Handmade Gifts are Better

My first year out of education I was never going to be able to afford gifts for everyone who deserved them in my life, so I decided that this was going to be the year that I would properly commit to hand making little gifts so people would know I was thinking about them over the holiday period. Granted, some may see my efforts as a little pre-school but it’s the thought that counts and the careful time taken over making someone else smile. 

I knew I wanted to do something with oranges but I wasn’t sure what. After trawling Pinterest, youtube and various blogs I was thoroughly disheartened by my lack of creative know-how, so I decided to cobble together something entirely of my own creation. I finally came to the conclusion that I could make hanging tree decorations; most people I know have a tree up in their house and if they don’t they could always hang something on a cupboard door knob, or on a mantlepiece. 

I picked out some large oranges from Sainsburies, sliced them finely and laid them out on some kitchen roll for about half an hour - they were extra juicy and in any other instance this would have made for perfect oranges but I needed them less juicy.
After drying as much juice out of them as I could, I placed them all on a baking tray and left in them in the oven for about three hours at 90 degrees. I really didn’t think it was going to take this long, but it really did. I went down to check multiple times, but they were only just done when I finally took them out. 

After they were out of the oven and cool, I left them overnight to dry out that last little bit and be really ready to craft with. 

I’d bought 5 meters of the ribbon I liked, and it was fairly cheap, but this was by far the most fiddly bit of the whole christmas-craft-fest. I tied the ribbon into many little bows and once I was happy with the shape of the bow, I ran a couple of stitches through the main knot to stop it coming undone. 

I can’t really sew at all, but because I used thread that matched the ribbon it didn’t really matter that much. Once I’d made around 15 bows, I picked out the best looking 15 oranges and matched them up. A little drop of craft glue on the back of each bow secured it to the orange. I was originally going to sew the bows to the oranges, but I was a little worried about the oranges stability, after all they are just oranges. 

So, now I had 15 dried oranges with cute bows glued on. These were cute as they were, but I wanted to make them at least slightly functional, so this is where the jute twine and luggage tags come into action. 

I removed the original string from the tags and went about cutting about a fingers length of the jute twine off the roll. I looped it and stuck it down onto the back of the tag with some regular sellotape. 

Now I had 15 slightly kitsch hanging tags. 

Mounting the oranges in the same way that I did the bows, I fixed each orange to the upper end of the card leaving some space at the bottom. I didn’t really have much faith in the glue, but it actually worked wonders. It was a fairly cheap ‘Tacky Glue’ from a local Fabric Land. If I were to buy it again however, I would definitely opt for the clear-dry glue as opposed to the one I bought which dried white. It wasn’t a major spanner in the works it just meant that I had to work a little neater than I really had time to. 

Whilst I was trying to make them look perfect and really take lots of care and attention, I needed to get them finished in a short period of time. That’s the one problem about Christmas-crafting, I always come up with designs and delusions of grandeur with absolutely no funding or time to execute them. This years handmade gifts were quite cheap which helped. 

Once the oranges had set onto the tags enough, I left this until the next day, I wrote names on the opposite ends. I thought this was a cute addition because it personalised the gift nicely and (hopefully) showed that I put a little thought into my efforts. 

Once the ink on that was dry, we all know how gel pens smudge, I individually wrapped each tag in red or green tissue paper adorned with even more Paperchase stickers* and a To…/From… note. 

Overall, I was really pleased with the way the tags turned out, I made them in the hope that people might hang them on their trees and I know having given some out early to people at work that most of them made it onto their trees. Success! 

Although it may take a little extra forethought and effort, I really think handmade gifts are a lot nicer to receive. It shows the effort gone into it and it’s always nice to know that the person who made it cares enough for you to make something for you, or to spend time on you (not just necessarily money.) 

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Christmas holiday period. 

*If you don’t get this reference, it’s because I wrote a post recently about wrapping up my gifts and showering them all with really cute Christmas stickers from Paperchase. We know I love Paperchase.

I'm Worried About YouTube

I’m worried about YouTube. 

Long gone are the days that I could turn to my subscription list and know that there was something I’d want to watch whilst I waited for the kettle to boil. Unfortunately, the creators that I’ve been following for, what feels like, years now have changed their tack when it comes to the content they upload. 

I don’t care how many marshmallows you can fit into your mouth (The Chubby Bunny Challenge) I also don’t care whether your partner can do your make-up accurately (My Boyfriend Does My Make-Up Challenge). YouTube is full of tags, challenges and ‘paid for advertorial’ videos that it’s quickly losing it’s worth as a platform - for me at least. 

YouTube is the new television; YouTuber’s upload their content on a scheduled basis and have themes to their videos which forces them into the category of ‘episodes’. If I wanted to watch television, I would. 

Rosianna Halse Rojas recently uploaded  a video on YouTube and it’s barriers for entry and I can’t help but agree with 90% of what she’s said. YouTube has become MTV; daily vloggers are pimping their rides and showing us around their crib like they’re going to be the next Kardashian. Hauls, Home Tours and Reviews have stopped being beneficial to the younger generation and have become more of a ‘look-what-I-bought’ video - companies are vying for the attention of vloggers to have their products features in their videos that it’s all become far too corporate and not personal enough to relate to. 

Let’s talk about the phase of YouTube books that are appearing on our shelves…
Whilst I’m glad that so many young people have the platforms they do for having their material read, shared, published and bought by millions; the books aren’t books - they’re just another piece of merchandise.
I would feel confident in saying that people who bought Zoe Sugg’s (Zoella) debut novel ‘Girl Online’ and who didn’t like it, in a literary sense, will still go out and by the second book ‘Girl Online: On Tour’. It’s not about literary content, it’s a materialistic need to have something that a younger generation believe they want, whether they truly do or not. 

If it’s no longer about literary content in the books that YouTubers are churning out, you can guarantee it’s not about their online content. 

Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that I am in awe of the YouTubers who make the money they do, and their ever-growing audiences - I wish people would take their rose-tinted glasses off and see that the substance behind what should have been one of the most positively influential platforms is fading fast. 

I don’t care what you bought on your most recent trip to Los Angeles, nor do I care how much the cinnamon burns when they take a spoonful of it into their mouths (The Cinnamon Challenge).
I want to know what they think about Blackfish or veganism, education, drinking. It doesn’t all have to be based around issues of such huge cultural substance; tell me about something that your Mum taught you as a child that now rings true more than ever. Start a conversation. Make video responses. Be proud to create content that makes people have such a strong reaction that they are inclined to comment, interact and start a conversation - even if it is simply to agree with you and back you up. I’m not saying go out of your way to be controversial, just be real, say what you actually think. 

So, I’ve told you what I don’t like about YouTube. What about the things that I do?
I like that there are still a number of YouTuber’s whose views and opinions I respect and I would let sway my decisions on something. Rosianna Halse Rojas, Sanne Vliengenthart, and Lex Croucher are just a few of the women I follow who talk about mindfulness, rape culture, inequality, what it’s like working in the publishing industry, how to vote (but NOT who to vote for), the 2014 Abuse on YouTube situation. The list of conversation starting content is endless. I dare you to try. 

Disclaimer: I’m not condemning YouTubers in any way, shape or form. I’m merely challenging them to use their captive audiences for good/for the better. Make YouTube into enjoyable TedTalks for kids; teens and anyone else who you want to talk to.
Nor am I saying that I’ve never enjoyed a haul/vlog/favourites video before, or the occasional challenge, I’m simply wishing that the content ratio on YouTube would swing more toward the opinionated, challenging content than anything else. 

Lex Online - YouTube Creators: A Few of My Favourites.

In today’s Internet-Age, it seems only logical that people my age don’t watch television that much anymore. I certainly don’t. Well, the odd American TV Series every now and again, but nothing religiously. (Alright, aside from Grey’s Anatomy, but that doesn’t count.) Okay, okay. People still watch TV, but what I’m really trying to say is that people watch LESS television now. I, for one,  spend a lot of time watching people on Youtube which seems like an odd concept,  but it’s the television of today only more interactive, more personable and more accessible. 

I thought I would give you a rundown of my favourite Youtube Creators, listing their various traits, talents and topics. Quite a lot of the time, these clips of their lives on Youtube inspire and educate me – I hope they do the same for you. 

Carrie Hope Fletcher.  (ItsWayPastMyBedTime)

Carrie’s been on Youtube since March, 2011 and in that time she has amassed a whopping 500,158 subscribers on YouTube.  Carrie was one of the first YouTube creators that I watched religiously, and since her start on the web she has become a household name in one of the biggest West End Shows; Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Miserables. Having played Young Eponine years earlier, Carrie is now playing Eponine as an adult – she says it had always been her dream to play older Eponine. 

Aside from being West End Star, Carrie is also writing her own book, keeping up a blog, regularly posting on her YouTube account and writing her own music. She produces videos running a theme of her ‘big sister’ vibe, she gives her following of ‘hopefuls’  advice and posts regular ‘Ask Carrie’ videos where she strives to provide information, reassurance and charming anecdotes from her life.

Boys In Books Are Better is a hilarious homage to all the wonderful characters in Carrie’s favourite books that is the culmination of everything Carrie; books, the inclusion of her fans, singing and making people smile. 

Unfortunately, recently some of Carrie’s messages have been lost in a cloud of controversial issues surrounding her private relationships involving other YouTubers; some YouTube viewers and creators can be unforgiving and without knowing the full stories - the community can be quick to judge. Carrie has navigated the situation that she didn’t bring upon herself with grace and honesty.

Carrie Fletcher is a member of John and Hank Green’s DFTBA(don’t forget to be awesome) and this links her to my next favourite Youtuber...

Charlie McDonnell.  (CharlieIsSoCoolLike)

Charlie is an equally as British, equally as charming member of DFTBA as Carrie.

The first YouTuber I ever saw consecutive videos by; Charlie made a cup of tea, filmed it and it went viral. His quintessential British life online has collected 2,377,747 subscribers and he’s now huge everywhere – a regular at conventions such as LeakyCon, VidCon, Playlist Live and Summer In The City. 

Charlie originally started with funny little skits and songs that he’d written. He’s now progressed onto explaining tricky science in layman’s terms with concise logic but also comedy, participating in charity events and of course, commenting on some of the more controversial topics surrounding the YouTube community currently. Early- Charlie also took part in the Trock movement; Time Lord Rock, writing songs about Doctor Who with his band Chameleon Circuit which featured Micheal Aranda among other You Tubers. 

Charlie now focuses mainly on making short films and at this year’s upcoming VidCon in Los Angeles, he will be hosting his own meet-up and panel based on the production side of creating short films. From what I can gather, rather adorably, it seems that Charlie is still in complete awe that his hobby of making videos at his home computer in Bath now pays his bills and allows him to travel wherever and whenever he wants. 

One of my favourite Charlie videos is one of his earliest – he doesn’t use this the intro anymore but now he has a fabulous end card voiced by none other than THE Stephen Fry which emphasizes Charlies quintessentially British attitude. 

Louise Watson, nee Pentland. (SprinkleOfGlitter)

Mum of one, Louise is full of joy, glitter and enthusiasm.  1,446,552 subscribers watch her weekly/biweekly videos featuring her darling baby girl, ‘baby glitter’ otherwise known as Darcy and her husband Matt. Louise’s husband, not Darcy’s; that would be weird. 

Louise’s videos range from DIY Craft videos, to make up and fashion hauls, to family life as well as coping with marriage and having a young-one around. Louise quite often defends herself against what she calls the ‘Mummy Mafia’ who leave comments and messages for Louise, telling her she’s not looking after her child properly or not conducting her married self in an appropriate way, but I honestly think she’s one of the best mother’s I’ve seen. 

Not only is Louise raising a baby girl, she’s hosting her YouTube channel, attending conventions and inspiring viewers left right and centre. By the looks of it, she never stops, yet still manages to succeed at all of the above. Darcy is never sad or massively misbehaving, on camera, which speaks volumes about Louise’s ability as a mother – makes me wish people wouldn’t bash her so much. I’d like to see them try everything Louise has accomplished. 

Louise is completely real on her YouTube channel and doesn’t struggle to bring both light hearted chatty videos in line with slightly more topical videos of a serious note. Louise is capable of it all. A wonder woman, some might say. Louise has a profound honesty about her life; her struggles, her triumphs and most importantly her beliefs – she doesn’t seem to let people get to her, although obviously I don’t know what goes on behind closed camera lenses. 

Louise’s very close friend features as my next chosen ‘Top YouTuber’...

Zoe Sugg. (Zoella) 

5,054,357 subscibers makes Zoella our most popular YouTube Creator so far. Zoe Sugg, sister of Joe Sugg (Thatcher Joe on YouTube) and best friend to Louise,  is vlogging every day in June as a challenge and so far it’s paid off – she featured on Loose Women, as well as reaching 5 million subscribers and that’s just this week.  Clearly this week was a good week, but Zoe is plainly honest about her down days. I think it’s that, that love about her. Her realness on camera makes her so relatable and easy to watch that viewers feel good about themselves; if this girl on YouTube has down days like I do too, I am capable of all the success that she has too. 

Zoe suffers from anxiety and severe panic attacks, however the majority of the time we see Zoe in her vlogs and videos she is her usual charming, bright and bubbly twenty-four year old self. Managed by Gleam Futures, along with boyfriend Alfie (PointlessBlog) as well as Louise and Joe; Zoe has a PO box that is regularly filled with letters, parcels and packages from friends and fans but pleads with people not to send presents – she’s not in it for the free things and gifts, you can tell that from the sheer honesty in her videos. 

Just to truly explain Zoe’s success as Zoella, Sugg won not only the 2011 Cosmopolitan Blog Award for ‘Best Established Beauty Blog’ but also ‘Best Beauty Vlogger’ as well as Radio 1 Teen Awards ‘Best British Vlogger’ and the 2014 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards for ‘UK Favourite Vlogger’. 

When Zoe was made redundant from a job she hated years ago, she never knew how popular she would get through her blog and eventually her YouTube channel, which she only started in 2009. She also has Louise’s chattery happiness and commitment and this is what makes them a fabulous pair to watch in their many collaborations.  Her ever changing style, baking, decorative and make up/hair choices inspire viewers everywhere to be exactly who they want to be, no holds barred. You want to wear those trousers that kind of look like pyjama pants, you do it. 

Zoe is one for saying yes. Her anxiety held her back for so long and now she won’t let it anymore. As if that personal achievement wasn’t enough, she’s just been given a book deal.  Zoe has signed, apparently a two-book, deal with Penguin Books and now has her debut novel due for release in November of this year. According to her announcement video, the novel will circle a young girl whose blog goes viral and what that means for her life, love and tendency to have panic attacks. It’s going to be loosely  autobiographical,  yet I’m looking forward to reading this – to my knowledge Zoe has never talked about wanting to write a book before, so for this to come out of the blue means she obviously suffers from that writerly-need to have something perfect before she puts it out into the world. The book will be entitled Girl; Online.

Here are two videos that will hopefully encourage you to head over to YouTube and check Zoella out;

*

I hope you have enjoyed this sample of a few of my favourite YouTube Creators, I will however name check a few more, for your interest:  Alfie Deyes, Marcus Butler, Niomi Smart, Tanya Burr, Jim Chapman, Fleur De Force, Jenna Marbles, CherryWallis, Emma Blackery, and Troye Sivan.

Just below here, you can find links to everyone I’ve discussed above and I highly recommend you go and check them out. Just the same as watching television, they offer the escapism and light comedic relief at the end of a day, only they’re far more relatable; they’re all real people living in the same world as us. 

Carrie Hope Fletcher – Twitter, Instagram, Main YouTube, Side Channel, Blog.

Charlie McDonnell – Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Blog.

Louise Glitter – Twitter, Instagram, Main YouTube, SideChannel, Blog.

Zoe Sugg – Twitter, Instagram, Main YouTube, Side Channel, Blog.

Cake Pops! 1st Attempt (Ingredients & Recipe)

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PHRASES SUCH AS ‘INSERT THE STICKY END OF YOUR STICK INTO THE BALLS’
There is no way to dance around every ball-innuendo, so I’m just going to say what I mean, and we can all have a little giggle at the end. 

Cake Pops are storming the internet like a manic-sugar-filled craze by bloggers and Youtubers alike all hopped up on Candy Melts. So of course, I’ve commissioned the help of a friend with Kitchen-know-how, because I need all the help I can get in the kitchen department. This is why I’m with a Chef.  I know what I’m doing; I knew I needed to hitch my wagon to someone who knew they had to feed me. 

Cake Pops look so kitsch and cute but we have all seen the horrific fails on Pinterest. In fact, I might paste in some fail pictures so ours don’t look so bad at the end.

On the other hand, how awesome are these? Cake Pops with awesome things on!  And just so we know, the doctor ones remind me of Grey’s Anatomy; I don’t just enjoy hospitals. 

I am completely aware that our Cake Pops don’t have a chance in hell of being as good as these little Starbucks Cappuccino’s but I have faith in our attempt. 

So, let’s get on with the story.

 I arrived at Cassi’s at 4pm; “plenty of time” we said. A quick pop to both Sainsburies and Tescos – we gathered our ingredients.  Deciding to make a slightly classier cake pop, we went with Sicilian Lemon flavouring for the cakey-middles and a dark chocolate to coat them. Fuelling our love for sprinkles and glitter, we chose Lemon Meringue Sprinkles to go on top as well as some Banofee ones. Admittedly, the banoffee flavours maybe wouldn’t marry so nicely with the lemon/dark chocolate theme but what the hell. 

Following a measurements guide that I borrowed from a Zoella video on Youtube, we measured out our ingredients and realised we didn’t have a cake recipe. Trusty BBC Food online quickly provided us with a Fairy Cake Recipe and we were on our way! I’d also seen a Niomi Smart video on Youtube, which made them look so easy and simple – with Cassi on my side, I couldn’t see us meeting any big problems. Which is interesting seeing as the evening started like this;

Me: I’m going to need a whisk.

Cassi: I have an electric whisk?

Me: Nah, I can use a hand whisk.

(Five minutes, pratting around with a hand whisk.)

Me: Yes, I’m going to need your electric whisk.

From the pictures above, so far, we look like we’re being fairly neat. This is not true, as you can see by the ‘after’ baking picture in the bottom-right hand corner.

We baked our cake mixture for around fifteen minutes and checked if they were done with one of our cake pop sticks. It came out clean, so they were done and this is where we fell as the first hurdle.  I feel like our thought process literally went ‘Yay, they’re done! – Let’s decorate them!’

THIS IS NOT THE MIND FRAME YOU WANT TO BE IN. 

Having learned the hard way, we jumped straight into decorating and attempting getting our cake-balls to sit on the sticks. Looking back in hindsight, I probably should have done more research on this stage of the game. Our cake balls were either too warm in the middle still or the chocolate on the end of the sticks wasn’t solid enough yet.  I will put a full ingredients list and recipe a little further down, so you can follow it if you want, but for the moment this is just a commentary of do’s and don't's.

After a little Googling and many cake-themed message boards we learned that we should have let the cake-balls in the freezer, before putting the pop-sticks in. So instead, what we did was put the sticks in and then freeze them. Only for ten minutes or so, but this became the answer to our problems; the chocolate on the end of the sticks (to secure the balls on the sticks) solidified wonderfully and we were, at last, finally good to go on the decorating front.  

It was, unfortunately, at this point that we realised we had no idea how to store the cake-ops upright. Balls up, if you will. This is where a lot of ‘pinterest fails’ appear. I would say your best bet is to cover some Oasis Floristry Foam in delightful wrapping paper and storing them in that, post-decoration. Y’know, if you want to be super fancy. 

As you can see, our cake-balls overflowed a little but we simply trimmed them down until they looked like teeny tiny planets. This is where the idea of a full series of planets came to me – it made me want to create a whole solar system of cake pops. I digress.

 So, the Pops in the egg box were our first attempt and the Pops in the duck-egg blue cup were dubbed ‘the good ones’. We decorated the Pops and then put them back in the freezer for a further ten minutes or so.
In the meantime we used up left over cake mix to create the Lemon Loaf (top right hand corner, the one that doesn’t look like a cake pop).

 

Needless to say, I assume, ‘the good ones’ were the Cake Pops that we presented to our respective other halves as the result of a long evening’s hard work. I met Cassi at 4pm and we didn’t make it out again until 10pm.

Why did it take six hours to collect ingredients and make Cake Pops? I don’t know.
Were they worth it? Probably; the laughs at least definitely were.

Ingredients:
Makes 20.
Takes 1 hr. (Apparently.)

120g Softened Unsalted Butter.
150g Unrefined Caster Sugar.
1tsp Whatever Extract You’re Using.
2 Free Range Eggs.
180g Self Raising Flour.
4 tbsp Milk (Room Temp, apparently.)
2 Bars of Cooking Chocolate (Dark/White/Whatever...)
Vegetable Oil
Cake-Pop Moulds/Sticks
Sprinkles etc.
Cups/Egg Box/ Oasis Floristry Foam/ Polystyrene. 

Recipe:
Could take you all day, just saying.

1.       Make your cake mix. You can use the fairy cake recipe from BBC Food Online for that. I’ll link it here.

2.       Use two teaspoons to shimmy some of the mix into the silicone Cake-Pop moulds. I would say somewhere between heaped and level.

3.       Wait somewhere between 15 and 22 minutes depending on the trust you have in your oven. Ours came out in 15 minutes, but I’ve seen people online take 22 minutes.

4.       As soon as your cake-balls are done (stick a cake-pop stick into one, and if it comes out clean they’re done) take the mould lids off, and put them in the freezer. This chills the balls (haha) and will make the next steps easier.

5.       Melt your chocolate in a glass bowl over some boiling water in a sauce pan. Do not put your chocolate in a microwave, as we learned, this is not a good way to go.

6.       Once your chocolate is melted, remove balls from freezer, squeeze them gently out of the moulds. It doesn’t really matter if they’re not perfectly spherical – the decorations later will hide any mishaps. Dip your cake pop sticks into the melted chocolate, just the tip, and then push them gently into your  cake balls; from experience, I’d say about halfway into your balls. If you can, store them upside down (in an egg box, possibly) and put them back into the freezer for a further five minutes or so to solidify the ‘sticking’ chocolate.

7.       When the ‘sticking’ chocolate is officially hardened enough to your satisfaction, remove them from the freezer and the decorative process can start. Yay!

8.       Slowly dip and roll them in your melted chocolate, hand them to your handy co-worker and let them sprinkle to their hearts content. Repeat until all balls are chocolate covered and decorated.

9.       Store them again in the freezer until shells are hardened.

10.    Cake Pops will only last three days or so, so if serving at a party or giving as a gift, I suggest making them the day before and storing them in the fridge for no longer than fifteen minutes.

11.    Hurrah Cake-Pops.

Have you guys made Cake Pops? How did they go? Any tips and tricks for next time? Let me know in the comment section below. :)