My new favourite cup cake!!

The talented Louise over at the Cake Journal has come up trumps again. Just look at it, isn't it the cutest thing. Now that is a birthday cake I'd love to get! Gosh I'm drooling at my PC, how attractive ;o)

And look what she made for her daughter's birthday party. I want I want I want! Bagsy the turquoise and white one! xx

Birthday Cards for my mum

Today is my mum's birthday! Cards are made and pressies are wrapped. We are having a family meal tonight and I have two slow cookers with chilli con carne in and am about to embark on making Nigella's victoria sponge. Sorry Mrs Beeton but I know her recipe works! Now all I need to do is sort my barnet out, which is looking a bit like Dougall out of the Magic Roundabout at the moment!

Used K & Company Classic McKenna papers for this one. It is for my nan to give to her.

I printed out the sentiment on my computer then die cut them out using my new rectangle nestibilities. The corners were rounded off using the We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper which is just so easy to use.

This one is for my sister to give to her. These papers are from K&Company again, this time it is their Amy Butler range who is an amazing textile and paper designer in the states.

Again diecuts are done with nestibilities. Don't worry the frayed ribbon was rectified after the piccie was taken!

This last one is from me. I rummaged through my bulging file of paper offcuts and found some lovely embossed and glittered blue handmade papers I'd forgotten about. It really does twinkle in real life, hard to catch on camera.

Diecut rectangles were done by hand this time and added some bright pink ribbon in satin and organza to finish off. Very basic really and great to use up bits and pieces.

I think the first card is my fave one, which one is yours? xx

Just looked at my stat counter

And it's nearly reached 4000 hits, less than 100 to go! All those people that have taken the time to visit my little blog just amazes me and I am very grateful. I love to have visitors, just as much as I love to visit others.

So there is only one thing a gal can do in this situation................................... yep, a Giveaway!! Not quite sure what it is yet but it will be pretty ;o) So watch that counter, when it gets to 4,000 I'll post up the details. xx

What happened to my scones Mrs Beeton?!

Now Mrs Beeton I am told was very good at baking. So when I saw a pristine copy of her book in Oxfam the other day I grabbed it. Eagerly flicking through it I looked for something I could bake and decided upon scones as I had some strawberries and cream, yum.

Look what happened. They are not scones they are thick biscuits!!! Help! What did I do wrong?

This is the recipe (click on piccie to make it bigger), followed it to the T as they say, oh apart from them being 1/4" thick instead of 1/2" thick. Would this make them so terrible? I had high expectations of these, anyone else baked from her recipe before? I did try to eat one of them but they were disgusting ;o) Oh well good for the waistline eh. xx

It's arrived - Sew Sunny Homestyle!

Do you want a peek inside? Of course you do! Cup of tea and biccies at the ready? Good here we go then.

I love this hanger idea with the pockets to keep bits and bobs relevant to the outfit in, fab and so easy to do!

Birds are everywhere at the moment aren't they, and you can see why. There is something rather endearing about them don't you think?

The cutest little animals and yummy fabric cakes, perfect for the waistline!

Another cake that is great for the waistline, unless you like eating soap of course ;o)

Am loving this bag and want one now!

Her signature characters appear throughout the book.

You see lots of these over at Panduro Hobby.

Luscious craftroom, Mmmmmmmm!

These are feet size pouffes

The embroidered rose looks stunning.

The ever popular preserving jars as pin cushions

Anyone for the beach! Just look how cute those beach huts are. They're about as close as I will get to owning one!

Finally at the back there are all the templates including this gorgeous rose embroidery or fabric piecing template. Just yummy!

Did you enjoy the piccies? I do hope so. I haven't stopped flicking through it since it arrived!

xx

Lazy Days in the garden

A balmy Sunday afternoon, why could it be summer has arrived. Please stay a while this time won't you, we have missed you soooo much! Sitting in the garden with my cats and a lovely cuppa I snapped away in the sunshine. Oh how it makes the garden look much nicer, you don't notice the jobs that need doing so much. So lets start with the kitties.

My sweet little Levi

Her brother Morgan

And my adopted Alfie

Then there are the plants, they are not doing too badly considering they have survived two monsoons, a drought and lack of vitamin D!

The beans, french and runner, french are fairing badly though

My qvc apple tree, first year with a crop but they have a lot of hailstone damage

Colourful Bizzy Lizzies my mum got me, they just flower constantly which I love.

And there she is, that thing that a lot of us haven't seen in ages, beautiful blue sky with fluffy clouds. What else do we need! xx

Bootsale - selling was fun!

We did it, woohoo, and what fun we had. Even though it started off quite overcast there was a good crowd. Setting up was a bit stressful, you kinda pull it all out of the car, and try and put the table and rail up whilst the early birds all walk passed you shouting, 'any mobile phones', or 'any jewellery'.

some of our neighbours

Anyways after much scrabbling around it sort of looked okay, so we then stood there with our friendliest of smiles on our faces and waited. Started off slow, but soon picked up, and we seemed to amuse passers by as my big fat bottom kept knocking the stuff off of hangers, our clothes rail kept getting lower and lower and we were constantly bossing each other around ;o)

would you buy off this lady?!!

The sun did come out eventually and boy was it hot then, kinda glad it hadn't been there all morning. We then amused passers by as the wasps homed in on my smelly candles which led to me yelping and running around the table.

the lonely items that noboby wanted :o(

After what seemed like 30mins when it was actually 5 hours that had passed we packed up and sped off to my sisters to cash up! Sitting there with our much earned coffee and homemade scones (made by her son no less) we counted away and ............... £166.00 clear profit was made! We looked at each other smiling, as normally all of this stuff would have been given away. And we still had some nice bits left for me to take to work at my charity shop tomorrow, so everyone wins.

Oh and I didn't buy one single thing there (only coz she wouldn't let me ;o) xx

Oh my it's Friday already, how did that happen!

The time has just flown this week. My sister has been helping me sort out the new craftroom and it's a mammoth task I can tell you. When did I buy all this stuff? She thinks I have some kind of disorder I am sure of it!

We moved stuff out of the old room and built the metal single bed I got from a fellow freecycler, and it fits perfectly, this room will a very cute guestroom when finished. The new craftroom (old guest room) was now looking like a complete mess and you couldn't see the floor, I was beginning to get a bit disheartened, what had I started!

Anyway after numerous re shuffles of furniture, endless trips to the recycling centre (posh word for Tip!) it is starting to take shape. As a break from manual labour we took ourselves off to Ikea yesterday for some retail therapy and meatballs. Only to get there just before 11am and discover that they were still serving breakfast! At 99p for 6 items and free coffee it had to be done didn't it. I tell you if I lived close to one of these institutions it would be breakfast everyday ;o)

The next few hours were spent doing the usual, oohing and aahing over things we had seen many times before but always lure you in time and again. Clever, clever store design by that Ikea man. By the time we got to end of the showrooms it was refreshments again before hitting the market place, all that measuring and plan writing was thirsty work. Not to be too tiggy like we opted for the kiddies meal, yep we have no shame, my sister and I ate our dinner off of brightly coloured plastic plates! But you see it was worth it as it was £1.25 for small meatballs, chips and fresh fruit of our choice. We were very pleased with ourselves on our thrifty eating budget.

Engines refuelled we headed off with our trolley to the market place, now you have to be very disciplined in there. There is a strong force at work that communicates with your subconscious and makes you fill your trolley with all these wonderous items that by the time you reach the checkout you need a new credit card to pay for it all!! Not happening to us this time. We grabbed said trolley and used all our might to keep it on the central pathway, stopping only at the places on the shopping list we gripped tightly in our hands. And do you know what, we did it this time, my trolley only had the essential stuff I needed to finish my craftroom :o)

So am back home to the chaos, building desks and Expedite units and it is starting to take shape. To say I am a little knackered is an understatement! Hopefully I haven't bored you all too much, just wanted to share my progress and keep my blog updated.

Oh yeah and it's gonna be hot and sunny all weekend so the bootsale should be good that my sister and I are doing on Sunday. I've just got to not spend my earnings on other peoples stuff ;o) Hmm that could be a tough one!

Enjoy the weekend everyone xx

2 Awards from my lovely blogging friends

Boy I am a spoilt lady this week. Two of my fellow bloggers Susie and Vikki have both given me the Circle of Friends award. Thank you ladies, it is really nice to know that there is support out there in blogland and I shall display it proudly on my blog. I really love sharing things and enjoy reading other crafty/home blogs and am always amazed at the huge amount of talent out there.

I know I am supposed to pass this on to 10 other blogs, but I would like to give this award to all of my followers. Please take it and display it on your blog as a thank you from me for all your lovely comments that you leave. I really do enjoy reading each and every one of them. You all make blogland a fun and inspiring place to visit ;o) xx

Boot Sale Sunday

After many weeks of washed out Sundays my mum and I finally got to go booting, yippee!! And from some of the blogs I follow it looks like a few of us jumped at the good weather and went out there bargain hunting. Happy Days!

So here are the obligatory piccies of what I came home with. I was very good and went for quality and and not quantity this time as my house is becoming rather full up. So much so that my sister and I are doing our very own boot sale next Sunday.

Couldn't believe it when I saw this Rowan ribbon yarn with a price tag of £1 on it. Bought it quick before the lady realised and put the price up. Oh and the basket it is in was 50p from another booter.

It is a beautiful pale pink. I've never used this type of yarn before, any fellow bloggers out there know what this knits/crochets up like. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Okay now for some good old fashioned pine. This towel rail was being sold by a lovely old couple who had cleared some of their house out and they only required a £1 for it. Sold!

There is a very sweet lady who has a stall at ours every week, she makes childrens aprons and also has bric a brac things too. This week she had on the floor these 4 picture frames and they were all mine for £4.

They are really nice thick wood too. She is always a great pleasure to deal with, polite and sets up her stuff beautifuly, some booters there would do well to learn from her.


Well that's it, see I was really rather good. Watch out next Sunday I'll probably be on here moaning about all the grumpy buyers and how we got rained on, ha ha. xx