Happy Monday!!!

Good morning everyone and Welcome!

Thank you for all your lovely kind comments on my last post ~ you are all very kind.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend?  I had a great weekend - no work!!!!

I spent the weekend catching up on the housework, gardening, baking and making ~ I was in heaven!!!

Obviously housework involved washing all the uniform but it was just nice to get a bit of organisation in the house again.  Gardening ~ clearing the veg patch ready for Spring and planting out bulbs ( I know I am possibly a little late, but you know what it's like! ).  I also started some indoor bulb planters can't wait I will reveal all when the start to shoot.

 Baking!!

Chocolate Toffee Brownies Yum! Yum!

Baking with the little one ~ Chocolate Crispie's with sprinkles of course!!

Then I actually had time to spare to make a few Christmas Tree decorations that I had in a kit from my Cross stitch mag.  I made a few changes in that I stitched the outside of the birds and filled them with toy filler instead of the suggested glued flat together.

I think I may have to practise my stitching a little ~ the blanket stitch has not turned out great, but then they are handmade dec's so I think they still look good x

I will be back during the week for some more blog challenges.

Thank you for popping by my blog today.

Love Em x

43 Days and Counting!!!

Hi everyone and welcome to Elf's Crafting Life...

Hope you are all well. 

 I'm not getting much time to post at the moment, our Christmas rush at work has already started!! I don't mind too much I do love Christmas very very much ~ I believe I am worse than a child =]

It's my favourite time of year ~ the sparkle (spoken from a true Magpie), the smells (pine and spices) the food, the feeling of giving and not to mention going crazy on handmade crafts!!!!

Onto today's challenge entry.

Materials used:

Square blank red card

 Background papers from ~ Forever Friends Santa's on his way...

Ribbon ~ Celebrate ribbon on a spool

Stamps ~ Penny Black Mimi's Christmas Clear stamps and Kars Merry Christmas sentiment, stamped with Versafine black ink.

Pom pom and gems from crafty stash

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

Sir Stampalot Challenge ~ Christmas Traditions

Penny Black Saturday Challenge ~ Let it Snow

Penny Black at Allsorts ~ It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog, please feel free to leave a comment

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend x

Love Em x

My First Wedding Cake....

Hi and Welcome to Elf's Crafting Life...

Well I must admit I am glad that week is over.  It has been crazy here!  What with catching up with work from being away, washing (still trying to catch up on that!) and the daunting task of my first big wedding cake. 

I was so worried about making my cousin's cake for her big day.  I normally only make birthday cakes for family and the odd bake with Abigail ~ I do so enjoy baking but for a cake of that importance it was alot of pressure, but YIPPEE I think I might have just pulled it off!!! They loved it!!! I am so glad I put so much into it I don't think I could have got it to look any better ~ I am so critical of my own work but this one I was quietly happy with. 

The brief was to bake individual cupcakes ~ 90!!  and a top cake with the bride and groom in the bonfire ~ well I wasn't about to burn the bride and groom no matter how much the bride wanted to, so I made them to stand beside the bonfire.  The colour scheme was red, orange and yellow. 

Cupcakes ~ Chocolate sponge cakes with white, milk and dark chocolate topping with the icing Gerbera decoration with edible glitter (a bit of sparkle for Bonfire night).  For the top cake I made a chocolate sponge and made a fudge icing.  The top cake was the hardest I just love making cupcakes so they were a pleasure to make although I have never baked so many in one go.  I made the bride and groom out of icing (normally I use Fimo) which brought it's own problems ~ the black icing would not go hard so the groom was propped up everywhere. 

  Bride and groom on the top cake with the bonfire (made from matchmakers ~ orange flavour of course) with a few rockets on the floor.

Cupcakes everywhere!!!

The finished wedding cake dressed with fresh flowers.

A huge thank you to the Bride and Groom for my gorgeous (unexpected) bouquet of flowers xx

I think the whole cake turned out very well and I had a great experience making it and learnt a few things along the way I can't say I am going to make another though lol!!! Too stressful (although possibly worth it!)

Just one more thing to announce

The winner of my little giveaway is ~ peppermintpatty ~  Congratulations!! If you email me your address I will get your package sent out to you straight away xx

Also a huge YIPPEE!! as one of my cards won top 3 at Penny Black @ Allsorts

Thank you for visiting my blog today and please feel free to leave a comment.

Hope you all have a lovely Sunday evening

Love Em x