Although Posy is of course incredibly distracting I have still been managing to keep up with my knitting and in my Puppy Frenzy decided to knit a dog. I found this INCREDIBLE blog called Mochimochi Land which has some of my favourite patterns of all time! I downloaded their pattern for 'Pileable Pups' which was five pounds and worth every penny! I have decided to call the knitted pup Cooper as that was what I wanted to call Posy if she was a boy. I originally wanted Posy and Cooper to be friends but after seeing her rip a ball of yarn to shreds I thought it might be best to keep them apart...

The pattern was definitely tricky but so worth it in the end. I love both my new puppys!

I hope you have enjoyed this puppy filled blog post and have an amazing weekend!

Love Scarlett and Posy xx

The End of the First Twit-Knit Project

Hello!

On the Fourth of July, while Americans everywhere were celebrating something that I'm not really sure what it is but I've heard is very important, we knitters were celebrating the end of the first Twit-Knit Project! I have to say I was a little nervous about the deadline as I thought that maybe I had built it all up in my imagination and no one was actually doing Twit-Knit. I quickly googled 'knitted patch-work blankets' so I could post pictures of ones I found on google if no one sent me any. But no! To my delight and surprise everyone had done an INCREDIBLE job! People can be very criticial of things on twitter and you get a lot of people being mean and saying bad things but it is the things like Twit-Knit that remind me just what twitter can be for and just how amazing it can be.

We may only be a small group at the moment but have no fear! Twit-Knit will continue. So if you want to take part please just tweet me here and Twit-Knit Club would be happy to have you. And if you are already in the club, send me any suggestions you have for our next project!

Here are the amazing finished (well most of them) Twit-Knit Blankets.

by @bakebakegirl

by @jobo501

by @kateeroberts

by @mhairigirl

by @nic361

by @ninariley

by @thenose123

by @vicksG

by me!!

I hope you enjoy looking at everyones amazing work!

Love Scarlett.

Tips For Finishing Your Blanket.

Hello!

I know I have been an awfuly slow blogger recently but I have been super busy (as you can see from my twitter) and am planning to get back to blogging very soon! (starting with a blog about the puppy!) but for now I just wanted to give a few tips for anyone who is still keeping up with their twit knit project and is planning to finish on the fourth of July.

Start by laying out all your squares a flat surface so you can get a really clear idea of how they all fit together. Once you have arranged them and decided what squares look good with each other. It's time to begin sewing!

I used mattress stitch to sew my squares together. I'm not sure what other methods you could use but matress stitch worked perfectly for me and it gives this really beautiful seamless effect.

I had used it a little before but wanted to make sure I was doing it right so i found this amazing tutorial on knitty.com that really helped! If you need any advice here is the link - http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring04/mattress.html

I sewed up my squares in rows of four and then sewed the four rows of four together to make a square. You can do your sewing in anyway you choose but I found this method very succesfull.

After a big play with my yarn (which is looking a bit worse for wear) Puppy (who is now officially named POSY) decided she was most definitely not interested in twit knit club and had a big snooze while I finished my blanket.

Good luck with your sewing! And tweet me if you have any questions. See you on July 4th!

Love Scarly and Posy.

Twit Knit/Puppy Update

Hello :)

I have some very exciting pictures today but I MUST WARN YOU... they are so cute you might throw up.

It's officially only 10 DAYS UNTILL I GET THE PUPPY! We are getting a girl now (slight change of plans) and today me and my mum went shopping and bought her little bed, food bowl, toys, etc. I'm so excited I have started dreaming about her and waking up and feeling so sad that she isn't here :(

We went to visit her a few weeks ago and are going back this thursday but her lovely owner sent us these pictures today. Get ready...

10 days until the puppy also means I have to finish my twit knit project pretty quickly!! I found some BEAUTIFUL silky wool which I am doing my next square out of so that's very exciting.

I was trying to think of what time would be good to end the project on and although I don't know much about what it means I think the fourth of July would be a good day to say is the end. It's independence day so it could indicate us knitters becoming 'Independent' from our projects. If you are part of the Twit Knit Club tell me if you think this would be a good day to end. We could all send in all our pictures of our finished projects and have a little 'Twitter Celebration'

Here are the latest amazing Twit Knit Photos.

some of @bakebakegirl squares.

@bakebakegirls amazing daughter has knitted her blanket for her teddy.

@robynberry22 lovely colourful squares! she has done so many!

Happy Tuesday.

Love Scarlett.

X-Rated Blog Post!

IF YOU ARE UNDER 12... LOOK AWAY!

Ok fine so its not that rude but it was rude enough to shock my granny a lot! This is my 'Bra Cake, I made it this weekend for my brothers 14 year old birthday and lets just say he went bright red and laughed a lot. I was trying to decide what cake to make him and the obvious decisions were rolling around in my head - guitar, train, heart, smiley face. They all seemed far to childish for a 14 year old boy. Then suddenly it hit me... A BRA!

I'd like to say it was super easy to make and only took half an hour but it was actually very hard. I started the night before and made two dome shaped cakes in a ceramic bowl, the left boob is a very yummy choclate with cherry icing and the right boob is lemon with lemon curd icing. I then froze them overnight so they would be easier to ice. I used skin coloured fondant icing (who knew) and a red tube of icing to make what I hope looks like a black lacy bra.

All in all i was pretty proud of the x rated cake and I think my brother really liked it, although being a fourteen year old boy he just laughed and then scoffed the lemon boob in record time.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and I will be doing a Twit Knit update tomorrow.

Love Scarlett.

Battenburg Love.

Now, I know this may look like I'm blogging pictures of a shop bought Battenberg but.. I MADE IT! ok fine so it doesn't look quite proffesional enough to come from a shop but I am so pleased with it I can't stop looking at the pictures (it was eaten within 10 seconds of completion) and I have already planned to make a purple Battenberg next.

Battenberg is one of my all time favourite cakes and after a week of pretty intense baking (2 trifles, a bread and butter pudding and some sticky toffee rice crispie squares), this was my finishing piece and it came out so well.

It was pretty tricky to get right and there were loads of times I thought it had gone completly wrong, the pink cake came out of the oven COMPLETELY brown and it was only when I cut into it that I found the beautiful pink middle.

If anyone else feels like giving it ago I found the recipe online and if you google 'Battenberg Recipes' you can find some pretty good ones (I used the BBC good food one)

And here are some new pictures of the Twit Knit Clubs AMAZING projects so far.

My little box of Twit Knit Squares.

Some very cool denim-looking squares by @bakebakegirl

A beautifully knitted grey square by @maudeapatow

@mhairigirl awsome stack of very impressive squares!

@nic361 HUGE red square. she is casting on 40 stitches!

I hope everyone had a great half term and if you are in the middle of exams - GOOD LUCK!

Love Scarlett x