An October Afternoon

Over on the October Afternoon blog all this week there have been reveals of their new lines and I've been so excited because I absolutely love October Afternoon papers! Anyone who knows me knows I love polka dot stuff and October Afternoon papers are the polka dottiest on the block along loads of other awesome patterns and crisp clean colours. I just love em and can't wait for some new patterns!

Among all the fun of the new goodie releases there are also some cool sketches to have a play with so I had to I have a play....

Sketch #1

I used loads of different October Afternoon papers, the 'Rosie's Dinner' clear stamps set, Detours Journalling cards and 'Charleston' rub-ons. Also used a little bit of fabric and some vintage buttons from my stash. The photos are actually little pockets that contain the journalling bit and other little tab bits to lift out. The sun I made with some October Afternoon paper, doodled on and cut out and then a piece glued onto some chipboard and made into a big chipboard button punching holes with my cropodile.Sketch#2

I love colourful fun vintage stuff and I think that's why I do like October Afternoon papers so much because they are a little bit vintage kitchy. These are all photos of my grandparents from the 50's and the papers and stamps work with the photos so well (I think so anyway). I used the diecut remains bit from one of the Detours Journaling Cards sheets to make frames for the photos and then layered those up with foam pads to give it dimension. The title is stamped with the Rosie's Diner stamps again (yep they are my faves lol) and I made some more chipboard buttons using off cuts of chipboard covered with paper and sanded on the edges then punched holes in and stitched on my LO.

The lace at the top and the buttons on the journal card are all ones from my grandmas sewing box (she always knows I can give her old junk a happy home) so they could actually be from the 50's, I like to think so anyway. lol

Thank you to the October Afternoon DTers for some fab sketches and giving me a good excuse to get my cute papers out again and have a play. xx Leo

Jewellery Challenge ~ handmade

This week over on the jewellery challenge blog the challenge is to make something with handmade beads. I felt like doing something with fabric so this is what I came up with....

I know it's a loose interpretation of 'bead' lol. I guess it's a pendant kind of bead :). All I did was print some images on to fabric transfer paper (the kind that you iron on and peel off). The images I used are all downloads from Kitschy Digitals. Once transferred on to the fabric I cut out the images and layered them up with some denim fabric then stitched the layers together. To make it a 'bead' I stitched a pocket bit on the back that has two open ends. to allow thread to be strung though. The beads on the necklace are vintage beads from a broken necklace (thrift store find ;) ).

Looking forward to another challenge!

xx Leo

Hearts

There have been loads of recent challenges and things about with 'hearts' as the theme and I couldn't resist playing along with some of them.

Over on the Banana Frog stamps blog there is a challenge to use hearts and because I haven't got my BF stamps out in an age, I figured I should have a play. I picked out the 'Paperchains' and 'Dear Joe' sets and made some little notecards. I love making stamped notecards and most people who have something though the post from me usually get one so I try to keep a pile handy. Prettier than just scribbling a note on a bit of paper ;-)

Stamping them means you can set up a mini production line, stamping each card in turn and building up a unique design till you have something like 10 super cute little notecards. Then when they're all gone you can make up a different design :).

A recent discovery is this jewellery challenge blog, http://jewellerychallenge.blogspot.com/ .

I used to design jewellery a few years ago and have a big stash of beads and things to use. I still like to make it for myself but I thought I could start making some more for prezzies. Here's what I came up with for the current challenge, to use hearts & red.

The heart beads are hematite and the large red beads are cherry quartz, the smaller beads are smokey quartz. I just strung them on some Stretch Magic so it can be used as a necklace or doubled up and worn as a bracelet. Will defo be playing along some more with those challenges.

xx Leo

Happy Valentines!

If you're still looking for a quick gift idea grab some ribbons, (the ones I've used are all from Ribbon Oasis), cake ingredients and cases and get creating some yummy treats! I was thinking this would also be a perfect way to decorate birthday cupcakes, wedding cupcakes or any other kind of gift cupcake you want to make, best of all it's realllllllyyyy easy!

For these Valentines ones I decided to make the classic Red Velvet cake mix. It's basically just chocolate cake with red food colouring in so it's easy to make but it always looks amazing when you break into them.

Recipe

• 140g of self raising flour
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 110ml of milk
• 1 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar
• 1 tsp of vanilla flavouring
• 1 tablespoon of red food colouring
• 60g of butter
• 170g of caster sugar
• 1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 180c. Measure the milk out in a jug and add the lemon juice (or vinegar) vanilla and food colouring in to the milk then set to one side. In a bowl cream the butter and sugar until nice and fluffy and beat in the egg. Next measure out your flour and then add to the flour the cocoa powder and mix it together. Add half the flour mixture to the eggs, butter and sugar mixture, mix in then add half of the milk mixture and stir in. Add the rest of the flour mixture, stir then add the last of the milk mixture and stir again till everything is mixed in together. Your mixture should be fairly scarily read at this stage!

Add your cake cases to your tin and fill the cases with the mixture. It should make 12 smaller cupcakes (using about 2 tablespoons of mixture per case) or about 8 larger ones. Bake for about 20 mins but keep a check on them, when they're done they'll spring back up when you squidge your finger in the top.

When they're done leave them to cool on a cooling rack. You can make your buttercream for the top while they're cooling. I used a standard buttercream with half a capful of red food colouring in it. You could be more adventurous if you like or you could go for something like melted chocolate as your topping, go with whatever you have in the cupboard.

When they're cool you can decorate the cases with the ribbons. Make sure you add the ribbon before you add the icing. You can get some really cool self adhesive ribbons from Ribbon Oasis that work really well otherwise you can add double sided tape to the back of your ribbon and then just roll them around the case.

Make some bows tying the ribbon and then glue them on, you can also use little tags or add stickers to decorate them some more if you want.

Finally comes the cool part, adding topping and sprinkles! Spoon on the topping and swizzle round with a spoon or you can pipe it on if you have a piping bag (and can be bothered to clean up after!) and then sprinkle on other bits if you want. I used edible glitter and candy sprinkles that I had left over from Christmas but a gorge traditional topping for red velvet cupcakes is chocolate dipped cherries, wish I had some! Chocolate shavings would look really cool too.

Love this ribbon it reminds me of the love hearts sweets! You can get it here, the other bits I used are American Crafts Thickers and stickers from KI Memories

There's loads of cool ways you could add decoration to your cases with ribbons so have a play!

xx

Daring Cardmaker and Blog Candy winners!

Here's my take on this weeks Daring Cardmaker challenge. I'm also on D of the manufacturer A-Z challenge so I picked out 3 'D' papers, Dream Street, Doodlebug and DCWV. The papers sort of went together but not 100% so I had to think of an idea to get them all to work so I went with a Spinner card and used some nestabilities to cut out the shapes. I also added some Doodlebug alphas and some rubons from an old kit.

Side one,Side two,

The instuctions for the spinner card are on Lou's Dotty blog check it out here.

Ok on to blog candy winners!

These were pulled out of hats at random........

winner of the boy card kit is......

Maddy said...
Boys are cool! That boy kit looks pretty cool too :)
6:21 PM

winner of the project kit is......

Pam said...
they are both cool!I struggle with all cards, especially boy cards-but having said that I LOVE the project rules kit, so I reckon I'd go for that one!! I love the cards you made btw!
7:40 PM

Ok mail me your addys to llbbanks@yahoo.co.uk and I'll get your goodies in the post.

If you weren't lucky don't be sad too long and hey the new Crafty Goodies kit is out today so you can treat yourself if you need to ;)

Happy snow day! xx Leo