Birthday Cakes x 2

My best friend Tracey asked if I would make her daughter Emma's 18th birthday cake so today has been a baking day.

She sent me a photo of a cake they had seen so I made the following version.

As it's Roberts birthday tomorrow, I also made him a Victoria sponge. 

The Victoria sponge has buttercream and apricot jam filling and is displayed on the beautiful cake stand Lynn bought me for my birthday the year before last.

This is the cake Emma wanted. Tracey came to help so we decorated it together.

It's a 6" and 10" moist chocolate cake.

The top layer was covered with white fondant and "zebra" stripes in black. The bottom is covered in pink fondant with white dots.

I mixed up some royal icing and piped dots onto the bases, then painted some edible glitter on the discs with Cranberry vodka :)

We added a bow of fondant to the top and an 18 which was glazed with pink glitter. 

Happy Birthday to Emma (and also Robert!)

TFL

xxx

What have I been up to?

Not been as busy on my blog recently as I have lots of things happening that I just can't share as yet :(

However, I thought I might give you a little peek at what's happening at Jill's Cardinal Colours Spring Weekend Crop - 16th-17th March.

I am privileged to be teaching two classes - a layout and a card class.

Here's a little taster.....

  

  

  

Check out Lynn's blog too for her sneak peek - Anita and Sandra have classes too!

Still a few spaces left for the weekend too - check here.

Great Aunt - New Style

In January I joined in with the Creative Jumpstart by Nathalie Kalbach and was totally inspired by the work of Louise Nelson, you can see her blog here.

Louise's lesson was using texture paste and gesso on gray board which were new to me so I went online shopping - as you do! :) and didn't find time to play :(

I saw the Merly Impressions February Challenge and realised this would be the perfect chance, so here is my page.

I started with a 12x12 piece of gray board and smeared it with texture paste, then "stamped" into it with a crackle stamp from Viva Las Vegas stamps (another item purchased for this!).

Once it dried I covered the whole page with white gesso. I had searched far and wide for the Krylon spray version to find it's only available to the professional market due to toelene? content, so I used a paint-on version instead.

Once dry I spritzed with Tattered Angels chalk mist, Teal High Heel, then Lilac Night Cosmic shimmer mist.

The technique shown had been to spray then blot until you liked the coverage then add some runs and splats.

My photo is 4x4" with some mats of leftover papers in the same size.

I tied a piece of netting with purple ribbon and glued down with a decorative pin, then added some mulberry flowers and a piece of bakers twine.

My title is made of two different stickers sets from my collection, the first was too flat so it got covered with Diamond Black stickles. The second is felt.

I couldn't resist adding a little bling too!

This has taken me completely out of my comfort zone but, boy, did I have fun!

The Merly sketch is below, follow this link to see the challenge and take part.

Ariel, George, Boxes, Nails and Valentine's

Whenever we have a delivery at home in a box, the cats claim it.....................and fight over it too!

Mine, Mine

  

Definitely mine!

  

I don't care if its too small - It's still mine!!!!

And, no, you cannot have it back!

Mmmmm - moving on - this is the latest gel manicure I have.

The lovely Nicola at Nails Inc, HOF - Bluewater, painted them a lovely dark red colour then sprinkled a graduated with loose glitter before sealing with a clear topcoat.

Even if I say so myself - they are looking good! 

And last but not least, I got a dozen roses for Valentine's Day - unfortunately I was rather unwell with a cough and cold so went to bed, but the thought was there :)

Hope you were treated too?

I have been doing a lot of crafting but it's all future projects for Scrapology and Jill's Cardinal Colours Weekend crop so, unable to share - for now anyway.

Fancy a sneak peek?

TFL

xxx

Another Transparent Card

Whilst making the previous card I came up with this idea too.

I'm loving my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die at the moment so thought I'd try it with acetate too.

It looked a little too transparent so I overstamped the petals with a text stamp using black archival ink.

The base card is a black A5 card which I have matted with gold mirri card and some patterned paper from my collection.

This months scraplift technique is texture paste so I thought I try it here too.

I used a large tag and a leaf stencil and created as below. Once it had dried I cut around the bottom leaves then used a mixture of Tattered Angels Chalk mists in green, peach and blue, I also splattered with ink spots.

The edges were chalked with blue and a little ribbon threaded through the hole.

A close-up below shows the texture.

The flower pieces were heated with a heat-gun which made then shrink and curl a little then I placed a black glittery brad through the middle. The leaves were cut with a Memory box die then shaped and highlighted with a black fine-liner.

I also cut a dragonfly with a Memory box die as below, the wings were stamped and I used Jewels on the body.

The challenge runs until the 15th March, check it out on the Scrapology site.

Scrapology February Card Challenge - Transparent

This months card challenge at Scrapology was set by our own lovely Lynn who challenges us to make a make a card using a transparent material or embellishment, or to represent a transparent object on your card. The choice is yours!

So the first thought that came to my mind was a shaker card - I've not made one of these in years!

I had recently bought the stamp below of a snowglobe in the Glitterpot sale so decided that would be the perfect starting point. I stamped it onto plain white card and also onto the snowflake paper from my box then cut out the circle and stuck together. Acetate was added to the back and the front edges and base coloured with Copics. The card base is 6x6" covered with the reverse of the snowflake paper.

I cut the girl out from the remaining white card and coloured her with Copics then stuck her the the base card. I then created a snow hill of white glitter. The funny thing is that I didn't have any 3d foam tape so had to used small foam pads around the aperture! Yes, it was going to leak so I had to run a thick line of glue round the outside! Nothing like being prepared? 

I added a bow which came of some chocolate at Christmas and some dashes ow white gel pen to look like snow.

Check out the challenge on the Scrapology blog and see the rest of the DT's cards.

Thanks for looking :)

And more Valentines...

Yes, I had to make a lot this year - spreading the love :)

I used a new stamp for this one by Stamping Bella purchased from the lovely Elaine at Quixotic Paperie.

Fab website with lots of scrummy supplies!

The image was coloured with Copics.

Mulberry roses were added with ferns punched with my Martha Stewart favourite punch. 

This one was punched with a new punch around the page set.

The centre of the card was stamped with an old background stamp from my collection.

I found a sheet of Forever Friends decoupage for the next one....

Another special request following, the message reads "owl will always love you"

The flowers were punched and gems added to the centres. 

And the last one was from the other part of the decoupage sheet.

Phew - that's a lot of love :)

Happy Valentines Day !

TFL

xxx

More Valentines

This is the next set of cards I made...

These are 4x4" and feature stamps with Tatty Ted bears which have been coloured with Copics.

The next one is 6x6" and was a special request.

More to follow :)

Valentine's cards 2013

The guys at work requested some Valentine cards so I spent the weekend making a selection.

These are the first...

This one is an easel card approximately 4" square.

The image is a stamp I have had for a long time, papers are from my collection.

The image was coloured with copics and cut with a nestability die.

This one is based on a tag I saw on Pinterest by BerdienWiedeveld, I loved the layering so tried to re-create it here.

I added a couple of mulberry paper rosebuds and ribbon too.

The last one for today was a special request - to make a valentine with Angels.

I used a Lily of the Valley image belonging to my friend Lynn and a card from Craftwork cards with a fancy edge. The paper is Imaginesce which I bought on Saturday at Bluewater.

The image was coloured with Copics and glittered.

I used a Marianne die to cut roses and added beads to the centres plus fronds and stickles.

I'm entering these into The Sunday Stamper challenge run by the lovely Hels Sheridan.

Check out the link for some super inspiration at her blog.

Back with more tomorrow.

Thanks for looking :)