Hidden Star Cake

I did some more baking on the weekend – this time I baked a sponge with a hidden star in it.  I have seen cakes with hidden designs on the Great British Bake Off and Pinterest (including some amazingly detailed ones I have pinned here) and thought they looked so good but must be hard to do.  Making this cake with a star was actually quite simple – I’m so pleased with how it turned out!

First I baked a strawberry flavoured sponge, coloured with red food colouring.  When this was cool I used a star cookie cutter to cut the sponge, and arranged the stars in a ring inside a round sponge tin so that every slice of cake would look like the photo above.  I then filled the tin, covering the stars, with a vanilla sponge.  I’ve never double baked a sponge like this before and thought it might make the cake a bit dry, so was pleasantly surprised with the end result which tasted as good as it looked!

Here’s how the uncut cake looked, decorated with buttercream, fondant stars and sprinkles…

Have you ever baked a hidden surprise cake before - what design did you bake?

Free Spoonflower Swatch – offer ends today!

Spoonflower is offering a free swatch of custom printed Silky Faille fabric – you can choose from any of the thousands of designs on their site, why not use the offer to try one of my designs?!  The offer includes free worldwide shipping too!

You’ll have to be quick as the offer ends today (Friday 24th January) at noon EST (5pm GMT)

You can see my Spoonflower shop here – I currently have 16 different designs you can choose from.  I used the offer to order a test swatch of a new hot air balloon design which I will be adding to the shop when I have received the swatch.

Inspiration for using Inky Doodles stamps – Create and Craft tv show!

The first two sets of Steampunk stamps have now been added to my shop!  They will be officially launched on Saturday on the Create and Craft show (see the bottom of this post for details), when Sarah from Inky Doodles will be sharing some ideas on using the stamps.  I’m so excited about the show – can’t believe my designs will be on the tv!!

I have been playing with the stamps and made a few samples which will be on the show too.  Here’s a little about the things I made in the photo above…

Gift Box (made with stamps from both the Clockwork Bird and Transport sets) – I stamped clock hands and cogs all over the plain box and coloured the hands with watercolours.  I then used soft artist pastels to colour the box all over (smudging the colour with cotton wool).  The pocket watch is from the Transport set and was attached to the box with baker’s twine and a mini brad.

Chaffinch Birthday Card – the background to this card was made with one of the corner stamps from the Bird stamp set and a cog stamp.  This card was also embellished with ribbon and 3 little gems.

Kingfisher Tag – I coloured the Kingfisher stamp with watercolours on this tag.  The background is stamped with key and cog stamps and I used one of my favourite techniques – wiping a gold ink pad around the edge of the tag – to give a distressed effect.  Finally it was finished off with some little gems.

Sarah has designed some complimentary background stamps and stencils to go with the designs I did for her.  I used her A6 Checkered Background stamp and A6 Circle Gear Background stamp along with my Hexley Transport set to make this card.  Everything on this card was stamped onto white card then coloured with artist soft pastels.  I love adding colours with the pastels and think it adds so much depth and texture compared to stamping on plain coloured paper.  I’m so glad that I finally found a use for my pastels – they have been sitting in the bottom of a drawer for years, waiting for me to think of something to do with them!

This set of stamps (Time Flies) was also designed by Sarah – I like how the Steampunk theme can be given a bit of a girly twist with the clockwork butterfly and dragonfly.  Again I coloured this card with the soft pastels and added some pink and purple gems for a bit of sparkle.  You can’t see it from this photo, but the card blank I used has a slight shimmer which still shows through the stamped background and pastels.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The Clockwork Birds and Hexley Transport sets of stamps can be seen in my shop here.

Sarah’s other stamps and stencils are available from the Inky Doodles website.  She also posts other ideas on how to use the stamps on her facebook page.

Don’t forget to watch the Create and Craft Show on Saturday!  It’s on Sky channel 671, Freeview 36 or Freesat 813 at 11am 25th January

Some photos from the weekend…

Thought I would share some photos from my weekend with you...
I baked this cake…  It’s a madeira cake with dried apricots and glace cherries inside.   A recipe that we often use in my house, but with a little twist - I soaked, and warmed, the apricots in orange juice which I think made the apricots softer and the cake more moist.  I then saved the juice to make the icing, giving it a hint of orange / apricot flavour and delicate colour…

I also spent some time playing with Basil, my guinea pig – here he is enjoying his fruit and veg bag!There was a beautiful sunset yesterday – it wasn’t as dark as it appears in this photograph, but the colours of the sky show up better…

First Exciting Announcement for 2014 – Steampunk Stamps

I mentioned before that I had some exciting things planned for this year, and if you are one of my followers on facebook you will already have heard a little about my latest project… Over the last few months I have been working with Sarah, who runs Inky Doodles, designing some Hexley themed stamp sets and the first 2 sets have just been released!

Each set is A5 and contains lots of stamps which can be used in so many different ways.  This is one of the things I really like about the Inky Doodles stamps, they are designed to be versatile so that you can make the most of any set you buy.
The stamps are made with high quality photopolymer which is transparent - making it easy to place the image where you want it and give the best possible impression.

Hexley Transport stamp set

This set features 2 modes of Hexley transport – a Steam Carriage and Balloon Carriage along with lots of other extras.  In this sample card I made you can see how the smaller stamps can be used together to create a repeat background pattern…

Hexley Clockwork Bird stamp set

This set features 3 of my clockwork bird illustrations – a robin, chaffinch and kingfisher, along with cogs, clock hands and other little designs.  I used the Robin stamp twice on this card – on watercolour paper and on shrink plastic to make a little charm (you could make jewellery or keyrings like this too)…

I've really enjoyed coming up with more designs around my Hexley concept – I’m working on some other sets which will be out very soon!  These two sets of stamps are now available to buy from Inky Doodles – www.inkydoodles.co.uk and I will be stocking them in my shop soon too.

If you would like some more inspiration on how to use these stamps I will be posting some other ideas I have been working on, or you can look at cards Sarah has made on the Inky Doodles site.  I’m looking forward to seeing how other people use them too – it’s amazing how different people can come up with completely different ways to use the same stamps!

January 2014 Free Printable Calendar

This year I have decided to make a free printable for you to download each month – so first up is a calendar for January…

It’s A4 in size, but you can scale it to fit different sized paper if you prefer.  There’s enough space to write your important dates and I’ve added a few dates to get you started – including National Hug Day on 21st January!!

Click here to download the PDF.  You can view and print the calendar with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

You can print onto any type of paper you like, for best results I recommend using your printer's highest quality setting and a good quality paper.

Please note this calendar is for personal use only!  You can print it as many times as you like for your own use but you may not redistribute it in any form (digital or printed).  If you would like to share the calendar on your blog, Pinterest, facebook etc please include a link back to this page (not the download link).  Thank you!  I hope you enjoy using it :)

Happy 2014!

It’s hard to believe that another year has gone by!  My blog has been a bit neglected in 2013, especially over the last few months.  Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write…  I really want to get back into it this year though and be more organised with doing things like craft tutorial posts, which I have lots of ideas for but never seem to get around to doing.  I have some exciting things planned for my business this year too, including some new products which will be released very soon!

It’s a good time to look back over the past year and remember a few of the things that happened in 2013…

• I finished doing up my old treadle sewing machine and learned some new sewing skills by making myself a top (I also made my sister a handbag).
• I joined Pinterest.  Although it’s easy to get lost for hours browsing, I love using it as a way to bookmark things I like and be inspired.
• I joined Spoonflower and started selling my designs on fabric.
• Having one of my greeting card designs published by Phoenix Trading was very exciting this year!
• I expanded the range of craft supplies I stock and started selling baker’s twine, which was featured in a Folksy gift guide and newsletter.
• The most popular collection of designs for 2013 has been my London Calling range.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog – hope you have a happy 2014!