1st birthday celebrations

On Saturday we celebrated our darling grandson Jack's first birthday. It was such a lovely family occasion, it's always so good to all get together and the birthday boy was the star of the show sporting his new Cath Kidston shirt.

As always I am on cake making duty and as Jack is far to young to have a favourite charactor my daughter thought it would be fun to make something with tools on. His favourite toy is a wooden tool bench with tools which have fun faces. So out came my my fondant icing and my cake decorating equipment and I started to make the tools and some bright stars for decorations.

I made a personalized red tool box out of icing as a focal and to sit a few of the tools in. 

I made everything from saws to pliers, files, spanners and screwdrivers and added fun little eyes to everything. 

Here is the completed cake which I then had to carefully transport to the party.

Jack adores a little rainbow zebra charm my Hb bought me for Christmas and will take any opportunity to try to grab it from Nanna. 

 and yes bless him he was sporting a black eye from a birthday fall poor lad! 

Here is the cake in place with my daughter and Daisy's lovely cupcakes in the background.

And this is Jack with Mummy, Daddy and Daisy getting some help blowing out his very 1st birthday candle.

There was even time at the party for him to ride his little wooden trike around

and to enjoy his first ever piece of Nanna's birthday cake.

My card today is obviously his birthday card I made.

 I used one of my fave baby stamps made by the sadly no longer trading Ladybug Crafts Ink. I'm sure my friend Kerry will smile when she sees it. I coloured it with Promarkers and decoupaged the baby and duck.

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

Passion for Promarkers celebrations
That's Crafty 2/3 circles
Crafty Catz 2/3 anything goes
Love to craft 2/3 anything goes
The ribbon girl 2/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafty friends 2/3 anything goes
Simon says stamp Wednesday sparkle and shine
Crafty Hazelnut's patterned paper challenge anything goes

Thanks so much for stopping by today and happy Wednesday. Our hot weather has been and gone but it's so good to have days which are so light and cheery. We are racing through April now, just 5 days left!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Celebrations

We are enjoying a very special weekend celebrating my darling Hb's 60th birthday. How time flies...I cannot believe how he has reached this milestone...I am sure that we are still in our twenties..aren't we? 😊
We went up to London yesterday to enjoy a celebratory birthday lunch and we are being joined today by our dear family to continue with the celebrations.

London yesterday was so beautiful in the cold winter sunshine.

Just look at that sky...

 and our meal at Gymkhana in Mayfair was delicious.

Pink gin was a new one for us but a firm favourite now!

We're not huge fans of icing so I made a topper for his Victoria sponge birthday cake which I baked this morning.
I had already made this topper last week. I bought a couple of patterned mini rolling pins at a show some years ago but had never used them.

I had a practice and really liked this flourish pattern.

So I used it on my topper icing base. I crimped the edge

I piped and painted the border and made some cut out stars.










Here it is sitting on the table ready for everyone to arrive..

Would you like a virtual slice 😉
So my card today is of course his birthday card.

He loves grungy cards so I made him one for a very "special delivery". The background was made with distress paints. I had already added some remnant rubs as a resist. I played with lots of circles, buttons and embossing folders for some texture for the focal. The book page is from "A tale of two cities" one of his favourite novels. The stamped birthday sentiment is Clearly Besotted.

My card was made for these challenges;

Darnells' NBUS surprise challenge #8

Darnell is having an amazing giveaway celebrating her 5 years blogging. For this challenge I have used Kraft card as a blank and also as part of my focal.  Instead of colouring it with pencils I used it as part of my tied focal, the first time I have tried this. My never before used stuff is the type key embossing folder and the grey button from a set hidden away in my stash.

A vintage journey going round in circles I have circles in my embossing folder piece, my button and the 0 of my die cut 60!

Creative Moments something new my new is the grey button, from a never yet used set!

Paper Creator anything goes

Scrapbook and cardmaking,  Bastel-truam friendship/love this card was made with lots of love for my soul mate x

Right the family are due to arrive in the next half and hour so I must dash. Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone and thanks as always for your kind comments and also for the lovely birthday wishes you left for my Hb on Thursday.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A Ben and Holly kind of day

We had such a wonderful day celebrating Daisy's 3rd birthday at her party yesterday. Daisy chose Ben and Holly as her theme and I made her cake. For those of you who are not familiar with these sweet characters, here they are on her party plates.

She enjoyed a Gym Tots party with 15 other 3 year olds followed by a party tea at the Sports Centre and then the family went back to hers for an evening celebration.

Just look at them playing pass the parcel....so sweet.

 Her Mummy made some Ben and Holly cupcakes that were eaten with her friends and we took the main cake home to her family celebrations in the evening (we also had forgotten to take a knife so that worked out quite well!).

So here is my cake in it's entirety.

I am sure you would like to see a little of how I made it....
 I always make an all in one Victoria sponge. I then covered the top with icing

and added some clouds in the sky and some grass around the edge.

I made Daisy's name out of fondant icing.

I had previously made the Ben and Holly figures and lots of extras to create a little picnic scene

I then spent some time adding the little details. A picnic blanket with sandwiches and cakes for a fairy party. The candles were added to fondant icing toadstools.

Gaston the ladybird was there too

a view of the back

and Daisy's  name with some extras.

She got to blow out the candles again in the evening...

and cut the cake with Mummy and Daddy.

Such a special day. Precious moments and memories for me. 

I have already shared Daisy's  birthday card so I thought I would share a very apt cupcake fairy card, the cute image and tag stamps are by Lili of the Valley.

I coloured her with my Promarkers. I used snippets of card for the Cheery Lynn flourishes and tags and MS butterfly punch. I added some extra sparkle with some Glamour Dust.

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

Pixie's snippets playground #255
Happy Little Stamper anything goes with dies
The Ribbon Girl 3/3 November card challenge
Deep Ocean use die cuts and/or punches
Crafty friends 2/3 for someone special
As you like it 2/3 teddies or fairies mine is fairies as I love to think they are real...don't you?

Thank you for all the sweet love you sent to Daisy on her birthday and your best wishes to our family re the new baby news. You are so very kind. Enjoy your Sunday night, We need to catch up on Strictly ;0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

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