Stretchers, Gauges & Plugs

Stretchers, Gauges & Plugs

I have my 4mm stretchers, but I always want some new, prettier or original gauges. And I started making my own from polymer/Fimo clay, only to realise that a lot of shops selling stretchers don't have a wide variety (in colour, shapes and designs).

I've made these so far, and I'm selling (^_^)

PS: Fake gauges will be available too. I know of a lot of people who would rather have fake gauges, than stretching their earlobes for real.

The Spinach, Feta & Biltong Savory Muffins

 This is a delicious recipe, where I used fresh spinach, feta with black pepper corns and beef biltong (beef 'jerky').

The Spinach, Feta & Biltong Savory Muffins

The Spinach, Feta & Biltong Savory Muffins

What You Need:

• 2 Cups of freshly chopped spinach
• 200g Feta, crumbled
• 100g Finely chopped biltong
• 2 Cups self-raising flour
• 125g Melted butter
• 1 Cup milk
• 2 Eggs

How To Make The Muffins:

Firstly, preheat the oven to 180 Degrees Celsius.

Step 1:
Mix the eggs, butter, milk, feta, biltong and spinach into one large mixing container.

Step 2:
Add the flour to the mixture, and try to mix the ingredients as little as possible, as this will ensure that the muffins will come out moist.

Step 3:
Scoop dough into greased muffin pans, about 2/3 full and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes: The Best

This is so far the best recipe I have ever tried for cupcakes, and it's dark chocolate! The cupcakes come out moist, soft, fluffy and yet dense, so to say perfect, and then they're covered in dark chocolate gnash.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

What You Need For The Cupcakes:

• 1/2 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa
• 1 Cup Cake Flour
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Salt
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 Cup Warm Water
• 1/2 Cup Buttermilk
• 1/4 Cup Canola Oil
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

How To Make The Cupcakes:

Firstly preheat the oven to 180 Degrees Celsius and this recipe makes about 24 cupcakes.

Step 1:
Sift all dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl

Step 2:
Then add egg, water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract.

Step 3:
Mix the ingredients, and then with a electric whisk, beat the mixture for 3 minutes.

Step 4:
Fill the cupcake cups 2/3 full

Step 5:
Bake for 18-20 minutes and allow to cool down before adding icing/gnash.

What You Need for Chocolate Gnash:

• 1/2 Cup Thick Cream
• 200g Roughly Chopper Dark Chocolate

 

How To Make Gnash:

Step 1:
Pour cream into a pot and bring to boil

Step 2:
Pour boiling cream over roughly chopped chocolate, which is in a large mixing bowl.

Step 3:
Mix the hot cream with the chocolate, which will allow the chocolate to melt. You can also use a electric hand whisk, and keep mixing until thick and creamy.

Step 4:
Allow gnash to cool down to room temperature.

Step 5:
Cover cupcakes with gnash

Take Note:

• If you think your gnash is too soft or not sweet enough for you, you can always add 1/3 cup sifted icing sugar.

Butter Beer

Butter beer, firstly has no alcohol involved, but you can always spice things up with vodka (please refer to my 'Take Note'). But even without the alcohol, this hot drink is really nice and comforting with the sweet flavours and holiday tastes. And to be honest this is more than just for Harry Potter fans, this is for anyone who would love a warm drink on any cold weather.

Recipe for Butter Beer

What You Need:

• 1 Mug Milk
• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 2 Tbsp Sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
• 1 Dash of Ground Cinnamon

How To:

Step 1:
In a pot or deep pan, melt the butter and add the sugar. Allow the sugar to caramelise.

Step 2:
Once the sugar has caramelised, add the milk, vanilla essence and cinnamon and keep stirring.

Step 3:
As soon as the butter beer boils, remove from heat and pour into a mug.

Step:4
Serve immediately.

Note:

• Watch out for burning the sugar/caramel on the stove.
• Be careful when taking your first sip from the butter beer, it might be hotter than what it seems.
• When you want to add the booze kick to it, then I suggest one or two shots vodka after the boiling & pouring into a mug. Otherwise you would boil away the alcohol.

Making Mini Magnets

Mini Glitter Magnets

I saw this on some other website and I thought of sharing this awesome idea.

What You Need:

• glass pebbles, preferably plain clear pebbles
• glitter, colour of your choice
• modge podge
• magnets, I bought a magnet strip which I cut into small squares
• super glue

Step 1:

With a brush, dab a generous amount of modge podge on the flat side (base) of the glass pebble. Place them on a sheet of paper, with modge podge side up.

Step 2:

Sprinkle glitter over the modge podge and allow to dry completely (wait preferably a day, but if you're in a hurry wait 12 hours)

Step 3:

When completely dry, shake off the excess glitter and then paint over with modge podge again. This will make sure that the glitter stays on the glass pebbles. Yet again, wait for the modge podge to dry.

Step 4:

Cut your magnet sheet into small squares (smaller than the glass pebble) and then stick the magnet with super glue onto the pebble.

Magnet stuck on

Note:

• Check that the strongest side of the magnet is NOT the side stuck onto the glass pebble. 
• If you don't want to use glitter, think outside the box: cut small hearts out, small photos or print small words out and with the modge podge stick the images on the back of the pebble. 
• Or paint patterns with glass paint on the pebbles.

Creative Vintage Shelves

I love having many shelves and I hate boring bland things. So this time I decided to decorate my shelves before putting them up on the wall.

The final look of a shelf

Firstly, get some wooden planks, which will become your shelves. I then took some newspapers, modge podge, sandpaper, stain&seal wood stain (rustic yellow) and I even had some washi tape.

Step 1:

Apply modge podge to the plank and cover the top with newspaper cuttings (or paper, patterned paper, serviettes of your choice). Rub out most air bubbles by using a brush, and paint more layers of modge podge over (I did another 2 layers).

Step 2:

When completely dry, I used the sand paper around the edges and over the newspaper. This gives it a more torn and used look, which is what I want.

Step 3:

Paint over with the stain&seal wood colour. I painted two layers, giving each layer a chance to dry properly.

First layer of wood stain

Second layer of wood stain

Step 4:

After the wood stain has dried properly, and remember to paint both sides of the plank otherwise it looks silly (or at least it looked silly to me), you can put your shelves up.

Shelves up

Step 5:

I think this step is optional, but I felt like something was missing. I used washi tape on the sides of each shelf.

Washi Tape

Note:

• You don't have to use newspaper to cover your shelves, in fact any paper will look good and serviettes can be used as well.
• When using serviettes, remember that they consist of 3 layers. You need to remove the layers carefully and only use the printed layer. Work carefully, as this thin layer tears easily.
• You can cut your paper into different shapes, for example stars and cover the shelves with stars. 

Muesli Snack Bars

Muesli Snack Bars

I came up with this recipe, because I wanted something sweet but not the guilty conscience of having too much sweet.  I invented this recipe, adding nuts, seeds and fruit to conquer my sweet craving and giving a kick of energy.

Here's what you need:

• 3 cups of Muesli (flavour/grain of your choice. I took tropical)
• 2/3 cups of self-raising flour
• half cup sunflower seeds
• half cup linseed
• half cup pumpkin seeds
• half cup sesame seeds
• half cup of nuts (almonds/ peanuts/ cashews)
• 1 cup of chopped mixed dried fruit
• 2 eggs
• 4 large tablespoons of melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar (brown/white) *optional
• 2 slabs of 90g dark chocolate, chopped *optional

Here's how to make them:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
• Mix the melted butter with the muesli and flour. Then add the eggs and sugar to the muesli mixture.
• Add all the seeds, nuts and fruit to the muesli mixture, and mix the ingredients well.
• Take a greased pan, with baking/wax paper, and press out the mixture in the pan. Take note this is a sticky mess, and it's easier to press down the muesli with a spoon. 

muesli mixture

muesli mixture

• Bake for 20-25minutes or until golden brown
• About 5minutes before taking out the muesli bars, sprinkle the chopped chocolate over and place the pan back into the oven. This will allow the chocolate to melt.

spread chocolate and sprinkle some nuts

• When the muesli snack bars are done baking, the chocolate has melted. Spread the chocolate out evenly and if you want to, you can even sprinkle some nuts over the melted chocolate.
• Allow to cool down properly (chocolate will be hard)
• Cut into squares or small bars

Muesli Snack Bars

Notes:

• I used dried apricots, mango, goji berries, coconut, cranberries, raisins, dates, apple, banana
• Sugar & chocolate are both optional. I baked the other day without sugar, and the bars came out fine. I cut out sugar when I use more fruit.
• When adding chocolate chips to the bars, the chocolate melts and goes to the bottom of the bars. So I recommend experimenting, having the chocolate at the bottom or top.
• Keep bars in airtight containers

Jalapeno Pizza Balls

So I had an experiment with pizza and having it bite size, and I came up with pizza balls.

Jalapeno Pizza Ball

What you need:

• Bread dough
• mozzarella cheese, grated
• 2 pickled jalapeno peppers, seeded
• tomato paste
• garlic, 2-3 cloves
• egg-wash (one egg whisked with 1-2 tablespoons of milk)
• some dried herbs of your choice

How to make Pizza Balls:

• First of all heat the oven up to 180 degrees Celsius.
• Chop up the jalapeno and the garlic finely, and then to make things easier, mix these two ingredients with the tomato paste.
• Then take a ball of raw bread dough, the size of a smallish tennis ball.

flatten dough

• Flatten the dough slightly

smear paste with jalapeno & garlic

• Smear the paste mixture onto the flattened dough

Add mozzarella

• Top up with mozzarella cheese

fold dough edges towards the middle

• Fold the sides over the cheese, making sure you don't tear the dough at the bottom.

fold dough edges towards the middle

pinch the dough

• Pinch the dough so that the edges stick 

raw jalapeno pizza balls

• If your dough ball is flat, gently hold the dough and form a ball. Then place these balls onto a greased baking pan.

egg-washed & sprinkled with herbs

• 'Paint' egg-wash onto balls and sprinkle your herb of choice over. Bake for 45minutes or until golden brown.

Jalapeno Pizza Ball done!

Jalapeno Pizza Ball cut in half

Tips:

• You can add any pizza toppings of your choice
• Instead of herbs on top of the balls, you can add some diced bacon or cheddar
• I used brown bread dough, but white bread dough is just as nice.