Now, we hear a lot these days from those gluten-intolerant namby-pambys talking about how pasta isn’t any good, but I say they don’t know what they’re talking about.

I’m fair sweaty under the kilt about all the projects I’ve been working on this week, which is why we’re going to spilt this tutorial into two posts: first, we’ll be looking at all the items you can make from what is a fairly standard cupboard staple, and secondly, I’ll show you how to make some seasonally appropriate decorations.

Pasta dioramas

This one is really only limited by your own creativity. Not surprisingly, I became interested in this when I discovered that Lloyd was using the dead hour between 2.10 and 3.10am to work on his own rather magnificent collection of trains, station houses, and jalopies made of pasta.

Anyway, what you need to do is:

Gather a selection of the following:

- Rotelle (or “wagon wheels” as Geoff will insist on calling them - a little known fact is that he is a big fan of leftover pasta for breakfast, so we have often had discussions on the correct terminology for the varied shapes.)

- Cavatelli (straight tubes)

- Fiori (“little flowers”)

- Lasagne sheets

- Rigatoni

- Hot glue gun (don’t forget to work on old newspaper, the glue is a devil for sticking up the desk and it’s hell to try and adjust the levels with a big glob of glue in the way. Can lead to embarrassing situations.)

Now, use the glue gun to assemble the shapes however you would like in order to make the above mentioned items. I could give you exact instructions, but no doubt it is best if you work it out for yourself. Here is a photo for inspiration:

(That’s a photo of my nephew Sean II in the background. I have to keep him well supervised around my projects, otherwise he tends to smash them because he is a brat of youthful enthusiasm). EDIT: thanks to Meredith for the photo, which was originally posted here.

Don’t forget you can use different flavoured pasta for colour variations, or alternately, use a water-based paint to colour them.