Oh how lucky am I!

Today has been the best ever, since I have go back into crafting and concentrating more on my baking, a seed was sewn a while ago and now it has come to light. My friends are into card making and one in particular owns the Cricut for card making, and had shown me what was coming up. Both friends have encouraged me to go that bit further and with their encouragement and an understanding hubby I am now the proud owner of the new Cricut Cake, I can't wait to get stuck in tomorrow and play with it properly for now I am content to take a few pictures to share with you all.

Finally

Well, here we are, finally finished dressed and ready for action. I cooked a meal last night for four. It was a breeze. The menu was Carrot and Coriander soup with a black pepper sliced French stick. Slow roasted Lamb shoulder with roasted Butternut Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Sweet Red Peppers, Shallotts coated in olive oil and whole garlic bulbs and rosemary. I also made a mint and Greek yoghurt dressing (the mint was from my herb garden) to go with it. For afters I did a cheese platter with grapes and crackers and a few bottles of wine to wash it all down. I was in heaven, who would have thought that when we started my kitchen/diner and conservatory were an absolute tip and now we have this fantastic living space. Here are some pictures of when we started (some of you may have already seen them sorry for that).

We have been busy

Hi everyone its been a while since I updated my blog, but we have been busy. Hubby and I are on two weeks leave and we have used the time to get a few things done, mainly the jobs in the house. Here are a couple of pictures to keep you interested. I will be putting others on later once we have everything put away. The dresser is nearly "dressed", I have been able to get a couple of things out of the loft and I couldn't resist putting flowers in the vase which belonged to mum, but was her mums before that. Julie if you are looking do you recognise the set that I have placed on there? I am please to say that this dresser will not be moving again it is so heavy, but it had to be moved so we could decorate. We have just gone for the good old magnolia effect which I think has worked quite well and has given a bit of warmth to that side of the room as the other side where my kitchen is is as most of you know white and black theme. I just need to tidy the conservatory and hang a few of my pictures up and I thing we are all done in there. The next challenge is the rest of the house.

Ta Ta for now x.

Coffee Sponge Cake

Morning to everyone, for once it isn't raining in Warrington (yet). Hope it doesn't I have just managed to put some washing out. Well I thought I would share another photo of my cakes making projects with you. This was a Victoria sponge coffee flavoured cake drizzled a little icing and added walnuts to the top. My husband took this into work with him for him and his friends.

It was my birthday last week and I made some more cakes but I forgot to take pictures of them for my notebook. I made another coffee flavour, chocolate with drizzled melted chocolate over the top and the good old favorite, just a plane one. I took these into work to share with my workmates, I think they enjoyed them. I am off now to try out some more recipes, my sister bought a cake decorating book which is very informative and really gets the imagination going, I am planning to make some small Christmas cakes and decorate them so I had better get a move on.

Baby Shawl

Here is another shawl I have been making in between all the other projects on the go. This is made from a double knitting wool which I got from our local Pound Stretcher, it came in 200g balls and it cost £2.50 per ball. I made this with just over two of three that I bought. It is in a lovely shade of pink and lilac's although it is not very clear from the photo. I also have another three balls in shades of blue and will be making something with this soon.

Babies

After the devastation caused by the bad winter, some of our plants are recovering and I also think the very wet weather we have been having has helped a lot. Here are some pictures of the Australis that was damaged quite badly, on my last post you will have seen that it had small shoots on it, well look at it now! Sorry a couple of the pictures are on the side, not figured out how to change that yet.

Water Lillies

After the wonderful weather we have had this weekend, it has encouraged the water Lillies on our pond to start to blossom, here is a picture of one that has come out today and on further investigation there are a lot more to follow. I am off now to do some baking, I need to stock up my freezer with goodies so that when I am ready to do any icing/cake decorating the cakes are all ready and I just have to defrost them beforehand. I have also found my recipes that I used last year for chutney and I have also found the one I kept for the mince pie filling. I am hoping I can sell one or two and boost up my craft fund as I want to own the new Cricut Cake that is already out in America, it will certainly help me with my quest to have a small business amongst friends.

See you all soon. x