Gooseberry Goodness

Gooseberries in my jam making pot.

   I had a surprise yesterday. Our neighbors across the road seem to have adopted us, their kids are all in their late 30's and from what we've heard, not particularly the kind of grown children one is entirely proud of. Anyway, they often chat with us when we bump into them and seem to have taken us under their wing. They have an allotment and occasionally we get their 'allotment leftovers' (the extra stuff they don't want or need). On Tuesday it was a bag full of potatoes, cabbage and rhubarb. But then I got a knock on the door yesterday  and received a bag full of gooseberries.
   I have never eaten a gooseberry before, or any product containing gooseberries. My only experience with gooseberries at all is that they are the only berry that none of my Viva Pinata animals will eat and can't be turned into anything useful by Bart. (Sorry if no one knows what Viva Pinata is, but it's a fun and slightly addictive video game for kids that I really shouldn't like, but I do.) Anywho, out came my trusty jam cookbook, I was pretty sure there was a recipe in there for gooseberries... and sure enough I found it. Although I was a bit disappointed to discover that here too the dear gooseberry had been rather neglected, only got two pages and one recipe, the intro section took up more space then the actual recipe itself. But I set to work and made a small batch. I think I probably got about a pint of jam out of two pounds of gooseberries. I again cut back on the sugar, I think the recipes in the book add too much generally and too much sugar stifles the fruit flavors and since I've never had gooseberry anything I thought I'd like to know what they actually taste like.

Gooseberry Jam.

   I was hoping the finished jam would retain the bright green color of the berries, but sadly it went a bit brownish orange. This could mean I scorched the sugar a bit, so if more of these green gems land in my lap I might try warming the sugar first. I also left the seeds in, the recipe recommended that I strain them out with a food mill, but I don't have a food mill and trying to strain all the pulp through my little plastic sieve wasn't happening. The seeds are really small and seem tender enough so I just left them. Plus they make it look nice in the jars.
   The finished product is nice, not really like anything I've ever had before. Now that I've used them for jam I'm wondering what else gooseberries are good for. I know you can eat them raw but they're a bit sour/bitter so I'm not sure about that. i thought about mixing some in with my next batch of Pims or white wine sangria. If anyone out there has any ideas about how else to use gooseberries please comment and let me know!

Mug Shots

I don't know what the weather has been like wherever you people are, but here in Lancaster it has been horrible. Rain rain rain and yes... more rain. Combined with the inevitable decline of summer television programmes, this is proving fatal for me and my husband. Normally this time of year we get out in the evenings and play a bit of frisbee or tennis or bowls, go for a walk somewhere or just sit in the garden and read for a while. But with all the wet weather I can safely say that neither of us will be suffering from tennis elbow anytime soon. Needless to say we're running short of fun, cheap indoor activities to fill our evenings with.

I recently discovered Pinterest. Yes, I realise I'm about a year and some odd month behind the curve on this one, but I've caught up now and it's like finding a whole new secret part of your house you didn't know about for years... or something on par with that feeling. I have a list of DIY home decor about three pages long, about 15 new hairstyles to try, and half a dozen recipes to attempt. I also found this super fun way of making (cheap) personalized mugs (and plates, bowls, saucers, whatever else you like). So yesterday I ran around town between showers and picked up some supplies (which was really the hardest part of this project, and we set to work on our personalized mugs after dinner.

 So all I needed for this project were plain white porcelain mugs. I got mine for 1.50 each at Sainsbury's because the pound shop and Wilkinson's both let me down, but these will probably hold up better anyway. And some sharpies, I got mine for half price at Ryman's, which was awesome! Altogether I spent under ten pounds for everything. If you happen to already have  sharpies at home well then lucky you.


So basically it was easy, we spent about an hour drawing all over our mugs. I outlined mine in pencil first, because I'm a bit of a perfectionist that way. If 
we messed up a bit we used some nail polish remover and a bit of cotton ball to wipe it off and start over. I just wrote on mine with funky letters, Tom got a bit more creative and put a volcano (surprise surprise) and his token spider on his. Once we finished we popped them into the oven for half an hour at 180 C. When they finished we left them to cool completely and then used them for a cup of tea.

I did find that some of the colors faded/ morphed into different colors in the oven, I couldn't tell you why this happened, but it did. Most of the colors were fine, but the lime green sort of went a browner color and Tom used a bit of yellow which faded and the light blue and teal both came out the same teal shade. Also, the teal ink on my mug seems to be rubbing off a bit, but the other colors are fine, so i might just reapply and rebake. I haven't washed them yet, so I don't know how they'll hold up. But Pinterest posters assure me that it's permanent but hand wash only. If it washes off then we just get another night of fun doing it again!

Anniversary Memories

    I seem to forget I have this blog, and then I remember and my day gets more exciting. I would love to report that the local pick-your-own here in Lancaster has opened, but sadly the weather seems to be interfering with the strawberry's ability to ripen... or indeed survive at all. So no jams, jellies or preserves as of yet, but my small jar of Marmalade based income seems to be growing, the office types where my husband works are loving the stuff. So as long as I continue to ignore the fact that I have enough saved up for a new blouse, I shall have plenty to church out some strawberry jam as soon as the farm opens for business.

The header to our seating chart.

    But for now I have some other plans. In one week from today my husband and I will celebrate our first anniversary, which I find very exciting and rather unbelievable, time flies when you're having fun or so they say. Anyway, I found myself looking through some of our wedding photos today and remembering all the find I had DIYing for our wedding, realised that I hadn't posted any of it yet and thought I'd better get on it pronto. I might plug a couple of the local small businesses we used too, apologies, but they were so good to us and did amazing work! Most of the photos are from my dear friend and fantastic wedding photographer, Liz Kenny, so if you're impressed and want her details let me know!

My hand beaded veil.

    The very first project I did myself after we got engaged was my veil. I had gone with my mom and sisters to buy my dress while I was back home in the states for a few months (courtesy of UK immigration services) and had been pleasantly surprised by the cost of my dress but shocked at the prices they listed for accessories. A simple, single tier veil with a beaded hem was in the region of $100! Being on a tight budget I thought, "well I'll just not wear a veil then", but my mom and a couple friends talked me around and I started to consider it. I took a trip to the craft store to find some supplies for my next DIY project and came across a simple plain single tier veil for $5. It needed some sprucing up so I visited a fantastic bead store in Highlands Ranch Town Center, Beadniks, which may not be there anymore, but what a fantastic store! I explained to the lady on staff what I was doing and she helped me find everything I needed, beads, a special thin and flexable needle and even the right thread to use. It took me a whole weekend of Dr. Who episodes on Netflix, but the result was fantastic and meant alot more because I'd done it myself, plus it only cost about $20.

Our invitations.

    My next project while I was USA bound was the wedding stationary. I didn't have a huge budget to order personalised invitations, and none of the DIY kits at the craft store felt right for me. So I embarked on a mission to make my own. Now having done this, if I were to do it again, I wouldn't. It took ages and although I was happy with the result, it wasn't worth the time or the money, the DIY kits worked out cheaper and would have been much less of a headache to put together. Granted I did pick a challenging design. But I had fun doing it at the time and being creative. I did a pocket envelope out of thick ply card, lined with scrapbooking paper and printed everything using Microsoft Word. I ordered the envelopes online. The save the dates were really cute, but I don't have a picture of them right now, can't remember what I did with my wedding scapbook.

   

    Back in the UK I really got going, with under a year left and a lot to get done my creative self was under pressure. I had seen a friend's take on a wedding guestbook while I'd been back in Colorado (thanks Karmen!) and loved the idea of doing a photo frame (or two) to hang up and see all the time instead of a guestbook that would get tucked away somewhere and rarely seen. So I picked up some tagboard and pens from Hobbeycraft and cut them to the size of the frames we wanted, found a couple of our engagement photos that we both liked and used some double sided tape to stick them on. Great because I can swap out the pictures for wedding photos (if I ever get around to it).

    By this point we'd chosen our reception venue, The Cross Barn, and I was trying to come up with simple and efective ways of decorating the walls given the restrictions on budget and that the venue had for hanging things from the walls and ceilings. I decided to make some bunting, it matched my DIY, English summer theme and would be easy to get up there on the day without spoiling the effect of the Barn's interior. I was short a sowing machine so I did it all by hand, which was a bit of a challenge. I think it turned out great and loads of people mentioned how understated and nice it was.
    I also did our seating chart myself, the photo at the top is of the header. I had a lot of leftover odds and ends from making the stationary and decided I'd rig up a seating chart with it. I cut out little name tags for each guest and strung them on leftover ribbon, then attached the ribbons to a large piece of tagboard under the table number. We had banquet seating at long tables. I made the table number cards for the tables using tagboard, a home-made stencil and sponge painting. Tom's mum wrote all the place cards by hand for us, just plain craft store bought place cards in white. And we glued the little blue bows (another Hobbycraft purchase) onto them afterwards.

Place cards handmade by Tom's mum.

    I think perhaps my best stroke of genious was to make my own favours. I struggled a long time with what to do to match the theme, create something that people would actually remember and appreciate, and not spend a small fortune. I had considerd buying small pots of local honey or jam, but I discovered this was easier said then done. My mom then suggested that I make my own, which was a brilliant idea and I felt silly for not thinking of it before. So I ordered my little jars from Jam Jar Shop and looked up recipes. I made Strawberry, Raspberry, Peach and Marmalade. I bought some scrap fabric and ribbon form my local fabric store and made little toppers. the tags came from WHSmith and I hand wrote them myself. The jams were by far my greatest DIY success, and I have had some many compliments about both the idea and the jam. It was one of the reasons I decided to start blogging about my jam making in the first place. Although as it turns out there's not been a lot of jam making going on recently.

 I did most of the table decorations myself, with the help of friends and family. I bought the candle lanterns from Ikea and filled the bases with ivy cut around my in-laws home in Hampshire. The table runner was from Hobbycraft. The flowers I did myself with the help of my sister, I bought bunches of cheap flowers from the supermarket and simply cut them to length and arranged them in pasta jars I had saved and cleaned out over the course of a few months. Simple, inexpensive and really suited the theme and style whereas flourist centrepieces would have felt too formal and stuffy.
    Finally I have to give some lip service to the fantastic crafty tradespeople we did use, because they did such a fantastic job and it all came out exactly as I had pictured it in my head all along. My beautiful bouquet and my sister's posies were created by Charlotte and her team at Moutan in Hartley Wintney. I was so pleased with how it came out, exactly as I'd pictured it, and I don't know how they did it with as little information as they got from me, but it was perfect!
And another special thanks goes out to Lesley at Bespoke Bakery, our cake was not only beautiful, but also very very yummy. We had half a dozen guests at our wedding with gluten allergies and she did the entire cake gluten free for us and most people didn't have a clue.
    If you are planning a wedding and want any advice on any of these projects or any other DIY wedding ideas, please contact me. I had such a great time doing all this stuff and would love to share some of my knowledge with you!