A positively uncrafty post Part 1

Gosh everyone has been super busy here the last few weeks. Soon after the upstairs bathroom was completed, we started work on my bedroom. We cleared everything out storing it in the craft room of course, the walls have been striped, the messy coving ripped off. The new furniture delivered and checked. Adam has worked super hard over the jubilee holiday, installing spotlights in my bedroom and in the kitchen (which turned into a bigger job than we first bargained for).

In other news, E3 has kicked off again, and to be honest my predictions for a rather lack lustre show have so far been proven right. Of course there was some nice games being shown off, but we are getting close to the end of the current consoles lives but only 1 of the next gen consoles being shown off (Wii U) we're left with the swan song from the other big players.

Xbox headed up the show with their live conference. Kicking off things with a Halo 4 live action cut scene followed by a game play demo, expanding a fair bit on there teaser trailer they showed last year, giving us some nice hints on who enemies Chief will be facing this time around.

Next up was a demo of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Now I've never played any Splinter Cell games in the past, any while the trailer looks good enough, I properly won't be in the future. However one thing I do like from this demo was using Kinect to issue voice command and distracting enemies.

EA showed off Fifa 13 and Madden NFL 13 as they do every year, and just like very year I went and made a cup of tea. I'm not a sports fan when it's real and I have zero interest in game versions. 

Back on track, Fable: The Journey. A Kinect game. Not really sure what to make of this, still not seen it in action so how it handles is still the big question. As for Fable itself, the poorly implemented co-op game in the 2nd game tainted my enjoyment quite a bit.

A new Gears of War game popped up, this is another game that seems to pass me by. Never played the series so can't really comment on the trailer. It's that weird camera over the shoulder view that has put me off  not sure why just don't like it.

Forza Horizon was next, and driving games for me are on the game level as sports games. I pretty much glazed over and got a snack from the kitchen.

Now here comes the boring part. Xbox yapping on about things like putting a browser in Xbox, new movie and music services in the Xbox dashboard. While I sure this info is nice enough I just feel far far to much time was devoted to this, when the millions of people that are watching E3 are watching it for the games. At some point Nike started talking about a fitness game. I was still a little switched off from the last segment so didn't pay to much attention. However if it's a well done game (and imo Kinect is the better motion control system for working out games) I might pick this up.

Again Xbox came out with silly filler info. Connecting all different Microsoft devices together. Which for someone like me is completely useless. All my devices are made by different companies and it is like this for a reason. This whole segment was meaningless to me.

Finally something decent. Tomb Raider. Last year they teased us with a pretty opening cutscene. This year they showed us a nice chunk of game play. It looks and feels a heck of a lot like Uncharted which I really enjoyed. This is one on my to play list.

Next up was Ascend: New Gods (a hack/slash type game, could be interesting so see what develops of that one).  Loco Cycle: Just a teaser trailer which was a bit weird and Matter which both me and Adam thought was a portal game at first. No real info from any of them so hard to form a strong opinion on these three.

Resident Evil 6 up next. It looks good, very good. The Show game play featured a section with Leon but reports from the booths say that each character to play handles differently reflecting the game they were from (but control really well), even the various character inventory screens and HUD's are different. Kinda a nice touch.

Now they focused a little on Xbox Live games. Leading the way Wreckateer which looked pretty much to be an Angry Birds game using Kinect.

Now this next game shown was a bit of a wow moment. 1) because if some of those clips in this trailer are game play then this game will be how a TV cartoon based game should look. 2) because I just thought is this game really gonna be in my highlights of E3? Anyway South Park: The Stick of Truth.

Bonus points for Trey Parker and Matt Stone for taking the mickey out of Xbox for that whole connecting all your devices junk.

Harmonix followed with Dance Central 3. Usher pranced around on stage promoting it, but as far as the game goes its more of the same really. Not to say I dislike the game, far from it, I rather enjoy Dance Central. However at the end of the day I can only form an opinion of the game from the full list of songs included in the game.

Finally things were wrapped up with Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. Yes it looked pretty, and action packed but, I just don't care any more about the series. For one reason and one reason only. The on line community. It is a drain to play with the so very vocal whiny kids that cry if you shoot them, rage quit the game if they are losing and pretty much just spam obscenities at anyone and everyone when not doing one of the first two. Sadly I wish I could say I just ran into a bad bunch of players but it's always the same and it's got to the point where the game is just not enjoyable so I'll be saving the money on the game (and the endless DLC they pump out during the year).

EA took the stage next showing off Dead Space 3 first. I'm hoping that Co-Op mode doesn't take too much a way from the feel of how the older DS play. The whole element of Issac losing his grasp on reality while being rather isolated was just as key to the game as necromorphs jumping out at you. I'm just worried having another character to bounce off of will take that a way from Issac and from what I've seen from the game play it looks like it's leaning more towards Lost Planet style (even though I enjoyed that game).

More Sports was up next so I excused myself for another cup of tea.

Sim City next starting off with Sim City Social.... a Facebook game... really? Nothing wrong with Facebook games, but is E3 really the place to be announcing them. Anyway they showed off the real thing next Sim City. Now I like Simulation Games, I find them after relaxing, so I guess I'll pick this one up sooner or later.

Next Battlefield 3, they talked a bit about Battlefield premium which if it is anything like Call of Duty Elite it's nothing I would be prepared to pay for.

Next up they talked about Star Wars: The Old Republic. They announced new playable races, flashpoints and quest lines. I played this for a couple of months when it launched, and while it wasn't perfect (no newly released MMORPG's are), it wasn't bad. I just think I've grown out of MMORPG's in general, and I just don't have the will to play them any more. In truth I much prefer Diablo style multi player RPG.

Medal of Honour was up next, I don't play this series so while the demo was playing I took the moment to make up our bed for the night since we're sleeping downstairs while we're working on our room. I came back to UFC game being talked about I was told I missed Fifa 13 segment (bonus).

Need For Speed: Most Wanted was shown, again driving games are a no no for me, but I know Adam sometimes dabbles in the Need for Speed series so he might be interested.

E3 wrapped up their show with Crysis 3, another series I haven't played ( FPS tend to give me a headache if I play them too long so I don't play too many of them, don't really think about it until E3 rolls around and so many FPS's get shown off).

Ubisoft was the last show I would be watching that night. So snuggled up with a mug of hot chocolate to enjoy their offerings.

The opened with Just Dance 4, and Flo Rida jumping around on stage. While I like Dance Central  I've never played Just Dance. I'm not THAT into dance games (plus Just Dance always is marketed heavly as get your friends together and dance (cue my forever alone face).

Farcry 3 looks pretty, although I doubt we'll get this one, Farcry 2 was a game bought for us as a gift played a little then just got put on that "I'll finish that another time pile" and has remained there ever since.

Splinter Cell showed up again, but just as a cinematic this time.

Next up Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth. I'm a big comic nerd and while I would have loved to have heard more about Marvel Heroes, I'll settle with this for now. The commented this game would be on the Wii U which led on to some talk of games using the new system.

Rayman legends highlighted the Wii U controller. Looked interesting, but it didn't have be begging for a Wii U. Followed was something a lot less cartoonish and was a nice step for the Wii U platform

ZombiU the trailer reminds me a lot of Dead Island, (which I enjoyed), and was little nod to the Jubilee with God Save the Queen playing and the London setting.

The game everyone was expecting was next Assassin's Creed. The game play reflected the trailers that I'd seen so far so nothing major stood out with this one, since it focused on the usual AC fare or sneaking around with your hood up, tip toeing above people on branches, taking out the guard or two, a gorgeous cinematic and jumping off very high places.

There was a whole section on E-sports, I didn't really "get" this segment. It felt like filler, it looked like filler. The game they used in the demo, didn't even look that good. They show cased a few more Online games then moved on.

Now they showed something that caught my attention. First up was a teaser trailer. Info-graph style.

Then came the game itself. I really liked the look of this, felt like a real world Deus Ex melded with GTA very interesting. This game for me was definitely the winner of the day.

Tomorrow I'll review my highlights from Sony, Nintendo and other shows.

Bread Pudding

I tried out this recipe (from BBC Good Food) last night wanting to use up some bread that was going stale. Was very tasty and declared by everyone in the house that the recipe is a keeper.

Ingredients

• 500g white or wholemeal bread
• 500g/1lb 2oz mixed dried fruit
• 85g mixed peel
• 1 ½ tbsp mixed spice
• 600ml milk
• 2 large eggs , beaten
• 140g light muscovado sugar
• zest 1 lemon (optional)
• 100g butter , melted
• 2 tbsp demerara sugar

Method

1. 1. Tear the bread into a large mixing bowl and add the fruit, peel and spice. Pour in the milk, then stir or scrunch through your fingers to mix everything well and completely break up the bread. Add eggs, muscovado and lemon zest if using. Stir well, then set aside for 15 mins to soak.
2. 1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter and line the base of a 20cm non-stick square cake tin (not one with a loose base). Stir the melted butter into the pudding mixture, tip into the tin, then scatter with demerara. Bake for 1½ hrs until firm and golden, covering with foil if it starts to brown too much. Turn out of the tin and strip off the paper. Cut into squares and serve warm.

Choosing your hooks

Just like yarn comes in hundreds of variations, there are many types of hooks to choose from as well. Hooks  can come in different shapes, sizes and textures, all having an effect on your end result.

While the hook size should be based around the yarn & pattern you are using, what the Hook is made from is really down to your own preference. The most common materials you'll find hooks made from are metal, wood and plastic.

Metal Hooks in the UK at least the most common hook materials you'll find to buy in shops, they are strong, durable and smooth. Generally they will be made from aluminium or steel. Metals typically have a looser grip on yarns, allowing you to crochet faster. Metal hooks come in a huge range of sizes from giant 25mm hooks for the bulkiest of yarns to tiny 0.5mm for the most delicate of lace.

Wood hooks can be made in many different types of wood like bamboo. They are smooth and relatively light, Wood hooks tend to have a stronger grip on yarn, so may be a better choice to some very silky yarns.

Plastic Hooks are normally made of acrylic, and are lightweight. They tend to be somewhere in between metal and wood in terms of gripping yarn.

It's good to consider having multiple hooks of varying materials, because their properties may have different effects on your gauge, and general ease to working with different types of yarns.

A brillant morning

Gosh this morning has been a busy one, first and foremost it's my Mum's birthday. I was planning to treat her to a nice cup of tea in bed but she suck up on me as I was in the kitchen to let Mutley outside (he had other plans and refused to get off the bed).

After breakfast was done, and she had opened her presents, we headed out to Windsor for a morning out. We arrived at about 8:40am so not much at all was open so just had a wander until M&S opened, we went up to there cafe and enjoyed some tea and some delicious fruit scones.

After we had finished there we wandered around a bit and someone from the new L'Occitane shop which was opening that day was handing out little bags with some free samples in, since this is one of our favourite skin care brand we were delighted.

Our freebie bag contained a little sample of their face serum, travel sized bottles of the Almond shower oil and Shea face moisturiser.

Since it was their opening day they also were offering 15% of everything in store, I picked up a couple of bits I was getting low on. Rich Body Cream and the Protective Cream.

I also picked up one of their Nail and Cuticle Creams, my hands and nails are taking a bit of a battering with the painting I've been doing recently so that will be a treat for when it's all finished.

Mum bought a nice reed diffuser and fragrance for the upstairs bathroom once it's finished. She picked the Verbina scent which is a wonderful fresh zesty citrus smell. 

Finally because we were both one of the first 100 customers of the day we got a free gift, which contained travel sizes of the new Peony Shower gel, and Cherry Blossom Hand Cream and shower gel.

After we left there we headed down to B&Q to see if I could get a final look at the furniture I was planing to order when we got home but the only things they keep stock of in store is the sliding doors. But yes, we're officially starting to decorate another room. 2012 is the year of the Makeover for this house!

Repainting the dining room and good and bad movies

Well I finished off the living room and straight way I had the erge to paint the dining room, the two rooms are joined by some nice windowed French doors so we normally keep them the same colour. This was a nice bonus since I still had half a tub of the warm beige colour and a full tub of the soft sand colour left.

I whizzed around this room, it only took me about 5 hours to finish the whole thing, minus the small patches I missed. The one annoying thing about the darker colour I chose, when it's wet it near identical to the existing colour on the wall so it makes it rather hard to see in lower light where I've missed until it dries.





Now for some film talk

First up the Hunger Games it's based on the book by of the same name by Suzanne Collins. I've only read the first book (although know my fair share of spoilers from the other two books). Before I begin I'll say where I stand on the book, I only read the book after I saw trailers for the film. I really enjoyed the book and got through it within a couple of nights, it was by no means perfect but I'm glad the book seemed to make a point of Katniss not lusting after the two male roles rather that she had strong opinions against it.

The film however I thought was poor, I can wrap up my views on the film by saying. You have to watch the film as a book companion not as a film adaptation.
(Spolier ahead. Highlight the colours blocks if you want to read them
I'm happy to accept the deaths have to softened due to age rating they where aiming for, and Haymitch's heavy drinking was toned down out for the same reason (although I kinda was hoping they would have left him falling off stage in but that proberly would have added too much humor to the serious part in the story.


Yep, things have to be changed to for the film or cut out completely. How close to dying Peeta is, where the pin came from ect.  


But to me there was two things the film just glossed over, and they aren't small issues, and I think not really delving into them hurts the film. 1) How awful life is in District 12, if Katniss and Gale don't go out hunting illegally, there is a very real chance of them and their families starving. That's the reason Gale's name has been put in 42 times, they are so desperate for food they will take the meagre rations the extra entries award even though the worst case scenario for that is so grim. 2) How brutal the Capitol is. Yeah the games itself are cruel, but you know only for those 24 unlucky ones. Not if caught with a weapon, found outside in the woods, hunting illegally, trading illegally, running away from the capitol the best you can hope for is a fast execution at worst, having your tongue cut out and becoming a slave for the rest of your days.

In the end I kept going back to the thought, I only know this because I read the book. And I'm sorry but that is not how it should be, I didn't need to read LoTR or Harry Potter to understand what was happening in the film, the film explains it.

The one thing I will happily admit I liked was the scenes involving the game master since in the book (written in first person) we never see what's going on with him and it did give me a real scene of how in control of the game arena the capitol really is (it seriously had a whole Truman show vibe going on with that)

Now for the good one.

It's been many years in the making, all the way back in 2005 when the idea for a host of superhero origin stories (Iron man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America) culminating in a movie that bought them all together was announced. Since then each of these films had hints, teasers as to what would follow.

I was hoping the film would be good, equalling the films that came before it.... It blew them away, it pushes the bar of the super hero genre up a good few notches. There is tons of action, personality clashes from the team, some ace one liners in there which has the whole audience laughing, interestingly enough even though it was the action that drew me and I thought would be the focus, its the parts which reflect they characters humanity which I enjoyed the most.

On a side note, even though the Hulk (not Bruce Banner) is semi reduced to comic relief, I think they got him so right this time around. Despite me sleeping though the last two hulk films, if they ever make another Hulk film with Mark Ruffalo in it and done in a similar way as they have done with this film I'll be getting a ticket.

Decorating the Living Room

First of all my scheduled posts have gone out of the window. The reason for the that is we're having the upstairs bathroom redecorated at the start of May, and part of that is going to involve a wall being knocked down. In the tempt to keep my crafting stuff as dust free as possible while the work is being done I'm making an effort not to do any major crafting up there for a few weeks.

So while I've made some progress on my Crochet cushion cover and done a little bit of scrapbooking, everything else is on hiatus for a bit. I'll share some pics of those over the next week.

What I have been getting up to though is painting the Living Room, it's been a good few years or so since we last updated the colour in there and it was looking a bit tired. I managed to get 1/3 of the room done before dinner had to be started, so hoping I can get it finished off before the end off Friday.

We managed to get a bargain with the paint as well, we went for a colour called soft sand (for the top half of the room) and Warm Beige (on the bottom half). However when we started looking for the soft sand in a 5L tub we were told that size had been discontinued however it was showing on the system what they had a few tubs still in stock so the shop assistant was determine to track them down for us. It took her about 20 minutes but she finally found 3 tubs of the paint for us. Unfortunately  it was 2 matt and one silk (we was originally after the silk version) and for the size of the room/rooms we are decorating we needed more than one tub so went for the matt version instead. Then as she was checking out our paint she told us because this colour was being discontinued they had reduced the price from £22 a tub down to £6, we took a double take and then asked if that was the case with the Silk tub as well, yep it was, so we took that one as well to save it for some of the upstairs rooms. In the end we got £110 worth of paint for £40.

Making quick pages

I really like it when I have some nice quick pages to use, they are so simple, drop in your pictures and your done. So this got me thinking, why not make some of my own from the kits I have? It's great practice and I can save my work as different layer groups to make it nice and easy to work with / change if that photo I want to use in the future just wont fit.

Here's my first attempt, I've used elements from a Kellybell Designs Kit "Expedition Safari". 

This image is made up of four parts *saved separately on my PC for when I come to use it*. The top layer, which has the buttons and embellishments over the photos. The 2nd layer which is the Photo frames, I just need to slot my photos in behind them then add some shadowing. The 3rd layer which is the page boarder and the big cluster in the bottom right of the page.  The 4th and final layer (which I didn't save purposely) consists of a big picture (The Tree of Life in this case) and a paper layer set as an overlay.


I really enjoyed making this up and didn't take too long at all, and and by splitting the Quick Page into a couple of layers I still give myself some flexibility just in case i get an awkwardly sized photo to work with.