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Category: DIY
Winter over here has settled for good, which means my lips get dry not matter how much chapstick I use. That’s the time when lip scrubs come in handy. However, instead of buying them, I prefer to make them myself. It’s super easy, cheap and customizable. And you can make sure they’re made out of natural ingredients! If you’ve never tried it – time to give it a go!
I’ve already posted about my creations in quilling technique – the art of creating designs out of swirled paper strips – quite a few times. It’s generally my go-to type of papercrafts and I use it for all different purposes: from cards, through gift tags to jewellery and 3D mini paper items. So I thought I’d post an extensive guide to my favourite papercraft, covering all of the tools and their uses, basic shapes and techniques. Part one – about the tools – is here!
If you like to both read and craft, this project should be up your street. I’m bringing you the idea for simple (though cute) DIY bookmarks. The whole project can be done in about 15 minutes! It’s also a great one to do with children, as it doesn’t require great manual skills. And it may encourage the little ones to both craft and read! You’ll need one of those floral hole cutters for this project, they can be found in craft stores or online and usually cost peanuts. They’re great to have overall, super useful in papercrafts!
Mandalas. Detailed, abstract drawings which have gained a lot of popularity in recent years. If you spend a significant amount of time online, chances are you’ve seen these designs. Today, I’d like to show you how to create them – on paper and digitally, on your PC. But before we get to that, let’s have a quick look at their origin. These widely used in contemporary art patterns were actually a thing thousands of years ago!
I have to admit, this discovery was a side effect of a failed experiment. A rather happy failure after all, though, as I’m absolutely delighted with this! Here, I will show you, step-by-step, how to make chocolate dust in any colour. It’s a perfect sprinkle for cakes and cookies – it looks amazing and tastes even better (chocolate!).
Continue reading “How to Make Coloured Chocolate Dust – Homemade Chocolate Sprinkles”
Christmas season, for me, is filled with baking and decorating cookies. And I’m sure I’m not the only one! Through the years, I’ve experimented with so many different piping tools… From regular plastic sandwich bags, through plastic store-bought piping cones with and without nozzles, fabric cones, even special icing pens. And always, always, something was wrong. Having to clean a multiple-use bag was a nightmare when I only had one and wanted to do various icing types and colours in one afternoon. Nozzles were too small or too big. Plastic bags would break open and I’d be left with a sugar-coated catastrophe…
And then one day, I came across this simple method for making your own piping cones out of baking/parchment paper. And dear God, what a life changing discovery that was. I did all of my Christmas cookie decor with these cones with zero accidental splash out disasters. I always had as many fresh cones at hand as I wanted to. And those dozens of cones cost me a grand total of… £1, perhaps? I don’t think I’m ever going to return to other methods, not when it comes to simple cookie decor with royal icing or chocolate at least.
I’ve recently posted an extensive guide for working with chocolate. Now, it’s time to have a look at another popular cookie decor medium – royal icing. In this guide, I will show you how to prepare royal icing, how to adjust its consistency, how to use it for cookie decor and also how to prepare little decorations in advance, to use them on cookies at a later time. So, without further ado, let’s get cracking!
After the wave of recipes and food related posts, time to return to some DIY. I believe we have the majority of our gifts purchased already, and that means… wrapping time! And isn’t it nice to make our gift wrapping a bit more personalized? We can achieve that by making cute little personalized Christmas gift tags ourselves!
Continue reading “7 DIY Christmas Gift Tag Ideas – Quilling”
Although seemingly simple, working with chocolate can be an unforgiving task. One mistake, one drop of water, and you’re left with a bowl of dry, lumpy, somewhat chocolatey blob. Not the worst in taste, perhaps, but visually unattractive and useless for any form of cookie decor. That’s why it’s crucial to follow a few rules while working with chocolate. In this article, I will show you how to properly melt chocolate. I will also show you how you can colour it with powdered food colouring. I will also share some ideas for chocolate cookie decor and how to prepare your chocolate decorations in advance. So, without further ado, let’s get started!
So a while ago I made a video tutorial for quick and easy – yet adorable – little floral gift tags. I thought I should share it here as well. 🙂 I believe this is a perfect little project for when you want to go that extra mile and take your gift wrapping to the next level. I’m sure it’ll be appreciated!
Alphe's Corner 