Another Cake & a Study Break

At long last the final assessment has gone. After agonising over the damn thing, tweaking and re-tweaking, spellchecking and printing it out, it has been posted off and the course is over. So, time for a breather, a little space to relax (ha!) and catch up on housework (ha!) and maybe even time to be creative in a different way than writing (yay!). At least until September time when I will have to begin another course :-)

Tomorrow is my Nana's 89th Birthday Party - which she is having at my house. So, I've been forced to dust and hoover up months of neglect and make a cake. This was a bit of a cake saga (aren't they always) in that it was supposed to be a fairly simple cake - one layer, bit of icing, nice decorations on top. But no, once my mind was free from OU thoughts, it went a bit crazy with thoughts of more exciting cake designs - which took twice as long as they should and involved 'mummy being cross'. Ahem. Anyway, I'd never tried a two tier cake before and always wanted to, so I did and it turned out okay (I was surprised). And the fondant roses (yes, they are supposed to be roses!) were something I learned this morning from a tutorial on YouTube - that place is amazing, they have tutorials on everything! There are plenty of mistakes on the cake - lumpy bits, uneven bits, even bits where the cake shows through the icing and the icing shows through the ribbon (oops), but I think my Nana will like it and that's what counts, right?

Happy Birthday Doreen!

Another Birthday

Can you believe Miss Lucy is now eleven? I can't. I've noticed a big change in her this last year or so and next year she will be off to High School after the summer.

She had a great party at home with a few of her friends and much laughter. I had to do a rush job on a cake for her too - this is a 'Twilight' themed cake (based on the books by Stephanie Meyer - which I thoroughly recommend). It was different than my original idea because I had a slight icing sugar 'incident' :-) Miss Lucy liked it anyway, so all was well.



She was not expecting to get an Ipod Shuffle and I think she was rather excited...



I don't know why she suddenly looks so grown up. Soon she won't want jelly and ice-cream or pass the parcel...sniff, sniff. Don't you wish sometimes you could just stop time?



I will have more of this sort of scene to look forward to I guess!

Blog Candy!

Look at the lovely things that arrived yesterday from Sally. I love all of it, but my favourite has to be the bird card - isn't it just gorgeous? Not only did I receive all these lovelies, there were also several rubber stamps in the package and some (much coveted) bits of swiss dotted card. I didn't take a pic of them because I just couldn't fit them in the photo! So, a big thank you to you, Sally :-)

A Lovely Award!

I received this lovely award from Sally over at Crafty Salutations. It has just made my day - Thank You! Sally, you are very kind :-)



I also discovered that I have also won some gorgeous blog candy from Sally as well! How cool is that? I just can't wait to see it either because Sally is a very talented lady, which you will see if you have a look on her blog. I'm feeling all smiley and happy now ;-)

Now, I need to pass this on to ten other people, but I think I will just pass it on to all the blogs I follow (and you know who you are!) because you all make me smile every time I visit :-)))

Most Excellent Easter Activities

We've had a lovely Easter weekend here. The weather has been good - especially today - and the children and myself have been doing plenty of crafty Easter activities.

Lucy made this gorgeous Easter basket - following the instructions found here on the Limelight Papercrafts blog (thank you Limelight!).




















We made some finger puppets. Quite cute, but the glue wasn't the most effective :-/

Then it was on to card making - we got a bit carried away with cards actually and made loads!

Card making in progress...







































Finally, we coloured some hard boiled eggs with food colouring - brilliant fun!




















Most of the crafty stuff was done on Saturday, but today we had such good weather that Miss Lucy and Mr Adam were out in the garden for ages and I had to make cupcakes without the usual helpers to assist :-( Still, they came out okay despite that! We had some visitors arrive in the shape of my mum, my Nana, my sister and my nephew (complete with full length cast on his leg - the result of his first ever skiing holiday!) - we had a good blether, tea and cupcakes and a generally nice time of it.

In the words of Bill and Ted; it was Most Excellent, Dude!

Please excuse the wonky formatting on this post - Blogger wasn't playing!

Getting back into Crafting

At last I did something vaguely crafty...well, it's been a while (apart from the Christmas Sock Monkeys!). I had been promising to make my niece a little photo album for at least two years and since her birthday was coming up, I thought it was the ideal time to get it done. Of course, I left it till the last minute and did it all in a day. I had printed out some photos beforehand though, which was a big help. In fact, I had extra photos and made a little tag book for them as a wee extra.

It's not my usual style, I like more grungy, less vibrant stuff, but for a fifteen year old girl, I thought the colours were nice. I did enjoy doing it, although next time I would start earlier because the glue was still drying when I gave it to her! You will have to excuse the photos, they aren't very clear and I took them in a rush (the colours were a lot more vibrant in real life).

Red Nose Day 2009

I know Mr Adam doesn't look that enthusiastic about it, but he was happier than he looks!



Some Red Nose Cakes made by Miss Lucy. Her and a couple of school friends made cakes and sold them at the school tuck shop to raise money for Comic Relief. They raised £20 between them. Hurrah!