Making Do-the #pinaddicts challenge, part 1

On my other blog for my crafty business, Shouty Cat Makes, I am taking part in something called the #Pinaddicts Challenge. Basically this is for people like me who are ever so slightly addicted to Pinterest, and get sucked into spending a lot of time pinning, leaving not much time for actually making. I thought this sounded like a fun thing to do, not realising the added dimension that My Make Do and Mend Year would add to it…

This is a cut and paste of the post on Shouty Cat Makes, but I thought it might make you giggle…

Right then! This is my first ever try at the #pinaddicts challenge. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I have a dedicated page about it here, or you can have a look at their fabby new website.

The basic idea is to actually make some of the stuff you pin… Crazy I know.

Here is my board on Pinterest-it is a little bare at the moment. I am pinning with care, as I know that at some point I will actually have to make these things…

I have a lot of stuff on at the moment, and am busy making things for various craft fairs, so don’t have much time, so wanted to keep it nice and simple for this first attempt.

So this is what I pinned

The writing underneath said “mix 1 cup of milk and 1/3 of a cup of Nutella to make homemade Fudgsicles”

I thought, I can do that, sounds easy, looks pretty yummy, let’s give it a go.

How wrong I was…

1st problem-I have just started on My Make Do and Mend Year, where I have set myself the challenge of buying nothing new for a whole year. So herein lies the first problem. I have no ice lolly moulds. Never mind, the mother in law is bound to have some. No. So I put out an appeal on Facebook to borrow some. A lovely lady from BigSmall’s pre-school very kindly offerred to lend me some, but then I got lambasted (is that a word?) by my lack of Make Do and Mending, and had 2 further suggestions: one to use plastic cups as moulds and spoons for handles, and another to use empty smarties tubes and sticks.

Both of these ideas have their merits, but need some tweaking. I have visions of small people with cold metal spoons stuck to their little hands, and how do you get the sticks/spoons to stand up whilst the lolly is freezing? But a very good excuse to eat Smarties.

So I thought I would do an experiment and try out each method to add a little extra tweak to my challenge..!

2nd problem-the pin links to this page here, on the daily Waffle.com and when you actually read the recipe, it uses ‘Pacific hazlenut chocolate milk’. Now this sounds very nice but I have no clue what it is.

3rd problem-Never mind I thought, inthe post it refers to the original recipe that they then adapted that uses Nutella and condensed milk-awesome I thought, I know what that is, and I even have some in the cupboard. Here is the original recipe for Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream at Chocolate and Zucchini. BUT on further reading, they used an ice cream maker. I do not have an ice cream maker. And even if I hadn’t started My Make Do and Mend Year, I think it would be a little profligate to buy one just for this!

So as I see it, here are my recipe options:

1) nutella + milk

2) nutella + some kind of chocolate milk that I might be able to find in the supermarket

3) nutella + condensed milk, in moulds without the ice cream maker

What to do..?

I can see what will happen is that I will feel obliged to try out all 3 lolly mould options, with all 3 recipe options, and what started out as a quick and simple idea has now turned into the most convoluted and involved process ever!

Bugger.