After Eight Cupcakes

After the baking experiment the other week, I decided to make the After Eight Cupcakes again, but make them better. I made sure to have all the ingredients ahead of time (don't you hate it when you get halway through and then have to run to the shop for more eggs, or icing sugar?) and even got some proper After Eights to decorate with. Here they are on my sister's rose plate.

The original cupcakes were a bit slap dash but these have a more polished look (or at least I think so) and the After Eight on the top really sets them off! These might just become one of my 'signature' cakes...

A Splendiferous Day

Yesterday was my birthday and like a true child at heart, I was mega excited about it!! It was a lovely day and I thought I would share a few pics of some of the great pressies I was lucky enough to receive. There was a pink and cake related theme going on with the cards, wrapping paper and some of the pressies, so I guess people know me well!

Great British Bake Off book, Mary Berry's Cakes and Bakes, pink apron and oven gloves and matching tongs and spatula - these encompass some of my favourite things!

Tarte tin and cake lifter as seen on Great British Bake Off. Tarte au Citron, here I come!!

More lovely books to curl up with on rainy weekends. Particularly excited about the Dawn French book which I've heard is hilarious.

New additions to the book shelf!

Left handed dressmaker's scissors. Any lefty will know what this means to me, I am hoping they will revolutionise my sewing projects. No more struggling with crapola scissors that I can't make cut!

 

The most recent addition to my handbag wardrobe - tartan Cath Kidston tote! I treated myself with some birthday money, and I love it! I don't usually go for tartan things (unless they're in my family tartan) but this was a must have! 

Mr PC and I spent the day in London (a rarity these days) and we had a lovely time. We went to Harrods' Christmas World and I must say I was hugely disappointed with the rubbish selection and poor quality of goods on offer. There was not a single thing I wanted to buy which to be honest, is highly unusual! Actually, there was a really cute cushion with appliqué gingerbread men which I liked but it was £80 so I threw it back on the shelf in disgust and disbelief. It was Made in China and so probably cost a few pence to make...

We then had a delicious lunch in a proper Italian restaurant across the road from Harrods and we pretended we were in Rome. A jaunt round Covent Garden was the afternoon activity and I tasted my first macaroons from Ladurée. I must say, they were delightfully scrummy but far too small for my greediness liking. You'd need to eat at least six to get a proper cake fix!

In the evening we went to see The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium and it was pretty cool. I was such a kid! I think the dog playing Toto absolutely stole the show, he is so well trained and never missed a command. The way they did the black and white bits and the tornado was really cool and those ruby slippers, well....

The show was great but there are few things which I think were a bit wrong:

• Toto is white when in the film he was black
• Dorothy didn't have a basket
• Most of the Munchins were played by adults
• The boys from the Lollipop Guild had scooters, not lollipops - why?
• The Munchins were all blue - what's that about?
• The Wicked Witch didn't wear a hat so when she got melted there was nothing left of her

All in all it was delightful birthday and this morning I woke up to Mr PC's freshly baked birthday cake!!

A Red Red Rose

In addition to teacup candles, I also make cake stands from vintage china. Well I wanted to share this delightful two tier cake stand which I made for my sister:

 

The china is a very simple pattern with just three red roses, and can you believe the two plates are actually different makes? They are exactly the same! 

All that's missing are some delightful cakes, so hopefull when I take it to my sister at the weekend, she will ahve baked something to put on it!

Finished WIP: Christmas Stocking #1

I did it! Last night saw the completion of my first ever Christmas stocking and wow did it take ages..! It turned out better than I expected, considering I have no idea what I'm doing with these things and the sewing machine is still a scary piece of machinery at times.

First handmade Christmas stocking!

 I modelled the size on a shop bought stocking which we have used the last couple of years, and I actually did a happy dance when I compared them and saw that my stocking was just the same size and shape!

Using shop bought as a template saved a lot of aggro

This is Mr PC's stocking, mine will be a bit more contemporary than this one but it does mean starting the whole process from scratch again!

I think the pom poms look like mini snowballs

Pics of stocking number 2 to follow! What have you been making for Christmas?

Things I love

... my husband
... my family and friends
... all the people I knew who are no longer here
... wearing pink
... chocolate in all variations
... cake
... spending time with the people most important to me
... being creative and wish I could make more time for it
... Christmas
... giving presents
... receiving presents
... Scotland and Edinburgh in particular
... dolly mixtures
... weddings
... singing along to the radio but only when no one can hear
... the time I spent at uni, those were fun times
... my cay Lucy who lived to the ripe old age of 20
... driving fast with loud music on
... Spain and the lifestyle they have there
... going on Spa breaks, especially when they are free!
... so many more things that I could sit all day writing this list!!

What do you love and appreciate most in life?

Weekend sewing

This weekend I shall be forcing myself to sit down and get through the pile of mending jobs that have stacked up recently. I particularly dislike sewing jobs, like mending a hem or sewing buttons back on. Urgh, so dull! But they have to be done and this weekend they will all be fixed, washed and put back into the wardrobes because I am fed up looking at them!

I will also be finishing the christmas stockings which I mentioned last year. I started them earlier in the week and had some real hissy fits about them and I really lost it when I screwed up the ribbon trimming, so I packed it all away and decided enough was enough. I will not let them beat me so this weekend I'm hoping to conquer them! This is what the first one looks like at the moment, it needs the trimming unpicked and resewn before the front and back get sewn together and hey presto, ready for Santa's delivery!

What are you doing this weekend?

Finished WIP: Hand warmers

Remember the granny stripe scarf? Well I've finished the matching hand warmers! They're not granny striped as I thought the would be too holey so I used a pattern that uses trebles and even learnt how to do ribbing which I'm quite impressed with.

 

Making the first one was fairly easy but as I modified the pattern, making the second one in the same size was kind of tricky even though I'd counted out all the rows and stitches. I just couldn't get it to be the same and it was driving me potty!  I must have unpicked the cuff about 5 times and was getting rather frustrated with it but I got there in the end. I do think I've made them a bit baggy as I hadn't factored in the stretchy-ness of the stitches, but I'll know that for next time. 

My current WIP is a granny stripe bag for a Christmas pressie, pics to follow soon!