Nan's Recipe Kitchen Art

Make personal art for your kitchen using old handwritten recipes.

My maternal grandma, Pearl was a great cook, she had been a kitchen maid and then a cook in a grand house in her young days - think Daisy then Mrs Patmore in Downton Abbey. She gave that up when she married my granddad but still loved to cook, always making everything from scratch. I have a few cookbooks that belonged to my mum and tucked inside I found a few recipes handwritten by my nan.

This one is a recipe for apple cake and I can remember my nan baking this for us. It was delicious. I thought it would be nice to conserve this little bit of family history so I turned my nan's recipe into art to go on the wall in our kitchen. I first shared this idea almost 2 years ago on The Pinning Mama when I was a guest contributor there and this art has been on the wall in our kitchen ever since. As I dusted it the other day I thought it was high time I shared it with you all here.

To make a similar piece of art for your kitchen you will need: A box frame, mine was a 23cm x 23cm Ribba from Ikea A handwritten recipe (ideally you want one from your own family of course but if you don't have one you are welcome to use my nan's - she would have been delighted! Just right click on the picture of it above and then save it on your computer) Coloured card Plastic cutlery Glue for paper - I used a pritt stick Strong PVA glue or hot glue gun Access to a scanner and colour printer

First you want to copy your recipe. We are not cutting up and glueing onto a precious handwritten bit of family memorabilia! Scan, enlarging if necessary and print your recipe - or photocopy in colour, again enlarging if needed. Now cut it to a 20cm x 20cm square. Cut your coloured card to fit exactly inside your box frame.

Mount the recipe copy onto the coloured card with the paper glue. Using the strong pva or hot glue gun, attach the plastic cutlery to the recipe in a pleasing arrangement. I wasn't going to set the world alight with this 'lined up' thing but I like it simple. You can be more adventurous if you want! I used pva and held the cutlery in place by putting mugs on top until the glue set. Pop the art into the box frame and Ta-dah you are finished. It's ready to hang.

A pretty and personal piece of art for your kitchen, or dining room, or any other space you like to eat I guess.

Handmade Monday #25

It's Handmade Monday time!

It's good to have you join us for another Handmade Monday, our weekly craft linky where we share our makes, bakes and other handmade craft ideas and find some new inspiration.
What have you been up to this week? I've been doing some super simple crochet in the evenings when the TV is on. It's a nice denim cotton yarn from DMC which has worked up really nicely.

Here are the features from last week's Handmade Monday:

Teodora Pantings showed step by step how she painted this pretty trinket box. I'm planning to have a try soon but if you don't want to, Teodora has loads of beautiful things she has painted for sale in her Etsy and Folksy shops. 

I think Granny squares are THE thing to start with when you are new to crochet. I love these bags from Alelier Marie-Lucienne, they are so sweet and a fun way to use granny squares.

Congratulations, here is a "Yay! I was featured" button for your blog.

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We are all about sharing and caring here at Handmade Monday so when you do link up please take some time to visit some other links and leave a comment. Plus if you are able do share a few on the social media of your choice. (I know the world of tweets, likes, shares and hashtags is not for everyone so whatever you can do will be much appreciated!)

Every entry to Handmade Monday gets pinned onto our Handmade Monday pinterest board. It's a group board so if you'd like to join and pin your own Handmade Monday entries (save me doing them all!) then just make sure you follow the board on pinterest and send me a message including the email you use for pinterest and I'll invite you.

The rules for Handmade Monday are simple:

• Did you make it? Yes - hooray, we'd love to see it!
• Add the link to a specific blog post, not your main site URL.
• Link up to 3 posts each week.
• Mingle - visit some of the other links - comment - share - let's support one another and grow our craft community.

If you're not sure on anything, more information can be found here.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sheet Music Gift Card Envelopes

Repurpose old sheet music into pretty envelopes for gift cards.

I needed to make a cute gift bag of some sort for the embroidery scissors from last week's giveaway. I came across an old sheet music book when tidying up that came in handy.

I bought book of music in a charity shop at least 30 years ago (eek) when as a teenager I was learning piano. My ridiculously optimistic teenager self thought I would be able to play anything if I practiced enough. Ha ha! The reality was I didn't practice enough and certainly never got to the point where I could play anything in this book! I had used a few sheets for card making a while ago and then forgotten all about it.  I made this simple little flat gift bag and slipped the scissors inside ready to send to the lucky winner.

The gift bag turned out pretty cute and made me think a smaller version might make a nice envelope for giving gift vouchers.   To make you own sheet music gift card envelopes you will need: Old sheet music (any old books would work nicely too) Sewing Machine with an old needle Sewing thread Hole punch Lace or ribbon Optional - stamps and ink pads
Cut 2 8cm x 13cm pieces of sheet music.

Stitch round 3 sides, leaving 1 short side open. 

If you start stitching an inch or so down the side and immediately go backwards to the top, then stitch down the side you won't have to worry about the ends undoing but at the same time you are not perforating the paper more times than necessary.

If you want to, add a design or 2 using any stamps and ink you might have. I don't have masses of stamps, mainly ones that have been free gifts on magazines.

I found bolder, thicker designs worked best. Anything too fine and detailed didn't show well on the busy background. These were my tests on scrap bits of paper.

I like how the brighter colours came out too, I thought gold would be lovely but really it was just a bit disappointing. Maybe embossing it would work ... I'll try that next time.

Next use a hold punch to make 2 holes at the open edge. You could measure, I just eyeballed it. 

Pop in your gift card then thread a length of lace or ribbon through the holes and secure with a bow. A length of about 42cm should be about right. 

I tried lace, thin ribbon (those ribbon loops you get in new clothes are idea), embroidery thread and raffia.

I'm not sure which I like best, the ones with a stamp or the ones without. 

I suggest keeping a sewing machine needle especially for sewing with paper. I used the one I had wrecked a few weeks ago when I made my cork and fabric key ring. I'm now keeping it separately especially for projects like this. Don't ruin a new one!

Handmade Monday #24

Welcome to Handmade Monday,
our weekly craft link up.

Hellooooo and welcome to another Handmade Monday. This is the place to share your makes, bakes and other handmade craft ideas or find some new inspiration.
I hope everyone had a good week, I've been papercrafting with some old sheet music I'd forgotten all about and will have a few projects to share soon.

Here are the features from last week's Handmade Monday:
Don't you just love the hand quilting on this beautiful baby quilt by CJ made? Such a labour of love and such a fabulous gift. 

String art has had such a resurgence recently and I love this beautiful and colourful classroom name sign that My Busy Beehive made for her niece, a newly qualified teacher.

Congratulations, here is a "Yay! I was featured" button for your blog.

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Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML

We are all about sharing and caring here at Handmade Monday so when you do link up please take some time to visit some other links and leave a comment. Plus if you are able do share a few on the social media of your choice. (I know the world of tweets, likes, shares and hashtags is not for everyone so whatever you can do will be much appreciated!)
Every entry to Handmade Monday gets pinned onto our Handmade Monday pinterest board. It's a group board so if you'd like to join and pin your own Handmade Monday entries (save me doing them all!) then just make sure you follow the board on pinterest and send me a message including the email you use for pinterest and I'll invite you.

The rules for Handmade Monday are simple:

• Did you make it? Yes - hooray, we'd love to see it!
• Add the link to a specific blog post, not your main site URL.
• Link up to 3 posts each week.
• Mingle - visit some of the other links - comment - share - let's support one another and grow our craft community.

If you're not sure on anything, more information can be found here.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sharpening your craft punches

How to sharpen your craft punches.

Are you an old skool papercrafter who uses scissors craft knives and punches? I am. Paper is a fantastic medium for crafting, it's relatively inexpensive and really versatile. But over time it does blunt everything you use to cut it.  I was sharpening a few of my punches this week and thought I'd share what I do in case you are suffering from blunt punch syndrome yourself.
I going to be super English here and use all English terminology, where you live you may call this something else but the photos will help! What you need is some thick tin foil. The kind you get pies in from the supermarket, or that your takeaway curry comes in. This seems to work much better than regular kitchen foil as I found that can get caught up in the punch.

First throughly wash and dry the tin foil dish - you don't want bits of pastry or curry in your punches!
Cut the crimped edge and then smooth the foil with a bone folder or wooden lolly stick (popsicle stick - that's a translation I do know!) 
Now punch away - do a handful with each punch you want to sharpen.
You will now have sharper punches and a load of lovely shiny shapes you can use for your crafting.

Just be careful if your foil is very thick as the edges may be a little bit sharp, with the foil I used mine were fine. I tried this with a much thicker foil dish that a joint of meat had come in, one of those where you can simply bung it in the oven - no nasty roasting dish to clean afterwards. I found that was a little too thick and most of my punches wouldn't go through it at all, I'm going to use that for some embossing instead I think.  I'm planning to use these shiny shapes on cards, either just glued on as embellishments or in shaker cards - do you have any more brilliant ideas for me?