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

Stitching a DS Wrap

Here's the wrap I made for my DS!

I came up with this idea from the fabric pencil crayon wraps people make, I thought that would make a cool storage case for the little Nintendo DS cartridges that end up everywhere, so I set on making one. I played around with a piece of fabric, {it was just shy of a fat quarter size, doubled over} and decided to make a wrap with two pockets on either side, one for the DS itself and one to keep the little cartridges in.

These are quick diagrams to try and show how I made it, the first one is how the fabric is folded, you need to start with a doubled over piece of fabric cut so you have a long rectangle shape.....

Then you need to fold over each end to make the pockets, the side on the left is folded over about 3.5 inches and the side on the right is about 4.5 inches. You need to leave a gap in the center of the wrap so you can pull out the DS and cartridges from the pockets.

When you've pressed the pocket folds all you need to do is stitch it together. I included stitching along the folded edge, it doesn't need it but it just makes the whole thing look neater. I also used some American Crafts ribbon as binding along the pocket edges to make them a little more hardwareing. You need a good long length {about 36 inches long} of ribbon or thonging for your closing and that needs to be stitched into the pocket of the left side of the wrap.

The dashed areas show the stitching around the pockets. To finish off thread a button on the end of the closing and tie a big knot in the end to secure it. Here's my wrap all opened up. To close it you just fold it over and wrap the closing around then tuck the button under.

If you have any to pass on I would love some shares of other projects, I've got a stack of cute fabric waiting to be used.

xx Leo

P.S if you're here looking for the blog candy draw it's in this post and you have till the 1st of Feb to enter the draw. xx

Daring Cardmakers & C for Core-dinations

This weeks DCM dare is to make a card with a heart on, so, not much to go on but I was thinking something cute, because generally hearts are cute right? I also wanted to make a good luck card and I'm on to C with my personal stash bashing A-Z challenge so I picked Core-dinations cardstock because I never use it enough and it is very cool stuff so it should be used. All those things combined together made me come up with this card.......

I just sketched out the shape of kittys head on some core-dinations black magic card and then embossed it with the Cuttlebug swiss dots folder then rubbed it back. Added on the features then made a background with some patterned paper off cuts and some more core-dinations, this time torn to reveal the core colour. Jammed the whole thing together and finished with the chipboard heart and the tape writer message.
Thanks for another fab dare!
I've got a sewing project to share tomorrow, if you have a Nintendo DS and like me you are good at leaving the little cartridges everywhere then losing them you might like it ;-)
Oh and don't forget about blog candy, here. End date for blog candy draw is the 1st of Feb.

xx Leo

101th post! + blog candy + new cards

So I finally got to the 100th post on here, that's something for me because I'm such a pants blogger. I am going to try much harder this year and I think I'm getting there because this past couple of weeks I've had a massive creative splurge. I've been scrapping, making cards, sewing and all kinds of creative-ness. I even found time to make a new blog header, mostly from bits I had on my desk, which I actually tidied! Yes I can see actual patches of desk now, lol.

So anyway all this creative-ness has made me think I should update my blog with not just card things but try and include other makes to share so that's my aim for this year for defo. I'm also working my way though my stash piles and I've decided to do an A-Z of manufacturers challenge so for A I picked out American Crafts and I've only allowed myself to use American Crafts goodies. You can play along if you want to or make your own A-Z challenge up to get your inspro going. It's come in really handy for me already because my calendar in January and early Feb is full of birthdays...

A for American Crafts
I used lots of their lush patterned papers, Guesthouse Foam shapes, Minimark rub-ons, ribbon, Flair and Thickers. Everything is American Crafts apart from a little bit of felt and that one paper blossom and button, hey it's my challenge, my rules :P
OK on to blog candy business, I did say that I would do a give-away when I got to my 100th post so here is what I came up with. I plundered the office draw that has a load of spare goodies in from past Crafty Templates kits, added a few extra bits and pieces and made up two kits to giveaway!

1. Boy cards

Boy cards are so difficult and it's cool to have a stash of goodies there as a starting point so here I've made a kit to make boy cards with. There's loads of papers, Bazzill card, 6 card blanks and cool kraft envelopes with some boyish matching embellies.........

2. Project fun-ness

Picture the scene, it's a rainy afternoon you have a bit of spare time and you fancy sitting down to a crafty session, you get all your crafty stuff out and then nothing happens because your you time is up already. So here I've made up a fun kit full of bright colours to go along with the Crafty Templates Pinwheel mini book project, {I'll send you a free download of the project sheet too or print one off if you need me to}. Everything you need to follow the project is in the kit apart from adhesive and photos so you can sit down with the kit, follow the project and end up with something cool at the end of it.

Nothing complicated to do just post bellow Boys are cool {if you want the boy kit} or 'Projects Rule' {if you want the project kit} and I'll pick two winners out at random. E Z P Z!

xx Leo

Merry Christmas cards!

A quick photo I did of a few more cards I made for this Christmas......

Have a fab holiday time whatever you get up to!

I'm going to have a little blog candy draw in the new year to mark me getting to my 100th blog post so watch this space.

xx Leo

More Christmas Cards

I haven't found time to post every day like I'd have liked to so I've got a load of cards to share today........ I'm loving these Sassafras papers this year and I've been using loads of glitter card with them too. I've got a pile of this really heavily glittered stuff that I've had for ages I think it came from one of the shopping channels, the one that used to have Alan and Barry on before they got rid of them. I used to love watching them larking about, so funny! It's really glittery anyway and really bright, just wishing I could get some more of it now I'm actually using it!

I've got some more cards done but I've not photographed them yet so I'll have to get them done asap.

I'm nearer my 100th post now, this one is 98 so when I get to 100 I'm defo going to have to do a fun little prize draw.....

Happy 1st of December!

I've not shared many Christmas card designs yet for this year so I thought I'll start sharing some this week.

This one I made for a Jenni Bowlin comp and just used a JB Christmas bingo card as the base then built up the front with micro courrugrated card and a tag decorated with vintage cake decorations, a JB ticket and book print patterned paper, Papermania flocked brads, raffia and a blossom.

I'l l post some different ones tomorrow...

xx

DCM Coffee

Love this weeks coffee inspired dare. I too am another coffee lover although I do try and keep my intake down to one decent cup a day, usually the morning and it has to be very good quality, very black and absolutely no sugar! I'm a big believer in if you are going to have a coffee then you have to have COFFEE lol

Ok so onto card. This isn't one I've made recently I made it a couple months ago but it fits in with the challenge so perfectly I just felt I had to share. Plus I am seriously lacking time to blog now I need to update with something.

I used yummy ribbons from Ribbon Oasis, coredinations cardstock, stamping, chipboard, AC Galaxy markers, October Afternoon rub-ons and Papermania brads.

More coffee inspired goodies I've been making just lately are these cute 'ringaroses' embellies I'm a bit addicted to making these at the mo. I've just mixed fabric with felt, stamping, scrapbook paper and stitching. They're great to stick on gifts or cards or whatever. These ones along with some others are heading in my Folksy shop when I've got 5mins to sort that.

I'll try and update bloggy with some more stuff I've been making soon, I'm almost up to my 100th post too (this one is 97) so I'll defo have to think of something cool to celebrate that, maybe a bit of a give away? Speaking of which I'm still sponsoring the card challenge on UKscrappers, this months caboodle is posted up there (a super lush blingy card kit).

xx Leo

Get your shades on!

The DMC challenge said brights so I did bright!

I actually love working in bright colours but I went especially ott for this one lol.

Used: Creative Imaginations holey cardstock, Love Elsie fabric, Pink Paislee Pop Fashion papers, Doodlebug sugared cardstock, Hambly kraft stickers, ribbons are all from Ribbon Oasis and random buttons from my stash.

If you've got time to make cards this week come and have a go at the card comp on UKScrappers, I sponsor the challenge every month and make up cool prizes so it's worth a go :-D Check it out here, http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=239390

I'm treating myself to a crafty play this afternoon (so hopefully I'll have more work to share!)because I've been working all weekend and I'm in need of chillaxing. I might stick the Pride and Prejudice DVD in too (BBC one), I got an email this morning to say it's now available in Blueray so it's made me want to watch it again. But it begs the question should I get it in Blueray hmmm... that damp Darcy scene in high definition, I think it defo needs adding to my Christmas list lol.

xx Leo

Daring Card Makers challenge

Kathy's lovely challenge this week was really inspiring so I had to have a play and here is what I came up with.... It's a complete mix up of things that are inspiring me at the mo, mixing new supplies with old and reusing things too. I used some new Bazzill swiss dotted cardstock and the tree is a pretty rub on from a new set by Daisy Bucket called Big World. The old stash is the brown ribbon and letter stickers and then I re-used some vintage lace, pattern paper (diecut and printed the rest of the quote on for the inside) and plastic packaging which I used to make a window in the card and applied the rub on on top of.

Thanks for the inspiration Kathy!

Just got time to share a peek of something that's taking a big chunk of my crafting time up at the mo, the next 'quirky kit' I've been making up. I'm calling this one 'Somewhere in Wonderland' although it has had a few names before that I think I've finally settled on this one. I'm hoping it will be ready at the end of the month. It's very 'quirky cute' this one.......

xx

Been Busy + Latest cards + peeks!

Thought I better get a new post up since there's been some serious blog neglect this month.

I have been crazy busy though making up the Christmas Crafty Templates kit, enjoying the last few dregs of the summer and going through upteen hair colour changes (not my hair I'm just the dope who has to keep applying it!) to name just a few things.

So anyway, some latest cards...

I've been playing around with creating depth and the one of the easiest ways I've found is to use corrugated card to matt embellishments or pieces of paper on, build them up then apply them to the card. It's robust but not heavy so it's not making the card bulky/weighty and therefore tippy! I think it looks cool from the side too, like a hone comb texture, plus it's free if you recycle boxes/packaging so it's all good. :-) I like going off the top of cards with bits too, this one fits a 6x6 envelope, if you pop it under neath your card before you stick on the pieces you can make sure it will fit whatever envelope you want to use.

More cards, these ones I've used nestabilities to cut out shapes from the corrugated card, (I used a Cuttlebug and just ran it through twice to make sure it cut cleanly).

These last two I made with the latest GoGo Greetings kit, I added the Bazzill card and used American Crafts markers for the doodling.

Speaking of kits I have been mega busy getting bits together for the Crafty Templates Christmas card kit and I'm not just saying it because it's mine but it is seriously lush, I'll take a sneaky peak photo soon, can't wait to show it off! It'll be a special bumper kit for October and it'll be perfect to make extra special Christmas cards with, plus it'll be some way to being a little more festive feeling by then, ooo can't wait. :-D

The September kit is a mini one, although it is still generous for a mini kit, I'm just rubbish at sticking to budgets!

I do have a sneaky peek picture of that already,

I got some of the cutest trims for it, the multicoloured one I found in my local haberdashery and I got every bit they had left! There's some of the latest American Crafts papers, Bazzill bling and scalloped card (which folds in half to make a perfect scallop edge card blank!) and I got some more of those little birdie notes. Those are by 'Pink Poison' (aka Marie) her website is very checkoutable if you like cute slightly quirky stuff, http://www.pinkpoison.net/

If you want one of these kits they're going up for sale on Crafty Templates on the 1st of September.

Well I'll try and get a new update soon, I'm booked in for another hair colouring session any time now. Just a warning, I know there can't be many people that are that crazy but don't be as dippy as my mum and try to add dark bits to your hair with 1. false tan and then 2. eyelash dye because you will get bright orange and then bright green streaks in your hair. Now I have to fix it and pray that it works out, wish me luck... lol

xx

Sassafras Lass Mass

So I was browsing the super cute Sassafras Lass blog and saw they're wanting to peek at readers work so because I'm a bit of a Sassa hoarder I figured I should make a contribution and oblige, not that I think my stuff is particularly great but I just want to show some love for their fab 'different' products. I've got a bunch of stuff to share but I've picked out some of my faves past and present.

These are all the latest cards I've made. I really think the Robotics papers are cool because they can be used for both girly cards and boy cards, just by adding in different embellies and mixing up the paper sides.
This is a project I made up for a pin wheel mini book. It's a standing up one so it makes a pretty decoration in place of something like a framed photo. This one is called 'BB's smile book' because it's full of photos of my cat (BB) and all the things that make her (and in turn me!) smile. :-)

I love the Oliver stamps I've had my set for an age and I'm still using them. This is one of my fav Christmas cards from last year...

And a card I made in the spring this year...

So yep again mega versitile!

I can't wait for the new goodies to start arriving I just love the Kawaii style papers and embellies!

TFL xx

Sprinkles

Here's my interpretation of this weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge, to make a card with some kind of 'sprinkles'. Cute challenge :-D It made me think of the many things I have 'sprinkled' around my desk at the mo so I picked up a few of those and gathered them together. I also thought of 'sugar sprinkles' I did those in my last Crafty Goodies kit which funnily enough was called 'Sugar Sprinkles'. Lynn from the Altered Element helped me pick out seed beads and bits that look like sugar sprinkles for the kits so I picked up what I had left in my little bag of those too. So that looked something like this......Then I cuttlebugged some core-dinations card and rubbed it back, glued it to a card blank (it's an A5 one that I cut just short of in half so I could have bits falling off the edge and it still fits in a C6 envie). Tied some tags around the top with some cute floss and then got to the 'sprinkling' bit with all the embellies. I added a bit of extra sparkle with some gems too.....
Thanks for another fab dare!

xx Leo