Time for a tutorial ^_^ It’s been a little while since I’ve done something yarn related so today I’ll show you how I made a garden themed stand thingy for my tea pot.

You need:

• Crochet hook
• Green yarn
• Purple or pink yarn
• Matching styrofoam flowers

Please note my crochet instructions will be a little vague because I’m not familiar with how to write patterns in crochet, you should be able to get the idea from the photos though.

Start with the purple yarn and chain 5.

Join to the first stitch to form a circle. Chain 4.

Follow around the circle as if you were making a granny square, you should DC 3 times into 1 stitch, chain 2 then DC into the next stitch etc until you reach the beginning.

Join, chain 4 and start the next row. For proper instructions on how to make a  granny circle click here.

Keep going though add 2 lots of 3xDC in each gap so this row is larger. For the next few rows I alternated between 2 and 1 lot of 3xDC in each gap to form a circle.

You will need to make it large enough so that you can comfortably sit your teapot on top with a couple of inches on each side.

Finished:

Next grab your green yarn and tie it to the middle.

Start making a chain and when it’s long enough to fold in half and push through one of the holes single crochet to the next group of double crochets. This part is quite free-style as it depends how big the holes in your crochet are etc.

But right side up it should look like this:

Continue doing this around and around until you’ve got one loop to go through every hole:

Right side up it looks like this:

I didn’t think it looked stable enough so I added a little stitching with a needle and thread.

So you’re done with the basic shape, now it’s all about decoration!

Now it’s time to add the flowers. The reason it’s important to use styrofoam flowers is in case you spill tea on them. Where as fabric flowers will get wet and eventually mold, styrofoam can just be wiped off.

I decided to use large pink flowers and smaller white flowers. I arranged them around the edge alternating between the colours. I used the wire stems to loop into the crochet piece then attach to flower opposite to make it sturdy.

I also stitched them lightly in place for peace of mind. Finished:

The bottom looked like this… quite ugly so I added a large circular piece of felt to the bottom and stitched it all together.

And there you have it… very spring-ish.

All you need is a tea pot! Looks like you found it at the bottom of your garden

This is the first tutorial of many to come revolving around how to organise and host a tea party! Now you’ve got something to put the tea pot on, next time will be all about how to decorate the tea pot itself!

This post was sponsored by Nuffnang and Panasonic.
For more information on sponsored posts please click here.

Snapshots again today!

Starting off with architecture again, I just loooove Melbourne’s old buildings!

The churches here are amazing too, I just want to take so many photos of them!

We tried out the famous Lord of the Fries restaurant and oh wow it was good!

James even ate a burger from there even though it’s a completely vegetarian place… and he loved it too!

There was apparently a fire on our street too though I don’t know where.

Haha this post seems to be all about food… but that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing this week

James worked out how to make thin crust pizza, mine was full of fetta… mmmm delicious!

He also tried to top last week’s heart rice by making 4 hearts

The big event we went to this year was Taste of Melbourne. Basically it’s where all the fine dining restaurants come and offer little stalls with a couple of their famous dishes to choose from in smaller portions so you can try lots of them and decide where you want to spend your money later. They have lots of different stall holders from local markets with free samples and information too.

This was the place it was held…

We had to change our money into “Crowns” which is the currency of the event

Just after walking in James found his ultimate dream car…. one full of Ben and Jerry’s icecream

These were some of the dishes we tasted, I don’t know much about food so if you want to read about the details click here for Celeste’s run down.

James was so excited to try a Wagyu beef burger, apparently it was really good

The building it was in was incredible! Every surface had the most beautiful paintings on it.

I want ceilings like this in my house!!

For some reason I kept getting photobombed all damn right! Look at this guy at the icecream sandwhich stand Yeah muscles Hahahaha!

And then James decided to see how many of my photos he could get into! Damn you James!!

That photo was actually taken by a lovely lady from a stand selling flavoured oils an vinegars. Their brand is called “Pukara Estate” and her and her partner were just so friendly and lovely! Their products tasted really good and I’m totally going to put an order in for the truffle oil I tasted! I had never tried truffles before then but clearly I have expensive taste

It was absolutely packed!

There were a whole lot of free wine tastings too so there was a lot of this going on:

One of my favorite exhibits was the Smeg kitchen appliance one!! They had the coolest fridges, including a matching set of baby pink retro fridge and laundry! I want them so badly! One day when I’m rich right haha!

I’m sure if I had an apron like this I would probably want to be in the kitchen more

By the end of the night the venue was soooo hot and we were all very tired so Celeste, Celina and found a nice cool spot to wait while the boys lined up for $1 pasta.

Kev managed to find a little coffee stand, how cute!

So the verdict on Taste of Melbourne? AWESOME! I had so much fun! I found the fine dining food was about 50/50 good/bad but the stall holders and the variety greatly made up for everything. I will most definitely be going back next year. Thank you so much Penny for our tickets!!

We visited the DFO at South Warf too this week though I don’t think it was really anything to write home about.

The most amusing thing about the trip was the gigantic windy bridge we walked across that looked like a big snake skeleton.

And some sea gulls taking a bath!

The lovely Candice also had a party on the weekend which was lots of fun. The most amusing party of the night happened on the way there on the train though. A bunch of drunks were having a loud conversation about football and which teams they were going for etc. They involved me to settle the argument as apparently the bow on the back of my hair was Collingwood colors while my hair was Hawthorne colours thus making me impartial LOLOLOLOLOLOL! When we got to the station the Police came and arrested them for drinking on the train

And today I will leave you with the coolest lamp post I’ve ever seen. I need a garden full of these!

Did you all have a fun week?

When Tiff visited Japan a little while ago she brought me a few presents home and the funny thing is that one of the things she brought was the exact same cute strawberry tart felt kit that Celeste got me from Singapore!! Clearly I have very distinct tastes right?

So when she saw the post I made about it, she swapped it for another one in the series! How nice is that? So after the response from last time I thought I would show you this one too ^_^

I bring you the Cute Strawberry Pudding!

Obviously again I can’t take any credit for making this tutorial because I was just following their instructions. Full credit goes to the original company but I took photos while I was making it I though you might find it interesting anyway ^_^  You can find most of the materials around the house and you can easily substitute anything you like.

The cute package it came in:

The cute instructions:

What you need:

• 1 circle of yellow felt
• 1 smaller circle of brown felt
• 1 large and 1 small circle of cardboard
• 1 curved rectangle of yellow
• 1 pointy circular star thing for the whipped cream
• matching thread and needles
• 1 quarter circle of red felt
• 1 tear drop shape of white felt
• 1 larger tear drop shape of pink felt
• 2 small green tears shapes of green
• stuffing

Start by sewing the smaller side of the curved rectangle to the brown circle.

You’ll end up with something like this:

Stitch it closed around the seam:

Pop the small circle of cardboard here:

Now fill it with stuffing and put the large cardboard circle on top:

And the large circle of yellow felt:

Sew the whole thing shut.

Now let’s start the strawberry!

Using a needle and white thread stitch a seed pattern like this:

With red thread running stitch the top of the strawberry and gather it.

Now stitch the white tear to the pink tear with big white stitches like this:

And the go up both sides sewing it to the red:

Stuff it!

Then stitch up the hole

Tadaaa! Strawberry slice!

Add the little leaves to the top:

Now time for cream! This is what the piece you need looks like, using your needle and thread sew straight through each point.

Add a tiny bit of stuffing…

And pull the whole thing shut.

Now stitch the pieces together and you have a pretty yummy looking pudding! Heehee I forgot to cut off one of the threads >_< Now you can attach it to a magnet (which is supplied) or a headband or an obnoxiously huge cute ring

Super cute right? Thanks so much Tiff!