Vintage Style Photo

As soon as I read this tutorial on taking a vintage style photo on the A Beautiful Mess blog I had to give it a go. I have a few vintage cameras, all in working order so when it's a nice day I take one of those out as well as my digital camera.

I used my Kodak Reflex today as I needed a camera with a waist level viewfinder. This camera cost me about £4 and it wasn't too difficult to find a film for it. I still have a few more shots left on it so what I'm dreading is the cost of developing it when I'm finished.

I dragged out some of a couple of my old toys to take the pics.

My squeaky orange hippo, Georgie, who was a present from one of my aunties when I was born so he's getting on abit

and Ted, who I have had since I was about 8 years old. He's looking a bit worse for wear now and one of his legs has fallen off a few times and had to be sewn back on but I think he'll be OK as long as I don't start taking him to bed again.

Back again with more cakes!

Hiya guys!! I'm back again! I've been away for far too long so I decided I'd do a compilation kind of blog and update you with all the things I've been baking and all my grand plans for the future! :D

First off a fair few months ago I made rainbow cupcakes with Little L at my house! And even though she kept telling me I'd put enough flour in, despite the fact it needed much more, we persevered and managed to make some edible rainbow cakes! Even if Little L did only want to eat the butter-cream sky and clouds!

Already to go in the oven!

The blue butter-cream is the sky and the white butter-cream is clouds! 

Little L packing up the Rainbow cakes ready to go back home.

Bye Bye cakeys!!

Ok, maybe just one for me.. hehe!

MAGIC!!

Yummy! These went down a treat at school! I had people arguing over them and begging me to bake more :D

My next endeavor into the crazy world of cupcakes were "Sweeney Todd Surprise" cupcakes! The deliciously creepy creations were made from vanilla cake, marzipan, butter-cream and raspberry sauce! Yum Yum!

Lots of evil little creations! 

It might look hellish, but it tastes heavenly!

 Next up in this barrage of information, is a giant cake for a Halloween cake competition, and I won!

Everything you see is edible!!

Stay with me guys I'm almost done! The next cake I made was a birthday cake for one of our beloved beaters George, who always fetched me a new paper clipping everytime I saw him, so I made this for him and all the other beaters.

Next up is my gorgeous baby cousin Celyns first birthday cake! Which was only last month, so Happy belated Birthday little 'un!

and last but not least are the cakes I made in the last few days so here they are!

Strawberry Shortcake!

Awh :'3

Mmm nice fresh victoria sponge!

Super zesty lemon meringue cupcakes!

Thanks for hanging in there guys! I know I blagged the blog! But anyway tell me what you think! and if you'd like to try any of these, tell me in the comments as I'm hoping to set up my own website to sell cupcakes! Hope you enjoyed :) 

Little L's Tiny Bed

Little L has a couple of 5in baby dolls and she said they needed a bed to sleep in. While I was thinking of a mini baby size box, my husband said he was sure there would be some suitable scraps of wood at work for him to make a bed.

Little L requested a double bed and this is what he made using 6mm ply wood. ( It amazes me how much wood just get thrown away where my husband works. Surely it could be of some use to someone ).

The mattress is a piece of wadding, doubled and covered with calico. I had already knitted the blanket for something else. The sheets and pillow were made from an old cot sheet which was used in my eldest son's cot. He will be turning 15 at the end of the year so that just shows how long I hang on to things. After a quick coat of left over paint from the shed, it was ready for Little L to play with.

WIP's

 Last week I made a start on a pattern from The Hoopla book.

The mutant girl pattern designed by Cate Anevski. When I showed my mum this week what I was doing she said, 'Oh, that's nice'. I don't think she noticed that the girl has tentacles instead of arms and legs.

Another thing I have started is knitting a baby cardigan from this pattern.

 I have used this self patterning wool before on cardigans for Little L and always love the way they turn out. The cardigan is for my eldest cousin's daugther, Amy who is expecting her first baby and as this will be the first baby of this generation in the family my knitting needles were out straight away. I only knit using white but Amy has just found out that she is expecting a girl so I can use more colours now.

Bird Silhouettes

I have been meaning to do an embroidery of some simple bird silhouettes for awhile and every time I spy these mugs in the kitchen I remind myself to do it.

This week I finally got around to making one.

I don't know why it has taken me so long to get around making something so quick as the materials were items already hanging about the house.

Filled in with straight stitch

and straight stitch for the wire. ( Mine turned out quite wonky though )

New Crafty Books

Today I went off into town with the kiddies on a mission. Traipsing around all the charity shops looking for an old typewriter. My youngest boy has his heart set on one. He spied one in a case months ago and didn't know what it was until I opened it. He'd never seen one before ( pity I can't say I'm too young to know what they are but I used them in my typing lessons at school ). Anyway he begged me to buy it for him but the only trouble was I was laden with bags and still had to do the food shop and those things are 'heavy' especially walking any distance with one. We did go back, empty handed on our next trip to town but it had gone so we are still looking for one - no luck today though.

The only other thing was to buy a book for my husband. Book shops are my most favourite type of shops and can even feel a bit disappointed if nothing catches my eye and I leave the shop empty handed so it's a good job that I don't have the opportunity to enter one too often.

Today I came home with The Liberty Book of Home Sewing. It is a beautiful looking book with plenty of patterns and a small history of Liberty fabrics in the foreword but unless you are mad about Liberty fabrics I don't think that is worth the cover price of £20. I paid £6.99 for mine from The Works.

When I arrived back home, I had a parcel waiting for me which I had been expecting.

It was the Hoopla book which I ordered. I first saw this book when it was featured as a give away last week on the feeling stitchy blog. I whizzed on over to Amazon with the intentions of popping it in my wish list but ended up buying it. It doesn't happen very often that I 'just have to have' a certain book, they usually hang a round in my wish list for months or even years. Anyway while looking at Hoopla on Amazon, I clicked 'the look inside' doo dah and I think it was Sherri Lynn Wood's tattooed baby dolls that made me just pop it in my basket instead. The book is pretty chunky and there are lots of interviews with the featured artists, some I have heard of through craft blog's, some new to me which I can't wait to read.

Loads of great photos and interesting projects. I love this jackalope but I tend to like anything rabbity/ jackalopey/ wolpertingery.

I've only had a quick flick through it yet but I think I'm instantly drawn to at least five projects. I can see this book being one of my favourites for a long time.

Now I can't wait to get the kiddies in bed tonight so I can nestle on the sofa with my new books. Is it too early to send them to bed now at 3:00pm ?

Wishing For Warm Weather

.... or just a little warmer than we have here at the moment would be nice. We have not had any snow here just some hail and sleet with frost on top making the pavements and roads lethal. This morning was a slippery one and the paths leading to Little L's playground don't get gritted so it is a good job that I put reins on her as within 2 minutes of leaving the house she slipped right over but because I lifted her reins as she fell she was just suspended in the air a bit like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.

When I came back home I nipped in to the garden to take some frosty photos but didn't keep many as they were too burry. I treated myself to a new camera last week and am still trying to work out how to use the thing. I am useless with reading instructions. I think its because I find them so boring, they just don't sink in so with something like a camera unless its a function I use regularly I have to refer back to the instruction manual.

Last week I was and still am in a bit of a fidgety, restless mood. I can't stand just sitting still doing nothing but I don't know what it is that I actually want to do. Craftwise, Little L's crocheted cushion cover was finished and I made a cute crocheted bunny from this pattern.

The sooner I decide on what I actually want to do and this daft mood passes, the better.