Baking today

Not only have I had a craft weekend, I have also been baking.

Today I made cupcakes for a special occasion later in the week.

Following my cupcake decorating course at the beginning of the month, I bought a new nozel which makes the rose shaped icing. These are my first attempt since then.

The icing is a lot creamier in colour, the artificial light has made it more yellow.

I also got some edible glitter dust in irridenscent..

Pink....

and Lilac....

I was quite pleased with the results and they tasted good too.

Hope the people they were made for like them too!

TFL

xxx

Carnation Fairy

I recently entered the Sweet Pea Stampers challenge Lace and Pearls but was not 100pc happy with my entry. So, today I played with the decoupage sheets that I won from the Crafty Purple Frog and made this card. I hope it's OK to enter more than once...

I used the Carnation Fairy created by Ching-Chou Kuik and mounted her onto a Nestie scalloped oval.

She was a dream to cut out even with the frilly wings. Printed on photo paper she has a nice sheen.

The card is 6x6 and I folded the front back and used a Martha Stewart deep edge punch to make a lace border. The same punched was used on the patterned paper on the inside to balance it.

Below is a close up of the decoupage.

I added a strip of real lace down the centre of the card and some pearls to finish.

Do you decoupage? If so, what do you print your images onto?

Do you favour scissors or a craft knife? Personally I am a huge fan of the Fiskars 5" sharp point ones.

Thanks for sharing.

Linda

xx

Little Peekers

I made this card for the Elisabeth Bell challenge to create an easel card with one of her images.

I had recently got the set of Little Peekers from Elaine at Quixotic Paperie and used the daydreamer.

The base card is an 8x8 from CWC, papers also from CWC. A Martha Stewart PATP leaf design was used to create two mats which were backed with some bazzill from my stash.

The image was stamped onto the smaller one and coloured with Promarkers. The cardstock was not the premium card I usually use and I dont think it coloured as well.

A close-up of the image....

I am loving these torn roses which were made from the same bazzill. Once sprayed with Spray and Sparkle - iridescent - I felt it gave a real dewey feel IYKWIM?

My trusty Martha Stewart Butterfly punch was used again and these too sprayed as above.

I was a little more generous here and the sparkle really shows. I used torn paper rolls for the bodies and added some antennae.

A bow with pins and a tied button was added for balance.

Thanks for looking and sharing my world :)

xxx

I am also pleased to announce that this card appeared on Quixotic Inspirations Customer Spotlight.

Happy Birthday Steven

It was my nephews birthday on Sunday and here is the card I made him.

The image is Charlie from Stamping Bella which I stamped at Lynn's house.

Papers from SU mounted onto a 6x6" CWC card, message from CWC mounted into punched circles from SU too.

 The letters are foam from my stash and I have faux stitched around the edges with a fineliner.

The letters are on the inside of the card as below.

A close up of the image.

Hope you had a lovely day Steven.

I have entered this card into the Bellariffic Friday challenge.

xxx

All the 2’s

This weeks Passion for Promarkers challenge is called "all the 2's" Everything on your card must be in 2's.

I made the following easel card using a House Mouse image, coloured of course with Promarkers.

See previous post re storage...

My list of 2's is:

2 Mice on my image plus 2 candles

2 colours - pink and yellow

2 messages mounted on scalloped circles

2 Retro daisies with circular centres

2 yellow candi

2 pink candi

2 colours of glitter - yellow and pink

2 papers from the same range - a DCVW stack

A close-up of my image....

A close of of my daisies :)

Why not hop over to their blog and enter the challenge?

Storage for ProMarkers

I have been trying to find the perfect storage solution for my Promarkers. Unlike the Copics which come in clear plastic boxes, the promarkers are all loose.

Lynn made a lovely basket for hers with stitched pockets.

I looked at all the tool bags (workmens bags) etc, but could not find one that would work.

Then I had a brainwave - I got this cleaning storage unit from Matalan for £3.00 and was going to stitch an insert for it but another idea worked and much better! Read on.....

Top view showing the sturdy carry handle, perfect for going to crops etc.

And how are they held?

Volvic water bottles, the 1.5l variety, cut down to size and will hold up to 20 pens each.

Being removable, you can easily make your colour selection.

Next I am going to print and colour in a chart and stick them to the relevant areas.

What do you think?

My first ever Tilda...........

I saw this challenge from Make it Colourful on Elaine's blog and thought I'd have a go.

It's a colour combination of Purple and Yellow and sponsored by Magnolia-licious.

I used a shaped edge card (6x6) from CWC and some Magnolia papers recently purchased from the Glitterpot. Lynn kindly gave me some stamped images a while back and this Tilda was amongst them.

I have used Copics to colour with.

Glossy accents were used on the beads for shine although it's not easy to see here.

I created a brick wall for her to sit on and added some paper flowers and leaves.

The butterflies are the smaller Martha Stewart punch with Stickles as the body.

Why not follow the link above and have a go at the challenge too?

Linda

xx

Make a Wish

This month's Scrapology challenge is a scraplift of Liberty Chance. This layout is based on another of her pages which was published the same time, follow the link above to see the original.

The frame is called on the grapevine and was made by Buzz & Bloom who unfortunately ceased trading late last year. I found a few on the internet so managed to get one.

I gave it a thin base coat of white acrylic paint then spritzed with Cosmic shimmer mists.

The papers are Prima Sparkling Sprintime - Berry Fresh, Pink Apron and Rosebud.

The flowers are a mixture of hand made roses and some daisies from my stash.

I added some pearls and a pearl spray.

The butterflies are on the reverse of the Berry Fresh paper.

This is how they work as a double page spread

There is still time to enter the May challenge - closing date 5th June.

Fabulous prize on offer from Jill at Cardinal Colours - why not pop over to Scrapology and take a peek.

All items apart from the frame & letters available from Cardinal Colours.

See here for the "All grown up" page.

The Chocolate Experience

Booked with Chocolate Delight via buy-a-gift.com, this was Robert's Christmas present.

A chocolate fountain with marshmallows greeted us, a great start.

Hosted by Vicky, we were regaled with the history of how it came into being then, back to our tables armed with cream and molten chocolate to make the ganache (truffle filling).

Piped out onto trays then cut into portions, the next stage was to form “balls”.

Mucky bit next – coat them with more molten chocolate the roll them in your chosen topping – cocoa powder, icing sugar, chopped nuts or coconut.

The end products wrapped and tied with ribbons.

Another fabulous workshop with amazing results, they taste as good as they look.

TFL
x

It makes me Smile.....

Our second trip to Brighton was planned.

It’s always hard to buy gifts for men and Robert is no exception, so for Christmas last year I saw a chocolate making workshop and thought it might be fun. They were held in London or Brighton so we decided to make a weekend of it in the latter. Having found out that the course was held in a hotel, I googled it and decided to book in – Langford’s Hotel. It was just outside Brighton in Hove and looked like a nice place. As I was working on the Friday it was decided that I would take the train from London Bridge and meet Robert there, the best laid plans and all that – I nearly didn’t make it! En-route to the station, my bus had a crash with another one and the window right next to my face shattered into a million pieces :( Thankfully no-one was hurt and luckily there was another one behind so I made my train with a few minutes to spare and managed to get a seat. Our room was pretty naff considering so after a consultation with the management, changed rooms to the one below which was much nicer. TBH they are under new management and being refurbished at present so I will allow them the benefit of the doubt here!

As it was early evening, and beautiful sunshine – although very windy – we walked along the seafront to find a restaurant for our evening meal. I had seen a restaurant on previous visits which was a very unusual shape on the actual sea-front so we went to check-out their menu. It's called Alfresco and was definitely a good choice! I borrowed this photo from their website, the building is the Milkmaid Pavilion.

Really delicious dinner washed down with Prosecco Blush served with a raspberry. Relaxed and contended we wandered back to the hotel passing this lovely bandstand. It was getting dark so I was really pleased with the photographs, it was illuminated which helped. The style reminded me of the Pavilion.

And also a statue of Queen Victoria, again I was really pleased with the image considering the time of night it was taken.

Saturday dawned overcast and misty so we took a bus and meandered through the lanes. The most amazing displays of jewellery can be found here, I tried on a beautiful ring housing a blue diamond – yes it was amazing and yes, way out of my price range! The Lanes gallery had some very unusual items including two lovely ceramic lizards which I will place on the wall in the hallway with the one from Chelsea flower show last year. These quirky sculptures made us laugh with figurines gazing down at various old tools.

Another unusual shop sold fairy lights and cotton ball shades to fit on them. You can choose the amount of  lights and colours of globes. We chose a selection for Lianne which I will blog later on along with my Lizards.

The afternoon was filled with our Chocolate experience which I will share with you tomorrow.
Having been on our feet all day we decided on an early dinner so took a cab back to the same restaurant Alfresco. As the weather was fabulous we sat outside and enjoyed the evening sun and a glass or two more of Prosecco Blush.

Sunday came too fast and we headed home – still smiling.

Now, here's a question for you - Is there a place that makes you smile?
I'd love to hear of your special places :)

Thanks for sharing,
Linda
xxx