A Project per Day

Cherry Chocolates

These chocolates are very simple to make and make brilliant presents. Just pop them in a cellophane bag and tie some ribbon around the top and you have the perfect gift. On the other hand, they’re so nice they’ll probably never get to the bags because you’ll have eaten them all. Maybe you should think of some different presents…

You’ll need glacé cherries, chocolate (any will do, white, milk and plain will all work just fine), condensed milk and a teeny tiny little sliver of butter.

1. Break up the chocolate and split it between two bowls. Put about a third of the chocolate in one bowl and the rest in the other. This doesn’t need to be exact, if a few pieces of chocolate go missing along the way, no one will ever know.
2. Put the bowl with the most chocolate in the microwave and stir every 10 seconds. Once it is almost all melted, put it to one side
3. Add to the bowl with the least chocolate the same amount of condensed milk, by weight, as there is chocolate.
4. Add a small sliver of butter to the bowl.
5. Put this bowl in the microwave and stir every 10 seconds.
6. Once all the chocolate has melted, stir well so the chocolate and condensed milk is completely mixed together and add a few drops of cherry liquor.
7. With a teaspoon coat the chocolate moulds with the melted chocolate (for those of you getting confused because I’m on too much of a sugar high to make sense, that’s the one you DIDN’T just add alcohol to).
8. Chop the glacé cherries in half.
9. With a fork pushed through the flat side of the cherry half, dip the cherries in the condensed milk and chocolate mixture and place in the chocolate moulds,
10. Fill the moulds to the top with melted chocolate and put in the fridge to set.
11. Once set you can remove the chocolates from the mould and repeat as many times as you like.
12. Wait until there’s no one around to share them with, then enjoy your delicious handmade cherry chocolates.
13. Or if you have some self restraint (I don’t… I’m not even sure they’ll last long enough to take pictures…) put them in cellophane bags and hand them out as presents. The people you give them to will be your friend forever, even if they don’t like you, because they’ll want to keep getting these chocolates as presents.

Chain Ankle Strap for Slingback Heels

Slingback heels often have a habit of slipping down your heel, making it somewhat difficult to walk in them. Adding a strap to the front makes it easier to walk in them, but usually ends up looking out of place, using a thick chain to make the strap makes it look like a feature of the shoe, not an ugly addition because you couldn’t walk in them. You’ll need a pair of slingback heels with a fabric lining, just over 2 foot of thick chain, 2 inches of ribbon, 2 “popper” fasteners and a needle and thread.

1. Cut the ribbon in half and sew each half into a loop.
2. Turn the loop inside out so the sewn edges are on the inside of the loop and flatten the loop.
3. Sew the top part of the popper onto the ribbon.
4. Decide where you want the strap to fasten and sew the bottom part of the popper there.
5. Sew the end of the chain to the same point on the other side of the shoe.
6. Put the popper together and thread the chain through the loop.
7. Put the shoe on and pull the chain back across your foot so the chain crosses your foot twice.
8. Cut the chain and sew the end to the shoe just below where the other end is sewn on.
9. Repeat with the other shoe.

Black and White Nail Art

This design is much easier than it looks. I actually did the whole thing with acrylic paint, because I’m cool like that (actually, it’s just that I’m on a student budget and a huge variety of colours in acrylic paint is much cheaper than nail polish). If you do the same, it is absolutely essential you use a base coat and a top coat.

All you need to do is paint a couple of coats of white polish (or paint, if you’re cool like me) and allow to dry.Using a very fine paintbrush (I use the brush out of an old liquid eyeliner for this, it’s exactly the right size) paint three black lines onto each nail at different angles. Try to make each line intersect at least one other. You might want to paint an extra two lines on your thumb nail, if you do this, avoid the lines crossing each other too much as it looks cluttered. Paint on a top coat and you’re done!

Frosted Effect Nails

This is brilliant if you’re after a textured effect which is a bit different to the usual sparkly/shiny nails and requires nothing you won’t already have lying around the house.

1. Paint your nails whatever colour you want them to be.
2. Working on each nail individually, paint with a coat of topcoat, then immediately pour table salt over the nail, press down on the salt with your finger to push it into the polish.
3. Paint two coats of topcoat over the top to hold the salt in place and make it more translucent.

Crystal Charm for Pandora-Style Charm Bracelet

This style of charm bracelet is incredibly common these days, but the charms for them can cost a fortune and they just don’t look right without a reasonable number of charms. These charms look lovely, and whatever quality of bracelet you have, these can be made to match, whether you want swarovski crystals and sterling silver, or are happy with plain glass beads and acrylic with a metal finish, you will get a lot more of these for your money than you would normal beads for them. You’ll need one of the rings for a charm to hang off, three headpins, three crystals, a pair of wire cutters and a pair of round nosed pliers.

1. Slide one of the crystals onto a headpin and cut the headpin about 1cm from the top of the crystal.
2. Cut the other two headpins to the same length.
3. Using the round nose pliers, bend the wire round into a loop, then bend it back at the bottom so the loop sits above the crystal and not to one side.
4. Repeat with the other crystals.
5. Link each of the loops together like a chain and ensure that the loops are closed properly.
6. Open the top loop and put it through the small loop on the ring, then close again.

Chain Initial bracelet

This bracelet is incredibly simple to make and would make a lovely gift. It can be used as a starting point for a simple charm bracelet which can be built up over time (I’ll be making some charms in the future, so watch this space), or just worn as is.

You’ll need to find some chain (thin wire, but decent sized links), a hoop and bar clasp (as shown in the image, these are one of the best types of clasp for bracelets as they’re easier to fasten one handed than most others), letter beads (one or two, whatever letter(s) you want) and a charm (I used a heart, but you can use anything so long as it’s small)

1. Open the last loop on the chain, slip the loop of the bar onto it and close.
2. Wrap the chain around your wrist and find the link the hoop of the clasp needs to fasten to.
3. Attach the loop to this link in the same way you attached the bar.
4. If you are using two letters, cut the chain so it is five links longer than you measured, if you are using one letter, cut the chain so it is three links longer than you measured.
5. Attach the charm to the last link of the chain in the same way you attached the hoop and bar clasp.
6. Attach one letter to the second link above the charm, and the other (if you are using two letters) to second link above that.

Another Flower Post Processing

This style of post processing is useful for directly attention to something in the centre of the photograph. You’ll need GIMP for this.

1. Create two duplicate layers of the image and apply the soft light filter to both.
2. Reduce the opacity of both soft light layers to about 40%.
3. Desaturate the top layer, you have three options here (unless you like to do it manually), pick whichever looks best and makes the focus of your image stand out the most.
4. Create a transparent layer and draw a black border around your image.
5. Apply a gaussian blur to this layer with a blur radius of about 600.
6. Duplicate this layer and reduce the opacity of both layers to about 10%
7. On the second layer, change the filter to saturation.
8. Merge it all together and save and you’re done!

Diagonal Stripe Nail Art

For this nail art you’ll need a silver or gold nail polish, two colours of your choice (I used two shades of red), black acrylic paint, a small paint brush (I use the brush from an old liquid eyeliner) and a toothpick. Wait for the paint to dry in between each step.

1. Paint your nails with the colour you want on the bottom of the design.
2. Paint the second colour diagonally across the top of your nails.
3. Paint a thin line of black paint along the line where the two colours meet.
4. Put dots of silver polish along the black line using the toothpick.
5. Finish off with a top coat. (This is absolutely vital when using paint, as without it the paint will look dull in comparison to the project)

Chocolate Chip Muffins

These are quite possibly the tastiest things ever. Don’t make too many, because I can guarantee that you will eat them all at once.

In order that you don’t get fat, I’m not going to let you have the recipe! HAH! Okay, okay, fine. I will, but I can’t remember the amounts I used, so I’ll put it up in the morning when I’m not too tired to find the recipe again (I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and then lost it, clever me) and do the conversions (since the majority of the people who bother to look at this seem to be american, and my recipes all require converting into cups if I actually want to tempt them to try them)

Food Recycling

Recycling food is incredibly easy. All you need is some left over food and a food recycling machine, which will look a bit like this:

Different models are available in different colours and sizes if you’re the type to be fussy about appearance.

Food recycling machines convert old food into new food, which comes handily wrapped in a recyclable hard shell. This recycled food product is usually referred to as an egg. You might find you need more than one machine, since they’re not always too reliable at producing one egg a day, or you may want more than one egg per day. You can buy recycling machines very cheaply second hand, as battery farms like to keep up to date with the latest technology, and won’t keep each machine for very long. These machines may require some time to boot up when you first get them, but it’s definitely worth it. You can often get a second hand recycling machine for less than you’d pay for a dozen eggs. If you’d rather have a new recycling machine, it will set you back a bit more, but the difference is rarely more than the price of half a dozen eggs, so it’s still worth it.

Here’s how to use your recycling machine:

1. Install it correctly. Recycling machines need to be installed somewhere fairly waterproof and with a place for the recycled food product to be deposited so you can collect it. If you only have a few, the place you will need to install them will probably look a bit like a very small shed with a ramp up to the door. Ensure that the machines have an outdoor area to prevent overcrowding.
2. Install the necessary add ons. At the very minimum, these will include a water bowl and a small bowl of grit (or washed and crushed up egg shells).
3. Supply your machines with a basic feed consisting of water and grain.
4. Add any food you wish to recycle to the feed, whenever you wish to recycle it.
5. Collect the recycled food product once a day.
6. Make sure none of the recycled food product gets broken near the recycling machines, this can trigger a bug which causes them to recycle the recycled product in a never ending loop