Pretty pink birthday treats

It was a friend's birthday recently and as we were heading over there to celebrate, I thought I'd make a personalised gift (or two!).

I used some See D's letter stamps to create a large label for the sweety jar, and combined it with some Blonde Moments patterned papers. I have so much patterned paper, I need to start using it up rather than fearing cutting into the ones I love the most incase I run out! I then covered the lid with some pre-printed spotty felt and tied it together with a pink ribbon. I took this idea from my creative friend Julie ;o)

I then also made some pretty chocolate cupcakes (using a piping bag to decorate), and finally got to try an idea I've been thinking of doing for ages. I purchased some *blank* cake boxes with the view to personalising each one for whatever occasion arose - and I love the outcome! I lined the box with pink tissue paper and carefully arranged the cupcakes in the box.

So I took out my pink and brown inks and set away, stamping the lid (while still flat) with birthday images.

I think cupcakes look so pretty when they have a choice of different toppings on them.

And those were our birthday gifts for the day. I'm off to a crafting event today and am very excited!

A creative weekend

I've just returned home from a girlie weekend away at Center Parcs, and what a creative weekend we had. It was for a birthday celebration so we decided to plan a few activities of our own that would be fun but relatively inexpensive.

One of these activities was a cardmaking session led by me, so I took the opportunity to use my Stampin' Up supplies and teach a card or two. They were all relatively new to cardmaking and were very excited by their creations by the end of the session. That's what we like to see!

Some were not even sure they could part with their creations, now that's dedication for you!

These are the finished articles which I have to say I was very impressed with, and think they are all lovely! I better not say which is my favourite as they might be checking my blog out later ;o)

We moved onto another activity of cupcake decorating which seems to be very fashionable at the moment. It was good fun and everyone had a turn at piping and decorating with pretty sprinkles and such like.

We managed to fit in a pampering session amongst all of this, as well as yummy food, a girly film and a few drinks so all in all, a very creative and fun weekend.

I even managed to fit in making a few extra cards myself while the others were playing, so I'll share those another day. Very simple but classic designs to follow...

Food related post...

I'm hoping someone can help me with this (dodgy i-phone picture!) - I'm desperate to find out where on earth you can buy tiny little tins that are suitable for making mini cheesecakes, such as these....!

They are so cute and I really want to make them, but I cannot find any small tins anywhere that have loose bottoms. Can anyone recommend them to me? I thought Lakeland might have some but they didn't seem to.

So, having been experimenting with lots of homemade cooking recently, here are just a few of the things we've made... (and were all successful, I might add!)

Filo pastry prawns...

Minced beef Wellington...

which looked like this when cut...

And chocolate fondand dessert with vanilla ice cream, yum yum....

Photography has been back on my mind alot recently as I've been very disappointed with only being able to take photographs at night in the dark, and they are such poor quality. But I also really need to scrub up on my outdoor daytime photography as I look at other's blogs and long to take pictures as good as them. Anyone recommend any good, easy courses?

x

Time for celebration...

Did I tell you, it's time to celebrate? I'm taking part in a Stampin' Up! challenge! Oh no, I did tell you that. I didn't tell you who the third talented crafter is though did I?It's Suzanne Torr (http://fruitysuet.blogspot.com/) and I am sure most of you will know her already as she is very talented, and has been on the crafting scene for a number of years. The three of us will be taking part in the blog hopping challenge on Wednesday evening (explained below). Now that's a reason to celebrate! And I would like to point out at this moment, that yes I did, in fact, make these chocolate cupcakes - and although they look like they have been brought straight from the supermarket bakery, that is actually the very useful plastic container that our croissants came in! Honestly. I kid you not.

As much as I would love to tell you that I made these cupcakes this evening especially to celebrate that I am taking part in the Stampin' Up! blog event, I might by lying. Although I am that excited it may well have been true! I did make some cakes, however, to take to my friends when we visited them Sunday, to celebrate the arrival of their first little baby boy.

We took along this card creation (the grey splodge is for privacy, not my strange style!) - when I am crafting for something very specific and under a time restraint I find it so much harder - let's hope that doesn't happen Wednesday evening eh! A little bit of basic stamping to get me in the mood for Wednesday's festivities...

Back to craft!

Ok so back to some crafting for if anyone is still reading this, although not new creations recently I admit - but for now, as many of you crafters will be getting ready for the Christmas season already (gasp!) - I'll post some festive creations that I don't think I have shared before.


It's made with a similar theme to the button wedding invitations that I made - in fact, that's where our idea came from for doing them! It's simply a present made from buttons, with some lovely embroidery stitching to complete the ribbon bow. Voila!


Continuing with the food theme, I tried another recipe recenty from the Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food book - Salmon pesto with green beans and I added lemon cous cous, it was lovely.

Cupcake bonanza

I think cupcakes are a little addictive - it's taken me years to get around to baking them, and now I've started I just want to keep making more! I do think its all related to being creative, that kind of like doesn't just end with paper and card but extends into all kinds of other areas too.

I spent a day at Blake House Craft Centre today which was really good fun - a good day out if you want somewhere that's not too exhausting but enough to do. It's a bit like Barleylands Craft Village if you have ever been there in Essex too, but this one is in Braintree. It has a maize maze which was fun, crazy golf, a tea room and lots of little shops, some crafty, some furniture etc. It's a nice afternoon out and we had good weather too.

So anyway, back to the cupcakes, these were some I made for my friend who only recently gave birth to a lovely little girl - these were the mummy treat to go with the baby presents!

I used a piping bag again and different nozzles, with some sprinkles. The nurses actually couldn't believe that I made them - that's a compliment!

Food, glorious food

So the cooking overload began last weekend and as well as cooking the carrot cake large cake, carrot cake cupcakes and also mini cupcakes, we decided to try cooking something new Saturday evening too! I wouldn't recommend doing all of this in one day though...

We made a buffalo mozzarella and tomato starter with balsamic vinegar and olive oil - it tasted very nice, however the 'drizzling of vinegar' needs some practice!

and then we went on to cook a seafood paella from Jamie Oliver's 'Ministry of Food' cookbook - this was yum!

Not bad for one weekend eh!

Chocolate swirls

More cupcakes from the last couple of weeks...

These ones were chocolate swirl cakes (I had no idea that you could make the swirl pattern in the cakes just by dropping chocolate mixture into normal cake mixture and only stirring it a little). I piped the icing again, this time using chocolate and vanilla buttercream icing, and this time added sprinkles to some of them. Yum!

More cake!

This weekend we overdosed on cooking and baking a bit, I think it's my new craze but I'm not sure how long it will last! We made ordinary sized carrot cake cupcakes but also these tiny, miniature ones which were just so cute, kids will love them. I've used a piping bag on the mini cakes.

We also attempted to make a whole carrot cake too - it turned out pretty well I think! And tasted very nice, so that was a good effort from us.

No crafting for now - I've been too busy baking...

Cupcakes!

Ok, so I didn't get around to putting anything on ebay yet, I have made cupcakes a couple of times over the last few weeks though!


This batch are carrot cakes with vanilla icing and sprinkled with cinnamon - yum! They were for my friends baby shower recently, where she also had the 'nappy cake' and lots of other lovely presents. I've wanted to bake some cute cupcakes for ages and found a good icing piping bag and nozzles in Ikea of all places.

I've since made some chocolate ones too, I'll share those another time.