Salt Dough DIY

Happy Christmas eve eve.

Time has flown by, the presents are beneath the tree, families are together and the holidays have started! In case you are lacking on last minute gifts, need something to do with your young cousins or the christmas tree is looking a little bare. Try these salt dough decorations, its like the adult version of play dough. 

You will need:

1 cup Plain flour

1/2 cup Cooking Salt

1/2 cup Water

Cookie cutters  

Rolling pin 

Mix everything together

Roll it out on a floured surface

Cut out your desired shape. If you want to hang them make sure you use a toothpick to make a hole before baking.

Put the shapes on a baking try and bake in the oven at the lowest gas mark/ around 40c for 2 hours.

Paint them your favourite colours and leave to dry!

I hope you are enjoying the run up to Christmas :)

New Etsy uploads!

Today I have uploaded a few items to Etsy, if you order them before the afternoon of the 20th they will be yours by christmas!

New to the shop are these three caged pendants.

And these chalkboard gift tags available in lots of festive shapes (which means they are reusable!).

Having my family visit this weekend was SO lovely! We watched a Nativity, drank mulled wine, played monopoly and had LOTS of laughs. It’s so strange for one weekend being in their company, it feel so natural and normal but yet so different. I guess the difference is that I’ve changed a bit since I left home. I can’t wait to see them again at New Years!

Today I have also been prepping for Wednesdays workshop, the Christmas edition! We are doing stamp embossing to make Christmas cards and I’ve been browsing some of the stamps Etsy has to offer. These are on my Christmas wish list 1, 2, 3 and 4. Im also very tempted to give stamp making a go myself, I have the carving thingy in a box somewhere around here....

The next workshop is....
Wednesday the 18th
6.30-8pm
St. Marks Centre 
218 Tollgate RdLondonE6 5YA

Hope your all having good Mondays, my advent calendar tells me its only 9 sleeps to Christmas!

Life Lately via my iPhone

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Life has been pretty busy/repetitive recently. I am REALLY looking forward to the Christmas break.

At the moment my life consists of wake up, sit at desk, go to bed, wake up, sit at desk, go to bed…rinse and repeat. Today I handed in one of my essays (yay), it was about The Academies Bill (boo). On thursday I have another essay due, this time about the history of volunteering and lastly, on the 9th Jan I have one due that I’m going to have to start straight after I submit this one on thursday. 

I sit right near my advent calendar and have already started thinking of excuses to eat the chocolates for the days we are out of London. uh oh. i need to get some self control.

BUT

Its not stopping me getting into the christmas spirit. Tonight Matt and I are going to do some late night christmas shopping. On friday my lovely family are coming to visit for the weekend, I can’t wait!

Anyway, here are some snaps from the past week or so.

Homemade date night! 

Cocacola truck!

The Cable car to Greenwich on a wintery evening

I had never seen these before making
them for a friends wedding on Saturday.

The Newham XLP arts showcase

Last is this hilarious snapchat my brother sent.
This is my dad wearing a brilliant waistcoat mum made for him when they were newly married.
He rocked it at a friend of the families 21st birthday party! 

Our gingerbread masterpiece!

Merry Christmas everyone, thats right, we can OFFICIALLY start to celebrate. We are well into December which means naysayer can no longer say bah humbug.

Its been a pretty busy few weeks here in the Way household. We’ve had deadlines, parents visiting, showcases, parties. Its been such a lovely start to the season!

I have 2 more deadlines, the 10th and 12th December but after that I am freeeee. Matts been ill the last couple of days and I’ve been glued to my laptop trying to think of clever things to say about academies. Its been nice though, its meant that we HAD to slow down. Take a little longer to enjoy our advent calendar chocolates each morning :)

Its been great seeing pictures of everyone putting up their christmas decs and excited to spend time with family. We have found that this time of year can get so busy, often with fun things, but it means that we never get time to breathe it all in. Thats why we decided christmas should start early, we put up our decs on the 16th November and had a little ‘Deck the Halls’ party. Although we are already struggling to find times to fit in christmas shopping and the diary is very full, we have watched 5 of the 15 christmas movies on our list and enjoyed having twinkling lights in the background and mulled wine in our mugs. 

Here are a few pictures of our gingerbreadilicious party!

There was about 6kg of gingerbread that went into the making of this beauty. She was based on Wrens St. Paul's Cathederal. The resembelance is uncanny.

It collapsed when we completed the dome :( 

We still have SO much gingerbread.

I try to feed it to everyone who visits.

DIY Flower Crown tutorial

Today I’m going to give you a quick tutorial on how we made the flower crowns for our fun photo shoot the other day. I love how many options there are, you can use different colours, shapes and sizes of flowers. This would be perfect for a DIY wedding if you use fresh blooms, or even a christmas present. There are all sorts of ideas on Pinterest. 

You need:

Flowers (plastic/silk/real)

Florist tape

Thin wire

Pliers (if you don’t want your hands to hurt)

1. Make a circle using your wire, measure it on your head. If you don’t think the wire is thick enough then twist it around itself to form a circle, like in the picture.
2. Cut your flowers, leaving a minimum of an inch of the stem. Place the flower in the direction you want it to face and wrap about 4 inch of wire around the stem and the wire circle.
3. When you have as many flowers as you want wired onto the headpiece, wrap your floral tape around the wire circle, covering any gaps that don’t have flowers on.
4. You may now put it on your head and look like a princess!

 

Salad Nicoise

I have been nowhere near as regular with these recipe posts as I had hoped! So to make it up to you I am going to share the recipe that my husband called ‘the best thing I have ever made’ when I presented it for our dinner the other day (I’m still deciding how to take that).

It was a budget take on warm tuna nicoise. Firstly, we replaced the tuna with smoked Mackerel, we only did this because they had sold out of tuna (which is on offer in ASDA, £2 for 2 tuna steaks) but it turned out DELICIOUS.
Parts of this recipe are taken from the BBC food website.
Serves 4 Cost Approx £7.50
You will need:


Dressing

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 30ml/1fl oz white wine vinegar
• A splash of balsamic vinegar
• 150ml/5fl oz olive oil
• 1 lemon, juice only
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad

• 200g fine beans, cooked (£1)
• 4 handfuls fresh baby spinach (£1)
• 200g/3½oz new potatoes, cooked (£1)
• 12 cherry tomatoes, halved (£1)
• 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• 2 fresh smoked mackerel fillets (£1.81)
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Preparation method

1. For the dressing, whisk together the mustard, vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and freshly ground black pepper.


2. For the salad, put the dressing in a frying pan and warm over a low heat. Add the beans,
spinach, potatoes and tomatoes and toss them in the warm dressing. Remove from the
heat.


3. Brush the Mackerel with the olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black
pepper. Heat a griddle pan (or thick based frying pan) over a high heat. Cook the fish on the
griddle for about 30 seconds on each side.


4. To serve, put the tuna steaks on top of the lettuce, dressed vegetables and top with
chopped egg. Drizzle excess dressing.

Enjoy!

Flowers and first Photo shoots

Let me introduce you to Asel (soon I will do a proper introductory post!). Asel is here for a year from Kyrgyzstan, she is working alongside the youth charity XLP which is also who Matt works for. Part of her time here is going to be spent as a member of the Dear Friend team. On Thursday we had our first ‘meeting’. We tried out making flower/floral crowns and had great fun making them. We used artificial flowers this time but I would LOVE to make a real a crown of real flowers at some point. Nothing beats flowers! 

We then decided to try out doing a bit of a ‘photo shoot’, just for fun. Neither of us had ever done this before. After we had made our headpieces we went through my wardrobe to choose some dresses which we felt would compliment the flowers. As we left the house the sun came out, just for us. We went to the local park, chose a nice spot and snapped away. It was the first time I have done this and it was so great, Asel is a natural. Its also the first time editing like this and being creative with it. It was all a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy this selection of the pictures!

Stunner hey?

Three things I've learnt as a cyclist in London

My old, very floral, bike and basket.

With the recent number of cyclist deaths in London, and as a cyclist on the streets of London myself. I decided to write a small post on 3 things I feel I have learnt over the past 2 years.

1. Assume the worst. What I mean by this is assume all those parked cars will fling open their door at any moment, assume the car pulling out hasn't seen you and assume that lorry is making a left turn. 

By always being extra cautious and vigilant you are giving yourself time on the road to be smart and make good decisions. Don't become a cyclist who believes they are the king of the road. I don't understand why some people choose to turn their commute into a thrill seeking experience by taking the brakes off their bikes (Matt bumped into one of these people on Whitechapel Road, seriously!?), not having lights or not wearing a helmet...Take up skydiving instead!

2. Don't hide. When I first started cycling I was timid and stuck as close to the pavement as I could. This is bad for a few reasons, it makes it hard to turn right and lessens your chances of being at the front of the traffic when stopped at traffic lights. Remember that it's okay to make cars wait for a while. It's good for them. 

3. Dress appropriately. I guess this point is very much from personal experience. In the summer I came off my bike in front of embankment station. It's a long straight road, I was zooming along in my top gear, going faster than the guys I was with. It felt great until my shoe slipped into the spokes on my front wheel. My ankle took the momentum and I flew over the handlebars, my wrists and head taking the fall. I sprained both my wrists, had some grazes on my face and couldn't walk for a few days. I think it was a lucky escape, the cars managed to dodge me and I came out without serious injury. This would be a different story if I had not been wearing a helmet. My face would have been far far far more cut up. It would also have been a different story if I had been wearing sensible shoes, at the time I was wearing ballet pumps (shame on me) and that's why they had slipped off my foot and into the spokes to easily. I now always wear trainers or boots. Lastly, don't wear black or, if you wear black get some reflective strips on your panniers/backpack/helmet. Its worth it, especially if it saves your life.

There are foolish cyclists and foolish motorists. Whilst I am very pro new cycle lanes and better education for drivers I think there really are things cyclists can do to stay safe on the road. Sticking to the law, and always being aware could save yours, or someone else's life at some point. But don't stop cycling, the more of us there are the more we will be listened to. 

Cycle safe!

Workshop #2

The second Dear Friend Workshop took place on Wednesday. There were a few new faces, and a whole lot of laughter. It's so nice having space to come together, build on friendships and form new ones. I left feeling really thankful to know these lovely people.

I had two activities planned for that day, and the first was decorating oversized wooden baubles. There was lots of freedom to do whatever they wanted with these baubles. I painted mine with blackboard paint and dipped the top in glitter.

There were all sorts of things to get creative with: glitter, ribbon, sequins, paint and buttons! Some people used pyrography and made the baubles into a christmas cards or gift tags. Other people used the pyrography to put jumpers on the little reindeers, which was absolutely adorable!

There was one glitter explosion, but no worries, there weren't any casualties...I am still finding glitter in my hair though!

             

Although most people spent their time on the first decorations, there were also small beaded hanging decorations to be made. These were made with beads, wire and ribbon. Beads and jewellery-esque things are always popular!

Thanks to everyone who came along. I can't wait for the next time!

For more pictures check out #dearfriendlondon on instagram.

Tomorrow we're putting up our Christmas tree! Is anyone else doing that quite soon, or do you have a strict "Christmas in December Only"-rule?

Christmas: Phase One

So...I know it's still a little way from Christmas but the first signs of the Christmas transition happened today in the Way household. 

This is the 'A Christmas Carol' quad poster Matt and I bought last year. It's pretty big. Usually on that hook we have our wedding table list; I'm not sure why, but it's been there since the day we moved in. We like it. People often come over and the first thing they do is find their names. But as the season changes, we welcome Ebenezer Scrooge into our living room.

'A Christmas Carol' is Matt's absolute favourite Christmas book and movie. Last year we started reading a chapter to each other every night before bed.   

I have never had a wreath before, so I hung this with pride. It's pretty much an autumn wreath, I know. Last month, Matt came home with a bag full of conkers, so that night we worked on making them into something. After the traditional soaking in vinegar and baking in the oven, I threaded them onto an metal coat hanger, which I bent into a circle. Add a bow and voila, we have a wreath (or at least we have one until I get my hands on something lusciously green). 

The only way we could hang this without violating our rental contract, or not being able to close the door, was to loosen the screws on our door number and thread it there. It seems to work pretty well for now :)

Over the week, things are going to get their festive hats on in our flat. On Saturday, we'll have friends over to welcome the new season! There will be mulled wine, fake snow and spiced ginger bread. But most importantly, everyone is bringing an unmade gingerbread house with them. We will be needing the help of engineers and architects as all our gingerbread houses are going to be built together into a cathedral, or some form of impressive building. I have no idea how it will turn out but by the end of the night our bellies will be super full of gingerbread and festive spirit(s).

I look forward to uploading those photos!

But for now I have been prepping for tomorrow's workshop; we are all set to go:

Wednesday, 13th November

6.30-8pm

St. Marks, Beckton

I'm also getting along with Lara Casey's challenge. I am beating that to-do list and feeling almost victorious. The next thing to do is to sort my New York pictures, which I have really been putting off doing, so here goes.

I hope you are all having great evenings, see some of you tomorrow!

PS. this blog has nearly had 3000 views - how exciting is that?! Thank you all so much for your support of Dear Friend :)

Simplify. Streamline. Prepare for Greatness.

Hi all,

Today I just wanted to share something I found this week. It is helping me to complete my goals for this month. 

Lara Casey is a blogger / wedding planner / graphic designer / mother / photographer / magazine publisher / business owner from the States. Even from the limited amount I have read about her, she seems to be an all-capable wonder woman. 

One of Lara’s recent blog posts was about being organised. She shared a link to a small ebook she wrote about getting things done, or, in her words ‘The Challenge: Simplify. Streamline. Prepare for Greatness’. ….. With a title like that - who doesn’t want to get involved?

I have been feeling a bit stressed out recently (note the lack of blog posts and really bad skin … the latter could possibly be a result of the sugary fun last week). But it is deadline time, Christmas time, workshop time and Christmas craft market time; none of these things are particularly challenging alone, but all of them combined, with me right at their centre, seem to expand into a mess of confusion and, ultimately, defeat. I know that I DO have time to do them, I just need to help myself break it all down so as not to feel overwhelmed. 

So, if anyone else is feeling the stress, doesn’t naturally have an organised mind, or you feel like you need to curb your social media time (yes, she even writes about that guilty subject), then this is for you. It’s meant to be done in steps but it will only take 30 minutes to read from start to finish. So, go read it now:

Here is the link: http://dev.flosites.com/zexz/laracasey/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-CHALLENGE-E-Book-_-by-Lara-Casey.pdf

I hope this helps you and keeps you motivated to stay on top of your things.

Please, let me know what you think?!

November Goals

Happy November, everyone! 

Not to detract from the brilliance of this month, but it is a mere 7.5 weeks until Christmas. That is it. I feel a little shocked by this. I swear, Christmas always comes round so quick! In the Way household we tend to start getting into the festive spirit mid November, so in two weeks we have our first Christmas 'Deck the Halls' party. 

But I shouldn't get too much into that as there is lots happening between now and then. This includes the second Dear Friend workshop, which is happening on the 13th of November, and I'm really looking forward to it! It's still in the planning stages, but I feel it may involve some blackboard paint, pretty ribbon and a sprinkling of Christmas (or whatever takes your fancy)! Do let me know if you're interested :)

We got back from New York this morning and it was such a brilliant time. Personally, it was WAY better than I thought. I love that city and I feel this could be the beginning of a love affair with the States for both Matt and I. Thanks for all your suggestions. 

I'm diving into some stressful times this week, so there's no better way to start than with a recap of last month's goals and some fresh ones for the penultimate month of 2013.

Last month's goals:

1. Make time to explore outside London (enjoy autumn) 

 - I'm so glad I can tick this off the list. I looked after my cousins in Woking and went to Epping forest twice this month!

2. Prepare for and run first workshop (exciting!!)

 - It was great. Looking forward to the 13th.

3. Decide on Dear Friend publicising (invites, business cards, etc.)

 - This is stalled a little because I need to buy a 'business permit' type thing to use the design on the blog. This means waiting a little while until Dear Friend has enough money to buy it. So watch this space!

4. Buy fabric and sew a skirt using a pattern (no more wimping out with 'practising' on old fabric)

 - Sadly, there was no time, so this didn't happen. I have, however, bought most of the materials to make Matt a new laptop case. It is going to take a while to make, and I'm going to have to really push into the side of my character that doesn't get bored with a project after 10 mins, but it is going to happen. More on this in the future.

5. Decide what the Dear Friend Christmas shop should feature

 - After quite a lot of thought, I have decided not to go down this route. December is busy: it's when all my uni deadlines are, we'll also have no free weekends between now and Christmas, and lastly, there are people to see and weddings to attend. I have decided that instead of getting stressed I am going to let go of the idea of doing the Christmas fayres and having a shop filled to the brim with lots of items, which has been my hope all year. 

 For the past few weeks I have been toying with lots of ideas but none seemed to work, it was just making me feel panicked and discouraged. I know it may seem like a foolish decision as December is such a good time for growing businesses and Etsy, but I have made the right decision for me. I need to concentrate on enjoying December, running the workshops and passing my degree. 

Since I decided on this, I have felt so much better. If something changes, it will be down to a natural state of things and some God given time and ideas. 

6. Go to a pumpkin farm 

 - My mum and I went to a brilliant one in the little village where Matt and I got married.

Sorry for the bad picture, but can you see, its Cinderella! 

7. Try to get to know some London bloggers 

 - I didn't do this. I was going to go to my first blogger meet-up type things but then I couldn't make it. Part of me is pretty scared at the idea of going to a blogger event on my own. One day…

8. Write a daily schedule to get me back in the swing of things (uni time/creativity time/marriage time)

- Nope

9. Finalise the packaging I use when things are bought from the shop

 - I have done this! Well, for jewellery anyway.

10. Do the 'one photo a day' challenge.

 - Almost. I feel I've done alright on the photography front, even if it's not quite one a day.

11. Prepare for ALL my lectures the day before

 - Nearly all! 

November Goals:

1. Start waking up before 7.45am 

2. Hand in my essay on Thursday, having tried my hardest (I'm so bad at this)

3. Plan and run November's workshop

4. Eat well (Matt and I are picking up this post-NY challenge, starting tomorrow) 

5. Cut and dye my hair

6. Take control of my social media usage, no scrolling through Instagram when there are things I am midway through doing.

Which links to my last point:

7. Be more deliberate and disciplined with the decisions I make and the ways I spend my time; don't be passive.

It scares me a little to write those goals down as many of them are ones I toy around with in my head but never commit to. I've said it out loud now though, no going back.

Did anyone else manage to meet some goals they set for themselves this month?

Storms and New York

Today I woke up to news of fallen trees, people washed out to sea and cancelled flights. Transport in London was threatened with standstill, and still some lines are not running because their tracks are covered with debris. They have named this storm after St. Jude, the saint of desperate causes.

There is so little on our street that is not man made or concrete that we slept soundly. No worries of trees falling onto our house or garden furniture blowing away. I woke up in the night to close our bedroom door as the wind blowing through our flat was making the front door bang in its frame, but that was it.

I really pray that everyone is safe and that houses didn't sustain too much damage. I feel very thankful that here in the UK we rarely have weather like this. I can't imagine living in the path of real storms like hurricane sandy etc.

Matt and I were checking flight updates frequently last night and this morning since we're going to New York in a couple days. Many flights have been cancelled or delayed but thankfully our flight is still scheduled. By the time we fly, most of the high winds will have settled. I'm not sure what we would do if our flight was cancelled. So I'm very relieved we don't have to deal with that disappointment!

We are very excited to be heading across the pond (my first time). After years of reading American blogs, I have a list of things I want to experience/buy:

Visit Hobby Lobby
Buy Graham Crackers
Bring home some modpodge
Check out the clothes in Target
Zara is cheaper?
Go to IHOP 

We also have a map with marked places we want to visit...most of these places involve eating (forgive me body).

I would also love to hear any suggestions you have!

If you want to follow along, I will be instagramming (of course). You can find me at @estherdearfriend

Rolling pins and Spatulas

I have memories of making a pyrography name plaque to go on my bedroom door when I was about ten. After about four years of service, it got replaced with band posters and less inviting notices. But I want to try again now. That is why I bought a pyrography set a couple of months ago. 

For those of you who don't know what pyrography is: it's a way of drawing on wood. You have a 'hot pen' which heats up, so that as you draw on wood it burns it. Simple, yet very effective. 

I have seen a lot of pyrography on sites like Etsy but nothing has really caught my eye; it all seems quite limited. There are simple plaques with names, chopping boards with words and then really well drawn and skilful pictures on wood of animals or fairies.

But I like to think outside the box. I joked to Matt that while he's out I may do a giant mural on our dining room table. I think that's the kind of thing that would be awesome (not sure he's convinced yet). l also like the idea of drawing line pictures of vegetables onto chopping boards. The permanence of it is what excites me. It seems dangerous to give a doodler a wood burning iron in a flat full of wood! Here are some of my first attempts:

The rolling pins didn't go well; I'm still getting to grips with the different nibs and accidentally caught the edge of it on the 'S'. I love the idea of mother and daughter rolling pins and I've not seen them done before.

Sweet and Sweeter rolling pins

The wooden spoon and spatula were some of my original doodlings and I'm very proud of the pumpkin one. I really think it's adorable and it fits so perfectly with this time of year. I wanted to try and get them in the shop well before Halloween but, annoyingly, time caught up with me.  Maybe next year :)

Pumpkin and Wildflower wooden kitchen utensils

In other news. Tonight I am going to a clothes swap! Im really excited to get some nice clothes for 0 dollar.

Have a brilliant Saturday!