Happy hummous, hearts and stars.

Well, I tackled the Dyson yesterday. I plugged it very cautiously into the wall, and using a wooden spoon, turned the power on. Nothing. I changed the fuse and tried again. Still nothing. Cursing under my breath, I checked out the Yellow Pages and found a place that would repair them. He quoted me £20 to repair it, if it was what he thought it was. The BF and I drove it over there, dropped it off and wandered round the shops. When we came back it was all done and working well!! Hurray! My lovely purple and pink dyson lives to fight another day! Poor thing's been flooded and dropped down the stairs more times than I care to think about, but it has survived. Not that I'm particularly attached to my cleaning appliances, but we have a large German Shepherd and two cats and before we had the Dyson, we used to blow up a hoover every couple of months. I don't think they like coarse dog hair. We've had the Dyson about 9 years now.

Today I made hummous!! Last Saturday I found a jar of tahini in the next town (couldn't find it here), so I could at last have a go at making my own. I just lurve hummous and eat it regularly. It's so easy to make - cooked chickpeas, a tablespoon of tahini, a couple of garlic cloves ('coz I like garlic and it stops fleas biting me in the summer) and lemon juice. Whizz it all up with the old stick blender and off you go. I think I shall have a go at some flavoured ones too. Please excuse the chilli stained plastic food box *lol* I had some spread over a couple of rye breads for lunch. Yum yum!

I've now sewed all the triangles onto my backgammon board and edged the playing area with some embroidery silks.

To do this, I twisted together a red and yellow silk, and kind of couch stitched them onto the felt with an orange silk. I now have to stitch the backing felt onto it. I'm thinking of attaching some ribbon ties to one side so that I can roll it up and secure it. I will probably make the game pieces from fimo.

I found these fantastic ice-cube trays in Lidl's whilst we were waiting for the Dyson to be repaired! Look, stars and hearts! Flexible trays and very, very cheap. I got two trays in each pack. Brilliant! One for ice and one for crafts! Hee hee! So here is my first foray into the world of resin casting. It was quite easy, I mixed two parts of the resin to one part of the hardener and dropped some sequin hearts and stars, with microbeads and glitter into the bottom of the moulds. Then I poured the resin into each one. I didn't bother in filling them all the way to the top because I thought that would make the pieces too deep. I want them for pendants, so I didn't want them to be too heavy.

I've now got to wait 24 hours for them to harden. Pah! Patience is not my best quality.

I can't wait to see how they turn out. I really want to see how a flower would turn out encapsulated in this stuff. I would expect that it would perfectly preserve it. Hmmm. May have to go flower picking later. I'll wait to see how these turn out. No, really, I will wait. Wonder what's in flower in my garden at the moment.....