Felt needle case

This is how to make the needle case I made for my first craft swap with Popular Crafts magazine. You can read more about what I sent for the swap and what I received here!

Step 1

Cut out a template for the main part of your needle case. I made mine about 18cm by 10cm but you can do whatever size you want.

Step 2

Cut out 2 bits of felt using your template. I used contrasting colours. I also decided to round the edges but I didn't take a picture of that!

Step 3

I wanted to add a little pocket on the inside. To do this cut a little rectangle of felt. Stitch the pocket to the inside piece of felt only! It’s important to do this before sewing the front and back together as it hides the stitches.

Step 4

Create what you want to go on top. I made an owl for mine as the theme for the swap was owls!

 

 

Step 5

Stitch your owl (or whatever you've made) to the outside piece of felt. I also added to little buttons that you can see just peeking in on the edge of the photo!

Step 6

Cut a smaller piece of felt to make your page to put your needles and pins on. Stitch to the middle of the inside piece of felt.

Step 7

Once all the inside and outside decorations and pages have been secured sew the inside and outside felt together using a blanket stitch.

Step 8

Add your needles, pins and buttons! (As you can see I also decided to add a couple of buttons to the front)!

Popular Crafts February craft swap - Hearts!

I enjoyed doing the January craft swap organised by Popular Crafts magazine so much I signed myself up for the February one and March one too! No doubt when the next one comes around I'll be signing up for that too!

My swap partner was LeeAnn who has a lovely blog over at Polkadotsweetheart

For the swap I made three heart themed magnets out of felt (and I even manged to find cool heart shaped backing magnets), and a cupcake hanger with hearts as the sprinkles!

Following the swap rules I also sent my £3 gift which consisted of some heart buttons, red ribbons and some heart shaped tealights.

I'm looking forward to seeing what LeeAnn has made for me and I'll let you all know what I get!

Fat free apple and cinnamon muffins

So I still seem to be in Christmas and Birthday eating mode not realising it’s actually 3 months since Christmas and a month since my birthday!

With this at the back of my mind though I really wanted to bake today but decided to try and find a super healthy recipe.

I found an American fat free apple muffin recipe (hence the “cup” measurement). I’ve adapted the recipe a bit to make it a bit different and added a few extra ingredients.

They have no butter in them and I’ve worked out they are about 130ish calories each. So not too bad as they turn out quite big!

Ingredients:

·         ¾ cup self-raising flour
·         1tsp. baking powder
·         ¾ tsp. cinnamon
·         ¼ tsp. nutmeg
·         ¼ tsp. ground ginger
·         3 eggs
·         1 cup light muscovado sugar
·         1 tsp. vanilla essence
·         2 apples, peeled and cubed (quite small cubes)
·         2 handfuls of sultanas

Step 1

Preheat your oven to around 180 degrees.

Step 2

Mix all the dry ingredients together (apart from the sugar).

Step 3

Add two whisked eggs and the vanilla to the dry ingredients (it won’t all mix together at this stage). Then whisk the third egg separately until fairly frothy.

Step 4

Add the muscovado sugar to the separate whisked egg. It will turn into quite a smooth, silky caramel like liquid as you can see.

Step 5

Add the sugar and egg mixture to the other ingredients and stir together. Then add the chopped apple and sultanas and spoon into muffin cases.

Cook for about 20mins or until a cocktail stick comes out clean.

Then I did decide to put a little icing on top to make it a bit cinnamon bun stylee!

They certainly taste different to regular muffins but they do taste yummy! They are a bit denser than regular muffins and I don’t think they’ll keep as long as ones with butter…but in this house cake never lasts that long any way!

My claim to fame!

When I had a tweet saying the March Popular Crafts magazine was on sale I got excited. When I realised the tweet said it featured me I was just over the moon!

Luckily I was finishing work at lunch time that day so I ran (actually did), to my local WH Smiths to find a copy. I was so chuffed to see a screenshot of my blog staring back at me in the “sites to be seen” section!

I gave a little squeal and kinda scared the lady next to me, but who cares, I’m famous!

I really enjoy reading Popular Crafts as I’m someone who likes to try a variety of different craft ideas and the mag offers loads of different crafts all at varying skill abilities.

As a new blogger this meant so much to me so thanks to Katharine at Popular Crafts for this lovely surprise. And thanks to everyone else who takes the time to read and comment on my blog! J