I won a competition

Well, I had a surprise when I got home yesterday, hubby was working, so I had a gentle browse doing the shopping, then went to our local Hobbycraft store and bought some bits, then on to a clothes store to spend some vouchers I had for Christmas. I had a wonderful morning. I had not been in long after unloading the car when hubby came home and handed me a parcel. Apparently it had been left with our neighbour when delivered by the post man. I think Kevin thought I had been spending again and I wondered what it was to. I opened it to find I had won a competition I had entered some time ago in the Cake Craft & Decoration Magazine I buy and I had won a book, here is a picture. I am quite chuffed, as I am not usually any good at competitions. There are some really gruesome ideas in it for decorating cakes but it looks fun. I am now getting ready for valentines day and am hoping I can do a few valentines cakes for people soon. I have bought some cake dummies so I can practise my cake decorating on them and then when I do the real thing I have it already planned without making a hash of the cakes when I come to decorate them. I have one order for a valentines cake and the brief is for it to be iced in red with black roses on, he was very specific so I will be trying out my hand at making fondant roses so will hopefully be putting a few pictures of my attempts on soon. Bye for now and will catch up with everyone soon.

Latest DIY

Well here we are the first week over for January, how are you all surviving, especially those who have had all the recent snow. Didn't get much here in Warrington you blinked and it was gone. Anyway, thought I would put up a few more pictures of our latest DIY, this time we have been working on the hall and I now have full banister top and bottom of the stair,carpeted tread and laminated landing. If you look on earlier posts then you would have seen some pictures of my hubby preparing the walls. I must say he has done a wonderful job, however i did have a slight accident, when taking photos of his latest handiwork I somehow lost my bearings having thought I was on the bottom step when in fact I was three steps up, consequently as I stepped out it was into fresh air and I landed quite heavily on my ankle. A big OUCH oh the pain. I am please to say that I did not break it (wouldn't that have looked good ringing in to work on the first day back from Christmas Hols to say I had had a slight accident)anyway I have hobbled around for the last week and although it is still painful today most of the swelling has gone although i have some lovely black bruised all over my foot and ankle and a few other places too. I must also point out that we have had no banisters etc top and bottom on the stairs for the last 2 to 3 years and I had not fallen down them then so had to christen them once finished what a dope I am.

Happy New Year

Just a quick post to all family and friends for a Happy New Year and prosperous 2011. Also to welcome again into our family my Great Neice who you will see on my sisters blog, http://www.theknittingandsewingcorner.com

Welcome Susie from your Great Auntie Sue x

All completed

Thank you all so much for your comments and support. I think I have loved every minute of it and am quite proud of what I have done, even though I have had no formal lessons yet, a lot of it has been trial and error and reading a lot of books and magazines for inspiration. I finally made it with all my orders completed here are the last photo's.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year lots of love Sue x

Somemore to show off

Well, I have been busy again. I was stressing on Monday at the amount of work I still had left to do with regard to my cake projects, but Tuesday night I got home from work and just everything fell into place. I finished some more and took them in to work today and I think they were pleased with my efforts. I came home tonight and completed another one, one of the girls at work wanted a reindeer on hers and my other friend Jenny kindly lent me one of her Cricut catridges that had one on. It took some doing getting it to cut how I wanted but I think I succeeded, I added some holly as well. Hubby reckons it is the best one I have done so far (it takes a lot for him to say things like that, so I think he was impressed) and I think so to. I have one more cake left to do and I have three small ones that just need putting in their wrapping and I think that's it. Will update you soon on the final one, now I am off for a little relax and some tea!

Snow for Christmas ?

Well, Warrington has snow, we usually miss out compared to most areas in the UK, but I think over the years this could be changing. this is what it looked like last night at about teatime and Kaara just had to go out and check her garden. We still have snow today and it is very cold,luckily I was nice and warm in my kitchen doing the things I love best as you will see from my earlier post. Wonder what tomorrow will bring! Sorry about the state of the garden bu we have been rather busy in the house and it has been sadly neglected.

Still Busy

Well, here we are again and Christmas is fast approaching, I am frantically working in my kitchen to get things finished, here is another one cake I completed this afternoon. I had tried to cut snowflakes out last week with my Cricut Cake , they cut perfectly but I could not then get them off the mat. A friend at work who has the Cricut for card making lent me a tool that is similar to one I already have but a lot thinner on the blade, i tried it today and was able to get the snowflake off in one piece. Another one finished and I have yet to make three sponge cakes that will be decorated in the Christmas theme also, I will be making these tomorrow but will be using a slightly different recipe which allows the cake to keep longer and once it is covered in marzipan and iced they should be fine. See you all soon. Sue x