Nail polish & wire - Pinterest Wednesday

I saw this pin a while back and thought it was a fantastic idea!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213127823/

I don't think I'd have the patience to create something as beautiful as that, but I quite like what I came up with.

I started off trying a bow:

I had problems with the bow as the circle was too large and I couldn't add enough nail polish to make it stick, so I made a thinner one to practice on:

And finally got it! 

So I created a collection of a few together:

And then painted them with the nail varnish. I'd advise that you first paint around the edges on the inside and let dry to a tacky consistancy, then swirl a full brush around the inside and it should take:

All dry the next morning:

I only had the black nail varnish to hand, but I bet it would look great with pastel colour nail polishes, like the ones from the original pin.

Clementine Chicken - Pinterest Wednesday

It's another food Pinterest post this week, and another bit of a cheaty one as I only got the idea from Pinterest, rather than follow the recipe.

Here is the pin that gave me the idea:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213131305/

I had some clementines to use up and thought this looked great, so decided to give it a go with a twist. I had some onions and rosemary in the fridge so decided to use them too

Please excuse the photo being on it's side, Blogger flipped it for some reason

My recipe is as follows:
3 x clementines
1 x pack of organic chicken pieces (2 thighs and 2 drumsticks)
2 x small onions
2 x sprigs of rosemary
some new potatoes (how ever many you want for 2 people)
a little olive oil
some mustard

I put the chicken in the roasting dish, peeled and then chopped the onions in half, squeezed one clementine over the chicken and sliced up the other 2. Scrubbed the potatoes and sliced into small pieces, added them all to the roasting dish and then striped the rosemary leaves from the stalks and scattered them over everything. Before putting in the oven I brushed the chicken with a little mustard and added a small slosh of olive oil. I then put them in the oven at 180 for about an hour and a half.

I served them on a bed of stir fried kale and courgette:

Etched Wooden Spoons - Pinterest Wednesday

Hi Guys, I came across this pin for etched wooden spoons:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212848984/

I've had a wood burning tool for a while that I saw in Lidl very cheaply a while back and had been looking for an excuse to use it.

My Niece and I gave this a go last weekend, and I think they turned out great!

 
We will be listing some for sale in our Etsy shop over the next week or so (I will add the link when it's up and running).

I hope you're all enjoying 2014 so far xx

Pretzels - Pinterest Wednesday

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hope you're all enjoying 2014 so far! Getting back into exercise after having a break for Christmas has been blooming hard work today, but so worth it. I've definately put on a few pounds over Christmas!

This year, we have a new addition to Emily Joan! My Neice Emily. She will be helping me with Pinterest posts, tutorials, packaging items and helping me out at shows. She may also start selling her own items too =)

So anyway, back to the Pinterest post haha!

I have been wanting to do a food post for a while now and after seeing the large pretzels for sale in Tesco, I decided I wanted to try to make my own.

I came across this pin:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432213025418/

Which is for a video by The Vegan Zombie

Here is the video: 

These were SO good! I definately recommend them! I used butter instead of vegan butter, but you could use vitalite or oil for the vegan version.

Here is my attempt:

I did half with sea salt and the other half with cinnamon sugar. They were absolutely delicious!

Game of Thrones Snowflakes - Pinterest Wednesday

Yeah I know, it's another snowflakes post haha I just really love these, and I'm cheating too as I didn't see these on Pinterest (although mine will be on there in a second). It's Christmas though, so I'm bending the rules ;-p

I had planned on doing a Pinterest food post this week, but it's been SO hectic getting everything ready for Christmas and for college this weekend, so I thought I would share these instead =)

These Game of Thrones templates are by Krystal Higgins and can be downloaded from her website here:

http://www.kryshiggins.com/free-game-of-thrones-inspired-snowflake-patterns/

So here they are, I decided on Targaryen, Stark, Baratheon and Lannister :

I LOVE how they've turned out! I'm putting them up with my star wars ones from my previous blog post

As it is Christmas Day in a weeks time, there will be no Pinterest Wednesday as I will be stuffing my face with my beautiful Husband and seeing family and friends.

I hope you all have an absolutely magical Christmas and I'll see you in 2014 ♥

I'll leave you with a little bit of Michael Buble =)

xxxxxxxxxxx

Print your own wrapping paper - Pinterest Wednesday

I got the idea to print my own wrapping paper after seeing this potato print pin:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212756111/

I decided to give the potato print a try, and am really happy with the results, but I found the cutting of the potato quite fiddly, and the tree part and base ended up in 2 parts. This actually ended up working better though as I was able to print the tree and base without bleeding the paint together:

I then decided to try using a stencil, and decided to try using the star wars snowflakes I did a couple of weeks back (previous post here: http://www.emilyjoan.co.uk/2013/11/star-wars-snowflake-christmas.html )

and here are the results:

I love the storm trooper one! That has already been earmarked for one of my Father in laws presents and the Darth Vader one is pretty cool too, but looks better in the flesh.

I'm going to continue to try out more and more of these and will post the results in my 'homemade Christmas' post in the new year.

Is anyone else making anything as gifts, cards or wrapping? If so, I'd love to see it! Please feel free to message me a link on Twitter or Facebook, or leave a comment below =)

Here is a fantastic Christmas lights show to the sounds of the metal band, Machine Head =)

Make your own Christmas cards - Pinterest Wednesday

I try to make my own Christmas cards each year, if I don't have the time then I buy some charity ones. This weeks pinterest post is more inspired by pinterest, rather than me copying a post.

Here are some fantastic ideas for making your own Christmas cards, starting with the one that inspired me to make the ones I have:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212756152/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212849004/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212829408/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212756084/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212645061/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/365706432212247264/

So to make mine, I used some A4 white card (folded in 2 to make A5), a glue stick, scissors, a compass and pencil, some different colour sharpies, some 'Merry Christmas' hearts that I had typed on my typewriter, some gorgeous tear out patterned paper from Craftseller magazine and a couple of pieces of awesome wrapping paper from gifts I've received that I thought was too beautiful to throw away.

Here are 4 cards that I have made already. I think they're awesome, so I hope the people receiving them think so too. I love the fox, owl and mushroom ones particularly. I just cut out the headshapes from the wrapping paper and glued them to the card. For the other baubles, I used the compass and pencil to draw the circles, cut them out and then stuck them to the card. I decided to do 4 per card as I didn't want to over clutter the cards. I then used a ruler to draw the lines with the sharpies and drew a little bow on the top of each bauble =)

I have left the inside of the cards blank to write a personal message.

I hope you like them and that this has given you some ideas to make your Christmas a little more 'homemade'. 

It's only 3 WEEKS TO GO!!!! I cannot wait!!! =D

Here's a little Shakin' Stevens to make you feel all Christmassy: