Homemade Liqueur

My other half has started brewing his own beer at home. Not to be outdone I thought I'd have a bash at making my own fruit liqueur. Sloe gin is pretty popular just now but I'm not a great lover of gin so decided to try a vodka based liqueur and as pomegranates are in season thought that they would be a good choice. It's been on the go for a couple of weeks now and I just bottled it today. After 2 months in the bottle it should be ready to drink. I hope it tastes as good as it looks and smells.

So the basic recipe I tried was loosely based on a recipe I found for strawberry vodka liqueur.

I started with:

2 x pomegranates

150g caster sugar

500ml cheap vodka

1 x lime

A litre kilner jar

A home brew funnel

500ml swing stopper bottle

First of all I cut the two pomegranates in half and bashed out the pips and juice with the back of a spoon into a bowl. I picked out any white pith and then bashed the pips in the bowl to release more of the juice without turning it into pulp.

I poured the juice and pips into the kilner jar and added the sugar and 500ml of vodka. Then I added the peel from the lime. I gave it a good mix with a spoon to mix in the sugar. From here on in the mixture was stored in a dark cupboard and stirred every night for two weeks.

Once the two weeks were up the sugar had completely dissolved in the mixture which meant it was time to bottle it up. We have a brewing funnel in the house which is just a regular funnel but with a bit of mesh separating the spout and bowl section. A regular funnel and some muslin would work just as well. I poured the mixture from the jar into a tupperwear tub, mashing the pulpy mixture to extract all the juice and vodka. I cleared all the mashed fruit out of the funnel and binned it. Then put the funnel in the neck of the bottle. I then poured the liqueur from the tupperwear into the bottle. Now I just have to wait two months to see if its worked!

Due to the added sugar and sugar in the fruit the strength of the vodka liqueur will increase as it matures in the bottle. I'm told these liqueurs are rocket fuel. Just need to wait and see.

Upcycled sideboard

I bought a 1970's retro sideboard from someone on Gumtree a few months ago and I love it dearly. I have a real penchant for teak, retro, Danish style furniture. As much as I love it the way it is I've also fallen for

the upcycled painted effect that I've seen on some pieces online.

The fear is that I'll have a go, sand down my beloved sideboard and try some paint effects only to completely ruin it. I feel upcycling may be out of my crafting league and I'd be devastated if I spoiled it beyond repair.

The additional problem is that I live in a top floor flat above a commercial unit and have no outside space whatsoever. From some research I see that I'll probably need an orbital sander and some pretty potent primer that could cause problems if I were to start my project indoors. Additionally I can't decide what effect I would like. I could copy one that's tried and tested or be a bit more inventive. I love the stencilled style of the sideboards pictured but also the block colours.

I think some further research is required and perhaps a dummy piece of furniture to practice on first. But this will be a project for the summer, when I can aerate the spare room accordingly. I think this will be a long term craft so further updates to follow.

Christmas advent calendar

In the Autumn last year I took a notion to make my own advent calendar. I thought it would be a fairly easy and cheap project. It took a lot longer than anticipated to complete and I lost the rag with it a few times (resulting in some wonky stitching) but I'm pretty pleased with the result. I'll give some rough instructions on how I made it.

Materials: Large square of felt (1 meter sq), selection of felt material in a variety of colours, fabric glue, embroidery thread, needle, scissors, pins, dowling rod, ribbon, pen, sweeties.

1. First off I ordered a large sheet of felt off ebay. Approximately 1 meter square. This was this most expensive part and was about £6 with postage. You might get it cheaper if you shop around. I've since seen similar advent calendars made from hessian sacks that you can get for free from good coffee shops.

2. I folded a flap over the top and did a simple running stitch by hand. I intend to thread some dowling rod through this eventually so it'll keep its shape when hung. You could then thread some ribbon or cord through for hanging.

3. I have a fair amount of felt in my craft cupboard which I used to make the pockets and christmas embellishments. About 3 or 4 sheets of felt will make up the pockets but you could do this in any fabric you fancy. Gingham might be nice. I cut them into 24 similar sized rectangle shapes. I'm a bit slap dash so just did it by eye. Some are a bit bigger than others as a result! If you're a perfectionist use a ruler.

4. Now the tricky bit. For the 24 Christmas pictures I just drew them by hand on the back of some felt material, cut them out and stuck them onto the rectangle pockets with fabric glue. Make sure you arrange them so you've space to attach the numbers next. It was pretty tricky thinking up 24 Christmas things so I ended up with some random things like a toadstool and an owl.

5. Cutting out felt numbers accurately was way beyond my skill level so I managed to find some on ebay for a couple of pounds. Eventually I'd like my own die cutting machine but it's a pricey investment. I think I searched for 'felt advent calendar numbers' or something similar. I then stuck them on the felt pockets with fabric glue. I have no talent for sewing so prefer to use glue. If you have a machine or a steady hand and lots of patience you could sew them.

6. The last stage was by far the most frustrating. Again, if you have a sewing machine this probably wouldn't take you any time but I'm rubbish at sewing. Firstly I pinned the pockets onto the fabric sheet making sure the numbers were in a random order. Then I did a running stitch in white embroidery thread to attach them. This took a fair few hours over a fair few weeks and I got fairly fed up of it towards the end. You can just do it in front of the TV with a bottle of plonk and it makes it a bit less frustrating.

7. Then you have your finished product. Fill it with sweeties and use again and again.

Numeru uno.

So, blogging eh? Given how difficult it was to find a blog name with 'craft' in the title I suspect I may be jumping on the bandwagon with yet another blog about crafting being thrown into the ether. However, I don't claim to have any skill in the area and thought I would keep a record of my various attempts.

It all started with fascinators. After seeing one particular style I liked online I thought rather than buying it I could have a go at making it myself. The end result was pretty successful and I made a few more from there. This whetted my crafting appetite and I've tried a few more projects since. So rather than boring friends with my crafting exploits on Facebook I'm going to showcase them here.

The fascinators are still craft number one and I've had some success selling a few on Folksy. I don't really make any profit from it but it keeps me in materials. From there I've made some felty friends, mostly owls you can hang on door knobs or pot plants, an advent calendar, tweed brooches and most recently a sock monkey. I may blog about these individually with photos once I get the hang of this.

Cooking and baking is also another interest so I'll share any successful recipes I manage to try. The baking started in my current job where we take it in turns to bake cake for our coffee morning on a Friday. This was pretty daunting to start but has now become quite competitive. Again I've had various degrees of success.

So that's it for post numero uno. I shall get on with taking some pictures of my projects for future posts.

TTFN, x