Crafty-emblies: March Blog Candy

Crafty-emblies: March Blog Candy: We are offering one lucky winner the chance to own these gorjuss bits of Crafty emblies 9 x 9 Shadow box Cog Mask Chick...

My First New Toy From My Holiday

I've just made these to share with some friends tonight. I wanted to use my new "toy" that I brought back with me. That's it in the picture, if you saw it at a car boot sale you wouldn't have a clue what it was for but it's for putting a different mixture in the middle of a cake. I've added yellow colouring and lemon juice and zest to the middle part then decorated them with chocolate butter icing and little eggs as it's Good Friday. I'm glad this worked as I had my doubts, I thought the mixture might stick but it was fine. Well worth £3.40!

New York

I've just gotten back from New York after spending a week there with my friend, Gloria. We went primarily to go around the craft shops and managed Michaels (twice) The ink pad, Paper Source, Paperie and I think it was A C Moores. We bought lots of craft stuff, things we hadn't seen here, different papers, some beautiful stamps and embellishments. We walked for miles but also used the underground and the bus, which wasn't as scary as we thought. Then we had to buy another case to bring our stuff home!

This was the view from our window

Altered Art

I'm part of a group of crafters that meet about once a fortnight and each time, as well as making something, we have a "mingle". We are given a challenge to come up with something on a common theme. This week it's altered tins. We were given a M&S mints tin to alter and this is what I came up with.
A little tin that holds two Yankee Candles and says around the inside "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."
We take them to the next meet and swap them.

Cupcakes for Mothers Day

This is what we made yesterday, The plan is to make four of them and put them in a cupcake box from the pound shop and the children can give them to their Mums for Mothers day. It's very easy to make them the ones above were made by a five and a six year old.

This is what you need:
 I bought a pack of 12 fairy cakes from Aldi for a pound, you could make them using a Victoria sandwich receipe but we wanted to do this quickly. A bag of mini marshmallows, 40p from B&M's, some granulated sugar coloured with a few drops of food colouring, some food pearls or silver dragees and some butter icing (4oz butter mixed with 8oz of icing sugar).
.

First of all cut the marshmallows in half diagonally

Then remove the disc of icing from the fairy cake and eat it. Cover the top with butter icing.
Place three pearls or dragees in the centre of each cake.

Then dip the cut side of each marshmallow in the sugar and place six around the centre pearls then another twelve around those.






Finished!

Something for Free

Just had to post this. It's a gift card from Marks and Spencer. It is the most exquisite cut work on three layers and it's free when you buy a gift voucher! I don't know what I will do with it but I'm sure I'll think of something.

Half term activities

I'm also a Childminder and yesterday the children played with coloured rice. I bought kilo bags of rice from Asda for 40p each and coloured them with food dye, about half a teaspoon. I mixed them by hand and it was surprising how quickly they mixed, although my hands were a bonny colour by the end! Then I left them on trays, spread out, to dry over night. Yesterday I gave them a tray each, some scoops, spoons, and containers and they spent ages experimenting with the rice. Next, when they get bored with this we will make pictures with some glue and the rice. Then who knows what we might think of before I probably end up boiling it up to feed to the hens!