Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Recipe

So Sunday was stocktake day at the shop I work in. I work in a bead shop so this involves a lot of concentrating, counting and weighing. We knew it was going to be a long day, so it only made sense that cake should be there too!

My contribution to the sweet treats were some delicious chocolate chunk shortbread, which were cut out into adorable teapot shapes! (How cute is my crockery btw??)

To make, these cute shortbreads, you will need:
225g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
110g corn flour
225g plain flour
1 pinch of salt
50g dark chocolate
50 milk chocolate


Method:

1) Line your baking trays, either with baking paper or grease with butter.

2) Whisk together the butter and caster sugar until the colour is a pale yellow. This should take a couple of minutes. Don't forget to scrape down the sides of your bowl with the spatula! Sift in the flour, corn flour and pinch of salt into the butter/sugar mixture and mix until combined. I found a wooden spoon easiest for this as corn flour will fluff up and go everywhere...

3) Cut your chocolate into chunks and add to the mixture. If you'd prefer to use pre-chunked chocolate or choc chips, that's also fine! Mix the chocolate in well.Bring the dough together and put it onto some baking paper. Put another piece of baking paper on top and roll out the dough until it is about 1cm thick. The baking paper will stop the dough sticking to your rolling pin!

4) Cut out the biscuits into the shape you want and pop them onto the lined baking tray. After you have cut all your shapes out, put them into the fridge for 30 minutes while your oven is preheating to 170 degrees celcius.

5) Put the biscuits into the oven for 20 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown in colour. Everyone's ovens are different so you may want to check frequently.

6) After cooking, leave the biscuits on the baking tray for a couple of minutes to cool before transferring to a wire cooling rack. I personally made a small tray out of foil to put until my cooling rack. This is because you now want to sprinkle sugar on top of the biscuits, and sugar will go everywhere unless it's contained! Then you're finished :)

Loom Band Butterfly: How To!

So I am late at hopping on the bandwagon, I know! Children are going absolutely mad for these small elastic bands, and I should know: I work in a shop that sells them. We can't get them in stock quick enough, it's ridiculous! And it doesn't look like the trend is slowing down any time soon.

Because I am a serious novice, I won't be making many YouTube videos on how to make "Rainbow Loom" or stretch band (or whatever you call it...) bracelets and charms. There are so many other YouTubers out there who have a lot more skill and talent than me in that area of craft!

We got a new book in at work, called Rubber Band Bracelets by Lucy Hopping and I was having a flick through it and saw something that took my fancy: loom band butterflies! The best part is, you don't even need a loom to make them!

I don't have any sort of "official" hook, so I just used my crochet hook, because I have plenty of them lying around my house... I picked up some bands and went for it.

I can't believe how easy it is to make these little butterflies. I had 4 made in no time at all. You can use these butterflies as charms to enhance the bracelets you're making, but I glued mine onto a hairclip and brooch back so I can wear them that way instead.

Where I Find Patterns: Bead Loom

When I first started make bead loom bracelets, I used other people's patterns because I wanted to be sure that the pattern would work and look good! As my confidence grew, I wanted to experiment a little more with making my own patterns, which I did using BeadTool.

BeadTool allows users to easily create patterns for any beading, be it brick stitch, peyote, square stitch or beading on a loom. You can select the stitch that you want to use, which will change the grid, and select the colours you want to use from the full selection of Miyuki Delica palette listed on the program. Simply select the colour that you require, and draw in the squares! Easy! BeadTools offers a free download of this program so you can try it out, test it and see if it's something you want to buy. It's only £30, which for a beading program, isn't too bad at all! The downside is that with the free trial, you are unable to save your patterns you've created and you also can't screen capture them. I guess it makes sense though.

Another alternative is to use friendship bracelet patterns. My websites of choice for these are http://friendship-bracelets.net and http://braceletbook.com. If you click through to the "alpha" patterns, you will see a grid design, identical to a bead loom pattern! There are hundreds of premade patterns to suit every occasion, but also on both of these websites, you have the opportunity to create your own patterns and submit them to the site, so other people can use them! I have done this for a couple of patterns, such as this one:

 

And this one:

You can then read these patterns just like you would a regular bead loom pattern, where each square is a bead.

Here are a couple of examples:

Source

Source 

 



 

So that is where I find my bead loom patterns! Where are your favourite places to find bead loom patterns?

Delicious Strawberry Yoghurt Ice Lollies!

The boyfriend and I "treated ourselves" to some ice lolly moulds from ASDA a couple of weeks ago. I mean, they were only £2.50 so we were hardly breaking the bank! That evening, we decided to whiz up some strawberries, add some yoghurt and a touch of sugar then freeze them to see what happened. Turns out we'd made delicious lollies!

The lolly mould we've bought (image from ASDA)

We were clever and didn't note down quantities but that day we had enough mixture to make 6 lollies. I decided to film a video for The C of C on YouTube on how I made these, as I'd had a request via my Facebook page so here we go!

To make 5 lollies, you will need:

20 Strawberries (The strawbs I used were pretty small!)
5 tbsp Low Fat Natural Yoghurt
2 tsp Granulated Sugar

Utensils:

Lolly Mould (or yoghurt pots that have been washed out and lolly sticks)
Stick Blender
Spatula
Spoon
Teaspoon
Jug
Chopping Board
Sharp Knife.

Start by hulling the strawberries (this just means taking off the leaves and stalk" and place 15 of them in the jug. Slice the other 5 strawberries thinly and place to one side as these will line our moulds.

Whiz up the strawbs in the jug using the stick blender until there are no lumps left. Scrape excess juice off the blender using the spatula.

Spoon in 5 spoonfuls of the yoghurt and give it a mix. Taste and if it isn't sweet enough for you, add the sugar. I find that 2 tsp is enough, but you can add more if you like.

Line the lolly moulds with the thinly sliced strawberry, just adding slices sporadically. Pour in the strawb-yoghurt mixture.

Gently bang the mould on the counter a couple of times to pop any air bubbles, add your sticks and pop the lollies into the freezer for at least 3 hours.

If you can't get the lollies out of the moulds once frozen, run the mould under some cold tap water for around 10-15 secs and you should find that the lolly comes right out!

Enjoy!

How to Make Bead Loom Bracelets!

Creating beadwork on a loom is something that has been done for centuries by the Native Americans, along with others. It is a quick and easy way to create intricate designs to use for bracelets, necklaces and even headbands!

You can use any size bead you like on a loom; the larger the bead, the quicker it will grow! Here is a video tutorial on how to make your very own beaded bracelet on a loom!

In this video. I use size 10 glass seed beads, thin crochet cotton and Nymo beading thread. Of course I use a loom too! The loom I have is the Jewel Loom by Beadalon.

Let me know if you enjoyed this tutorial and don't forget that you can show me pictures of your own bead looming creations on Instagram, using #TheCornerofCraft!!

Crochet for Beginners: UK Treble Crochet TR (US Double Crochet DC)

Are you starting to see where the US and UK terminology cross over? It gets very confusing when you first start, but try to just stick to just UK or US patterns when you first start so you don't have to try and "translate" them at all :)

So here is my next video, the UK treble crochet or US double crochet! I have had some lovely feedback on my videos and already have some subscribers so thank you so much for your support! Don't forget that you can subscribe too so you don't miss out on any future videos.

Crochet for Beginners: UK Double Crochet DC (or US Single Crochet!)

So the second video that I uploaded to my YouTube channel demonstrates how to do the basic double crochet stitch! For those of you who aren't aware, US and UK crochet terms are different, annoyingly, so where I can, I will try to list the alternative term :)