Hello! Hooray! blog
I really believe that it is so important to take time out to be creative, so here on my blog you will find lots of ideas of things to do in your creative time.
We spend so much of our lives focussing on our day jobs that we often miss out on time for making, but finding even small amounts of time to create something with our hands can have a big impact on our productivity and well-being.
Chicken Tikka Masala
I love a good curry, and have recently discovered The Hairy Bikers’ Great Curries book, which has pretty much every curry and side dish you’d ever want to make in it! I have to say that now I’ve made my first one from scratch (yes, I’m happy to admit that!) I’m going to make them…
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The handmade Christmas gift challenge
This year, me and Tom decided that we’d make each other a Christmas present with a budget of £10. I’ve been meaning to get around to making Christmas stockings, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity! I found a lovely template in issue 33 of Mollie Makes magazine – it is originally a template for…
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Merry Christmas!
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, wherever you are! This is Roger the reindeer (he doesn’t really enjoy Christmas – can you tell?!) 🙂
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Tutorial: Mini Christmas cards and envelopes
This year I decided to make mini Christmas cards and envelopes (well, A7 sized ones). This was because I found some super cool Christmas pudding paper (made by Vivid but I bought it in Fenwicks in Newcastle) that I wanted to cut up and stick on to a card, and I decided that a…
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Christmas Shortbread
If you’re looking to make something a little bit different to mince pies this year, then look no further! Tom’s Mum made these last year and they’re absolutely delicious – replacing the pastry with shortbread is a stroke of genius and they are perfect for a super-sweet treat. Helen found this recipe in the Cumbria…
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Tynemouth winter gallery
Last Sunday we visited the beach at Tynemouth with some friends who made the long journey up from Essex to visit us. It turned out that it was the furthest North they had ever been, so we tried to show them as many sights as possible (look out for more posts this week!). The light…
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The making of my Christmas jumper 2013
I LOVE Christmas jumpers, and thankfully for me they’ve made a big comeback over the past few years! Last year I made a Rudolph jumper (which I wore again this weekend for our traditional Christmas walk) and so I’ve been wondering what I should make for this year. And then I saw it (on Pinterest…
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Jam-filled butter biscuits
You can never have too many biscuits – and I say that because my last post was also a biscuit post! These biscuits (which are also known as Sables) look snazzy but are really easy to make. I made these with my lovely friend Tiffany – we decided to make two different shaped batches with…
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Amaretti biscuits
If you’re thinking about giving a handmade gift this Christmas, this would make a great present. And if you’re not thinking about that, you should make them anyway! 🙂 Almond is one of my favourite flavours, so I doubt that these biscuits will last long. I followed the instructions below for my first batch which…
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Venison stew
I’m using one of my current favourite ingredients again for this recipe! I found the original recipe here, and as usual there are a few minor differences – the biggest being that the original recipe serves 8, but the amounts given below will serve 4.
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Instagram gallery: November 2013
Here’s my Instagram gallery for November – a month when my blog stats went mad thanks to my Cath Kidston travelling craft suitcase! 🙂 Follow me on Instagram – @somanyclare 🙂
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Sticky honey, almond and banana cake
We have friends staying this weekend and I’m a firm believer that there should always be cake in the house when people come to stay. So I made this old favourite – it’s actually the only way me and Tom will eat bananas! I use my brownie pan to make this sticky honey almond and…
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Tutorial: How to make photo cards
Photo cards are really simple to make, and you can customise them for every occasion. I do find myself looking at a view and thinking ‘that would make a lovely card’, so be warned – once you’ve started, you’ll always be looking for that perfect photo! You just need a few simple things to be…
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Leek, goat’s cheese and crispy bacon risotto
This is a really delicious risotto and it only takes 30 minutes to cook (plus 10 minutes preparation), so it can easily be made on a weeknight for a treat! Tom isn’t a massive fan of cheese but he loved this – we put extra leek in instead of celery as neither of us…
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Winter sun(flower)
I was out and about today and spotted this gorgeous sunflower! This is certainly not something I would expect to see in Newcastle in November – it was like a little ray of sunshine! 🙂
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Vintage buttons
I’ve known our family friend Madge since I was a little girl, and even after I moved away we’ve kept in touch and I try and write letters to her as often as I can. She’s always been a knitter, but at the age of 93 has had to give it up now. Madge has…
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Tutorial: How to make lined envelopes
Earlier this year I decided to share my trade secrets about how to make envelopes, and I was really pleased with how popular the post was! So I thought it was about time that I do a second envelope tutorial, but this time showing you how to make lined envelopes. They are really good…
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Eve’s pudding
If you’re looking for a bit of sweet comfort food, then look no further! This recipe is from the BBC Food website and serves 6, but we just halved the amounts here (and left out the raisins because Tom doesn’t like them!). We had a huge batch of cooking apples from our neighbour, so I…
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Venison and ale pie
Venison is such a lovely meat, and I recently discovered that they sell it in our local supermarket. It’s a lean and tasty meat, and as I’d found some diced venison I decided to try out making a pie with it. I found the original recipe for this on allrecipes.co.uk but that one serves 10…
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Felt Christmas decorations
There are some lovely felt Christmas decorations in this month’s edition of Mollie Makes magazine, and I just had to have a go at making them! They have been designed by Samantha Stas, and she has decorated them in a fabulous retro style. Samantha stitches hers on a sewing machine but I decided to do…
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Creamy chicken, squash and sage pasta bake
This recipe started out as squash, ricotta and sage pasta bake – a recipe I found on the BBC Good Food website. I thought this sounded really tasty, but the comments at the bottom of the page were pretty mixed and many people had added their own ingredients! So I’ve done that, but a bit…
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DIY travelling craft suitcase
I’ve been planning this crafty project for months now (as is often the case) and last weekend I finally got around to making it! If I’m going travelling then I usually want to take some sort of crafty stuff to be working on while I’m away, but this usually means that I end up looking…
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Pac Man iced biscuits
We’ve had these Pac Man cookie cutters since last Christmas and have been meaning to make them ever since then! This week there was a good reason to do it – our friend Kimberley had an 80s themed roller disco for her birthday, so this was perfect. They are really easy to make but…
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Watercolour birthday cards
Our lovely friend Rachel celebrated her 30th birthday this week, and I wanted to make her a special card for the day. Ages ago, I got some gorgeous Inktense watercolour pencils from Derwent (we went to visit the pencil museum at Keswick, which was amazing!). I’m not very good at drawing or painting, but these…
Read MoreA little bit about me and my blog
I have certainly found that being creative has helped to improve my mental health over the past few years. I find that when I have the space to take time out to be creative, I feel like I am working on something positive for me. Craft can't fix everything, but it certainly makes me feel good!
I am passionate about being creative with my children as well as working on my own projects, so some of my posts will discuss how we juggle our family time with running a small business and everything else in between.
Do feel free to get in touch, either by commenting on a post or by completing the contact form.
