New Home Card

My son and his family are moving house this week, so created this for them.   It has been matted and layered onto card - but I forgot to take a picture of finished card.

Fakeaway

What's that you ask - well it is an imitation donner kebab done in the slow cooker.

I kept seeing everybody raving about it on the slow cooker page on fb and thought I had better give it a try. Now I have never had a donner kebab in my life, so wasn't sure what to expect.

Well it turned out quite well, and I enjoyed it, although my husband said it was a little too spicy for him. However, as there was enough left over for another meal, he got it again today, but reheated in gravy and served with mash and veg!

I may well make it again, but not put in so many herbs, but it was a change - don't know about you but it is nice to have something a bit different occasionally, and it was very easy to make!

Faux Leather

bookmark

I have had fun today, and have been making faux leather as per an idea by Sheena Douglass.   I couldn't find my Sheena embossing folders - ovbiously in a very safe place, or up in the Den!  However, I made do with some old cuttlebug folders in my stash, that haven't seen the light of day for a long while!    I particularly like this book mark, using one of the narrow folders.

I also don't have a lot of distress inks (something to be rectified), at least not a lot of brown shades, so once again I made do with what I had - using mainly bundled sage, scattered straw, peeled paint, and dusty concord.  I also got out my Ink Duster and used some orange colours from a couple of my Big and Juicy pads.  Amazing how you can improvise!

made using a freebie folder from a goody bag

using an owl folder

owl folder again, but done twice to make a book cover

 Really loving this effect.  I have some new Sheena embossing folders on order - hope they arrive soon.  I also have some times that I want to cover with a leather effect - so watch this space!

Valentine Day Birthdays - Cards and Cake

Today sees two family birthdays, my daughter-in-law and my eldest granddaughter (daughter's daughter). Just for a change I made a card without using CAP2 and got the Grand Calibur and some dies out!

This second  card is for my eldest granddaughter.  Originally she wanted a cake like a scrabble board for her birthday - so I designed this in CAP2, with the intention of getting it printed on icing locally.  She then decided that she just wanted a cake looking like a scrabble tile - phew - much easier - as you will see below.  However, I decided that I would use my design for her birthday card!

Here is the cake:

scrabble tile cake

This is the cake my granddaughter asked for.  Fairly simple, apart from the fact that making sponges in a square tin is very difficult, they mixture definitely prefers a round tin!.  The cake is chocolate sponge with vanilla buttercream inside.

The first of the"Big 70" cards.

Well this year is a year of "0" birthdays.  The first of my old school friends is today.   I was really lucky as although we exchange cards at Christmas, I couldn't remember her actual birthday, but I recently made contact with her brother on FBook, and thankfully discovered that I hadn't missed it.  phew!

Cream scarf and Black and grey scarf

I got a tad bored during the week, and found some of my cha cha scarf yarn that I bought last year, when it was on sale in Hobbycraft.   So decided to get the crochet hook out!  The cream one took less than an hour, however, the black/grey one took me a couple of days!

slow cooker -bread puidding

My first attempt at cooking bread pudding in my slow cooker.  Won't  be the last!

I used as usual the old family recipe - no suet, but it does contain grated apple and carrot.

A birthday card and a bit of nostalgia ...

... and actually the two things are connected.

The first picture is a card for my no.1 sister-in-law's birthday this week.

The  second is of one of two cards made to go with a little present for two friends recently contacted through fbook.  One is the sister of our best man and the other the wife of our best man.  Adrian died when he was 40, ten years after our wedding.  

We were lucky enough to have a video of our wedding, a rare occurrence in those days.   We had had the video converted to a dvd a few years ago.  So I made copies of the video and sent them to them both, and with a bit of conniving with Adrian's sister, it was arranged that they would be opening their presssies together. Although Adrian's wife was on the video as well, obviously his sister wasn't at the wedding, so it was all new to her.  I am sure it was  very emotional; for them, as I get emotional watching it as my brother died the same year as Adrian, and he is in the video too.

This is the cover I made for the dvd case.

and the connection between the first card ?  well my sister-in-law was originally intended to be my chief bridesmaid, but unfortunately she was very pregnant, at the time so it wasn't to be.  In fact my nephew was born whilst we were on honeymoon!

Card for a nephew

Men are so difficult - wanted something different to football this year!  As he is into music and likes an occasional beer - went down that route!

Where does the time go? .......

and in fact where do the years go?   I had intentions of posting this blog last week.  It was 40 years ago last week that I gave birth to my daughter!

Needless to say I made her a cake.   I wanted to do pretty - she wanted a Minion.

Minion, before Adding the Fab at 40 cake topper

I designed some cupcake toppers for my granddaughter to put on some cupcakes, and kept one back for the Minion.  (designed in CAP2 and printed locally on wafer paper)

Cupcake topper

her card continued the minion theme:

as did her gift tag as you will see from this memory page I made..   (The background is a photo of the cakes my granddaughter made for her mum.)

Fab 40 Memory page