Main (nightmare) wallpaper, and feature paper on chimney breast. Click on the pic for a closer look at the wavy lines which just do not match up.

Week six in my year of cakes, yeah I know I am 2 weeks behind already lol there just aren't enough hours in the day to eat this much cake hahaha.

So this is pear,hazelnut and chocolate, the recipe is from the BBC goodfood website, it was very easy to do and turned out lovely.

No craft stuff this week, I have been wallpapering the livingroom, the paper has been a nightmare. i only got 3 drops from each roll and had to go buy another 4 rolls , the match has bee really bad too, parts of it match and other parts don't...*sigh* I am so glad it is on, but I am sick of the sight of it now lol I need to stay out of there for a few days till i am no longer angry at it haha

So thats pretty much it for the decorating in there, just a couple small jobs left to do. We still need some furniture, the sofas arrived and a coffee table and tv are on order, but we still need a bookcase and a cabinet...who knows when we will get those as Ian is soon to be out of work. Ah well it will all work out in the end I guess, and I have waited for 5 years to have it all decorated, I can wait a bit longer. The bedroom, craft room, livingroom and bathroom are all done now...just the hall,stairs,kitchen and dining room to go....maybe in another 5 years it might all be done hahaha

At the art group that I go to, run by Effie ,we do a monthly swap. This year we are doing tags, each month we make 2 identical tags, one to keep and one to swap. We have also made an art journal to stick them in.

This is my January tag, I liked it till I did my Feb one, which I like more, so I may do another January one in the same style as Feb lol



February tag...





Time page from my 8x8 art journal...made using same pens and paints as the first two. Any suggestions for themes of future pages most welcome.




Birthday card for a little friend of mine who turned 10 last week, double digits at last, how very grown up.

I also made her a bag,it's a Melly & Me pattern, using 4 fat quarters.





Bag fastens with 2 magnetic bag clasps.

...and this is the sock monster I made for her. A while ago she gave me 2 pairs of teeny socks that she had grown out of but couldn't bear to throw away, so now she can keep them forever lol

"Hello my name is Victoria Murray, originally from Australia where I was a cleaner in the Sydney Opera House, I now live in the UK. I came here to seek my fame and fortune, and to one day see my name in lights in the West End. My favourite musical is Hairspray, I love sherbet lemons but I am a little afraid of bananas."

Another 8x8 journal page, this time on a music theme. It's basically an excuse to doodle a lot lol suprisingly theraputic, by that I mean I don't worry about the outcome. Just go with the flow.

Happy Valentines Day, here is a valentines journal page that I did....clearly wasn't off being romantically wined and dined by Johnny Depp, so had to keep myself occupied somehow.

Mixed media, brusho,Inktense pencils,promarkers,sharpies,gelly roll pen, text, magazine clipping.

Beetroot and chocolate cupcakes.


4 oz SR flour
1 tspn baking powder
2.5 oz sugar
1 egg
1 small-medium beetroot,grated
2.5 oz oil
1.5 oz of options belgian drinking chocolate
1.5 oz of chopped milk chocolate
few drops of vanilla essence
2-3 tablespoons of single cream

grated chocolate, chopped nuts,mini marshmallows,flake pieces or giant buttons for decoration

This makes around 8-9 muffin size cupcakes.

For chunky choc bits inside chop the chocolate squares into quarters,(this does make for very chunky bits) for less chunky cut choc squares into eigths.

Small-medium sounds vague I know, but it depends on what you class to be medium lol I try to use a beetroot a little bit bigger than a golf ball. Grate it and then squeeze out some of the excess liquid..


Whisk the oil, egg and vanilla essence.
Sift the flours,baking powder and drinking choc, add the chopped choc, then add the oil mix. Add the beetroot then mix really well to distribute all the ingredients. Only now add the single cream, until you reach the right consistency, you may not need all of it.


Fill the cases 2/3 full and bake Gas 4 for 15 mins or until firm.


When cool, decorate with butter icing. To make the icing creamy add some milk, or better still add some carnation milk or single cream if you have some already open. If kept in an airtight container these will easily keep moist for a week.





disregard the orange coloured ones in this photo, they are an entirely different flavour lol

A variation on this recipe is to substitute the vanilla essence for pure orange juice, and also used orange flavoured options drinking chocolate.

Here is the week 4 cake, or rather cupcakes. They are beetroot and chocolate, a tried and tested recipe(many times over ) in this house.

I made this yesterday, well not make as such. The case is a DVD rack from IKEA filled with white DVD cases, on which rest my promarkers. I slipped some colour swatches and names into the spines of the cases, and stuck a coloured sticky heart on the end of each pen. i do plan to decorate the outside of the case too...at some point.

This is where I found the 'how to' Passion for Promarkers

I have just returned from a birthday trip to Manchester and London, it's not my birthday for another 3 days yet, but we could only go last weekend. This is the bag of craft and journalling stuff i took with me lol well a girl has to have something to do inbetween rushing off to gigs and Harrods lol

This was taken just after we came out of the theatre where we watched Les Miserables.

It was a fabulous break away, we saw lots of great stuff and met up with fabby friends.xxx