Christening Card

Afternoon bloggers!  Bit brighter here today which made it slightly easier to photograph a card for a christening that I made this morning.  Don't get much call for these so was a bit stumped, so after much deliberation I decided to go with simple and elegant!

The gorgeous blue satin ribbon was a find from a local charity shop and it is really really soft and sumptious.

Background paper is from the ever trusty Anna Griffin, one of her earlier ranges, not sure if they still produce this print.

I found some die cut bibs in my stash, very handy :o)  Embossed some heavy white cardstock with the Cuttlebug Polka Dot folder.  I use a Quickutz Revolution die cutting machine which isn't very wide and I think it may be ruining my embossing folders.  Have been looking at the Sizzix Big Shots for ages now and they have come down in a price a bit since release.

My sentiments are mostly produced on my PC, but recently have been frustrated at the quality of the printed ink, prone to smudging etc.  I thought it was down to the ink but then a kind person explained to me that I just needed to change my paper to photo paper.  Which I did and I have to say it's brilliant, perfect printing and it's a heavier weight with a slight sheen.  Much more professional looking.

I'm doing a thank you card next which I'll blog about tomorrow.  Thanks for popping by.

Bacon is good for me!

A little something to make us smile on a grey day here in the UK.  This clip is taken from the US Wife Swap series, the boy wants his bacon, it is very funny.  Apparently amongst the younger generation over here this is now one of their favourite sayings which can be heard across many a university campus!

Weight Loss Wednesday

Okay here goes my first weight loss post, yikes!

So was it a good first week?  Did I stick to my plan?  How much exercise did I do?  Yes these are all very good questions but sadly not with very good answers!  I could write about many a reason, alright excuse, why things went a bit awry but I shall be a good girl and just admit that I was LAZY!  Yes there I've confessed, I did zilch, nada, nothing to help my cause.

So I was a little bewildered to find when I gingerly stepped on the scales that I had managed to lose 0.5lbs!  Oh I know it's not much and some people might say not really a weight loss as such but hey I didn't go up!  Just think what I could have achieved if had followed my plan.

Right my plan for next week is to just add in more walking where possible and short bursts of running up and down my stairs.  On the food front I want to go a week without getting anything from my local bakers, toughy that one :o)

Tune in next week to find out my fate!

PS:  who has taken the sun and hidden it somewhere, it's been missing for days where I am, anyone got it?

My first decorative birthday cake

We celebrated my nan's 85th birthday the other day. For this grand occasion my sister and I thought we would make her a special cake. Our nan is always knitting for either us or the charity shops, she does it so she doesn't spend all her days knodding off, awww bless her :O)  So the theme for the cake was decided. Now all we had to do was make it.

Started with a basic victoria sponge recipe by James Martin in two 8inch tins.  Filled the two halves with Apricot conserve and buttercream, then put some extra conserve on the outside of cake so the icing would stick to it better.

Next we rolled out a square of pink royal icing and then went over it with a texture roller to give a material knitted kind of look.

This was then layed over the top of the iced cake and we just teased it around a bit so it looked more lifelike.  Stuck it to the icing with little dabs of the apricot conserve.

Edible glitter, every girl should have some in their store cupboard!  It is just delightfull and comes in so many yummy colours.  I get mine off of Ebay here if you are wanting to buy some.  Brushed over the icing numbers with egg white and then just sprinkled the glitter over them.  Tip:  be sure to put some baking paper underneath so you can decant the unused glitter back into the pot.  You don't want to waste any!

 Making the ball of yarn was a bit tricky as we didn't have one of those heavy duty plunger type pipers so it was quite a job pushing the royal icing through the normal bag type I can tell you.  Note to self:  must purchase one of these!   The knitting needles were just cut down skewers and I cast on a few stitches with real wool.

The end result!  Extra touches of glitter were sprinkled round the base and we wound one of my tape measures around the side of the cake which looked quite effective.

We had soo much fun making this and after all our hardwork we were very hungry.  So we whipped up some more cake mixture dolloped it into cupcakes and 30mins later we were eating these yummy little things.

And yes you guessed it we covered them in glitter to! :o)

Thanks for popping by.

And the winner of the crochet mag is ......

Hoorah it is the weekend! What better time to announce the winner of the Crochet Mag.

I did the usual, plugged the number of entries into good old Random Number Generator. Pressed the button and waited for it to do it's magic! Within micro seconds it had decided on my winner.

The result is that this.................

will be going to .......................

which is the lovely Sharon over at Clover Cottage.

Congratulations Sharon!!! Just click through my profile to send me an email with your details and I'll whizz it in the post to you.

Art of Crochet - Issue 1 giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.  

WINNER ANNOUNCED OVER NEXT FEW DAYS.

Morning bloggers!  Anyone fancy a freebie!  I've acquired a spare copy of Issue 1 of the Art of Crochet.  It doesn't have the wool and hook but it does have the DVD and all the instructions and patterns.

Just leave me a comment by midnight on Thursday 14th January and I'll announce the winner of the draw over the weekend.

That's it, simples :o)  xx

Weight Loss Wednesday - A Bit Scared!

It's official, I've eaten far too much food over the past year.  How do I know this?  90% of my wardrobe does not fit me anymore!!

So in the spirit of the New Year I am going to commit to losing 28lbs/2stone, yep told you I had eaten too much :o)  To help me on my mission I have joined in with Jennifer over at Rosey Little Things.  She has a lovely blog and is very inspiring, if you want to join in with WLW just hop on over there and e-mail her.

The challenge for me in the coming 7 days before my next weigh in will be the flipping FREEZING weather we are experiencing for what seems like forever here in the UK.  I'm a comfort food eater at the best of times so it ain't gonna be easy!

Wish me luck :o) xx

Knitted Bag

What do you do when it's snowy and freezing cold outside........................ why you sit indoors all cosy knitting of course!

I'm a great lover of chunky knitting, haven't got the patience for the fine stuff takes too long.  Needed something to keep my current knitting projects in by my sofa so what better than a knitted bag!

I didn't have the required chunky wool that the pattern specified so I improvised and knitted using double strands of some aran wool that I had lying around.  It worked out fine so must remember that trick.

Thought it needed a bit of fancying up so lined it with some calico to make it hold it's shape better and it also stops the needles poking through the bag.

 Added a pink crochet flower that I had made a while ago, it was going to be a brooch but like it better on the bag.

My current knitting project sits in there just nicely, and I love that when I am knitting the ball of wool stays in the bag and doesn't end up running all over the sitting room floor being chased by my kitty cats!

This is the pattern I used by Sirdar.  It does look better in the right wool but I don't think mine is too different.

And the current knitting project in the bag is going to be a snood/scarf.  I've 45 stitches on 10mm bamboo needles which I just love to knit with. They are so smooth and warm, not a lover of metal needles, all that click clicking!

Managed to do this much so far, about 18 inches in good old stocking stitch.  I think I need to get it to about 40-50 inches.  Will post some piccies when it is finished.

Hope you are all well and warm.  Thanks for popping by. xx

Birthday Card

Just a quick post with a birthday card for my sister's friend. No stamping here, all done with papers and grand adhesion stickers, I was being lazy!

 Papers are from Anna Griffin, cant' remember which range.

I love grand adhesion stickers such a quick and easy way to add dimension and glitz to a card.  Have to say the pictures are making the colours look a bit dull, they were much nicer in flesh!

That's it folks, told you it was a quick one!  xxx

My Big Fat Diet Show - Channel 4

Did any of you watch the new diet show on Channel 4 tonight?  "Anna Richardson grabs the UK by its love handles and shows viewers how to lose those pounds"!  Yep mine have definitely expanded since December!

You can access lots of info about the programme by clicking here.  I found the show quite lighthearted but interesting at the same time.  One of their opinions on why the nation is getting fatter is down to supermarket clever marketing.  You know the sort of thing, BOGOFs, buy one get one half price, 3 for 2 etc.  We all fall for it, we're saving money so why shouldn't we.  Apparently we shouldn't because although it is true we save money the hard fact is that we then have double the amount of food we need at home and we feel that we should be eating it!  I can soo relate to that trap.

In the show the dieters have access to a specially set up supermarket where all food on the shelves is packaged by 100 calorie portions!  It's a shocker how little you get with some things, but oh how much easier it would be to shop in a store like that if you were dieting, do you think Tescos will take on the idea LOL!  One thing that did surprise me was that you can get 3 takeaway poppadoms for 100 calories, so I shall be swapping these for my usual naan breads when I have a treat night :o)

They give you all the meal plans for the whole two weeks with calorie info which is really handy, you can see the plan here.  The show is on again on Thursday at 8pm on Channel 4 if you are interested.  It's not rocket science what they tell us but it's good to get you motivated and remind us of the basics we can all be guilty of forgetting.

Kelly over at Kelly's Recipe for Life and Victoria over at Florence & Mary are back on weight loss wednesdays and I'm going to join in with them this time.  Pop on over and read their inspiring posts.

The Art of Crochet

Did you all see this magazine 'The Art of Crochet' advertised recently on the telly? Well I did and being the sucker that I am for these sorts of things I was out buying my copy this morning!

The funny thing about this coming out now is that I am having dinner with my friend on Wednesday and she had asked me to bring some stuff down to teach her to crochet in the pub after our meal. Now she can have all she needs to get started and it only cost me 99p! Perfect timing is what I call that.

You get 2 magazines, one has all the free patterns in and the other is step by step instructions, starting with the basics this week of casting on and double crochet.

There is a DVD which I haven't watched yet, later with a nice cuppa maybe! Two balls of nice soft wool 16g each and a metal 4mm crochet hook.

Each week they give you a different square to practice different techniques on and these squares in turn will make up the gorgeous throw above.

Some basic cushion patterns, always handy for using up small amounts of wool.

Stripey scarf, but could be adapted for cushions, blankets and bags.

If you continue to buy each issue which comes out every week it will set you back £2.99 each time. Now that adds up to a lot of money as I think you only get one 16g ball of wool each issue, £13.00 per month is what you are looking at! Ouch!

However if you reply within 10 days for a subscription you will get Issue 2 and Issue 3 for £1.99 plus your wool and the following:

• Travel bag and hook wrap
• Yarn bag
• Binder
• Dividers

And you don't get tied into the subscription as you can cancel at anytime and you get to keep all your free gifts! You can find out more about the offer here.

xx

Having a play with my blog

Got the bug to change the look, it's still work in progress at the moment so please bear with me. x

Happy New Year Everyone!

Hope you are all well after last night! Here's to a good 2010 for us all, a year filled with health and happiness.

Saw this online and it really appeals to me. Exactly the sort of thing I am up for after all the excesses of Crimbo! xx