My 15th Love Quilts Square

I've just finished my 15th Love Quilts square for Jessica. It's a horse themed quilt and her favourite colours are dark pink and purple, so I decided to reuse my rocking horse pattern but change the colours.

Neigh!

Each horse has either pink or purple on in an alternate pattern. I'm pretty pleased with some of my colour combinations this time, especially bottom right, middle and the top row. I'll probably stitch those again =)

My next Love Quilts square is for Ellie's heart themed quilt - also in pink and purple. I'm aiming to have that one finished by the end of the month because even though the deadline isn't until the end of September, school is bound to get in the way!

In other news, I'm also working on the latest scrapbook pages for the Alphabet Adventure. Stay tuned for J is for Jazz, C is for Carnival, V is for Vintage Cinema and A is for Albuferia.

Gingerbread Rainbows

Last week, the Rainbows decided to have a bake sale to raise money for a local charity. (They made posters and invitations for the Brownies and everything - it was really cute)

So, my contribution to this Bake Sale are my trustyworthy Gingerbread Rainbows (not men!)

Gingerbread Rainbows!

Each wearing decorative buttons, jewellery or hair pieces

Standard recipe: plain flour, butter, light muscavado sugar, ginger, golden syrup and egg for the dough. Then to decorate I made royal icing (from icing sugar and water) and stuck on sugar decorations.

I think I like the hair daisies best =)

The only problem is, now I've got to refrain from eating them!!

Three Tatty Sailors

Tonight, I was determined to get this cross stitch finished. I definitely started it in 2016 - I did one of the bears as a Love Quilts square and then started the complete design to hang in my spare room.

I love all things Tatty Teddy, but the backstitch on these designs is so fiddly and time consuming! I did the actual cross stitch in a few weeks or so maximum, but the backstitch requires so much brain power and squinting. I'm certain it's not how it is on the chart, but I'm sure it'll look good once it's framed and on the wall!

DMC Tatty Teddy: Three Little Sailors

My wedding cross stitch project is still ongoing - I'll post some photos of the progress soon! I've also got 2 more Love Quilts squares coming up - rocking horses and swirly heart (both repeat designs but different colours).

Scrapbooking: B is for Ballet, P is for Picnic, Q is for Quiz and W is for Waffles

I've just realised it's been a while since I updated my blog, even though I've been working on several craft projects!

So, here's an update on our Alphabet Adventure - going back some time now!


In May, we went to see "Cinderella" the Ballet at the theatre in town (which was so awesome we're going back to see the same company perform "The Nutcracker" in November =D). As well as using photographs and our tickets, I added the customary label and some diet cut ballet shoes. I mounted them on some tissue paper - which is supposed to look like a shoe box, in case you didn't get that! - and added some pearls and ribbon.

B is for Ballet

In the Easter holidays, my husband, sister-in-law and her husband (my brother-in-law? Does that work? Let's say yes...!) decided to try a pub quiz. Long story short: it was aimed at a slightly *ahem* older audience and we came last. But only just!!! Great quiz though - I'd do it again for a giggle. Remind me to watch more UK TV Gold first though...

Q is for Quiz

One weekend when we were blessed with glorious weather, Bren and I had planned to go out for a picnic. You know, somewhere scenic. Except he became so absorbed in cutting the grass by the time he was finished I was majorly hangry, so we had our picnic in the back garden instead! Bonus was that Millie and Mollie could join the picnic too!

P is for Picnic (and pooches!)

Lastly, we went to the Waffle House restaurant in St. Albans. It's set in an old water mill. They serve savoury and sweet waffles. We both had French Onion Soup to start and then a white chocolate and mousse waffle for pudding (Bren copied me! haha) Was a tasty way to spend an afternoon, even if the queues to get in were long!

W is for Waffles

That's all I have for now. Coming up in the possibly-near-future: J is for Jazz, C is for Carnival and V is for Vintage cinema.

Scrapbooking: L is for London and I is for Ireland

The Alphabet Adventure continues! True to form, we've not been going in order. Where's the fun in that??

L is for London

In February half term (weeks before the terrorist attack), Bren and I took a trip into Central London. We used to spend lots of time in London while he was going to university there, but I'd never seen the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben or Westminster Cathedral. We also had to rescue Bren's bag that he'd left in Kensington the night before after a few too many drinks...!
This was an easy page to scrapbook once I'd chosen the backing paper and label materials, and I had a packet of London themed embellishments from which I chose the flag, bus and tube sign.

L is for London

I is for Ireland

I is for Ireland was far harder to scrapbook. We actually went to Ireland in October half term (it's taken me this long to get the photos printed!) and did a 5 days tour of Dublin, Galway, Killarney and Cork. Long story short, I had 100+ photos to choose from - so I had to edit. Even as I was making the pages I was editing based on lack of space!
I chose the baking paper from a "Wild Flower" scrapbook backgrounds pad that I bought from Hobbycraft on Friday. I like to use the same background for the same event, and there were only 3 of these in the pack so I'd challenged myself to fit the photos onto 3 pages. (All of the other letters so far only have 1 page by the way!)

"Wild Flower" background paper

Then, after A LOT of experimenting, I settled on these pages.

I is for Ireland: Dublin

I is for Ireland: Dublin to Galway to Killarney

I is for Ireland: Killarney to Cork to Dublin again.

Stickers that I found by chance in Hobbycraft - seemed appropriate!

These pages almost don't do it justice because of the number of pages I left out, but I'm still pretty happy with the results.
Also, I took that photo of the sheep as it was standing on a grass verge next to our car, and it wasn't zoomed in at all. We think it was hitchhiking!

I'm not sure what the next Alphabet Adventure will be yet - we still need letters A, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, M, N, O, P, Q, R, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Post your suggestions please!

Stitch a Photo - Week 1

It's been a week since I started my wedding Stitch a Photo kit. So far, I've got as far as stitching the very edge of Bren's side and my neck and top part of my dress. There are lots of colour changes!

The photo I'm Stitching.

The first few stitches of Bren's suit.

The start of my veil.

More veil!

Such a huge chart for a small piece of fabric!

The start of my dress

Start of my shoulder

Starting to look a bit more like me!

The chart - Page 5 of 9

There's a lot of fiddly stitches at the bottom of the page which I'll tackle this week - I think that's where my bouquet starts. Bren's suit is a lot more straight forward, but I may decide to change the colour of his tie, as it was more blue in the photograph than the purple that it was.

Overall, I'm pleased with my first week's progress! This week is Activity week in school (less marking so more stitching opportunities) and then 2 weeks for Easter holidays (more stitching opportunities!) so I may get this page finished. After that, progress will most likely be slow. I think the original finishing estimate of *years* may still be accurate!

1st Wedding Anniversary Baking

Today is my 1st wedding anniversary - crazy! This time a year ago, we'd literally just been pronounced husband and wife.
So, to mark the occasion, I made butterfly fairy cakes. Aside from the fact that my Nan used to make wonderful butterfly cake, our wedding theme was Butterfly Garden.

Despite the fact that it's a simple recipe, I've never managed to successfully make butterfly cakes. Until today!

 I mixed 110g of self-raising flour, 110g caster sugar and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, then added 110g butter, 2 eggs and 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract and mixed it all together. Then, I spooned the mixture into cupcake cases and baked for 20 min at 180°C. While they were cooling, I made the icing with 220g of icing sugar and 110g butter - mix half the icing sugar with the butter, then add the other half of icing sugar with a splash of milk and more vanilla extract.

 Once the cakes cooled, I cut off the tops, spooned some icing into the middle, cut the tops in half to make wings and put them in the icing. Finally, I dusted them with icing sugar and added sugar pearls - purple to match our wedding theme, of course!

Bren and I have sampled the cakes and agree they taste yummy!