year of the cake is going ok, this is the first one...banana and walnut loaf...Delia recipe.

week two was a bakewell tart,recipe from the Be Ro book.


Week three, is orange and poppy seed, a combination of an old recipe of mine and one I found online.


I have also made some books, this is a paper bag book. It's made with 4 green bags and decorated with DCWV papers.

It's filled with photos taken at a xmas party back in December. I gave this to a friend who was there, I have another set of the same photos to do a book for myself.

This is a 'no glue' book, made by lots of folding and held together by the pencil. I am going to use it as an 'on the go' travel journal next weekend. It is my birthday on the 1oth, so Ian is taking me away for a few days. Firstly we are off to Manchester next sunday, having coffee and cake with friends, then onto a Lacuna Coil gig on the night, staying over and then driving to London on Monday morning. Hopefully seeing friends on Monday night, Tuesday sightseeing and on Tuesday night we are going to see Les Mis, my all time fave show. More sightseeing on Weds then home. So I shall record what we get up to in this little book, and hopefully take lots of photos to play with when I get home.

So journal your year!!! are you doing one, if so which one? there are so many the mind boggles, least mine does......though to be fair it doesn't take much.

I have looked at all the online free prompts, none of them really grab me, can't afford any of the paid for ones,and really do I want to commit to something for a whole year. Sounds like too much hard work to me. But then ,as I was getting sick of reading about all the enthusiasm of my fellow crafters, getting revved up for the year ahead, I happened to make a joke status update on FB. This read as follows...

"hmmmm all these scrapping ideas,365 days, journal your year,52 in 10,a photo a day,document 2010,A-Z this,that and the other...I think I am gonna do '2010, a year in cakes'..."

this was meant as a joke,simply a parody of all the prompts out there. But then, worryingly, it started to seem like a good idea....and then friends commented, and i got caught up in the moment lol

So 52 cakes in one year, baking them isn't a problem, though I will be calling for recipes, it's the eating I am concerned about!!!

I have cut a front and back cover in the shape of a cupcake, on the cricut. I plan to laminate the recipes and fix them inside the book with velcro so they can be pulled out and used. I would also like to take a nice photo of each cake, and for this I will require some pretty china plates...

hey if i can't eat the damn cakes I bloomin well deserve some china out of it!

so my hunt for cheapy china is on, and today I scoured the charity shops, well perhaps scoured isn't entirely true..I happened to be passing 2 of them and popped in. I got 2 blue and white side plates(different patterns) I think 6-8 plates will be enough, and having them all mismatched will be cool.

I also got some laminating pouches in the £1 shop, so it's all systems go. No idea how to make the pages yet, what cardstock to use. Obv it needs 52 pages so I don't want to use anything too bulky, so chipboard pages are out. I did think about getting some old recipe books and gluing 2-3 pages together to make the required thickness....or maybe not, I am sure that will work itself out.

hmm what else, I drew a giraffe for my A-Z art journal, with only one letter finished last year, it could be a longterm project lol i am very hesitant to start colouring him in, not entirely sure where to start with 'fur'

oh and we have had snowfall after snowfall. I have come to the very scientific conclusion that similar to marmite, you either love snow or you hate it...SNOMITE.

Crop tomorrow, spose I should pack a bag...

Happy New Year

Best wishes to you all, hope that 2010 brings all that you are dreaming of. So a catch up, we had a lovely quiet Christmas and New Year, though it does feel that I have been on the go non stop the whole time. Christmas Eve was spent making cupcakes,shortbread,cookies and truffles as gifts for friends.Christmas day my other half was working till 7pm, so me and my son had a lazy pj day and i started cooking around 4pm. Dinner was lovely and everything turned out nice, on time and all hot lol then we opened gifts.

As he is due to be made redundant very shortly we had tried to cut back on spending this Christmas, at least i thought we had. it turns out he went a bit mental and bought me tons of stuff. I feel very spoiled and love it all,especially my shiny new toy of glee and wonderment, that is an i pod touch. I also recieved promarkers, LUSH,cds and books.

From friends I recieved more books, a drawing pad, kaiser chipboard book,tiny Artgirlz kit, a cd,some fabby spotty cupcake case,a really lovely cupcake stand and a very beautiful Italian vase.

Boxing day he was working again, so another lazy day. I made the Jamie Oliver turkey pie for dinner, we had it last year and it was a big hit. ( recipe on the Jamie website)

27th I spent cooking all day again, making pies,flans, and cakes for ian to take to work for a mini party. Then on the 28th I spent all day making more truffles for 6 girlfriends, we all got together on the night for food,drink and lots of laughs.

New Years Eve we went out for an Indian meal with friends, we had a lovely time, even the screetchy girls on the next table couldn't ruin it. Then back to friends house for drinks and finally home around 11.30pm to watch the end of Joolz Hootenanny. We ended up having a few more drinks and watching a film, getting to bed at 4am...but not before browning the pork and getting it in the slow cooker.

New Years Day we all had a lie in, the pork was doing its thing in the slow cooker, so all I had to do was the veggies and trifle. After dinner Ian drove our son back to uni, the place is so empty and quiet without him.

...and so it is all over, and tomorrow I plan to spend the day in bed lol well it's either that or do some badly needed exercise, only time will tell which wins out.

So onto photos. These are plain white cake boxes with decorated tops, filled with goodies and given away as gifts. The boxes are 6x6, I didn't have any stamps big enough, so I drew the images, by copying and enlarging xmas stamps.


These ones were all filled with truffles.



Brandy truffles.


I made these seals with UTEE, and glued them over the flap of the truffle boxes, these were given to 6 crafters and it was funny watching them try to get the seals off without breaking them. I should have known that the embellishments would be more exciting than the chocolates lol


I also caught up on some overdue baby cards, 2 pinks ones for a set of twins. Each has pages that end in a letter of their name, with spaces inside for photos and journalling.

This one is for a baby boy.

these are cartons, filled with a chocolate and a scratch card. We used them as place settings on xmas day and opened them after dinner,Ian won £2 on his scratch card. My friend was making them, from this tutorial. so I thought I would have a go, they turned out cute.

At our last glue and stick art day of the year we made these super cute gingerbread garlands, using chipboard cut on the BigShot and patterned papers.

Oh and i made a set of 6 of these snowflakes, i never got around to doing anything with them, so they are hanging up in a bunch in my craft room.
Tutorial here.