Cupcake Crazy

I while back I promised to make cupcakes for the couples doing the Marriage Course at our Church. At the time I thought there would be about 30 people total but somehow it grew to 60! So over the weekend I baked about 80 cupcakes (you've got to make extras for family taste testing!).
Here's what I made-

Coconut Kisses

These are white chocolate mud cakes with a touch of coconut essence. I topped them with white chocolate ganache and a Rafaello.

Double Choc Mud

I was really pleased with these. They weren't too heavy. Topped with milk choc ganache and a Ferro Rocher.

Caramel Mud

I came upon this recipe last year and made these for my son's class for his birthday. His teacher said they were the nicest she'd ever had! High praise indeed!! The caramel cake is great but we love it with Crunchie ganache (Crunchies are chocolate with honeycomb in it). So delicious :-)

Hummingbird Cakes

I love Hummingbird cake, so fruity and fresh. If you've never tried it, it's got pineapple, banana and a hint of spice with cinnamon & ground ginger. I love it with cream cheese icing but I can't stand it being too sweet so I only use 1/3 of the icing sugar that is in most recipes. Topped with toasted coconut.

Strawberry Butterfly

Now by this stage I was getting a bit sick of cooking so I cheated a bit, but really I think I was being smart. I love Green's Cake mixes especially their vanilla. It's been a staple for birthday cakes in this house (because I find most kids love icing over the cake so I prefer to make awesome icing and simple cake, that said I think this cake is great). I got 2 packets on sale for $1 each a couple of weeks ago, I made them up as per the directions then when they were cool cut a circle out of the top and spooned strawberry jam in and topped with whipped cream, 1/2 a strawberry and a sprinkle of icing sugar.

Raspberry Nougat Cream

With my other box of Green's Vanilla cake I made these. Originally I was going to make individual Raspberry Cheesecakes but I was worried they wouldn't come out of my silicon cupcake moulds well. So I came up with these instead. I mixed up the cake as per the box, then added some frozen raspberries and chopped almonds. After they were baked and cooled I added some crunchy vanilla nougat to the left over cream from the Butterfly Cakes and topped them off.

Everyone enjoyed them and I guess I learnt to find out how many people are attending before I commit to baking for them! LOL really I didn't mind. Actually the thing I really learnt was that you can still make something from a packet and present it in a new interesting way. 

It's okay to find shortcuts sometimes. 

Guess I am still blossoming :-)

Fun friday

Hi again!

I had another great night at Inspired Crafts on Friday night. I didn't get the chance to plan many layouts so I bought along 2 that I started ages ago and haven't finished. I started the first one months ago and I just couldn't get it to look the way I wanted to. I ended up pulling half of it off the page and adding some more layers. Thankfully I found the perfect Thickers for the title in the store (since I left the ones I planned to use on my desk at home!). Now I'm really happy with it, all that's left to do is add some journalling which will be hidden away in the envelope.

I've used Bo Bunny's "Gabrielle" range and some Prima & Green Tara flowers.

This is one I started at Inspired Craft's 12hour crop. I liked when it was done but felt it need something else. So ended up adding the "Love U" at the bottom and the stitches. Now I'm really pleased with it. 

I was inspired by the work of Louise Nelson. She does incredible work, lots of white space and amazing painted textures.  I had this photo of my kids I'd taken on my phone to send their Auntie. They were holding a sign that said Happy Birthday. I really loved the looks on their faces so I wanted that to be the focus. I knew Louise uses small pictures on most of her layouts, so that's why I scraplifted her style!

I guess this is a good example of if you're not happy with a layout put it aside for a while. After a while you might find the inspiration you need.

Scraptastic!

I had a great time the other week at Inspired Crafts in Cannington at their 12 hour crop. Here's a few I got done.

Here's my daughter and her friends at her Butterfly birthday party Kaisercraft "Bubblegum Hills" papers went perfect with this. I did some fussy cutting and used some Glossy Accents to add some shine to some.

Here's No 1 son as a baby having some Weetbix :-)

I've used a fews bits from Echo Parks "Boy's Life" Collection on this one.

While I was there I bought Simple Stories "Summer Fresh" collection continuing my Simple Stories love fest! I whipped up this layout, the background is a page from Echo Parks "This & That" range. The tag is off some clothes I bought my kids from Cotton On Kids. 

It's great to find creative ways to recycle!

Here's another one using Simple Stories "Summer Fresh" collection. Once again the light failed me a bit taking these photos. I love the background of this one, it looks like denim complete with top stitches!

Thanks for looking :-)

Concerted effort

After having a busy few weeks organising things, I've tried to have a bit of down time and scrap a bit. It came at the perfect time actually as Winter has well and truly hit Perth and it's been very wet and stormy. We didn't have any storm damage thankfully and we didn't lose power which I know a lot of people did.

Here's a few of my layouts.

This is my No1 Son, I've used Simple Stories "Awesome" Range. I've become a bit of a Simple Stories nut lately, I just love the papers!! This was inspired by something I saw on someone's blog, I'm sorry I can't give credit as I've forgotten where I saw it. The photo has a bit of flare on it, sorry! The dark days have made it hard to get a good shot.

Ages ago I bought some My Little Shoebox on sale and I'll admit a year had gone by and I hadn't thought of using them once. So one day I sat down and looked at their blog and got inspired. Sometimes I find I have to get ideas how to use the papers to be able to use them. I saw a layout using these "Harmony" papers and I knew exactly the photo I would use with these papers. The midwife we had attending us as I was in labour with my daughter was Malaysian, my husband & I got on great with her since we'd lived in Malaysia for 3 years. When she was born Doris the midwife said "Aww she looks Chinese like me!" We thought that was very funny and have told the story many times. It was great to scrap about it, showing our beautiful newborn baby. These papers were perfect!

Here's my daughter again with My Little Shoebox papers. I don't own many punches but here's one I do and I love, the Martha Stewart Deep Edge Daisy punch. It's really dramatic!

Hope you enjoyed looking :-)

I will survive!

I survived our Women's Retreat which I was organising last month. I think it went well. The theme was "Beautiful" and we  had different speakers and things that related to that. I spoke on the Saturday afternoon about looking and feeling beautiful. I touched on a bit of my story about learning to love and feel good about myself and then shared some tips to dressing better so that we don't focus on the parts of ourselves that we feel negatively about. It was great to hear it helped some ladies. I made a book mark to give everyone to, it had this quote on it-

and also Psalm 139:14 

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful; 

I know that full well."

It's easy to read that verse and think of the world around us as wonderfully made, but what about us? Do you consider yourself wonderfully made? Do you see yourself as one of God's masterpieces or as a bit of useless junk? Let me promise you, you are a wonderful & marvellous creation made by a loving Father who knows you so well, He even knows the number of hairs on your head. I also know it's hard to see ourselves as God sees us because we're so busy comparing ourselves to everyone else. 

That's why I used the "I'm not beautiful like you, I'm beautiful like me" quote. 

As a reminder we are one of a kind. We can use that quote for all aspects of our lives.

"I'm not creative like you, I'm creative like me"

"I'm not a housewife like you, I'm a housewife like me"

"I'm not a mother like you, I'm a mother like me"

Imagine your life if you stopped comparing yourself to everyone else.

I think it might be pretty awesome :-)

Keep blossoming...