Soft

Here's my first attempt at making a soft toy doll from scratch, including the pattern/template.

  She doesn't have a name yet. Of course there's a few things I'd change, but I still think she's got a little charm. 





I also had a go at making vegan marshmallows, inventing my own recipe from the gelatine variety that worked so well before.
Using Agar agar flakes is not such an easy substitute, the mixture sets pretty quickly before you can whip it up, but what I ended up with was some pretty tasty soft
vegan jellies!

Recipe:

4 teaspoons agar agar flakes or powder
1 & 1/2 cups water
2 cups raw organic sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla (I prefer vanilla bean paste here)
2 tablebspoons lemon juice
2 tablebspoons maple syrup
1/4 cup coconut - toast if you wish carefully under a grill


Sprinkle agar over water in a saucepan, bring slowly to the boil.
Boil for 5 minutes or until you see the agar has dissolved.
Add sugar and bring to the boil again to dissolve.  Boil for 5 minutes uncovered.
Cool mixture to warm or luke warm.
Pour into a mixing bowl with vanilla & lemon juice and beat for 10-15 minutes on high.
Pour in the syrup slowly whilst beating.
Prepare a tin or chosen container by rinsing with cold water.  Pour in the mixture and refrigerate to set.  This won't take too long.
Once set carve into squares and toss through the coconut.
Mmmm... I've had 3 today already!

My very own stamp!

In a matter of 2 weeks I found a local stamp maker on Etsy, designed and purchased a stamp for my own Etsy store, and wowsers I was impressed.

After some deliberation I cut out a house logo and went just for the text. Being a very stylised font I was worried about how it might turn out. The letters are very thin shapes, but Holly did a fantastic job and better than I ever expected. The font is given a special character by the hand carving and looks very special.

Plus Holly has posted on her own blog, and told of her joy for carving rummer stamps. I'm very glad to help out a fellow local crafter.