My Very First Cake Decorating Class.......

I offered to hold a cake decorating class for a fundraising "Sale of Skills" and decided on a Christmas theme as Christmas is getting near.

This is a very simple cake that can be done with very little cake decorating equipment, all you need is a rolling pin, star nozzle, cocktail stick and a small cake board. Most people have most these in their kitchen already so you don't need to buy any expensive equipment.

Back to my blogging.....

Well it's been a few months since I wrote on my blog, life seems to get in the way of everything just lately. I won the pumpkin competition at work (just for fun) it wasn't the biggest pumpkin in the world but hey! ho! it won, weighing in at around 9kg.

Haven't done much crafting lately as I have no craft room at the moment and all my craft stuff is still packed away.

Been doing a few cakes though, my favourite one was an allotment cake, I LOVED making this one and could have carried on forever...lol

The red bottle is meant to be a bottle of Pimms although it looks more like a bottle of ketchup.

Pumpkin competition

We're having a pumpkin growing competition at work, we've all started with a mammoth pumpkin seed. Some have had no luck at all, others have withered and died off but some are doing really well. The biggest so far is Ravis pumpkin (one of my chefs), I think mine is second at the moment. Come the end of the competition it will be pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin risotto and roast pumpkin for everyone....lol!

Here's a picture of the winner so far............we have until October to beat this one.

My first baby shower cake request......

My daughters friend is expecting her first baby any day now, poor girl is swelling up like a balloon so to make her feel better they had a baby shower for her. My daughter asked if I could make some fairy cakes or cupcakes as they are now known as. The picture was taken on my phone so it may not be the best, but here they are.....

Cake making again......

I was asked to make a large cake with "Happy New Year" on it," it's only August" I thought and it's not a fruit cake, turns out it's for a financial new year......quite a simple cake this time, the logo of the company is printed on a thin layer of sugar paste so it was very quick and easy to make, it just weighed a ton.

The two ugly sisters......

It's not letting me upload the pictures so I'll try again later. Ok, here they are now......

Back to my blog.......

Well it's been a long hot summer and a busy one at work. It's calmed down now and my life is getting back to normal, that means I get some time off to enjoy myself so I thought I'd start my day off with some crafting........oh! how good it feels to be back to my crafting.

I was hosting a Button Fairy swap on DC which should have finished at the end of July but due to my busy work schedule I never got to finish one of my fairies. I finally got her made today, here she is with her two sisters, you might think they look like the two ugly sisters...lol!

Harvest Time.......

Well all my hard work is beginning to pay off as I pick my fruit and veg in my allotment, If you're anything like me, broad beans would normally make you shiver and not with delight. I remember at school getting them dished up on my plate and my heart sinking to new depths, thinking "How am I going to eat them"? I once hid them under a mound of mashed potato thinking no-one would notice them, but hey ho! along came the scary dinner lady and lifted up the mash with a fork...........well you can guess the rest.

Anyway, I have successfully grown some broad beans this year and was determined to use them. I have made a dip with them, such a simple easy recipe, so I thought I would share it with you. It's a very healthy snack dish or starter and is delicious served with warm Pitta Bread or Flatbread. You will need:

300g Broad Beans, podded

1 Clove of garlic

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Small buch of mint

1 Lemon - juice of

1 Tbsp Natural yoghurt

Pinch of salt

Cook the broad beans for 5 mins. then let them cool and take off the outer skin, leaving the bright green part of the bean. Put all ingredients (except the lemon)into a food processor. Whizz for a couple of minutes then mix in the lemon juice and check the seasoning.

Place into a bowl and drizzle with a little Olive oil and a sprig of mint.

Serve with warm Pitta bread or Flatbread, enjoy!

Slide Mailer Box.......

I'm not really sure what to call this, it's 4 slide mailers joined together and decorated for a birthday celebration, I'm in the middle of making a Christmas one, it's never too early to start on your Christmas decorations, I should know as I'm late starting them every year so I thought I'd start early this year. I've been inspired by Clarky J on the Docrafts forum who is holding a Christmas ATC swap, you send in 9 and get 9 back, I'm half way through these too then I got a bit of a block and lost my mojo. It's slowly returning to me now......lol! Maybe it was something to do with the nice weather and being outside in my allotment, which by the way is producing lots, I've just picked about 3 kgs of strawberries in the last 2 weeks and made strawberry jam with some of them

Well, it's raining now, I think we needed it, my lawn is looking a bit sorry for itself........

Phew! it's hot.....

This weather is fabulous, it's a long time since we've had a decent spell of good weather, let's hope it lasts. Trouble is, it's too hot to be inside crafting so I haven't got much done just lately. I might try and do something tonight as it's too hot to sleep.
I had a great idea at work today...........as it's fairly quiet for the next 3 days, I thought it would be a good time to catch up on all my paperwork and what better place to do it.........outside in the sunshine, it was lovely, until a few hours later I looked in the mirror and saw that I have a big red face, even worse........a big red nose!!!!!!! I won't post a picture of myself.....it's not a good look.....lol!!!

Ride' em cowboy...

This is my entry for this weeks Tuesday Taggers challenge which is shoes (or boots) I have used Tanda stamps cowboy stamp the boots are from the same plate, MIC papers and distressed with TH Rangers distress ink (vintage photo).

Recipe Cards

These are 3 recipe cards that I made for a swap on http://www.atcsforall.com/ All recipes were either vegetarian or vegan. The host has very kindly offered to make a zine of all the cards and is sending one to every member of the swap. Looking forward to getting my returns and trying out some of the recipes.

What a beautiful evening......

Finished work fairly early today so I took the dog for a walk in his favourite place.....Windsor Great Park, I must admit it's one of my favourite places too. I think I have the naughtiest dog in the whole of the UK..........but I wouldn't change him for the world.

I adopted him from Battersea Dogs Home (Bellmead Windsor branch) nearly two years ago and we're slowly getting him to do as he's told but he still likes to dissappear for the odd 10 - 15 minutes chasing rabbits...........meet Bobby.

Sugar and Spice......

and all that's nice, that's what little girls are made from.........or so they say. This is my entry for this weeks Tuesday taggers challenge, vintage bookmarks. I didn't think I would be doing one this week as time was very limited, but hey! I managed, and I'm pleased that I did because I now have a lovely bookmark for my book instead of turning the page corners over.....tut tut!!

Greenday at Wembley

Had a great night last night at Wembley stadium watching Greenday in concert. It was fantastic, they played for 3 hours and I mean played.....not only was their music brilliant but they were such fun and the stage back grounds were brilliant, I just loved the artwork but you can't see much in the picture as it was taken on my phone camera so it's not great.

Busy summer ahead

I'm trying my best to keep up with my crafting through the summer, it's always a very busy time for me at work and it seems to take over my life until mid August, so this year I'm determined to do some crafting a couple of times a week at least.
I've just ordered some new Stampotique stamps from The Stamp Attic so once they arrive I'll be having a little playtime with them.......can't wait.
This weeks challenge for Tuesday Taggers is a vintage bookmark, what a great challenge, I must try and get mine done before the weekend as I'm off to see Greenday in concert at Wembley Arena
I'm hopping around everywhere at the moment as I got bitten by a mosquito on my ankle last Sunday and I have a severe allergic reaction to them so I have an ankle the size of a football at the moment and it's VERY painful. How could something so small cause so much pain.......?

Think I'll go and tidy up my craft space as I can't actually get on my desk at the moment........lol!!

In between the rain....

I managed to get some more done on my allotment today, I think everything is planted apart from the outdoor cucumbers now. I've also checked out the allotment next to mine which has been sitting empty for about a year and I've asked to go on the waiting list for it, so fingers crossed.

The beautiful foxglove can be seen all over the allotments along with poppies and cornflowers. The centre picture with the overgrown grass is the allotment I'm hoping to get, the other is mine and how it's looking at the moment, it's taken over 2 years to get to this stage, but I enjoy every minute of it.

It's back to work tomorrow.......

I've just had 4 lovely days off doing everything I love, sadly it's come to an end and I'm back at work tomorrow. So, I thought I'd better get my Tuesday Taggers challenge done straight away. I made a bit of a boo boo!!! on it, I thought I was using shrink plastic for the butterfly and when it didn't shrink I realised I wasn't......lol! Still, I thought it looked ok so I stuck with it.

I'm not sure where I got the flower stamp from but I stamped onto an old dictionary page then cut the flowers and leaves out and distressed them with Rangers Vintage Photo ink.

The script reads " If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies" a stamp I bought from Quietfire Designs.

I'm not sure what I used for the butterfly as I said before but was meant to be smaller.

Added a bit of distressing inks and a few buttons and ribbons to finish it off.

If you know where the doodle flower stamp comes from please let me know and I'll add it to this post.

American Life Tag

Well, I've been doing allsorts today, gardening, more gardening, but in the allotment, took the dog for a walk then came back and thought I'd have a go at doing something for the Tuesday Taggers, something I've wanted to do for a while but just never got round to it.

I have used tissue paper with PVA for the textured background, I then painted it with red acrylic paint.

The Coca-Cola stamp is one I bought in the USA, I stamped onto plain white card, coloured it with poppy red promarker (I didn't have any red card) then used UTEE on it to give it a tiled look.

The images are just ones I found on Google and Clipart.

Bird Hanger

This is my entry for Sherry's challenge on Art N Soul on Flickr. I used the pages from an old dictionary to cover the bird then used an assortment of old postage stamps, luggage label, air mail stickers and stamped French postage images on it.

Long time....no blog

Well, it's been months since I've been on my blog, just never seemed to find the time, so here I am again. I have so many things going on in my life......good things, like crafting, gardening walking the dog, cake making and then there's work.........oh! yeah, that thing that gets in the way of life.
I'm going to start adding recipes to my blog, mainly vegetarian recipes but sometimes the odd meat or fish recipe and definitely cakes and desserts so if you're interested just check out my blog from time to time.
I visited New York a couple of months ago and the brunches there are fantastic, you can't beat the Americans at brunch so I thought I'd start off with a recipe for the delicious Brioche French Toast that I tried.

Serves 4-6

6 large eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
4 cups milk
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
1 Loaf of day old brioche
1/4 cup clarified butter
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
Icing sugar
Syrup for serving
Fruit for serving

Method

1.Whisk together the eggs, milk and caster sugar add the cinnamon and nutmeg,
2.Slice the brioche loaf and layer in a shallow baking dish, pour the egg mixture over the bread and leave to soak for about 3 minutes. Turn the bread over and leave to soak on the other side for another 2-3 minutes.
3.Preheat the oven to about 80c (to keep the french toast warm)
4.Cook the toast in batches. Heat up a large frying pan and add some of the clarified butter and over a medium heat fry the soaked brioche until golden brown and crisp on both sides.Add some of the unsalted butter during cooking as this adds a nice nutty flavour and helps brown the toast.
Repeat until all the brioche and egg mixture is used.
5.Serve warm dusted with icing sugar, syrup (maple is best) and fruit of your choice, I love to serve with fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberries.

Enjoy!