Let them eat cake...

Well much like last year this year has been a fun lesson...in baking. The year started with drop scones c/o my dear friend Senta when she sent me a packet mix from the states. The next thing i picked up on was flapjack followed by cookies, scones, various cakes and of late cup cakes. The best thing is it's such fun experimenting with different flavours, and the various things you can add. This last batch of cup cakes had plain vanilla cupcakes c/o the recipe from the back of the caster sugar pack with Carnation caramel added to the icing along with orange colouring and Halloween chocolates.

This lot of cupcakes had choc chips and marshmallows in, i haven't tried one with marshmallows yet as the one i had was full of choc chips lol but they look suitable for Halloween with a slightly gruesome look to them lol. Hubby assures me they taste lovely. So the fun continues and the calories well hopefully they keep burning :)

Ghouslish Cupcakes or not as the case maybe!

So this morning has been a baking morning, wasn't planned but nice that it turned out that way. I have whipped up some Condensed Milk Cookies only i swapped the plain cm for the Caramel version, which actually doesn't say cm at all but i used the same quantity and added some white choc chips instead. They'll all go down the same way whatever.

I am cooling my cupcakes which are kinda muffin size. To help with the Halloween theme I've swirled seedless raspberry jam into the cake mix thought it might represent well I'll leave that to your imagination. For the topping i intend to make an icing using more of the Caramel from above as i thought it might make for an interesting taste and also will lend itself to the colour of the icing especially as the muffins are in brown cases. Anyway at this point this is all pie in the sky guess work, time will tell and i will share the pics too :)

Ok so i iced my cakes with icing sugar and butter and several tsp of the Carnation Caramel :) Some i just used a knife and some i got away with using my cheap icing set with alteast i know with a bit of perseverance it works. The let down for me was the Halloween chocolate which had wonderful Halloween designs on the outside but on the inside was plain :( Still i shall persevere and search for some more Halloween chocolate and maybe some food dye other than black (which i didn't use for these and came out grey when i last did). Not tried them yet but will do later :)

So here it is the finished cup cake, complete with caramel icing and a Halloween decoration, they taste delicious :)

Come in sweetie, sit down

would you like to join me for a brew and something to nibble on too!!!

Ha ha ha cackle cackle cackle lol

Help yourself dearie, what's in them you ask, oh i just whipped them up this morning with some very special ingredients that have been in the coven, i mean family for years, top secret mind, for me to know and you to find out ha ha ha ha ha................................

Oh yes the bats dearie, help yourself, their very tasty especially now they've stopped flapping around, dunk them in your brew, it'll warm you through ha ha ha....

Ok that's enough of that. My morning practising my Halloween baking. First stint with the icing bag didn't work out too well so may have to have another go with that. Be interesting to see Brett turn his nose up at the grey'd icing but he may get daring enough to try one. Fairy cakes are very tasty on their own so he could always try the undecorated variety. Sadly he won't eat the batty cookies either as they have currants in  but hubby and i will lol.Oh yes i forgot to mention the little ghosts were from some Halloween cakes we bought last year from Asda, being plastic i kept them and recycled them :)

So what plan do you have for all hallows eve?

Double Trouble

Take one empty phone box...

Distress all exterior edges of the box with silver ink pad and emboss with silver powder...

Measure up suitable papers and apply with glue to all panels...

For me it was about Halloween, Magic, Spells etc etc

Cut out smaller piece of black card for top of lid and apply the same ink pad and powders and emboss round distressed area. Add beautiful jewelled Owl stickers to center stage and shazzam there we have it.

A magical little box, now i need to make a little black cushion for the inside and then decide what little blinging item will reside :)

Tick Tock

Do you get the feeling someones trying to tell you something?

Me I'm not sure what the message is. Time keeping has always been a bug bear of mine having worked in a hairdressers or as a hairdresser my entire working life, lateness mean's getting behind with appointments or just your day in general so it's extremely rare that i am late for anything. When i finished work around 5yrs ago this next month in preparation for swapping scissors for nappies i stopped wearing a watch like i stopped wearing jewellery, make-up, clean clothes and all that comes with a new baby lol.

So one asks oneself how do you end up with not one, not two but TEN watches!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So having been through my jewellery/accessory draw i am trying to halve my collection and keep those that i might wear occasion/mood allowing. The set above i got bought for my 40th this year, it's a lovely set but as yet it's never been out of the box but my sister bought it for me so I'll be staying. The round bangle watch is pretty as a piece of jewellery so that too will be staying, interestingly the same lady that bought me that also bought me a Marcel Drucker watch which has the stones in it which will also be staying. The charm watch was bought by another friend of mine who also bought atleast one of the other silver ones but i like the fact that you can clip the charm watch onto a handbag and have time...Well it's hard isn't it to part with things but one can only wear one watch at anyone time so the parting continues...

Halloween Candle Jar

So the recycle theme definitely stuck. All this year i have been re-using jars in all sorts of ways for popping a little tea light in. Having been inspired by Not So Idle Hands in a round about way i cracked on and started my first Halloween jar on Friday possibly can't remember exactly. I distressed the owl and stuck him together and having bought some tissue paper on Saturday set to cutting the paper into strips and gluing them onto the jar. Once they were all on i added some more (diluted i might add) glue on the base with a view to letting that dry and re-applying to the entire jar, but!!! the glue ran a little down the jar and i liked that it did that, it kinda added to the distressed look so i let it dry out and then distressed some more with a bit of black ink over the runs and left the jar as it was and then decorated, bar a bit of bling round the jar neck and a few bats the Owl is the star, as he should be lol. I have a new jar drying, definitely more along the lines of Emilies of NSIH once he is finished i will share him with you also. That's not all either i plan to make more lol :)

Sorry the lit up ones never come out clearly but at least you can see how much it shines.

Busy Bee's

So today has been a nice mixture of things that needed to be done and one or two that just chose to be done. This morning i had some errands to run in town but on my return i thought i would take a leaf out of Delia's book and try some of her scones. Turned out ok i think, definitely miss the vanilla extract though so next time that has to go in. Here they are...

You can find the recipe here

After than my little task was to start putting out one or two seasonal things. So i cleaned up my vase with my twiggy lights and stripped it of everything on it and swapped them for my autumnal/Halloween items, all i might add handmade my me last year :) One of my pieces of art from last year is adorning the walls above the vase too but there are still two to come out, just need a bit of dusting...leaves a turning :)

and here is one of last years pieces of art.

'Inspired' Think Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Bingo, i think Blogger has been playing up this afternoon.

So having been inspired by Joni of  Pop Art Minis with her pinked up Halloween art i thought i could run with this and so i did. This is another cute robin to help raise awareness for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She will be winging her way to my Ivys Attic Etsy Store as soon as i can and the rest of the family joining her :)