Today...

Today I'm working away at putting together bits for the shop and I thought I should share a little more of what I'm hoping to sell!

For a long time now, I have wanted to open up an online shop. I loved the idea of having my own handmade business but just couldn't decide what to sell...which is kind of an issue :) Since I love so many different crafts my ideas varied massively from stationary and cards to handmade masks and fancy dress to party decor. For some reason I steered clear of the one craft I really feel I know inside out...jewellery making.

I was worried about it being an over-saturated market...I mean, there are so many people selling beautiful handmade jewellery on the internet! But over time I realised that I needed to invest in something that I wouldn't lose interest in..and that this was far more important to me than trying to find a unique niche.

However I had also been toying with the idea of running craft parties and tutorials for some time. I have always loved helping people grow skills and confidence in creating items and crafts...and am a firm believer in the restorative and therapeutic nature of creating things with our hands (after all, I am an occupational therapist!).

So I decided to combine my love of jewellery making with my love of teaching crafts...and I will soon be selling "flat pack jewellery kits" on Etsy! I will be selling all the materials required for the jewellery with a PDF step by step tutorial.

I am SO excited about this new project and I really hope to expand it into craft parties at some point in the future.

So today is filled with shouting at photoshop, falling into my light box and pretending to know about product photography snapping away step by step pictures and putting together the tutorials!

I'll share more once I know the date of when I'll be opening up shop...There will be lots of giveaways and special offers to come!

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday!

Spotlight : four etsy favourites...

During my time of taking things slow I may have spent a number of lovely hours browsing Etsy...it's such a treasure trove of beautiful creations. I always love hearing about new shops so I thought it would be fun to share with you my four latest favourites. Plus, it has been a looong time since I've done a blog or shop spotlight :)

Beautiful prints by Hello Paper Moon

I love these rose gold dipped earrings by Amoorella

So many pretty creations by The Object Enthusiast

Gorgeous hammered stack rings by NoaNoa Jewellery

Be sure to check out these shops, they're full of so many lovely things!

Happy Friday :)

Life lately...

Life lately has been much slower than planned. I had grand plans for getting my life and house organised this month as well as opening up shop...and then I got a run of blurgy illnesses. So instead of running around I've been taking things slow, eating lots of healthy treats (and not so healthy chocolate) and have tried to embrace the opportunity to start 2014 off with rest and reflection.

I'm pretty much back to normal now which means full steam ahead with opening up my little online shop! A lovely part of life recently has been all the pretty post I've been ordering from bead shops. I've had so much fun playing around with designs...I just need photograph everything and then I can do a proper announcement!

I'm also thinking about doing a jewellery making series here on the blog to coincide with opening up shop so let me know if there is anything you would like to know about jewellery making!

Chocolate goo balls...

This recipe is one that will be passed from friend to family to friend to friend to family and so on. Trust me.

I first experienced these little mouthfuls of deliciousness when my sister baked up a cake feast for my nieces dedication party. It turns out she had got the idea from her sister-in-law who'd got them from someone else. But the best bit about these goo balls (aside from the melt in your mouth cake centres) is that you're not left waiting, hoping that your friend will remember to send you that recipe you are salivating over so politely asked for...as they don't actually require a specific recipe.

Yep, that's right! Simply bake up your favourite chocolate cake (although confession time, I actually use a boxed cake mix to save a little time and it still tastes amazing). Whilst it cools make up a batch of cream cheese icing. Then blitz the cake in a food processor to produce cake crumbs and place in a bowl. Gradually mix in the icing until the mixture comes together and you can form balls of cake. Roll the cake mixture into balls (the size is up to you), then simply melt 200g of chocolate and coat the balls ( as you can see I'm not so great at this!). Leave to set on a tray with greaseproof paper.

It turns out that they're basically just giant cake pops...amazing.

The mixture of cake with icing results in a super soft chocolatey mouthful. I can't recommend these enough...seriously, go make them now!

20 Breads: Olive breadsticks...

I know...the first week of January isn't through and I've already started on one of my goals, please don't, no really, oh okay, stand in awe if you really want to :)

Haha, although I need to let you in on a secret, I actually made these for New Years Eve so I suppose technically they don't count but I'm going to count them because I've never made them before and I did eat one on the 1st January.

These are Olive breadsticks and I've been wanting to try them for ages. They are a Paul Hollywood recipe which you can find over at the BBC food website. Lovely airy dough surrounds whole olives to create these really tasty breadsticks. I found that these didn't crisp up like typical breadsticks, this could have been because I made them a little fatter but the dough does seem much more like ciabatta than a typical bread stick.

One word about these, they aren't pretty and they are messy to make! It's a wet dough and it's almost impossible to move it in any uniform fashion. I haven't worked too much with wet doughs so I could definitely do with practising handling it...any tips are welcome!

You can find the recipe here, I halved the quantities and made 18 bread sticks. These are certainly going into my recipe book, they were so delicious with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. If you don't like olives you could easily swap them for something else, e.g. sun-dried tomatoes.

One down, nineteen to go!