I Made...Chilli Jam!

I started Christmas shopping in October, so I'm not entirely sure how it's wound up being the 21st December and I've still not quite finished, but hey hum pig's bum. If you're in the same shaped boat, then just pop out, get yourself some sugar and start cracking out pots of chilli jam!

Here's how to do it... (Thanks to Nigella for the help).

1. Sterilise your jam jars.
To do this, wash them in warm soapy water, rinse, then pop in the oven upside down at gas mark 1 and leave for 30 minutes. (This is very important to do. I'm not sure why, but it is. Hygienic and nice.)
2. Core and deseed 150g of red chillies and 150g of red peppers. 
3. Whizz them up in a blender until all little and red and flecky. 
4. Put 1kg of jam sugar in a large saucepan and pour over 600ml of cider vinegar. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves. (Don't stir. Again, not sure why. )
5. When dissolved, pop in the chilli and peppers and bring to a 'rollicking' boil. (Nige's words not mine).. 
6. Boil for 10 minutes then take off the heat and leave to cool for 40 minutes until the flecks have all dispersed throughout the jam. 
7. Spoon into your jam jars and seal with lids.
8. Merry Christmas! 

Cut the chillies and peppers. Or make faces with them.

Add flecks to the dissolved sugar mixture

Rollicking.

Flossie Teapot Top Tips...

- DO NOT touch ANY part of your body between the time frame of chopping the chillies and washing your hands.
- Don't force the blender lid on as it will get stuck and you will regress into a guilty child while your dad lectures you on the importance of NOT FORCING THINGS.

PS. If you'd like to see me ride a human reindeer and do the season's most dubious David Attenborough impression, then click HERE and it'll take you over to Fun Kids' YouTube page. I know.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve!

x

Weekend Roundup: Pin The Nose On The Reindeer and a Fine Christmas Cheese Selection

I'm slowly losing patience with myself. My nana-isms are getting worse. Firstly, I played scrabble on Friday. Now don't get me wrong, scrabble is a great game and I'm still pretty immobile with my leg, but still. I played scrabble on a Friday and lost. (Nertz is apparently a word). We had a Christmas party in the flat on Saturday (more on that later... hold those little Shetlands), and I spent a large part of it whittling about a) when to put the sausage rolls on and b) why nobody was eating my Christmas cheese selection. Finally, I've forgotten what was on my Christmas list (I got quite excited and wrote it about two months ago) and am dismayed to find out that I've asked for... a cook book, some knickers and two nice bath towels. I kid you not.

Anyway, back to the Christmas party. It was a blooming lovely day, seeing lots of faces and drinking mulled wine for nine hours straight. There was even a decorate-your-own-Christmas-biscuit station AND a pin the nose on the reindeer. Don't nobody say I don't know how to throw a party. Perhaps the best bit was when someone decided to put on the 'partay' playlist on my Spotify, only to discover it was 42 tracks of McFly's greatest hits. I honestly don't remember compiling that. I just think Spotify knows me too well.

I also added to the festive decorations with a homemade tree garland from the leftover card I had from making the robin Christmas cards.

Lastly, I was back presenting Them this weekend after a week off. If you'd like to have a little look while on a mulled wine break you can check it out here... http://bit.ly/1brvIvq

I'm off to try and revise my Christmas list

x

Christmas and Crutches

Some of you may or may not know that me and my left knee are not the best of friends. For those who are unaware, I dislocated my left knee quite badly 5 years ago, and since then it has the wonderful habit of slipping out occasionally, often while I'm cracking out some of my not-quite-strictly moves. Well on Friday it decided to do it again pretty badly during a pirouette or similar move. So here I am, in a cast, with crutches, with only Phil and Holly for company. 

As much as I love feeling sorry for myself I'm going to stop. Because despite being sofa-bound, Christmas has still managed to arrive in our little London flat. 

I had my heart set on a real tree this year, so Steve went out and dutifully bought this little baby for me. I somehow underestimated the whole bauble/tree ratio, and my 3 homemade baubles aren't quite cutting it. But I think he has a bit of charm about him all the same! 

Before all this palava happened I managed to get on the ice at Somerset House for some outdoor ice skating. I hadn't been ice skating since I was 14, so did a rather good Bambi impression for the first ten minutes. It's SUCH good fun though, and if you can get to Somerset House, it's worth it just for the setting. Skating around to a lit-up backdrop of the building is pretty beautiful. Pop it on your list of things to do. 

I'm determined to play hostess with not the mostess on Saturday and host an afternoon of mulled wine, mince pies and Mariah sing alongs so everyone can admire our tree and his bountiful decorations. I'm going to insist on no dancing allowed though (well for me anyway) as I'm quite fond of my other knee.

 Hope you're all having a marvellous Christmas run-up so far! 

x

Round Robins

On Saturday I did one of those things you always dream about doing, but rarely ever do... a FULL ON pyjama day. My reindeer print Primark jamas never once came off, the duvet was transferred to the sofa and the cuppas/hot chocolates were kept on a loop. It was beautifullll. Apart from when I had the clever idea of watching a nice Saturday afternoon film and chose My Sister's Keeper and I disintegrated into a blithering snotty mess.

Despite the pyjama situation, I was pretty productive - (as much as I love a day doing nothing, I can't actually do nothing. If that makes sense. I get too fidgety.) - and so got all my Christmas cards made. What started off as a simple idea steadily became more fiddly and time consuming, so it took me all morning to make twenty, but I'm a-pretty happy with the results!

I printed a template from online, and bought a mammoth piece of brown card. I then used red felt for the belly, stencilled and painted a wing on each, before sticking a card wing on top. I then stitched in the eyes, and just have the ribbon to attach. In total I spent about £3, and I've still got a load of card left over. That sounds like the worst boast ever. Check out my left-over card. Oo-er.

I just need to attach some gingham ribbon in a loop at the top -  the idea is that these can be hung anywhere, so can turn from card into decoration... fancy ehhhh!?

But someone's stolen my glue gun... (ie. I've definitely lost it).

PS How come I've only just got into Pinterest?!

x

Bublé and Baubles

Blog NEGLECT. I'm really sorry! A whole week and a bit. Eep. I had a dream that I'd done a post, which is my excuse for not doing one, as I thought I'd already done one.

But I didn't. So here's a real one! Oh my.

As much as I LOVE Christmas, I'm usually really anti all-things-Christmas until December 1st, but seeing as the Christmas adverts and decorations are inescapable already this year, I too was drawn into a bit of the old November festiveness. Last night my friend Leah and I cracked on a bit of Buble's Christmas album and got crafting. It was magical.

Another reason for the premature festiveness is the fact that I've decided we're going to host a Christmas party. It's our first Christmas in the flat, so I've invited people for 'mulled wine, wine and Michael Bublé.' The only problem is that I've never hosted a party before, and I think I'm taking it a bit too seriously. The food options are already being sourced, the playlist is being compiled and the decorations are being made. I'm seriously considering a pin the nose on the reindeer game. Too much? I'm going to be heartbroken if nobody turns up.

I want to get a real (albeit very small) tree this year, but have no decorations. Soo, to save money I decided to make some baubles! I picked up a pack of polystyrene 7cm balls from an art shop (10 for £3.50 - bargain) and then raided my knitting bag (yes I have a knitting bag) for some wool.

I then popped some glue on the ball, and wound the string around it. Now this is trickier than it looks as the wool has a habit of sliding off the sides. Push a length of wool through some of the wound wool and tie to make the hanger loop. I then decided to sew some mini pom poms on one. It's not exactly festive. Or traditional. But I like it in its own little way! 

Leah showed me up and made this beautiful red one, which reminds me of the top you get on an apple lattice. 

Tonight I'm on to the Christmas cards, and then after that I'm on to paper chains and then after that who knows. Our tiny flat is going to look like Christmas has thrown up in it by the time I've finished.

x

A Little Bit of Life

This post is a bit different to what I usually blab on about, and it's based around four quotes I read yesterday which all really resonated with me. They're all taken from the Twitter account of Nicky Gumbel - Vicar, author, Alpha pioneer and all-round good egg.

I started the Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton last month as a chance to try and get some answers; to all those niggly questions about religion and life. The talks have sometimes thrown up more questions then they've answered, but the more I do the course, the more I realise that sometimes in life you can't get all the answers, and never will.

I read an article not long ago about the rise in having a so-called 'quarter-life' crisis, where people (especially in the city) start to evaluate their career, who they're living with and their future. And more often than not, begin to panic.

I'm not saying that I'm having (or beginning to have) a quarter life crisis, but I am worrier and an over-thinker, and all too often find myself whittling about the future and trying to analyse what my life decisions will eventually lead to.

Always remember that your present situation is not your final destination. The best is yet to come.

What I'm slowly trying to teach myself is that I can't control everything. I'm beginning to realise that sometimes it's important to stop, and evaluate what you do have. Some things you just have to go with. I've always been a strong believer in the 'everything happens for a reason' idea, and while I know that this often seems extremely difficult to comprehend at the time, I do believe that eventually things become clear. Ultimately yes, some days are just going to be a whole load of different kinds of rubbish, but that's life.

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.

Stay where you are until God calls you into something new. 

God calls us into things, not just out of them.

I also recently read a blog post by athriftymrs.com about the difference between want and need, which I found really helpful. I don't shop in charity shops per se, but the message of the blog is very relevant and I think pretty important. It's so easy to be swept up into this culture of having to have.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything. 

They just make the most of everything.

I really hope this hasn't come off as preachy or clichéd, as I definitely didn't intend it to be. I just wanted to share a bit of optimism, and hope that these quotes might brighten up your Friday.

Have a lovely weekend!

x

I Made Autumn Apple and Cinnamon Mini Muffins!

The latest instalment in the 'I Made' series comes in the form of something edible that actually worked! It's a mini muffin miracle.

I LOVEEE cinnamon, and would quite happily liberally sprinkle it on anything, so I've taken to carrying around a small pot in my bag incase of emergencies. 

The latest emergency was a forlorn apple that needed eating but looked pretty boring on its own. So, I adapted several recipes I found online depending on what I had in the cupboard, and came up with apple and cinnamon mini muffins. I only used one apple in contrast to quite a lot of cinnamon, so you might want to alter those quantities depending on how much you like each! These are perfect with a good old cuppa and a Christmas song sing-along. (It's never too early).

These were only mini as I only had cupcake cases... Otherwise they'd have been muffin muffins :) They're SO easy to make, and come out ridiculous light and fluffy. I added a cinnamon sugar topping, but reckon they'd be pretty and pretty with a vanilla glaze too...

To make 12 muffins (16 mini muffins) 

You will need:

80g brown/golden sugar (gives them a nice brown Autumish feel)

80g caster sugar

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

115ml milk

1.5 tsp ground cinnnamon

1 egg

85g melted butter

1 large apple (grated)

For the topping:

3 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

What to do:

Preheat oven to 185c (not sure what that is in gas, sorryyyy)

Combine the sugars, flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl

Mix in all the other ingredients

Spoon into cases

Bake for around 16 mins or until golden on top

Pop the kettle on and leave to cool

Combine the sugar and cinnamon and either dip the cakes in, or sprinkle on top and shake off the excess.

Eat at least three of them.

x

80% Full Of Wine (And Some Fireworks)

HAPPY MONDAY. This needs capitals so you shout it in your head, and then therefore believe that it is in fact a happy Monday. :)

After a lot of brain work, I concluded that at the peak of this weekend I was approximately 80% full of wine. It all stared on Friday with a work lunch at Homeslice, with the biggest pizzas and even bigger bottles of wine. Nobody decided do tell me that they measure how much you've drunk, and charge you by the ruler, as was. Therefore I thought it was rude to be bought wine and not attempt to finish the bottle. Nightmare.

Wine-gate continued on Friday night, where we went back to Steve's house and had a meal out with his parents. I LOVE visiting their house, not least for the fact that they have two of the most incredibly brilliant dogs I have ever known...Basil and Hector. They're two unbelievably fluffy and daft labradoodles who are just far too brilliant. 

Steve's mum has been doing some decorating, and bought this beautiful chair from eBay which can be customised with the fabric of your choice. Straight on the wishlist.

Saturday night was a house warming/fireworks party. Being a massive nana, I had half body outside the house, half body inside the house, to enable a swift leap to safety in the probable event of a wayward firework. With a small wine in hand to calm my nerves, naturally. Apart from on over-excitable catherine wheel it was alllll fine.

Sunday afternoon included lovely little wander from central London to South Kensington via the incredible lights of Harrods. It's kinda hard to miss them. It's officially Christmas!

If you've got a cuppa on the go, take 2 minutes and check out Them on YouTube... it's a brand new channel bringing you all the goss from Youtube's finest (and I also may or not present it!) It would be lovely if you had a watch though. Thank you love you and bye!

x

What's In My Bag?

There are a lot of posts floating around similar to this, where people add up the worth of the contents of their bag/makeup bag/face. This is similar, but with a twist...

I'm doing a post on what's in my bag, compared to what I'd like in my bag. (And what most normal people have.)

So, here's what is currently festering in my everyday Zara work bag...

A selection of the treats

Normal Stuff

Urban Outfitters makeup bag and mirror

iPad

Ted Baker purse

Primark umbrella

 Gorjuss flip notebook

2 x pens

Earphones

Receipts

Label M Dry Shampoo

Label M shine mist

1 x bobble

1 x hair grip

Mints

Teenie bottle of Givenchy perfume

Nearly Normal Stuff 

Multivitamins

A scraggy old shopping list

A scarf

Elemis mattifying moisturiser

Batiste plumping powder

One manky plaster

7p

Not Normal Stuff

A Safari finger painting kit

A paintbrush

Elemis exfoliating face wash

3 x mini pompoms

An empty tube of Maybelline concealer

Glue gun stick of glue

3D glasses

3x batteries

My excuse for the last category is that you never know when any of these items may come in handy...

So then this is what I'd like my bag and contents to really look like:

See, I really don't ask for a lot! No need for a paintbrush or 3D glasses in sight. I LOVE this bag too. It's only £29.99 from Zara and is now firmly cemented on my Christmas wishlist.

1. A good book to save me from horrific London tubes and to make me look all intellectual if it falls out of my bag.

2. A decent sized bottle of perfume. I'm not a massive perfume girl but love Black XS.

3. An any-time plane ticket to somewhere wonderful. (See, don't ask for much).

4. A whole load of nice makeup for emergency touch-ups

5. Face wipes. Something I NEVER have and ALWAYS need.

I'm really sorry if this has done nothing to enhance your life, but I feel so feng-shuid and de-cluttered it's actually brilliant. If your contents are as awful as mine, I can seriously recommend a virtual bag clean.

x

Cronuts, Crodoughs and Brownutters.

This is probably not the best time to be writing this post. After a weekend of a horrific amount of sugar and my inability to last a day without some form of chocolate, I'm making a really conscious effort to cut sweet stuff out. I'm genuinely getting all hypochondria-ish about my poor blood sugar levels. I come unstuck when people buy me brownie slices from Brick Lane and insist on office cake sales, but I reallyyy am trying.

I've decided to give myself two treat days a week - Tuesday (for treat Tuesday with Bela) and Friday. Because it's Friday. And I'll definitely need it by the end of the week, along with a large glass of wine.

That's fair, right?!

So instead of eating the stuff, I've taken to googling and reading about the stuff. Cue my new found obsession with Joy the Baker, and obsessing over Shu's obsession with Cronuts. That's a lot of obsessiveness. Below are two of Joy's recipes I genuinely need in my life:

Apple and cinnamon baked doughnuts

Chocolate, peanut butter cookie dough and toasted marshmallow cupcakes. I KNOW.

If you haven't already heard of Joy the Baker, you need to get on it. I first started following her on Instagram and then became hooked on her blog. The photography is amazing and all her recipes look incredible. The only annoying thing is the quantities are all done in American cups, which is still something I haven't worked out how to convert...

Cronuts are the croissant-doughnut hybrid that took America by storm, and saw people camping out to buy one. (Or several and ship them across the world). Tsk tsk. Then we had the Starbucks/Bea's of Bloomsbury Duffin controversy (vote Bea's), and now Shu has delighted on the UK cronut - the Crodough from Rinkoff Bakery. She's just told me there's a bakery thats sell them in Soho too. I may just have to sleep until Friday.

Rinkoff Crodoughs, over on Shulikesclothes

This all got Shu and I chatting the other week about these hybrids, and I think we came up with the most ingenious one yet. It combines the three ULTIMATE things of delight; doughnuts, brownie and, yep, peanut butter. All hail the Brownutter. Not only does it have an amazing name, but tell me you can't already taste it just from that description. See, you can't. Rich, gooey brownie hiding a dollop of creamy PB all encased in a crisp, sugar dusted doughnut coat. Me oh my.

If anyone (Starbucks) takes this as their own before we have time to make and patent this concoction, I will bring you down.

Anyway, back to my grapes.

x

My first... Pumpkin.

This weekend roundup is a bit of a cheat, as it actually starts on Thursday. But I reckon all weekends should start on a Thursday.

We were meant to go and see Mickey Flannagan live but the show got cancelled, so instead we joined the queue on Wardour  Street for Busaba Eathai, which ended up being a pretty good second best. I'd been recommended the Thai calamari, and so dutifully ordered it as a side alongside a prawn and coconut stir fry. Honestly? I could have eaten 3 bowls of the calamari and not have felt an ounce of remorse. Quite honestly the best calamari I think could exist. So soft, slightly spicy and ridiculously moreish. Go, go, eat.

We spent the weekend at my cousin's, who has the world's best 2 year old as well as her own handmade card company - Ruby Rose Cards. Saturday morning consisted of dancing to One Direction, playing hide and seek, nattering over craft ideas, making cards and eating wayyy too many chocolate fingers. 

This was before... PUMPKIN CARVING!  I got a bit lot carried away and insisted on top secrecy of designs until the big reveal. Amelie the world's best 2 year old naturally pointed at my moustached design as her favourite. But then she also pointed at it when I asked which was the most rubbish. Hmm.

All this was topped off with coming home and making flapjack for work's version of GBBO today.

I was rather hoping the office might have been blown away Wizard of Oz style, but sadly not.

 Oh well, at least there's cake...

x

Merrily We Roll Along UK Premiere

Last night I got my gladrags on and tottered on down to the Odeon cinema in Haymarket for the UK premiere of Merrily We Roll Along. Does anyone else have a boyfriend who gets stroppy if you're taller than them in heels. And therefore makes you totter across cobbled streets solo. Or just me?

So this was my first ever premiere, and I'd love to say I was invited because of my witty and wonderful blog, but actually I'm the sister of the co-founder of Digital Theatre - the extraordinary company that filmed and produced the movie.

Because of this fact I'm not going to be biased after this one teenie statement. Promise.  It was bloomingly utterly brilliant.

Merrily We Roll Along is a West End musical which has been a huge hit both here in London and in Broadway. Filmed during live shows, seeing it on big screen is an amazing amalgamation of theatre and cinema.

The cast were also in the audience, providing an amazing atmosphere and the occasional whoop. If I was watching myself on big screen I'd be dancing on my seat and whooping til the cows came home.

Check out this link to find out which of your local cinemas it's being screened at.

Then it was off to the Haymarket Hotel ('s swimming pool) for an after party of too much wine and not enough humous and Parma ham. (No amount of humous and Parma ham is ever enough)...

What I wore: 

Jacquard skater dress - Zara

Heels - New Look

Lippy (the reddest lip I've ever dared wear) - Barry M shade 163

Necklace - DIYd out of an old chain and a pearl bracelet (all broken, swapped about and put back together)

Pretending to get papped...

Just mingling with Mumma Shaw by the pool, y'know...

The pool. It's with pride I announce I didn't even dip a toe.

Sorry for the rubbish photo quality, I was trying to play it cool and take them 'subtly' ...

x

When I Grow Up...

When you think about it, the transition between being a child and not being a child is REALLY ODD. When does it happen? You must just wake up on certain days, and that is the last day you ever ever do something. You must wake up all innocently, not knowing or realising that you will never have an imaginary tea party again, or get invited to a party with a ropey clown and jelly, or play out on the street, or get pocket money, or eat a mini milk...

Don't get me wrong, there are many things I love about being grown up. (I use that phrase lightly). I love playing house for real, and not having a curfew, and being able to eat PopTarts for breakfast, but there are A LOT of things I miss about being a child.

Here are some of my biggest misses:

- Having NOTHING to worry about other than who was going to be my best friend for  
  that day, and whether my parents would notice that I was trying to sneak out to school 
  in my jelly shoes. (They always did.)

- Saturday night: I was allowed to eat my tea in front of Generation Game. This was a big  
  deal. It would always consist of  sandwiches cut into triangles, probably some pom bears 
  and something from the Sainsbury's bakery counter. YES.

- Knowing my Mum had all the answers, and knowing she would sort all my problems. 
  (Lies, she still does this.)

- MAKING DENS. Although I'd spend ages in the planning and design processes and then  
  about three minutes actually in there before I got bored.

- You want to wear sparkly purple leggings and a neon green floral top with socks and 
  sandals. Go for it Olwen. Stick-on earrings? Why not. You're seven years old. You can 
  officially wear what you like and not be judged.

- It being acceptable to make up dance routines to Boyzone.

- It being acceptable to spend hours giving Girl World a makeover.

- Having the life ambition of being a shop keeper or sailor.

If my future children don't want to do any of the above, I honestly think I'll be heartbroken.

x 

I Made A Clock!

After months of talking about it, this is my first DIY post on Flossie Teapot, and I managed to rustle up an actual ticking clock!

I can't really remember where I got the idea for this from, but one day I decided to stick a bit of wrapping paper to a bit of foam board and get myself on eBay and buy some clock parts...

It's the easiest thing to do, and as I already had the card, glue and wrapping paper it cost me all of £4.99 for the clock parts. (You can get them cheaper, but I wanted to get mine from the UK). I was going to attach numbers, but thought it would look too busy with the print so have left it for now.

If you know me, I apologise in advance for the fact that you will very most likely be receiving a handmade clock for Christmas...

x

You will need:

Patterned paper/ a photo/ wrapping paper. I got mine from Magma

Template. (I used a  plate.)

Spray glue. (Or I suppose PVA will work)

Clock parts. I bought mine from putaclockinit on eBay

What to do:

Use your template to make 2 circles... 1x foam board and 1x paper

Glue the paper to the foam board

Add numbers (optional)
Pierce a hole in the centre

Attach clock parts according to instructions

Hang on a wall
Done!