Countdown to Christmas!

Hi everyone!

As some (not so) kind soul recently told me it's less than 3 months to Christmas! Where has the time gone!? As of today it is officially 76 days until Christmas day. That's only 11 weekends left of shopping. Eeek! I'd best get a move on. I've done some but I really want all my Christmas shopping done before the mad rush.

 

Although I haven't done much shopping I have managed to get a good chunk of my Christmas cards done. I'm going to be posting at least one Christmas themed project every week (probably on a weekend), along with my usual posts.

 

So, here is my first Christmas card of 2012! I've entered this into a challenge over at Out of a Hat Creations.

 

 

I used a very traditional colour scheme of red, cream and brown, with a hint of gold. I love the way it looks. I think it's very classy and traditional. The colours are all from Stampin Up, the red is Cherry Cobbler, the brown is Early Espresso and the cream is Very Vanilla. I've used a gorgeous piece of paper, that's a lovely dark red printed with the lyrics from 'O Christmas Tree'. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of either of the company of the paper pack it's from. I've got a feeling it might be Stampin Up but I could be wrong.

 

 

I used one of my favourite Christmas stamps for this card. Its a lovely reindeer by Stampin Up called Dasher. He's (I decided it's a he) is stamped in brown ink to tie in with the cards colour scheme. Originally I was going to add some glitter to his antlers but decided that it wouldn't look right and just left it plain.

 

 

I used a bit of chocolate brown organza ribbon and a gorgeous antique style brad to finish off the card. I have to say that this is one of my favourite cards, it's really simple but I think it's quite effective.

 

Products used -

Stampin Up cardstock in Very Vanilla, Early Espresso & Cherry Cobbler

Stampin Up ink in Chocolate Chip

Stampin Up vintage brad

Brown organza ribbon

Christmas paper *

Cutting dies *

3D foam

 

*I'll update the list of items used tomorrow when I find what they are called.

 

Bye for now!

 

 

PC Problems

Hi everyone!

I was trying to post over the weekend but my computer was on the fritz :( Now that I've got it sorted my Hotmail account isnt working! All my photos are on my email account so until Hotmail decides to let me on the website I can't post anything :(

I was going to start my 'Countdown to Christmas' series with an entry into the Out Of A Hat Creations christmas challenge. For now why not pop over and see what things they've created and hopefully by tonight (or tomorrow) I'll have my blog back up and running!

Bye for now

Tall Ships Regatta

Hi everyone

 

At the end of August Liverpool played host to the 2012 Irish Sea Tall Ships regatta (see how far behind I am on my posts!?) My mum and myself went down to the docks to have a look at the boats while we were out shopping for the day. The boats were absolutely HUGE, much bigger than I thought and they were really interestingto look at. There was even a boat that you could go on and have a look around. Heres a couple of pictures from the day.

The quality of my pictures isn't that great because I forgot my camera so had to really on my phone camera instead. I had a few 'boy' cards to make for friends and family members birthdays and the boats gave me some great ideas! Here's the card I came up with, which I reproduced a few times so I had enough for everyone.

It's a really simple card to make. I wanted the card to have an 'old' or 'vintage' feel to them, like old sepia-toned photograph or weathered and worn book. Because Stampin Up Ink is water based it's really easy to use a water brush (or just a brush dipped in water) to pull the ink from the outline into the image. You can also use the ink pad as a paint palette, by squeezing the ink pad when it's closed. When you open it up there'll be little blob of ink that yiu can paint with. I haven't got any photos but this link will show you what I mean.

You can see the water colouring a bit better on the close-up picture above. To make the background I stamped a pale beige/brown ink onto the stamp and then using a tissue I dabbed little bits away so it looked worn away when I stamped it. I also used Versamark watermark ink to stamp out anchors.

 

It was really quick and easy to make but I think it looks quite effective :)

 

Products used -

Stampin Up Stamp set in The Open Sea (I can't remember the name of the set the sentiment is from)

Stampin Up cardstock in Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Vey Vanilla & Naturals Ivory

Stampin Up Ink in Chocolate Chip & Crumb Cake

Versamark watermark ink

Twine

 

Hope you liked the card!

 

Bye for now!

Birthday Beauties

Hi everyone!

 

I've been a bit under the weather this past week, hence the gap between posts. I'm still not feeling too great but luckily I've got a few days off work.

 

Anyways enough about that. I've got some birthday stuff to show you all today. First up is the card. I made this card using an embossing folder and a brayer. It turned out so well! The camera doesn't really pick it up but I used shimmer spray on all the white cardstock.

 

 

I used the Manhattan Flower embossing folder from Sizzix on white cardstock. Afterwards I turned the card over so that the outline of the flower was DEBOSSED rather than embossed (AKA it wasn't raised up it was pushed down). Then I brayered over the top in a couple of colours and cut the flowers out. So simple! Here's a close up of the flowers.

 





I used pale pink and yellow ink on this card. Now I can't take credit for this idea at all. I was mooching on the internet when I came across a blog called Patty's Stamping Spot, she had a wonderful tutorial video with step-by-step instructions for how to emboss and brayer the flowers to get the effect above.

 

I got a bit carried away after making the card above for my Gran's birthday, I made the same card again in yellow, bright pink, dark purple, red and lilac/blue! I just love the way the roses look and couldn't resist making more (I stupidly forgot to take pictures of them before I sent them out to people though).

 

To go with the card I also made a little giftbox to hold the present.

 



I carried on the pink and white/cream theme but decided to brighten it up a little bit. The box is made using the Sizzix Candy Wrapper die. Trying to fold the ends of the candy wrapper can be a real pain until you get the hang of it. I found a great video by Kirsteen over on ILWS that shows you an easy way to fold the sides of the wrapper.

I used Rose Red card, ribbon and ink aswell as various other shades of pink ink. Here's a view of the top of the box.

Above is the little tags I made using a small heart punch and Stampin Up's Tiny Tags stamps and matching punch.

Products used (card) -
Sizzix Manhattan Flower embossing folder
Stampin Up cardstock in Whisper White & Blushing Bride
Stampin Up Ink in Blushing Bride & So Saffron
Stampin Up Whisper White organza ribbon
Stampin Up stamp set in Curly Cute
Memento Tuxedo Black ink
Stick on pearls
Shimmer spray
Brayer

Products used (giftbox) -
Sizzix Candy Wrapper die
Stampin Up stamp sets in Tiny Tags & Circle Circus
Stampin Up cardstock in Very Vanilla & Rose Red
Stampin Up ink in Rose Red, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink & Regal Rose
Stampin Up Rose Red seam binding ribbon
Stampin Up Small Heart & Jewellery Tag

Bye for now!

 

All summer long...

Hi everyone!

 

Right it's taken me three months but I've FINALLY finished my patchwork quilt! It was a LOT harder than I thought it'd be but I'm so glad I made it because it looks realy good :)  I had so many problems because to be honest I didn't really know what I was doing because I've never done patchworking before and I haven't done any big sewing projects since High School GCSE Textiles!

 

Just to warn you all before I get started, this is going to be a very, very, very long post with quite a lot of photos. Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures, I took them on my phone because I'd left my camera at my Mum's house.

 

I wanted my quilt to be the same size as a regular single bed duvet (first mistake right there). I don't think I really thought it through all that much because trying to quilt a piece that big was really difficult but I'll get to that later. I decided to do my quilt all in squares because I thought that would be easier, what with it all just being straight lines and all. Anyways I wanted a nice pastel colour scheme and I found the best website selling the most gorgeous fabrics, its called Eclectic Maker. I bought one fat quarters each of Klona Cotton Solids in Pale Pink, Klona Cotton Solids in Baby Blue and Tanya Whelan Sugar Hill Scattered Roses in White and two fat quarters each of Tanya Whelan Sugar Hill Birdy in Blue, Patty Sloniger Bella Butterfly Sweet Leaves in Pink, Moda Basics Essential Dots in White Peony, Moda Basics Essential Dots in Baby Pink, Moda Basics Essential Dots in Baby Blue and Patty Young Andalucia Tiny Dots in White *. I also bought a single white flat sheet to use for my white squares, edge strips and backing. It was cheaper doing this that buying white cotton fabric and a bedsheet is hardwearing by nature so I knew it would work just as well.

 

Here's what the fabrics I oredered look like when they were delivered. Aren't they pretty? I love the way they're folded and packed in tissue paper, it makes it look so much more expensive.

 

 

This is the batting I've used, it's a twin size Heirloom cotton batting which I bought from Eclectic Maker along with the fabrics. As you can see from the pictures, it's really thin.

 

  

I wanted the spotty fabrics to be cut smaller so that I could sew 4 small squares together to make 1 square (if that makes sense?). The spotty favrics were cut into 4x4" squares, this included a 1/2" seam allowance so that the finished square would be 3x3". The rest of the fabrics were cut into 7x7" squares, again with a 1/2" seam allowance so the finished square would be 6x6". I left a 1/2" seam allowance rather than a 1/4" beacuse I haven't sewn anything like this for a very long time so I wanted to leave myself a little extra to make it a bit easier on myself.

 

I used my Fiskars pinking shears to cut the fabrics. I absolutely love these scissors! They cut so easily. They were a bit expensive but well worth it. I would definitely reccomend them to anyone looking for pinking shears. I got mine from eBay but I know Hobbycraft sell them and lots of fabric/haberdashery shops will probably have them too.

 

 

Here's what all the fabrics looked like once they were cut out.

 

 

I stitched two small squares together in contrasting spotty colours. The white with pink spots stitched to the pink with white spots, and the blue with white spots stitched to the white with blue/green spots as shown below.

 

 

I then stitched the squares together so they made a big square, with the matching fabrics opposite from each other. This was mistake number two. Because I hadnt sewn some of the pieces together exactly at 1/2" I ended up with big seams on some pieces and little seams on other pieces. Also trying to line the squares up so that the corners all met in the middle was a nightmare!

 

 

Once all the squares where stitched together I then stitched the squares together into rows. I'd already drawn up a pattern so I could easily follow which colour/patterned square was meant to go where. I forgot to take a picture of the all the rows together before I stitched them together. But here's how it looked when all the rows where seewn together.

 



 

Mistake number three was not paying close enough attention to how I pinned the squares together so some of the four-squares. So some of them are the wrong way round. You can see it on two pink/white squares and one blue/white square, around my watermark on the picture above. It's not that noticeable but because I'm a perfectionist it annoys me a little bit.

 

After this I had to sew my side panels on. They're 5" wide with a 1/2" seam allowance on all sides. Because I'm a beginner I decided to just make the side pieces longer so that they could be sewn onto the top/bottom pieces, rather than making a mitered corner which I thought would have been a bit too difficult for my level of skill.

 

 

After the side/top/bottom pieces and the back was all sewn together I then had the task of quilting the quilt. I did a line of stitching about an inch from the edge of the quilt all the way around, I also stiched down the join between the white edging and the coloured fabrics and then another row of stitching about 1/2" the side. Once I'd done all this I then stitched about 1/2" to either side of the row seams. It was an absolute nightmare! The first couple of rows on either end were ok but the closer I got to the middle the harder it became beacuse I had to roll the quilt up so that it would fit through the machine.

 

 

Mistake number 4 came with the fact that I hadn't pinned the fabric to the wadding tightly enough so that when I was quilting it I had an excess of fabric which was folding over and puckering when I was quilting. As you can see below.

 

 

It's not too bad though because I've read that when I was the quilt, the batting and fabrics will shrink a little which will cause puckering. So you probably won't even really notice my mistake by the time it's washed. If I'd have prewashed the batting and fabric before I started sewing with it, when I wash it it won't shrink. However, I didn't bother prewashing as I thought the puckering would make the quilt look older and more 'authentic' I suppose you could say.

 

 

Above is a picture of the back of the quilt so you can see the quilting lines easier. And below is a picture of my finished quilt :)

 

 

I'm so so so happy with the way it's turned out. I love the colours and the fabrics and although the batting was thin it's still really warm. It was really quite difficult to make. Anyone who thinks it's easy, trust me it's not at all! I had loads of problems and made plenty of mistakes but it turned out well in the end. I've definitely learned a lot and I think next time I make one I'll just use one size of square and possibly use a die (like Sizzix who have just brought out a quilting die range) so they're all uniform in size which should make it easier to make sure all my seams are the same size and I shouldn't have as many problems trying to get my rows lined up.

 

Anyways I hope you enjoyed my post today. Bye for now!

 

 

 

 

 

* I've linked to the webpages showing the fabrics/batting but if the site discontinue these products the links will no longer work.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Hello again everyone!

 

I've been baking again :) I found some gorgeous looking lemon meringue cakes on Pinterest and I just had to try making them! Lemon meringue is one of my favourite desserts and who doesn't like cake!? Most of the pictures I found were of big cakes but I wanted to make cupcakes instead.

 

 

I used my usual vanilla cupcake recipe but used less vanilla as I didn't want it to overpower the lemon. Once the cake were cooked, I cut a hole in the middle and scooped in some lemon curd and then popped the little piece ofcake back ontop. I didn't want the lemon curd to bubble up when I cooked the meringue.

 

 

I've never made meringue before but I found a really easy recipe in one of my mums (really old) cookbooks. I swear its more sellotape than book these days but it's got some great recipes so we've kept hold of it. I attempted to pipe the meringue ontop of my cakes but it didn't really work out all that well.

 

I think they turned out really well. And considering all 12 were gone within 2 days everyone in my house must have agreed as well!

 

Thats all for today!

 

 

 

Decorating Delights

Hi everyone

 

Where has the time gone? I've been so busy in my new job that my blog kind of went on a bit of a hiatus. I'm back now though! Yay! I'm really going to try to do at least one blog post a week but hopefully more.

 

I've FINALLY finished my quilt! It's taken all summer to do but it's finally finished and I'm soooo happy with it! I'm gonna dedicate a whole post to it soon.

 

Anyways enough about that, onto todays post. I've been decorating my room and have made a few cute little things for my room to brighten it up a little bit.

 

First up I made some bunting using scraps of pastel coloured card and paper and the Stampin Up Petite Pennant punch. Heres what it looks like hung up on my wall.

 

 

And heres a close up.

 

 

I used Stampin Up card in Prettyin Pink, Bashful Blue, Old Olive and So Saffron, and matching patterened papers. I strung them all together using some twine. I could have done with some better pins rather than the big ones I had to use, but oh well.

  

Next up we have some gerbera flowers. These are similar to the ones I made right back when I started my blog. I think the ones in that post look a lot more like daisies whereas these new ones I've made look more like actual gerberas.

 

 

I made these in exactly the same way as before (you can read the post here if you want some extra info) but added extra layers of petals and only used the biggest and smallest sized petals. I also wrapped the the skewers with green florist tape so they look a bit more realistic. I think these ones turned out better than my original ones. The vase is from Ikea (anyone who knows me will know I'd never dream of going anywhere else!) and the white sand is from Wilkinsons. It was only £1 for a bag but I needed about 4 bags because the vase is so big!

 

The last of my little decorations is another butterfly frame similar to this one I made in a previous post. It uses the identical frame and the same butterfly die.

 

 I used Stampin Up paper in Everyday Enchantments and card in Peach Parfait, Poppy Parade, Old Olive, Bashful Blue and Very Vanilla and decorated the butterlies and the edge of the frame with rhinestones.

 

 Above is a sideview so you can see how I used the 3D foam to make the butterflies stand up from the card.

 

So thats it for today! Heres a quick list of everything used in these projects.

 

Bunting -

Stampin Up cardstock and patterned paper in Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, So Saffron & Bashful Blue

Stampin Up Petite Pennants punch

Twine (don't know who its made by)

 

Gerberas -

Stampin Up cardstock in Taken with Teal, Tempting Turquoise,Cherry Cobbler, Riding Hood Red, Melon Mambo & Rose Red

Black card by The Paper Mill

Sizzix Flower Daisies #2 die

Circle punch (I think it's about 1")

Kebab Skewers

Florists tape

3D foam

White decorative sand from Wilkinsons

Blue vase from Ikea

 

Butterfly Frame -

Sizzix Emboslits in Beautiful Wings

Stampin Up paper in Everyday Enchantment

Stampin Up cardstock in Bashful Blue, Poppy Parade, Old Olive, Peach Parfait & Very Vanilla

Stick on rhinestones

1 1/2" Circle punch

White frame from Wilkinsons

3D foam

 

Bye for now!

 





Graduation

Hi everyone!

I can't believe it's august already! It's going so fast!

My blogging has fell so far behind and I've got loads of things to show you all. So first up, some of you may not know this but I graduated from university 3 weeks ago (it doesn't seem that long ago!). This is the lovely card that my Mum made for me using Jolly Nation papers and decoupage.

I also got the cutest graduation present from my Mum and Dad. It's a teddy made by The Great British Teddy Bear Company. They make such beautifully detailed bears. They're just amazing. This is my beautiful Florence Nightingale bear. I just love it!

 

How cute are all the little details? Look whats in the bag!

 I also made a card for my boyfriend's sister's graduation. It is a really simple card. The hardest thing was making the degree/scroll!

The products I used for the above card were -

Stampin Up cardstock in Whisper White, Real Red & Basic Black

Stampin Up stamp set in Sprinkled Expressions (this was a set from this years Sale-A-Bration and is now discontinued)

Red and Black satin ribbons

Small antique bronze coloured eyelet

Memento ink in Tuxedo Black

Thats all for this post. Bye for now!

Cakes, cakes and yet more cakes!

Hello there!

I've been super busy for the last month or so and my little blog has been somewhat neglected. Sorry about that! Anyways things have settled down now so I'm back! I've got a ton of stuff to share with you all. It's waaaaaay to much to put into just one post but even so the posts over the next few days/weeks are still gonna be really long. I'll warn you now that this post in particular is gonna be super photo heavy, which will make it really long!

So.....Shall we get started?

As you can probably tell from the post title, I have been making a LOT of cakes recently. It was my Aunties 30th birthday and I decorated her big birthday cake and also made and decorated 36 cupcakes. Which was one hell of task especially as I've only just started cake decorating recently. But I managed it and everyone seemed really impressed with the cakes, which was nice. And seeing as there was none left at the end they must have tasted good too!

Here's a few pictures of the birthday cake.

The cake was one of those big 'face cake' cakes from Asda. They're just iced in plain white and then you can get an image iced on top if you want. We just bought it and then I decorated it at home. It turned out pretty well for a first attempt at cake decorating :)

I bought the flower, leaf and butterfly cutters from ebay (you can see them in my post here). They worked pretty well once I'd gotten the hang of them and had gotten my icing mix right. The happy birthday was cut out using little letter cutters that I got free with my My Cake Decorating magazine. I then glittered them using a pastel pink Rainbow Dust glitter. The letters are made using Renshaw's Flower and Modelling Paste and then everything else on the cake was made using Renshaw's Regal Ice mixed with a little Gum Tragacanth. This let me still have nice soft icing but it took away some of the stickiness so that it wouldn't stick to the cutters and rolling pin. The sparkly 30 is so pretty! I had to cut the wire a little bit because it was too tall for the cake

Right so that's the big cake done, now onto the cupcakes! I did warn you that this was going to be a long post!

So thats what they all looked like on the stand, which by the way was an absolute bargain! Only 99p from Home Bargains. I made 36 cupcakes in total. 18 were topped with rolled sugarpaste in 6 different designs, and the other 18 were topped with buttercream with 4 different designs.

I'll show you the iced ones first.



These were coloured a pale purple using Sugarflair paste colouring in Grape Violet. The cutters were gently pressed into the icing to create a stamped pattern.

For these cakes I left half the icing white and coloured the other half pink using Sugarflair paste colouring in Pink. I then used a textured plate and a rolling pin to emboss a square pattern onto the icing. I them pushed some small pink and white edible pearls into the icing where the square edges met.

Next up is the rose cakes. The rolled sugarpaste icing was coloured pink using Sugarflair Pink. The roses were made from Platinum Paste flower paste that was coloured pink using Sugarflair Red, and the calyx was coloured green with Sugarflair Holly Green.

The last iced cakes are the bow, daisy and cameo. I made the bow using a 50:50 mix of Platinum Paste flower paste and Renshaw's Regal Ice. I coloured it pale blue using Sugarflair Baby Blue. The Daisy was cut out of white icing using the same plunger cutters that I used on the main cake. The rolled sugarpaste behind it was coloured pastel yellow using Sugarflair Melon colouring. I cut off a small piece and added a little more colouring to make the centres of the daisies more vibrant.

The cameo cakes were difinitely my favourite out of all the iced cakes. The cameo was made using a mould (which was a free gift from My Cake Decorating magazine). You kind of have to push the white icing into the mould so that it only goes into what will become the head silhouette, and then you just push the blue icing into the mould ontop of the white, trim off the excess and then bend the mould a little bit until your little cameo falls out. I made my cameos using flower paste because the sugarpaste was to soft and sticky, but warn people before they try to bite into the cameo that it will be rock hard! After it had dried I stuck it onto the cake and added some edible white pearls around it. I was going to pipe around the cameo but the perals were easier and gave the same effect.

Right so thats all the iced cakes, now onto the buttercream topped cakes. I'll start with the simple ones first.

These are simply piped with an open star nozzle then gently rolled in coloured sprinkles so that it forms a stripe of colour around the edge of the cake.

These are again piped with an open star nozzle but this nozzle was slightly smaller than the previos one used. I made a ruffle/swirl design by piping up and down the cake instead of just round and round.

I mixed up some Mexican Paste using the recipe on the Patchwork Cutters website and coloured it pink, blue and purple using Sugarflair colourings in Pink, Baby Blue and Grape Violet. Then using a small butterfly cookie cutter I cut out the butterflies and laid them onto a piece of card that I'd mountain and vally folded so that they dried with the wings sticking up. When they were dry I dusted half of them with glitter (Pastel Pink and White Hologram Rainbow Dust glitter) and dusted the other half with pearl powders (Irridescent Lilac and Pearl Blush Pink Rainbow Dust and Glacier Blue Sugarflair edible dust). The cupcakes were piped using a large open star nozzle and the butterflies pushed gently into the buttercream.

These are my favourites of the buttercream cakes. I just love them! The whole idea behind them was for them to look like a daisy meadow. I cut the daisies out of white Mexican Paste using the daisy plunger cutter. I mixed a little yellow lustre dust (Sunglow Rainbow dust) with water and painted the centre of the daisies. Then I mixed a tiny bit of Sugarflair Holly Green colouring in with the buttercream and piped it onto the cake using a large open star nozzle. Then I placed the daisies on in a random pattern, between 4 and 6 per cake.

So thats all the cakes Ive made this weekend! Phew that was a long post wasn't it?

Here is a quick list of the products/items I used on this cake. I bought the majority of it from either eBay or Cameo Cakecraft.

Renshaw's Regal Ice in White
Renshaw's Flower and Modelling Paste in White
Homemade Mexican paste (recipe can be found here)
Plunger cutters in Blossom, Daisy, Gerbera, Butterfly & Ivy Leaf
Sugarflair paste colourings in Pink, Red, Baby Blue, Melon, Holly Green & Grape Violet

Rainbow Dust in White Hologram, Pastel Pink, Sunglow, Irridescent Lilac & Pearl Blush Pink
Sugarflair Lustre Dust in Glacier Blue
White cupcake cases from Lakeland
Wilton disposable piping bags
Open star nozzles
Edible pearls from Asda
Pink and Blue sprinkles from Asda

That's all for today. Bye for now!