Project 41: Bakewell tart cupcakes

One of my favorite English treats is a cherry and almond flavored tart called a bakewell. I don't think we use enough almond in American cakes and desserts and this is one that my husband I used to buy as a snack when we were students. That's right, we snacked on whole tarts. Because we were classy like that.

Anyway, I found this recipe to take the classic flavors and make them a bit lighter into cakes. To get the cherry filling, you add a dollop of thick jam in the middle of the cupcakes. The recipe's comments section said the filling sunk to the bottom so I made sure to make the base as covered as possible and tried to keep the jam in an even layer in the middle. But I wasn't that picky really as you can see:

 

 When they bake they looked like regular cupcakes. I then glazed them in a simple powder sugar icing (incidentally they call it icing sugar here in the UK) and topped them with a cherry. I made them shabby chic, which means I didn't have enough icing and couldn't be asked to make more so this is an intentional look.

 

I can't wait to tuck in, I'm being good and waiting for company to share them...I should have made 13 so I could sneak one without being obvious.

Project 40: Cross stitch

I decided to start a more time-consuming project to see me through to the end of the summer. I am going to a craft fair with Claire this weekend so I’m certain I’ll return to serious card making very soon. 

My mom gave me this cross stitch pattern with the Mansfield College crest. That’s where I met my husband so it’s always going to be a special place. I don’t have much experience in cross stitch but luckily this is a pretty simple pattern.

I bought my embroidery frame and took stock of what came in the kit: 

The previous cross stitch patterns I’ve followed before have been printed on the material (admittedly I think they were for children) so this is the first time I’ve had to work it out on my own. Like a grownup. Go me.

I don’t have a picture yet of where I got to because I’ve started with the yellow and white and it doesn’t look much despite about 3 hours of work so I’ll wait until the red and black have been added to give you a progress photo. 

This is going to be a serious output of effort as every few stitches I have to work a knot out of the tread and I’m going slightly blind as the lighting in our lounge is poor for this type of detailed craft. But I’m going to persevere. Any ideas what I should do with it when I finish? Frame it or something?

Project 39: Soft Neutral Mojo entry

I gave myself the luxury of time tonight to do a blog challenge. I haven’t made cards in a few weeks with all of the wedding craft that I’ve been doing so I decided to spend a dedicated evening on a challenge entry. 

I wanted to get double the inspiration as it’s been a few weeks so I checked out two challenge sites: Mojo and Shabby Tea Room. Above is the inspiration for Mojo and the theme for Shabby Tea Room was Soft Neutrals. Perfect. Here’s my entry:

Where to start with the process and technique! I put a layer of an almost-sheer natural paper that has strands of dark beige running through it. Next for the skewed layer I added an embossed cream card. Running behind is a thick ivory cord that I’ve not found much usage for. I added three ivory candies to offset the bow.

The details on the top layer are my favourites. First a tag with gold in from a new stamp set. I don’t have many long greetings and I think this works on the flag shape. The white square which you can barely see has a doily layer on top to give it texture.

Finally the scallop punch came out of a beige piece of heavy card stock – this is actually a wedding invite (not the one I’m attending this weekend!) that I saved because I couldn’t bear to throw it out for the quality. I should seek help.

I stamped a music pattern in the same gold ink over top, pressing faintly to give it the antique feel. I then added depth to the edges with an almond coloured Pro Marker that I have never had a need for before tonight.

The colours are a bit more realistic above but you can't see the gold ink without the flash. For one card, this is exceptionally high in the effort stakes. But I’m really pleased with it and hope it stands out from the crowd. 

PS: Can another blogger give me some advice on how I get quality pictures of the details? I have a decent camera but when I zoom or hold the card to close it blurs. I want to do the cards justice but am quickly losing patience! 

Project 38: Wedding fascinator

My first attempt at fascinators was for my friend’s hen do and it seemed fitting that I should try to make one for her wedding. I have changed my outfit 5 times for this wedding so now that I have finally settled on a dress I needed to get the fascinator made ahead of the festivities in 2 weeks’ time 

The dress is cranberry coloured so I’ve gone for an ivory and cranberry fascinator. First, a trip to the craft story to get supplies:

I bought a big flower as my base, smaller beaded flowers, feathers and a comb and knew that I’d be relying heavily on my old friend the glue gun. I'm going to have loads of feathers left so I'll have to make up a reason to use them in the future.

I started by taping together the smaller flowers to the wire of the big flower. 

Next I glued in the feathers one by one, adding a smaller flower in the back to keep the glue together.

It looked like this by the end with the ivory in the middle and the burgundy flowers neatly fanning out on one side with feathers on the other. 

Finally I bent back the wire from the flowers to give me a straight base to attach the comb.  I had to keep holding it up to my head to work out which way the comb's teeth should face. I had a second comb on standby in case I got it wrong and had to rip it off and start over. Luckily it wasn't needed but I'm an expert in getting things backwards in the final moment and having to start over. Ask me about assembling flat-pack furniture sometime.

Back to the fascinator story, once it dried it was time to model the finished product. I’m pretty pleased with this. Not the photo - the fascinator. The photo is the 6th one taken and I got bored of posing so decided to give up and use this one even though it's not great. Focus on the fascinator - not my awkward "how do you not know how to use the camera we've had for over 2 years" smile. 

Not sure if I love the feathers but I can always pluck them out on the day in a worst case scenario!

Project 33: Name card update

An update on the name cards for our friends’ wedding. We went for a modified version of the “Danu” card in the initial post.  

I ordered “doodle dots” Pink Petticoat paper design and printed out the Daffodil negative pattern to get the white on yellow. 

Then we cut them to size, punched a daisy corner punch in the front and tied a white grosgrain ribbon across the top. A bit more effort than I think I planned but I had my production line going (re: my husband sat measuring the ribbon and knotting them for me while watching television) and the cards were wrapped up from start to finish in about 5 days. 

Now I’m handing them over to the bride to write in the names – I’ll be sure to take pictures of them at the wedding!

Project 37: Joy fold cards

We had great success last playdate doing gate fold cards. We like using the craft days to try new things but I wasn’t convinced by this as I didn’t see it matching my style. I love this now and will do it all the time. 

The template we followed was called a joy fold card where you cut about an inch or two off the card and then add in a smaller piece of coloured card to overlap what you’ve cut off, wrapping a ribbon underneath and around the back before you secure it. Place another piece of card on top to hide the ribbon and you’re rolling.

The first one used a square card and I chose the colors with someone specific in mind. I like green and black, I think it’s a good contemporary mix. And Martha spotted paper in the background. Can't get enough Martha paper.

Next I tried a patterned card I love and finished it with an embossed flower. The embossing folder was one of Claire’s that I hadn’t used before so I got to add that in as well. 

Finally I tried a few different boy card options. I really liked the blue, green and orange stripes so tried two different options for making that work. The embossed greeting was something different, I usually go for the peeloffs. I think my friend is getting one of these in a few weeks!

My advice is to make your ribbon longer than you need. On two of them I cut the ribbon too short and now have to use a safety pin to knot them. I’m almost too afraid to untie them to write in them. Oops. 

I have another great post to update you on name card project so look out for that soon. 

Project 36: Mojo for a Playdate

Short post this weekend – saw the Mojo sketch and had to enter as Claire and I had a playdate and inspiration hit a lull so we used this as a challenge to get back on form. The challenge design is above.

It didn’t work – it was 10pm and we were really struggling so we finished the playdate after this sketch. It wasn't the sketch's fault, we were just getting silly. 

I used a patterned card paired with a golden yellow stock that I embossed. Busted out the lovely Martha dotted scallop punch for an orange contrast and some glitter card stock for the overlay. I don’t really like the flag-style greeting but it was in the sketch so I followed along.

I felt the greeting wasn’t enough as I used a small one (I’m loving these little square greetings at the moment – I used them in the last challenge as well) so I added a bit flower. I think it really ties in with the patterned card in the background.

Finally some gold dots to finish the sketch!

The playdate yielded some really fun cards and a new format I hadn’t tried before so I’ll post more on those this week. Enjoy the last bits of the weekend!