May the force be with you

I can honestly say I am shattered! I am normally bounding with energy and will sew, be mum, keep the shop updated and sew a little more, from first thing in the morning until I go to bed at night. But tonight I am collapsed in a heap on the sofa.

I've had a marvelous weekend, baking, cake decorating, icing personalised star ship cookies, packing party bags, clock watching (giving an hourly countdown from 6am 'till 6pm party time!) shopping, walking around gardens, having a birthday lunch out with Uncle Mal and Auntie Tina, lots of chatting, laughing and general excitement.

Both children are in bed exhausted and with any luck sleeping later than the usual 5.30am, which they still managed this morning despite an extremely late night last night. I have a glass of wine and I'm snuggled up with Andy making the most of our last few evenings together before he goes away on Friday.

So I'm going to love and leave you and will be back bounding with energy in the morning!

Here's some pictures of the cake (and call me mad, but I'm going to make it all over again in 2 weeks on Jamie's actual birthday!)

Jamie loved the twinkly stars, hooray for edible glitter!

'till next time

A new look

On Tuesday I went on a product photography workshop run by Lyndsey, it was a great day, I learnt lots (and I mean lots). It was fabby to spend time with other like minded ladies, all of whom had fabulous products!

We did lots of theory (phew) go on ask me a question about Exposure or Apertures or Depth of Field (only kidding, please don't!)

I came back and spent a sleepless night thinking about bunting and photo's, here's the result

To show the scale and the gap between each flag, I'm now going to photograph each and everyone of my buntings, like this, on a gorgeous polka dot background with this lovely willow heart

I have decided however, that whilst I love the green, I'm going to stick with red and blue, to match my shop logo and pink, which is probably my best selling colour scheme. (The green will however come into its own come Christmas time when I switch to my winter graphics! )

I've also been re shooting my close up pictures, using different Aperture and Shutter speeds (hope you're impressed with the terminology)

Darla in Pink and Yellow


Appliqued Owls

Sunshine

Stars and Stripes

and Rainbow

So what do you think?

I've got a HUGE task ahead of me which is clearly going to take some time, but I'll get there.................eventually.

I've got a busy few days ahead, we're celebrating Jamie's birthday early due to his Daddy going away next week for a whole month (groan!!) I know it's part of forces life, but it doesn't get any easier! I can not believe it's a year since I was making these

This year, we've booked a laser party and I think this will be the last 'big' party. Jamie has requested a Star Wars cake, huumm could be interesting. I'll show the results next week. Hopefully by then I will have convinced Poppy that it is not her party and that Jamie really does not want a butterfly cake.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

(May the force be with me)

'till next time

Belated Birthday

My birthday was back in February, but I still hadn't decided what I wanted from Mum and Dad, some lovely sunny days last week and some very tatty Birkenstock's, led to some Internet shopping and the purchase of some gorgeous new ones, (Gosh, how I hate my feet!)

and whilst ordering some more fabric from Cath Kidston, this fab bag just found it's way into my basket. As my mum says this is definately a Mummy bag, which made me think that my days of nappy bags and pushchairs after 6 years is soon to end.

How will I manage without my trusty pushchair to cart, drinks, suntan cream, first aid kit, sunhats, shopping, parcels for the post office etc etc.............. thank goodness for Cath!

Birthdays

So the weekend of the 6th Plane Birthday party arrived.

First Job, bake the cake. the cake of choice for my son is chocolate (would it be anything else!) I followed Rachel Allen's Chocolate Cake recipe from her Bake cook book.

For the cake
125g (4 ½ oz) dark chocolate
3 tbsp milk
150g (5oz) butter, softened
150g (5oz) caster sugar
3 eggs
200g (7oz) plain flour
1 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Cocoa powder or icing sugar, for dusting, optional
For the chocolate butter icing
75g (3oz) butter, softened
1 tbsp cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g (6oz) icing sugar
1 tbsp good quality cocoa powder

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), Gas mark 4. Butter and flour the sides of the sandwich tins (two 20cm (8in) diameter sandwich tins) and line the bases with greaseproof paper.

Place the chocolate and the milk in a bowl sitting over a saucepan of gently simmering water and heat until then chocolate has melted.

Beat the butter until very soft then add the caster sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then fold in the melted chocolate.

Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda, and fold in gently to mix. Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to sit for a few minutes before turning them out of their tins and placing them on a wire rack to cool.

While the cakes are cooling, make the chocolate butter icing. Beat the butter, cream and the vanilla extract until very soft. Then gradually sift in the icing sugar and the cocoa powder, beating all the time, until it is all added. Continue to beat until very soft, then whisk the mixture until it is light and fluffy. (I normally make the chocolate butter icing in an electric food mixer, using the whisk all the way through.)

Once the cakes are cool, sandwich them together (I normally sandwich them together bottom to bottom – if you know what I mean!) with the chocolate butter icing. Place the cake on a plate or a cake stand and dust with cocoa powder or icing sugar if you wish.

Next, decorate the cake, having coloured the my three balls of icing, and then having answered the door to the postman with blue hands, thought "Why did I not wear rubber gloves", oh well.......

I made lots and lots of RAF roundels

happily, the cakes did their bit in the oven

And after the addition of some yummy butter cream turned into chocolate cake heaven!




I also baked some aeroplane personalised (of course) cookies

wrapped them up with my homemade 'chocs away' stickers

along with the cupcakes

and added them to the homemade party bags.

phew, one party taken care of, 6 months until my daughter's birthday, I'm thinking a fairy party inspired by Charlie and Lola, with lots of Amy Butler fabrics, uuummm all makes sense to me, oh and did I mention the summer garden party we're having................

Plane Birthday Party

Plans are being made for the forthcoming 6th birthday party for my PLANE mad son at the end of May.

So far I've been checking out whats available on ETSY




I'm loving the invite.............. SOLD!

I've booked Crazy Bongo's (our local indoor play centre). This is the first time we've not held the party at home, but plane mad son has been desperate for the last couple of years to have his party there. So after much thought, and really I think this will be probably be the last party, as such, that he will want, we said Yes. Result, VERY HAPPY little man!

Also I remember how mad last years Pirate party was with very excited 5 year olds tearing about. It was great fun, we all dressed up, we had a treasure hunt, made pirate ships, lots of glue involved, played lots of very loud party games, ate hot dogs and ice cream and had fun. Thank goodness it was a lovely sunny day and most of it took place outside, the only mistake we made was allowing swords!

Other News

Well it was my Birthday last weekend. So after breakfast in bed, we went to the jewellers. I was bought a Pandora Bracelet for christmas and I wanted to add some more charms. I chose a silver heart from Andy, a little silver parcel from the children and the most gorgeous pink and red glass one from my parents. I want my bracelet to make me think of all of my family.

Anyway, clutching my very pretty gift wrapped bag, we headed back to the car, despite Andy's beat efforts, he couldn't however, keep me out of the car boot taking place in the market square. And good job too, cause there was this lovely little stool, not very pretty at the moment, I admit, but just perfect for when I'm on the laptop in the kitchen. You just wait a lick of paint and it'll look gorgeous and what a bargain for £2!!!

So I think I made a pretty picture, jewellery bag in one hand, car boot stool in the other! Sarah x