50 Etsy hearts!

Exciting news! It's Second Fiddle's first prize giveaway!

I now officially have over 50 hearts on Etsy and I thought I would mark the occasion with a giveaway!

The prize is one of my little velcro purses, you can see the one I have for sale on my Etsy shop or photos below. Except yours will be tailor (or Taylor!) made to suit you.

If you win, you can email me with your likes and dislikes in terms of colours, patterns etc (e.g. I like reds, blues and greens, floral, chintz and polka dots. I dislike yellow and cartoon characters) and I will try and make a purse to suit you personally.





Now, here's how to enter. It's pretty simple, just comment below to say you're interested AND (and this is the important part!) post a link to my blog or etsy shop on your blog/facebook/myspace etc. I know it's shameless advertising but I want to do another giveaway when I have 10 sales so all help is needed!

The closing date for entering is Halloween, so I'll be picking a winner using a random number generator on the 1st of November.

So remember, all you have to do is post a link somewhere back to my blog or Etsy shop and then comment below to say you've done so. Maybe linking me to where you've linked me might be an idea!

Good luck everyone! ♥

Elderberry Wine

It's taken me weeks, but last week I finally managed to get my elderberry wine started. It all began when driving to uni one day, I noticed a massive elderberry bush by the side of the road and had a sudden urge to make homebrew. Using this recipe off the BBC's H2G2 website (Douglas Adam, you are sorely missed) I set to work.

I gathered my berries, got the spices, raisins and yeast and borrowed a demijohn off Ellie.





Soaking for 24 hours:



In the process of simmering for an hour:



In the demijohn to ferment for 2 weeks!

Quince brandy and finally finished beetroot

So, I know I'm super sad, but I've started making Christmas presents already. Only because I've got a week of exams the week before Christmas and so from now until then I'm going to be stressing about studying, rather than wanting to craft. So I thought I'd get a head start this weekend.

I got the idea and recipe for quince brandy out of this lovely book given to me by my good friend Vicky. I thought it would make a perfect gift for my grandparents, since they've got everything they'll ever want or need, plus more besides. And they both like drinking, as all true Taylors do.

I got the quince off a sweet guy on Freecycle, bought the bottle from Ikea for £2 and used Tesco own brand brandy and spices. All together the ingredients and bottle came to about £10 so it's not too bad for those on a budget.







Whilst I was busy making labels for the brandy bottle, I thought I'd make one for the beetroot I pickled a week ago. I didn't really like the label since my handwriting is a bit boring, if I could write in a continental-style swirly cursive then I'd be sorted.

Upcycled tin can pencil pot

I made this over the summer, I can't remember where the idea came from but I'm pretty pleased with it. It needs some tweaking, mainly with dimensions since it seems to always come out either too large or too small but eventually I'd like to make a couple more for my Etsy shop.

In the meantime though, I use this one in my study and another one (photos to follow) in the kitchen. I keep planning on making Andrew a Transformers themed one but I've yet to find the right fabric.







This one came out too big and so when you fasten the velcro there's a large overhanging lip. It looked a bit silly so I tied the ribbon round it to hold down the flappy bit and I thought it looked quite cute like that. Just goes to show, sometimes cool ideas come out of mistakes!

It's just a piece of scrap material, backed with white cotton with batting in the middle. It fastens round an old tin can, cleaned out obviously. I like the way you take something you were going to throw away (well, recycle) and turn it into something pretty and functional ♥

Andrew's birthday present

Last summer Andrew went on a charity car rally, driving from London to Mongolia for Save the Children. He was gone for 6 weeks in total and came back hairy and smelly but full of exciting stories about exotic places I'll probably never have the chance to visit. Since then he's been obsessed with the idea of getting a large world map, sticking it to a wooden backing board and putting map pins in it, to show the route they took. His idea was that we would both add to it with our future travels and holidays and he's been searching Gumtree pretty much every day since he came back for the perfect map.

But I got there first

I found a guy living in a newly built estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh (so newly built that the TomTom and street map combined couldn't get me there and I had to ring the poor guy every 10 minutes to work out where I was going) selling a large world map for £15. "Bargain!" I thought, completely discounting the measurements and frequent use of the word 'large'.

When I turned up with my little Corsa, it swiftly became obvious that this monster of a map wasn't going in the car in any great hurry. 5 feet long by 3 feet wide, the only way I could get it in was by bringing both front seats as far forward as they could go and taking the head rests off. The back seats were then folded down and the map slid in at a diagonal until it was resting on the top of the front seats. I drove all the way home with my knees up by my ears (almost) and the map floating precariously about half an inch above my head.

It was all worth it in the end though. I collaged some photos and ephemera around the edge and presented it to Andrew on his birthday last week. He was delighted and is already planning on spending next Saturday carefully plotting their route in map pins. Small things eh?







Oh, I almost forgot to say. The hat in the last photo is one that I knitted him as part of his going-away pack. It came out the weirdest shape but he took it all the way there and all the way back. It's an exceedingly well traveled hat, even if you can't see the weird pointy end that I cunningly tucked behind itself. F7 F7 was their team name by the way and Dyce is obviously Andrew's surname.

Beetroot

Here we go, the promised photo of the finished pickled beetroot! Not that it's anything spectacular, but just because I want to share.

I wish I could print my Second Fiddle banner onto labels and type the contents underneath, it would look super professional, even though it's just for me to eat!

Nom nom nom...

Oh my goodness it's been almost a month since I last updated! I would be much better at updating but real life keeps getting in the way :-( I'm also rubbish at remembering to take photos of things I've made and seen *hangs head*. But! I resolve to be better so watch this space, it's a work in progress...

Recently I've been quite into baking, especially with home grown food. I've decided to put in a veg garden in the shared garden downstairs so look out for future gardening posts! In the meantime though the Windowsill Farm continues to flourish, with a pepper plant being the latest addition.

I baked this yummy apple and bramble crumble a few weeks back with bramley apples from my grandparents garden and brambles picked whilst out with the dog. It was scrumptious even if I do say so myself!



I had a very domesticated weekend that weekend and pickled some beetroot, also homegrown by my grandparents. I've just got to write a label for the jar and it'll all be finished! In the meantime though, here's the photos of the pickling process...

Boiling the beetroot (what a lovely colour)


Cutting it up ready for pickling


Photos of the finished product over the weekend, promise!