Back again! With cake, a card and a scarf!

It's been a while since I blogged I know. I have a habit of getting carried away with little projects, and once I've started something I don't like to stop!

So what have I been up to? Well in my last post I mentioned it was my mum's birthday and I was going to visit her. I did indeed bake her a cake (pics below) and travel up north to visit her for a few days. The cake is a coffee cake which I know to be my mum's favourite. I grabbed a recipe from the BBC as they usually turn out great, however this one just turned out 'ok' (recipe here) To be honest if I were to use this recipe again I would increase the coffee strength (personal taste!) and definately use one less egg. The cake was a wee bit stodgy and hardened faster than it should have.

Yummy cake decorated with chocolate stars (from Tesco), gold balls (from Asda), walnuts halves and
a little dusting of cocoa powder :)

 

I made plenty of frosting while trying to get the coffee strength right.
Of course it meant I had to lick the bowl clean. What a hard life! :P

While I was up we had a lovely time looking round the local gift shops for Christmas present ideas (and of course a little present to bring baclk to AJ). We popped into a wool shop (I don't know the proper name for this kind of shop...) and I bought some colourful chunky wool for my next project. My mum had taught me a new knitting stitch while I was home, as I am a complete novice, and I spent some time practising before I went mad on my new wool. Literally. I didn't put it down and in less than a week I had finished my scarf :) Pics to come soon.


And finally I've been at card crafting again. Not as advanced this time as I only had a day start to finish to get it designed, printed, cut, glued and posted out. It's for my wee baby cousin,Callan, who had his first birthday last month.

I stuck the wings and flag on sepeately so they could 'flap' out a little bit

I need to get some proper paper for these cards, using normal printer paper is
just causing wrinkling when glued.

The obligatory logo I have used on the back of the card since I was very small
(although the owl is a new addition!) It started off as a little joke - pretending I
had my own card designing business as a kid, but now it's just a habit, and I
quite like it :)

That's all for now! I'll remerge again sometime soon. Promise!