Fuzzy bag and some food

So, I made a purple fuzzy bag. He is sort of Animal-esque but not totally. He is a step-brother to the Beaker bag.

The inside lining, the reinforced strap and the back of the bag are made of a sort of mauvey pink cotton

He looks sort of sad here, but it is just the way the fluff is going.

In other news, I spent most of my 4 day weekend baking. Did you know you can freeze home made hummus? So I made loads and froze in individual portions for work lunches. Obviously you need crudites with that, but what about when you don't have lots of spare carrots? So I made (about) 80 bread sticks, with a bit of garlic salt sprinkled on top. As you can see, they are not exactly all the same length, but that is fine. They, too, are in the freezer for quick lunches. The roll you see was glazed in balsamic vinegar and was very nice!

So, for the chili festival I made chili infused toffee and chocolate on nachos with candied chili sprinkles. I didn't get a picture of the finished article but I can say it was tasty - like a spicy dime bar, weirdly.  However, I do have this, of the pre chopped sprinkles, and my chili themed fingernails.

I've often though it would be nice to do a tutorial, but nothing I do is particularly hard to work out and it isn't like I work from a template or anything, usually just wing it.  So, just for you, here is the secret to making candied chili sprinkles.

Candied chili sprinkles

• Get your jalapenos/chilis/whatever you use (preferably half red and half green). Have a look around the kitchen to see if you have anything you can use to rough up the surfaces a tiny bit. Something with a sort of pumice stone roughness about it would be perfect. If you can't find anything like that, a gentle bash with the fine side of your grater, or a couple of soft slashes with a knife would work. Note this stage is optional, it is just nice to give the sugar to cling to when we get to that stage. Don't worry if you can't find anything appropriate.
• Cut the chilis into slices of around half a centimetre. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the seeds. 
• Mix 1 part water to 4 parts sugar and heat in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil then carefully add the chili slices. 
• Turn the heat down to a simmer and allow to bubble away for about 4 minutes. The sugar water does little bubbly geysers up inside the chili rounds. It is kind of fun.
• Take off heat and remove chilis, leave for a few minutes to drain while preparing the sugar. 
• Take a cup of sugar and separate it into two bowls (I used ramekins, but I'm classy like that) In one add a couple of drops of green food colouring and in the other, red colouring. 
• Now dip your chilis in one by one and coat in sugar. Shake off any excess. Obviously the red chilis go in the red dye and the green in the green. 
• place them on greaseproof paper on a baking tray. If you have two baking trays, it  might be good to separate the colours, as the dyed sugar does tend to spread a little bit.
• Bake in a medium heat oven for about 10 minutes, though you will want to keep an eye out from 5 minutes. Take your sprinkles out of the oven and leave uncovered for the sugar to dry out. 
• Once dry take scissors and chop them up into iddy biddy bits, and sprinkle on whatever you fancy.

Hostile 17 embroidery hoop

Little Spike humour for you. I tried to find a youtube clip of the kitten poker, but failed. Oh well, you either know what I am talking about or you don't.

(The phrase isn't mine, there's a lot of tshirts and things with it written on but I am not sure who came up with it originally.)

It is currently 9.30, by the way, and I am trying to decide to watch the lastest ever Angel episode or something cheery before going to bed. Sigh.

Also, I mentioned I deleted my pictures of the cheshire cat cake I made? Well someone did get some pictures, but after it had been sitting out in the sun and poked and generally got a lot messier. So, these aren't great, but nevermind.

This is why I had to sort out my mini marshmallows into pink and white that time.

Felt Fob Friday - A power up star and some fluff

Someone on the internet pointed out real life should be like Mario, you get power up stars when you need them the most and when you are doing really well and winning at life they are few and far between. Sadly this is not how it happens.

The keyring didn't seem worthy enough to be a post on its own, so here's a purple fluffy keyring I made - it is terribly cute. The material is from some left overs from the mome rath outfit. He's got a little bobble nose!

Speaking of which I have finally got round to taking a photo of that. I did have a sign that I hung round my neck saying don't step on the mome raths in flowery writing, but that is down the pub now, so just imagine me wearing it.
Best news about this is that now I feel I can justify taking this outfit apart and reusing the material for all sorts of fun things. Perhaps more dragons and cthulhus may be in the mix!

For anyone not sure these are the mome raths. Obviously I went for a rough feel, rather than spot on representation of them. The most important part of the costume was my outgrabing.

The fur on the hood of this bad boy is 15cm long! It is so soft and floompfy. I wanted to show you how it sways and ripples at every movement, very much like long grass dancing on the breeze. It really is quite lovely.
This video ... really doesn't do it justice. I probably should have been slower and more gentle in my movement. It makes me laugh though.

Mississippi Pig Mud Pie

When Cuthbert Ulysses Pig has a birthday there is only one thing you can do.

This is a Mississippi mud pie, with kit kats around the edge to look like a fence and little fondant piggies. Seeing as there has been some doubt on the subject I can confirm that I did in fact make the pigs myself and didn't buy them. Making the pigs was the most fun part!

And when you can't fly, you float...

This guy isn't even bothered about wallowing, he is just checking out those two pig arses sticking up over there.

I suppose I should say that  this (pigs in mud pie) is in no way my original idea, it has been doing the rounds on the internet for a few months now. Nevermind, I'm still pretty proud of how mine turned out.

Phone case

I have a new phone. It is a bit rubbish in that I can't phone or text people on it, I can't access the internet and every other evening I get a text at 1am telling me I have spent £18 on the internet in the last two days. But hey, at least it is now properly dressed!

Evil crappy phone peeking out

Felt Fob Friday - Fox

Something I learned while making this smug little fox: in Japanese folk tales, leaves are important things for foxes. When a fox puts a leaf on the head and does a somersault, he can transform into anything. Upon learning this I meant to give him a little leaf on his head but I forgot.

And, in honour of shark week (aw, who am I kidding? In honour of Sharknado week, about which everyone at work has been terribly excited):

He looks a bit more like a whale, but you goes with the material at hand. This took under half an hour to make, so if I had the fleece and the inclination I would make a dozen of them and have a sharknado mobile..

Warm dragon neck pillow thingy

Here's dragon the second. This chap has a removable heat pack stuffed in his belly. Microwave it and you have a nice friendly dragon that you can wrap around your neck and snuggle with to keep warm.

 I'm sure in a few months keeping warm will seem like something we would need to happen, not so much now though. But hey that works quite well seeing as I don't have a microwave. May have to heat my lavender scented heat pack toasted over dragon breath..

Curled up, waiting for winter

Felt Fob Friday - Owl

Here's a little keyring I made while waiting for the Ocado delivery man. Owls are very 'in' at the moment, so I am trendy.

 

And if you need closure on the Ocado delivery story, the guy never came. Turns out I was 15 days too early. Oops.

Dilly the Dragon

I currently have two more dragon projects underway, but this was the quickest, and dare I say it, cutest. Oh that mome rath material (originally "teddy bear chenille" throws from Dunelm Mill) really was a good buy.

Dilly (as he has been named by a colleague) has gone to work with me, and so far no one has felt impelled to take his or her clothes off upon seeing him, so that was probably a one off incident.

Oh hey, look there in the corner, it is Tom the Troll. Hi Tom!