Do you realise it is now 6 weeks till Christmas Day!
This is the time I like to start planning, yes I am one of those type of people 😂
This week I created my planning list, now this is a guide, I may not necessarily stick to it but it helps me set goals and remember things.
This week I made my cards. I like my cards to be special as I am now further away from a number of good longtime friends since moving to Devon. Therefore I have attached my crocheted stars to card blanks so they create not only the Christmas card but also a little present to hang on their tree. I have then written a special message inside.
Christmas Cards
I have also bought my wrapping paper and ribbon so that I can wrap any present I start getting as soon as I get them rather than leave them till the last minute. Now is the time to start saving those useful small boxes or pieces of card as they really help when trying to wrap either soft or strange shaped presents.
I will be making my freezable cookie dough this week. I will then be able to just defrost nearer the time and bake to produce my cookie gift boxes for my neighbours and have some to serve up to friends that drop around. I will let you have a list and recipes in the next blog. These are a great thing to have in your freezer all year round for those surprise guest!
I have attached my Christmas Planner that might help you organise your Christmas period
Adapt to your needs and traditions.
This week I finished another rag wreath that I will be giving to a friend as a present and with all the off cuts of material I am creating a patchwork pot holder. I will show you next week how it turns out.
I have not managed any new walks this week but as the weather is better today I may look at walking further afield with the dogs.
November has swept or should I say blown in this week with lots of wind, rain and colder weather, which is not much fun for my dog walks but I think I can now seriously start planning for Christmas and my Birthday.
Yes my Birthday, can you believe it is nearly a whole year since I started this blog!
My Sunday walk last week started with sunshine, then a rainbow, next came wind that rained down leaves and finally the heavens opened and torrential rain fell from the sky drenching the dogs and myself. When I got home I had to literally change out of all my clothes as I was wet to my skin. I made the decision to have a pj comfy cozy rest of the day.
Damp dogs
I used the rest of my day to finish my Christmas rag wreath that I discussed last blog. Here is the finished item and I have started on another one for a friend.
Rag wreath
I have also crocheted some stars using Bella Coco Crochet’s pattern linked below. These will adorn some of my Christmas cards this year along with my gnomes that I crocheted a few months ago.
With the weather turning colder my thoughts turn to comfort food and this week I made Chicken Gnocchi Soup which is not so much of a soup but a casserole as the gnocchi thickens the liquid into a sauce. It’s ideal made in the slow cooker.
My daughter Georgina and I had a trip into Exeter this week to go to Hobbycraft where I picked up some more Xmas patterned fat quarters and ribbon to make more wreaths. The rain was very heavy when we had finished so we decided to pop into Costa to grab some lunch and they had their Christmas coffee back, Gingerbread Latté so I had to have one of course!
Mia is home from Uni for a few days so hopefully the weather will be a little kinder so we can do a nice walk with the littlies later.
This week has been a mixture of weather, from cold and blustery to warm and balmy. I managed a few lovely walks with the dog’s. On Sunday I took the littlies to Abbeysford Woods nr Okehampton and enjoyed a nice long mystery walk just heading off on different pathways to see where I ended up. I seem to have quite a good internal compass which means I can nearly always find my way back to the car without any help.
The changing colours
I love all the changing colours you find at the moment. There is still plenty of green around but those rusty red browns are creeping in too.
The spiders webs look great with the morning dew on them and managed to capture a nice image of one on my walk with Faith the following day. By turning the image into black and white has created a glorious contrast.
Autumn cobweb
With the Autumn months comes comfort food and this week I made my first soup of the season. It’s a take on the classic Cauliflower Cheese. This Cauliflower Cheese Soup has cheesy flavour and the added bacon bits add that little bit extra, making this a definite meal in a bowl. You can find the recipe here.
Cauliflower Cheese Soup
I have finally finished my granny square bag. After joining all the squares, I then added a lining to give extra support and make sure anything small does not fall through the larger holes. I decided to add a small handle rather than just have it as a clutch and found this great video for a strap which I then folded to make it more rounded.
Granny Square Bag
I have a good stash of yarn left from making my ripple blanket so I decided to have a go at crocheting a spiral as I had seen a pretty coaster from Bella Coco and so followed her pattern but have just continued going around and around increasing 2 stitches every 10 stitches until I either get dizzy or run out of yarn. This is how far I have got.
Spiral crochet
I ran the first of my creative workshops for my dog training business, it was a treasure hunt this week and all the participants seemed to really enjoy it. Next week it will be an Escape Room experience. Last night I went to a murder mystery evening in one of the neighbouring villages with a couple of friends. It was great fun and based on Bake Off. We managed to work out the murderer but did not quite get the motive correct.
Enjoy whatever you are up to this week and join me next week.
October is the month that Autumn really kicks in and the colder mornings and evenings really begin to show up. For me that means snuggling under a blanket in the evening when watching television and talking of blankets I finally finished one of my projects that has been on the go for at least four years. I bought the Attic 24 ripple blanket kit and it started really well but obviously my butterfly nature took over and other projects took precedence! The problem was I found it difficult to do if it did not have my full attention so it was not a project I could do if watching TV.
It was planned for a beach themed room and my office is just the spot and it looks lovely over my old reclining chair.
Yesterday I decided after looking at my tomatoes to pick them all as slugs were beginning to nibble them. I have popped them in a bowl on my kitchen window sill to ripen and if they struggle to do so, green tomato chutney will be made.
I have finished all my granny squares for my clutch bag and I am in the process of sewing them all together and as normal another project took over. I decided to make granny square fingerless gloves, as when I am teaching my evening hoopers agility session my hands get really cold but I still need to be able to pick things up and use my hands in general. I thought these might help. I am using the yarn leftover from my ripple blanket so they may be odd colours but as long as they keep my hands warm. I will post a photo next week when they are finished ( hopefully)😂
On the cooking front, the success of my Biscoff Bronuts got me thinking of other flavoured brownies I could convert into bronuts. Now who doesn’t love a lemon drizzle cake and I found a yummy brownie version so rather than do the conventional tray bake I piped the mixture into my donut moulds. When they came out of the oven I poked holes in them and drizzled extra lemon over before taking them out of the moulds. Then once cold popped them out of the moulds and coated them with an icing sugar and lemon topping. You can find the brownie recipe here.
Lemon Drizzle Bronuts
It’s definitely getting into comfort meal cooking time so will definitely be getting my slow cooker out for more casseroles. I will keep you posted.
Well heading off now to do a wet walk with the dogs and this afternoon I am going to settle down to watch both Hocus Pocus films and indulge myself in a good Sunday afternoon chill out session.
Whilst it feels like I only just posted last week’s blog, it also feels like it’s been a long week.
On Monday the heatwave finely broke with thunder and a really heavy downpour. We had met up with my sister in law’s sister, who moved down to Devon last year and only lives 30 miles away. We went to Strawberry Fields just outside Launceston where we did their Maizie Maze. It was great fun but oh so hot but all around were grey clouds and we could hear thunder in the distance. We decided to make a retreat for the restaurant for lunch and I’m so glad we did as during our meal the heavens opened and chucked down what looked like a month’s worth of rain in about 10 mins. It was pretty spectacular! The photo doesn’t do it justice!
Monday downpour
On Tuesday the lovely Standard Poodle Carmen came to stay with us. She has been staying with us since she was 6 and she is now an old lady of 13 and whilst completely deaf and a little blind is very happy to keep up with my girls. Her owners kindly brought me a copy of my old town’s local newspaper to read which was lovely especially as it had an article on one of my friends parents who have just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.
Carmen top image
I have done a fair amount of crocheting this week. I managed to finish my mushroom boy which is super cute but not sure I will make another one as the hat definitely had me thinking I would never finish 🤣 I followed a YouTube video this is the link, there are 3 videos in total for this pattern https://youtu.be/x04-ukSEp08
I think I might make more of these to sell as they were easy to make and do not use much in the way of materials but are super cute ❤️
Bunny and Unicorn Cupcake
On Friday evening our local pub put on a 70’s buffet night it was great fun and the food was not only nostalgic but very tasty too. We did lots of reminiscing of the things we did and ate back when we were children in the 70’s. Some of the things mentioned were Finders pancakes and arctic roll 🤣 You can still get both although Finders are now under the Birdseye brand.
70’s buffet food
Mia my youngest has flown off on her University field trip to the Azores so I am looking forward to hearing all about it and whether it is a place I should put on my bucket list of places to visit. It is meant to be very diverse in its fauna and flora. She is staying in the capital of Ponta Delgada.
Summer has hit with temperatures in the high 20’s at the end of this week and expected next week too.
It’s definitely salad and BBQ weather. I made a very yummy pasta salad this week using popcorn chicken and for my pescatarian daughter I used prawns instead. You can find the recipe here
FREEBIE – I have created a number of sticker sheets for my Etsy shop this week but have made one special sheet specifically for one of my friends and you. We had a fun craft and chat evening this week and were chatting about going through the menopause and how some days you just need a friend to help you to see things clearly and make you smile or give you a kick up the backside 😂. So I created these stickers to give you those things when there is not a friend around. Feel free to download and print onto sticker paper. You can then just cut them out and stick them in places that you regularly look at and have a little chuckle or a motivational incentive to stop prevaricating.😂 If you require a different format I will have a PDF and PNG available to purchase on my store.
I love Jamie Oliver recipes and am looking forward to his new book due out later this summer. Last night I made his Fragrant Prawn Balls from his book 7 Ways. I had to slightly adapt it as my daughter is not a fan of coriander. https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/category/books/7-ways/
Fragrant Prawn Balls
As mentioned last week I decided to go into Exeter on the bus. It was a very enjoyable experience and definitely cheaper than driving in and finding somewhere to park. We had a lovely wander around the craft fair which was in the cathedral grounds, bumped into one of the ladies I do Tai Chi with who’s husband makes beautiful silver jewellery and had a stall there.
Exeter Cathedral Craft Fair
We then had a mooch around some shops and a nice lunch and then back home on the bus. It was a long day but with no stress, so will definitely be doing the same again.
My youngest daughter turns 20 this week so I will no longer have teenagers in the house. We are planning a BBQ and meal out as she has a friend coming to stay. She has requested a grasshopper cake for her Birthday so I will post a photo and the recipe next week. It’s definitely a favourite in this house.
Stay cool but try to enjoy this warm weather as we don’t get enough of it in my opinion.
Hello and here we are in July and exactly 6 months of this blog, so happy half birthday to Stepping into Sixty.
So how has this first six months of Sixty been? I started this blog to push myself to do things that were different and slightly out of my comfort zone. I think I am achieving this although I feel slightly restricted on getting out and seeing new places as the price of petrol has made traveling very far a strain on the bank balance. That being said it has made me think about other ways of getting around and next week there is a craft fair in Exeter which rather than driving and then paying for parking which is also very expensive, I am going to catch the bus from my town directly into Exeter.
Yes it does restrict the freedom of times a little but it will be so much cheaper and a little adventure as I cannot remember the last time I traveled on a public bus!
This week I did manage a little trip out as Dartmoor is just on my doorstep so my daughter Mia and I took the little dogs out to Shilley Pool.
Shilley Pool is one of Dartmoor’s best-kept secrets, a beautiful natural tarn found sheltered below the roaming and heather-bound heathlands of North Dartmoor. The pool is fed from flat rock rapids and is located in the valley of Blackaton Brook. For years, this magical place is where villagers from neighbouring South Zeal and Throwleigh came to bathe and learn to swim. It also features in Roger Deakin’s enchanting and timeless book Waterlog, which receives ‘cult status’ amongst the wild swimming community.
Shilley Pool
The climb up is over rough terrain but the dog’s appear to be part mountain goat so no real problem. It was such a peaceful spot that we had all to ourselves.
Now onto what has been going on in the kitchen. Last week I made the Fortnight Birthday cake which apparently the kids loved. This week word got around and I have been asked to make a Lemon Drizzle Cake for next week. Therefore I decided to have a practice as in the past I have made loaf cakes but not actually a round Birthday cake style. I found a nice recipe that I adapted
200g caster sugar
150g butter
4 Eggs
150ml sour cream
275g self raising flour
Zest of 2 lemons
Cream the butter and sugar together, slowly add the beaten eggs. Combine the sour cream and then fold in the flour and zest. Divide into two sandwich tins. I line the bottom of them with parchment paper to guarantee they tip out nicely. Cook on 180 degrees for around 20 – 25 mins. Cool slightly on rack before turning out. I then combined the juice of the two lemons with 2 tbsp of sugar to drizzle over the base of the two sponges whilst still warm.
Whilst cake is cooling I whipped up 300ml of double cream and combined 3 large tbsp of lemon curd to make the filling and topping. I also decided to make candied lemon peel, which I have never made before. I followed this recipe https://decoratedtreats.com/candied-lemon-peel-how-to-make.html
Once the cake was cold I put it altogether and decorated the top with the candied peel. Now I just have to do the same thing again next week but at least this week I get to eat it too! 😋
Lemon Drizzle Cake
I have also been busy creating more printable planners for my Etsy shop. I am thoroughly enjoying coming up with different designs and hope to branch out into other printables too. Here is a sneak peek at one of the pages for my cute 2023 calendar I am creating. I’m going to make planners to compliment each of the designs too. If you are interested in checking out my shop this is the linkhttps://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CraftyTeenyBeeny
2023 Cute Calendar
My crocheted scarf has got a little further but not much as have been busy with other things. My daughter Mia on the other hand has been extremely busy with her newly found crocheting and has been busy making cute little amigurumi creatures and putting them on Tiktok https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMNSeHj9a/
Amigurumi Bee
I’m going to head off now and hope to get out for a dog walk before more rain comes. Have a good week.
We had the Summer Solstice this week and just like that the night will begin to get shorter! Let’s not despair yet as we still have the rest of the Summer months to get through.
July is just around the corner and therefore I have created a wallpaper calendar for your Android phone, you should be able to download it from here.
I mentioned last week I had been asked to make a Fortnight cake for a friend’s sons birthday. I created a green and brown marbled, two tiered cake and made it into a pinata by cutting a section out of the top layer and filling it with sprinkles and mini chocolate beans (llama loot) and then replacing the cut out and covering the whole cake with chocolate fudge icing.
Pinata Fortnight Cake
I also bottled up my elderflower champagne and made labels to go on them. It should take around 2 weeks for them to start to become alcoholic.
Elderflower Champagne all bottled and labeled
I also made some ginger beer syrup which is lovely topped up with soda water and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.
200g peeled and thickly cut ginger Peel of 2 lemon 75g golden caster sugar 100g light muscovado sugar 500 ml water
Bring to boil and then simmer for 15-20 mins until syrup. Allow to cool before straining into glass jar or bottle. Will keep in fridge for 2 to 3 weeks. This is also great for making cocktails rather than using sugar syrup.
I did not have any sour cream but did have yoghurt so decided to use that instead. As they do not contain any fat other than whatever fat content your cream or yoghurt has they are rather a dry texture but with the gooseberries they have that little pop of sourness and then the sweeter taste of the cake. Yum!
Sour Cream Gooseberry Cupcakes
My youngest daughter Mia has managed to hurt both her legs by over doing exercise and therefore is having to rest up but still needed something to do. She has had a go at knitting in the past but did not really get on with it. She decided to have a go a crochet and watched a few tik tok videos and decided to make a bee. She headed into my stash of yarns and found some chunky wool she liked and went with that, not the easiest start but she is determined! After a little trial and error she completed it. She is making a second smaller one which is looking amazing. I will try to post a photo of it once complete either on next week’s blog or the Facebook page.
I have not done any crochet for a while but with Mia doing her crochet it stimulated me into wanting to make something. Do you remember my cute little tin can covers I made with the Stylecraft cotton yarn? Well I have a reasonable amount left so decided to use it to make a pretty scarf.
With the price of petrol at the moment it is hard to justify taking trips out and about too far therefore I have restricted myself to just doing my normal, close to home walks with the dogs. They have baled up the grass in one of my favourite fields so we used them to practice our ‘go around ‘ skills and they also made a good photo opportunity.
Mia with Mouse and Adira
I hope you have a lovely week and will pop by again next week.
I have been super busy creating printables for my new Etsy shop. Whilst it seems quite an easy thing to do, the amount of times I’ve had to go back and tweak things because when I printed them out they did not look as good as they had on the screen. Here is the link to my shop so you can see some of the things I have done. I have a few projects nearly ready to be uploaded but not quite happy with them yet.
In the garden I have managed to complete the top garden path and clear most of the steps to the downstairs garden but with the hot weather hitting us at the end of the week decided to wait till next week to start that.
The wild flower bombs that I sprinkled over the newly dug flower bed are beginning to make an appearance and I have baked all my egg shells this week to crush and sprinkle to deter the snails, hopefully!
Wild Flower Seedlings
I also picked my elderflowers and have started to make my champagne. The recipe
Alcoholic version Ingedients:
15 elderflower blooms 3 lemons 800g sugar 5 litres water (2 litres boiling, 3 litres cold) 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar 6 glass screw top bottles Method:
1. Put the sugar into a large saucepan (or bucket) – it needs to be big enough to fit 5l water!
2. Add 2 litres of boiling water to dissolve the sugar and stir.
3. Then a further 3 litres of cold water to cool it down.
4. Squeeze out the lemon juice – add the juice and zest to the saucepan.
5. Add the elderflower blooms and give it a gentle stir before adding the white wine vinegar and stir again.
6. Leave for 2-3 days covered with a tea towel to ferment. Stir occasionally.
7. If there’s no sign of fermentation after 1-2 days (you should see bubbles at the surface) then you can add a champagne yeast at this point.
7. Strain through muslin into sterilised screw top bottles (easiest when done through funnels).
8. Leave a gap of 1″ at least to allow for expansion.
I am having to add champagne yeast which I just purchased off Amazon. I will update you once bottled and consumed.
Elderflower Champagne
One of my friends has asked my to make a Fortnight Cake for her son this coming week. I have some ideas, so photo next week.
As some of you know my profession is a dog trainer and I teach Hoopers Agility as well as basic obedience.
This week I sent my entry off to compete in my first Hoopers Agility competition, so we are off to get a bit of practice done 😂
So after all the fun of the Jubilee it’s back to normal for most of us.
For me it’s starting a new side line. I love creating digital artwork and thought I would try creating my own wallpaper for my phone using one of the photos I took recently of a Solomon Seal I found on one of my dog walks. I like having a calendar of the month to refer to quickly if needed so decided to add it to the image so it is there on my home screen.
If you think this might be nice to have on your Android phone then please feel free to download by clicking the download button below. This is a first for me, so hope it works 😂 I will try to get to grips with an iPhone version too!
I am also creating monthly themed planners to upload to my Etsy shop so will let you know when I have got my head around how to create and list a downloadable item. All these new technology skills I’m learning at Sixty 😂
I used an ‘S’ spice this week which I have never used before Sumac.
This wine-coloured ground spice is one of the most useful but least known and most underappreciated. Made from dried berries, it has an appealing lemon-lime tartness that can be widely used. In Iran, they use it as a condiment, putting it onto the table with salt and pepper. You can try this yourself and it will complement most dishes.
I found a recipe for Sumac Chocolate Brownies. These are really chocolatey and fudgy. You can find the recipe here
Another recipe I made this week was Jamie Oliver’s Fishballs, these actually had no fish in them but we’re made of prawn and squid rings. They taste a bit like scampi and were surprisingly easy to make.
2 pieces of stale bread made into breadcrumbs 1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice 1¾ cups of frozen raw squid rings or tubes 1 cup frozen peeled raw prawns 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger or tsp of lazy ginger 1 tsp ground coriander 1 egg 3 tablespoons cornflour
Blitz the prawns and squid with ginger, coriander and egg. Then mix in the cornflour and pop in fridge for 30 mins. Mix the 5 spice into the breadcrumbs. Take large tsp of the prawn mix and drop into breadcrumbs and cover with more breadcrumbs and then create ball shape. Drop in preheated frying pan with olive oil, cook till brown and then turn over. We really enjoyed these but Jamie does them with a sweet and sour rice which we found a bit bland but will definitely be making the balls again. Maybe with chips and salad.
Fishballs
I can almost lead you down the garden path as have started on gravelling the pathway as I was forever having to cut back the grass around the slabs. It should have been finished by now but have had a summer cold which has affected my sinuses and caused really bad sinusitis, which I have now had for 5 days and is a real pain, literally!
The start
Have a good week everyone I hope to be back to my normal self by next weekend. Whatever normal is!
Stepping Into Sixty and Out Of The Comfort Zone 
