Christmas tree ornaments

I've been having a good look through Etsy this morning at the selection of Christmas tree ornaments available, and there are quite a few!  Here are my favourites, I particularly like the glass reindeer ornament, and the Star Wars ornaments just make me laugh, I love them.  Yoda and Chewbacca are fantastic!

Why stick to traditional baubels?  You can find some very unique ornaments to decorate your tree with, head on over to Etsy to take a look at the wonderful handmade creations.

More Christmas cards!

Another pack of Christmas cards up for sale in the usual place, this time you get eight small square cards, two of each design, featuring a penguin, a robin, a gingerbread man and Rudolph.

More details available in my Etsy shop.

Christmas tree oh Christmas tree

Here's the latest Christmas card design, a festive Christmas tree made from silver card, green paper and diamante gem stones - to add a touch of sparkle!  The border at the top and bottom of the card has been printed directly onto the card and the tree has been attached to the card using foam pads so it stands out.  It's on sale now in my Etsy shop as a pack of five cards.

30 years and 1 day old

It was my birthday yesterday and I've had a great weekend celebrating turning 30.  I went to London for the day on Saturday with my friends, the weather was dreadful, chucked it down with rain and hail stones while we were waiting for the train.  Thankfully it didn't last too long and didn't rain much for the rest of the day, although it got rather windy.

Our first point of call was to Harrods for a quick spot of shopping, we didn't stay too long as it was very busy and rather hot in there.  We stayed long enough to see Michael McIntyre chasing after his little boy (who is a mini version of Michael) and to get some Krispy Kreme donuts.  A couple of my friends had never tried these American donuts before and they weren't disappointed!

mmmmmmm donuts!!

Next we were off to the Ice Bar.  For those that don't know, the Ice Bar is literally a bar made of ice.  They change the design every six months, and it's currently an aquatic theme, the walls, tables, bar and the glass you drink out of are all made of ice.  And because the temperature is kept at -5, you have to wear a snazzy cape and gloves.  You only get to stay in the bar for 40 minutes, but it's well worth a visit.

Looking good in the capes!

A rare picture of me and my husband, who's not pulling a stupid face!

There's always one, my husband licking the ice!!!

We had a nice meal and cocktails in Chiquito's and a wander round St Katherine's dock, stopping off for a drink in The Dickens Inn before going on a Jack the Ripper walking tour.  The tour lasted two and a half hours, which is quite tiring after you've been walking about London all day!  Our tour guide was a Beefeater and he took us all round the East End and to the places (or roughly the places) where the murders happened.  There is only one murder site still remaining as the other sites have been destroyed or built over, and there is an old pub, The Ten Bells, which has pretty much the same interior as it did when the prostitutes used to drink in there at the time of the murders. 

We all had a great time, although knackered by the end of the night, I couldn't wait to get home and have a cup of tea and a Krispy Kreme donut - a rather squished donut, it didn't make it back in the best state, but it still tasted good.

Golf Cake

Here's the latest novelty cake my husband and I have created.  This time we were asked to do a golf themed cake for a 65th birthday.

I'm getting better at modelling with icing, each person I've had to sculpt has gotten better each time (I think I could've done better at positioning the golfer with his golf club, not sure holding a club like that will be very effective!). 

I did have an 'OH NO!' moment whilst piping the shoes on though, my tiny piping bag full of black icing split and a great big blob of icing squirted out onto the cake!  I quickly scrapped it off and managed to remove most traces of black but it had left a mark.  Luckily it was quite near the edge so I could cover it up with buttercream and make the 'rough grass' a bit wider.  Few!  Panic over.

It was also my first attempt at writing with icing, which went better than I expected.  No mishaps with the piping bag this time!

We've now got a small batch of green buttercream left, I guess we'll just have to whip up a few cupcakes to use it up - what a shame!  Cupcake anyone?...............

If you'd like to see the other cakes we've made click here and here and here!

Who said cartoons were for kids?

I finally went to the cinema to see Up yesterday and I loved it.  The 3D effects were pretty good too, especially the times when they were flying.  It was also surprisingly sad in places, something I wasn't expecting, as well as funny.

One of the things I love about these animated films these days is the attention to detail, they think of everything and will painstakingly animate individual items, no matter how many are involved.  Like animating more than 10,000 balloons to lift the house!  Whilst they didn't hand-animate all the balloons, they had to come up with a computer programme that could cope with that many individual balloons, and how they interact with each other.  Quite a task in itself. 

If you haven't seen Up already, I highly recommend it.  Get down to the cinema, put your 3D specks on and enjoy!