A Spring 30th birthday

My darling daughter turned 30 yesterday and her Hb had organised a wonderful weekend of surprises and celebrations. My SIL asked me to be cake provider so several weeks ago I started planning my creation. My daughter adores my Victoria Sandwich mix with raspberry jam and butter cream but she is also a Cadbury chocoholic. I decided that a perfect cake for her special birthday would combine both.

I had also been admiring anti gravity cakes and I noticed last year that Lakeland had started selling a kit so I purchased one and got designing.

I purchased a large bar of Dairy Milk (her favourite)

 I also found a brilliant CDM purple cake board and some purple ribbon from my stash,

 I also bought a fun chocolate mould and using fondant icing made these candle holders

So here is my cake all in place at the party.......

and here is my daughter cutting it...with a ceremonial sword no less!

We had such a wonderful weekend.

I would like to enter my cake into Di's fun challenge, lots of snippets of icing and chocolate went into it's construction.  In fact there were so many snippets that I made myself quite giddy with all the sampling which was necessary as I make it ;0)
Pixie's snippets playground #221
I would also like to enter my cake into Simon Says Monday challenge where the theme food and drink

My card challenge entry today is the birthday card I made for my girlie......I kept the purple theme but added more spring colours as her birthday was on the first day of spring.  I used Noor and Visible Image stamps, which I white embossed, to create my spring birthday scene.

 Adding lots of glitter effects too using my honey comb stencil and some number die cuts.

 The background was made with Distress inks.

Yesterday was her actual birthday...the first day of spring and we enjoyed more celebrations over a Sunday lunch by the sea.

I will share some more photos soon. I also want to make a Moment of our weekend so WIP for a little while,

I would like to link up my spring birthday card into the following challenges;

Anything but cute crazy for colour
Fussy and fancy 2/3 things with wings
Paper creator  2/3 spring colours
Mixed media world vintage
Emerald Creek Dares  ring in spring
As you like it Favourite type of embossing Mine is heat , and I have used it for my flowers and butterfly. It's my fave because I can use it as a resist to my inks.
Penny Black and More 2/3 feature a creature
Stamping sensations 1/3 flower power
Try it on Tuesdays 2/3 nature
We love to Create 2/2 #6 anything goes mixed media
Little Claire's  1/3 anything goes
Ribbon Girl 1/3 any image

Vintage Stamping at least 3 layers I have 4; the inks, the glitter embossing, the stamping and the die cuts.

Craft stamper take it make it anything stamped
Sparkles 1/3 make it girlie
Whimsy 1/3 spring colours or Easter
Wow embossing powders March challenge

I have my final day at work on Wednesday.....the next stage of my life is fast approaching!

Thanks for visiting and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. I will be back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Easter greetings

Happy Easter everyone and I hope that the chocolate bunny has been good to you. We have been out and about for the last few days so we plan a quiet day at home and I may even get some time for some crafting. After nearly 2 weeks of wonderful sunshine the heavens have opened and it's pouring this morning. I think lots of chocolate will feature today in our house today ;0) It's certainly not a day for the garden.
Here are some photos of the surprises my dear ones are opening this morning

Our Daisy Jane is too young for chocolate yet so here is Nana's gift this year.........

a bag to match her pretty sundress and the sweetest story book...Stripey Horse.
As always all of mine get a little chick in their Easter bags, they are never too old ;0)

I would like to wish all my great blogging friends the happiest of Easter's. Have a peaceful day whether you are relaxing at home or with family.

I can't send you all a card so here is GD one I made for Ignacio of Nicecrane designs using one of his fab Easter sheets called chicks and ducklings available here 

I love his vintage sheets so much. I also used as little "seed packets" another set called Henderson's Giant flowers available here. This is one of my favourite sets.
Here are a couple of close ups;

 I made butterfly with a MS punch which I then inked with distress inks and added some gold embossing powder to and some gems for some sparkle.

I added a little vintage bird box charm from my stash which I tied with twine and also some lace to add to the vintage/shabby chic  feel.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

We do doobadoo Embellish it
Allsorts Birds and feathers
Totally Gorjuss Die cuts/punches
Polkadoodles springtime
Chocolate coffee and cards spring
Inky Chicks shabby chic
A creative romance Eggcellent spring
Jelly Park Happy Easter
Papertake Weekly Happy Easter
Loves Rubberstamps Easter/spring
Party Time Tuesday die cuts
Oldie but a goodie Easter my oldie is my bird charm from my jewellery stash
The Ribbon Girl yellow/lemon
Bearly Mine Spring

Enjoy your long weekend however you are spending it. Thanks as always for your kind visits to me here and the comments that you take the time to leave.

For those of you who love to see my darling granddaughter Daisy...we caught up with them on Good Friday over at my parents' house. She is now 5 months old and was wearing her butterfly dress...I will leave you with a couple of pictures of my little princess busy playing.

 I bought her a new outfit which I think she approved of, a little denim skirt dungarees set...

and just look how big she is in her bath now :0)

she even peeps her feet over the top....so funny! I could eat this little sweetie, she is just adorable.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x (and Daisy waving with her feet)

Finding chocolate down Memory Lane

Over 18 months ago I wrote this post about meeting up with an old school friend and going back to where I grew up, after a gap of over 30 years. This week I again met up with my same friend and she told me of a Chocolate Shop which had opened round the corner from where I used to live in Peckham, South East London.
She suggested this could be the venue of our next get together which was on Thursday.  Now I never need an excuse to eat chocolate and when I arrived this display greeted me.

The Shop is called The Melange and is owned by a French Artisan chocolatier who makes all her chocolate products on site. She runs classes and sells on line. It is a tiny shop with just a few table and it's speciality is home made hot chocolate to drink.

She sells all sorts of flavours of chocolate including Mulled Wine Spices, Ginger and Lime and Lavender and Lemon to name just a few. She produces milk, dark and white varieties.  Needless to say I bought a few taster bars home to try...it is divine!

We will have to go back in the summer as she also makes ice cream and milk shakes ;0)












So inspired by a morning hot chocolate I headed home to make a "chocolate" card for my next card challenge. I had the idea to use pink with brown as I really like that colour combination. I also decided to have a play with my latest tool called a paper distresser.

It contains several blades which cut into the sides without tearing. It fluffs up the edge as it goes this.
It is great fun to use and gives the edges of card a "distressed," rather vintage look. I had a practice with some pink and brown card before putting my card together.






Here is my card which I have called chocolate cupcake. I used chocolate and pink backing papers.You can see how I distressed all the focal card edges.

I used my sweet Lili of the valley stamp, Never too old for cupcake". She was coloured with my trusty Promarkers and highlighted with some Prismacolour pencil. 

I added some lovely mulberry flowers to complement the chocolate theme.

I also added some ribbon, Divine Twine bow and a round sentiment. I glitzed everything up with some glitter and finally added some pearls to the corners. I think they look like milk and white chocolate buttons ;0)

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Joanna Sheen Love is in the air

Sunday's with Crissy Happy birthday

Cupcake Inspirations  ~147

Robyn's Fetish Challenge blog Square cards

Really reasonable ribbon Pink and brown

Passion for Promarkers Distressing

Top Tip Tuesdays Mystical, magical and fantasy

Lil's Little Fairies (Not able to upload yet!)

Papercrafting Journey #3 Make it cute

Flutter by Wednesdays Anything with wings

So it's Friday again and another weekend to look forward to. The weather has warmed up nicely and I may even get a chance for a tidy in the garden. We shall also be enjoying some of the chocolate tasters I bought...

mmmmmmm! Enjoy your weekend, whatever your plans and just remember to have chocolate featuring in there at some point!.

Bye for now,

Jane x