Craft Nomination

I must say I have been lucky enough to escape the stupid Nek Nomination craze that is currently doing the rounds, for those of you who don't know what this is, I'll explain as best I can. You nominate a 'friend' to drink a pint of alcohol in one go ( i.e. neck it ), they have to do this within 24 hours of being nominated and film themselves doing it. Once completed the Nekker become the Nominator and picks one of their friends, and so it goes on and on. I used the word 'friend' loosely because why anyone would ask a friend to do such a stupid thing is beyond me but some of my friends have partaken in this craze. I am of course excluded on medical grounds, my pancreas just won't allow it.

However I am all for being RAK nominated ( Random Acts of Kindness ) and a new one which I received yesterday - Craft Nomination.

I was nominated to do something crafty within 24 hours. Now this is just the kick up the back side I need to get back into card making & paper crafting. My News Years resolution was to make more this year, I think I managed to make just a single card last year, which was a pretty poor effort on my part.

I bought some cute Forever Friends London/British papers and stickers in the New Years sale but up until tonight I hadn't got round to using them. I decided to take up the challenge and make a card.

Chosen items from Docrafts Best of British &
Papermania Portabello Road collections

End result!

I was so impressed with my effort that I went on to make another card from the same packs.

On a roll!

Two cards in one night is enough for me! It's 100% more than I made last year and it's only February, so I think I can safely say that my New Years resolution of making more cards this year is well and truly in the bag!

I'm off to sit down and congratulate myself with a cuppa, but for those of you reading this I now nominate you to do something crafty within 24 hours and post about it. It can be big or small, card making or cake baking, you could do something you're already good at or try something new, something simple like following a step by step guide to origami or if you fancy something more challenging try painting a full blown self portrait, the only limit is your own imagination. 

Come back and let me know what you've done.

Charity Day at Playgroup

I take squiggle to a play group on a Friday morning, it's mainly for the under 5's, but does open up to older children in the school holidays. It's held in the local Salvation Army Hall, and every year they have a charity day where they open the doors and have stalls selling bric-a-brac, toys, books, the usual church fete type of things in order to raise money for a children's charity, this year they are raising money for Children with Cancer UK

As Children with Cancer UK are promoting a Bake Club Month I decided to to bring out the sheep again, and well, they went down a treat with everybody.

 I also baked some caramel muffins ( see above ) and some Devil's chocolate cakes ( see below ).

 My mum helped out by making chocolate krispies and we also both spent a day making cards.

Unfortunately the weather on the day was horrendous, it was pouring with rain so we didn't get as many people through the door as we expected, but those who did come along all bought a cake off my stall. The playgroup also invited hairdressing students from the local college to come along and give haircuts for donations, they had quite a few takers as well.

One of the girls also had a nail stall and used it to her advantage to practice her nail art and applying false nails!

Despite the weather and lack of people the playgroup managed to raise about £75 for the charity which we all thought was really good.

Now I know we've not even had a Summer yet, but I've suggested we try another one nearer Christmas and maybe try and invite local people to bring their own stalls so they can sell their trinkets and things for Christmas presents, so watch this space!

As the playgroup is part of the Salvation Army and their rules forbid any form of gambling, the group isn't allowed to hold any tombolas or raffles, as they are classed as gambling, so do any of my readers have any ideas for other stalls the playgroup could have if they were to do another charity day?

I've been baa - king cakes

My grandma has always made and decorated cakes for as long as I can remember, I used to look forward to getting a birthday cake off her, over the years she's made hundreds - all different. I've had doll cakes, Magic Roundabout with Zebedee and Dougal, Tetley Tea Folk, handbags and glad rags  she's done countless football shirts and cars, horses, trains, retirement, anniversary and even wedding cakes, the list is endless. But now she's retired, so no more cakes off her. However she still likes to go to the cake shows and keeps her tools for flower making. So I treated her to a day out last month at the Cake International Show at Event City in Manchester. Unbeknown to me that it would ignite a new passion in me for decorating cakes. I did dabble a bit when I was about 17/18 years old but haven't done any cake decorating since. So last weekend when it was son's 3 rd birthday I decided to bake some cakes and use my new found inspiration to make some sheep cakes.

Excuse the psychotic looking sheep in the first picture, I got tired of making eyes, 

so opted for a food colouring pen instead!

I was quite impressed with them, and they are quite easy to do, all you really need is a bag of marshmallows and some premade ready to roll black & white icing. I used Renwicks which I bought from Tesco.

1. Make a batch of buns/cupcakes/muffins

2. Using the black icing roll out head shapes and ears

3. Using the white icing roll out tiny eyes and press onto heads.

4. Using the black icing again roll out tiny eyeballs and press onto white balls

5. Mix up some butter-cream

6. Spread butter-cream onto buns and cover with marshmallows

7. Attach sheep heads

If you're not a fan of marshmallows than simply pipe a fluffy design onto your cakes before attaching a head.