Cute Garden Bunting

It seems like forever since I've made something crafty but with the lovely bank holidays (YEAH) I've managed to manage my time so I could make both cakes and craft stuff.
With all the buntings going up around town for the street parties and the Royal Wedding it made me want to make another bunting but instead of it being for my room I made it out of oil cloth that looks like doilies which means it should in theory be water proof, although I'm not sure if its wind proof (I hope so).

Anyways here's the very chintzy bunting and also the birdhouse has had a spring clean and a lick of paint so that's all cute again too.

The Launch of Chintzy Cakes

Since September I have been attending a Cake decorating and Sugar craft course to help develop my decorating skills.
So instead of filling the Project Chintzy pages with lots of cakes, etc I have designed Chintzy Cakes. I am hoping that in the near future Chintzy Cakes will become a business, a place where I can bake and design cakes and more to the customers specifics.
I will still be putting posts on Project Chintzy even though I haven't put anything on for a while (I have been told off by my sister) sorry.
Please check out Chintzy Cakes it will have the same silly banter that Project Chintzy has but no cushions or fabric.
Thank You

CAKES

I have finally worked out what I want to do as a career... Cake Decorator!
Its only taken me 10 years to truly work out what I'm good at and enjoy doing. This miracle came about when I signed up for a cake decorating and sugar craft course in September. Since then I've been hooked.
I've been baking since I was a little girl, one of my fondest memories was running my own cafe out of my Grandads garage when I was 3 to 4 years old. Only ever had one customer though. Back then my favourite things to make were flapjacks although most of the mixture ended up in mine and Beeky's bellies :-)
But now I'm making Victoria Sponge Cakes and covering them with fondant icing and then decorating that with roses and leaves that I made the week before. Like this one:



The first cake I decorated at my class was this one. Before the class we had to cover the entire cake in glace icing so it had time to set, ish and then during the class we learnt how to create templates out of grease proof paper. I, of course went for a flower picture and was very pleased with how it turned out.



These are some of the icing techniques we've been taught in the first lesson:


Recently my big sis Beeky got married and she asked me to make a 100 cupcakes for the big day, these cakes below were the testers to see if the coloured icing worked and to also see if she liked the taste of them, like a taste test. My victims for the taste test were of course Beeky and also her hens (not the animal variety) everyone said they tasted lovely so all I changed was the icing instead of having purple I went for chocolate and vanilla, and added a purple heart on top which was made out of marzipan. They also went down a storm at the wedding so I'm hoping more people will be asking me for cakes at their weddings or birthdays ;-)



And lastly here are a couple of picture of the vintage vogue competition dress I told you about a couple of months ago, its not very creative but I'm no Coco Chanel.


I'll try not to leave it so long next time, bye.

Holiday in Stratford and the Lakes

Hello sorry it's been so long yet again, I have lots of cute new things to show you and I have finally got photos of the room I painted for Jessica.

I'll start of with Jessica's room, she was wanting hippy flowers placing around the walls in a set colour palette so here are a few of the flowers I painted:

Now for some recent projects I have been up to. The first is creating Roman blinds for my room, which was quite a task. I had to make four one metre wide blinds because the ditsy fabric I chose was only 45'' wide and my windows are around 80'' so that was the first problem, it also took me a while to attempt to make them, I had search the net for the simplest pattern on how to put it all together. It took some doing and I still think they need a bit of tweaking but they are up, keeping the light out on the night time and that's the main thing, I've only taken a photo of the one blind because they all look the same so here it is:

Last week I was on my birthday holiday with my dear sister Beeky and we went to Stratford for a couple of days. I love it in Stratford, the time seems to slow down so you can fit loads of things in to your day where as here 24hrs is like 10 so it feels as though once your back from work its time for bed (I feel like a grandma saying that) Anywho getting back to Stratford we found some very cute places to shop there is Broadway where I got a very cute bunny tooth brush cover, and a metal sign which I have forgotten to take a picture of.

The next little shopping spot we found was Hatton Village (I think that's right) its a lovely bundle of quirky shops the type I like and also where I finally found Mr Flamingo he was my birthday present off Beeky I think she was a bit surprised when I said that's what I want for my main pressie I think she thought I was joking at first. So here is Mr Flamingo in his natural habitat:

He looks so happy :-)

Also from Hatton village I found a cute rabbit egg cup and a delicious fudge shop but that didn't last long enough for photo opportunities.

And lastly here are a couple of pieces I have picked up in the last month or so. The cup and saucer is from the Lake District, I went down to see my friend Sarah who has just open a cafe Bizzy Lizzy the cafe has been there for 7 years roughly, Sarah and her mum have taken over running it so I popped down to help out one weekend and found some very me shops.

The Plate is from Warwick can't remember the name of the shop but it had lots of pretty pieces, its hard for me to not buy everything when there crammed with everything I love, its like someone has been in my head and created a shop from it, weird.

There was another lovely place we visited called Bourton on the Water (something like that) its one of those journeys where you think the Tomtom is taking you completely the wrong way until it brings you out on to a lovely little village. Big news though for once I didn't buy anything, that's a first. Anyways that's all from my trips outs I'll try and not leave it so long for the next post ;-)

Birdie Cushion

I'm very sorry its been a while I've been getting a wet tan in Wales its so lovely and wet over there. Saying that I do love shopping in North Wales because there are so many cute shops that sell home made products or products that look home made and not mass produced it just makes you feel like you've bought a one off piece. My sister also pointed out a fabric shop in Llandudno called Betty's Fabrics, its like heaven in a store I could have spent a fortune.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned the competition I'm entering but I tell you anyway there's a competition i'm entering for Vintage Vogue were you take one of there new vintage Vogue patterns and put your own twist to it. Well I love the vintage look so to have a chance to put my own twist to it has got me excited so here's the pattern I'm going to fiddle on with :

I've still not got the pattern cut out I think its because it cost a bit so I'm nervous :-) Pansy. Betty's fabric store is where I got the fabric from, I think the print looks vintage but I know I'll have to start it soon otherwise it'll be august before I know it.

Another project I've been working on is a cushion for my next door neighbours child Eve shes as cute as a button and is waiting for the arrival of a baby brother or sister so as a treat for moving into a big girls room she need a scatter cushion. I just hope Michelle never washes it because the zip I put in is well lets just say a bit of a squeeze as its only 8" wide Opps

I've also been working on a dress but its in its annoying stage at the moment so it will appear on the blog in the near future :-)

Patch Work Quilt

I've finally gotten round to updating my blog its been a mad two months I didn't realise how long it had been till my sister reminded me, shes good like that.

Anywho I've got plenty of photos to show so here's the pics of my newly painted bed its all pretty with fairy lights round the top, that work yeah.

I've also been making a patch work quilt out of a phat quarter pack that I bought many years ago and have never got around to using it till now. Who knew patchwork was so time consuming it took me 2 weeks to design it, cut it and sew it all together, it was joining the back piece, wadding and patches together that got me stumped my poor sewing machine needs a vacation. Thankfully I finished it and it looks very cute, goes lovely with the bed.

My final news is that in February we finally got an ickle puppy he's called Pookie after Garfields teddy bear and he is very much a teddy bear, he's mastered the puppy dog look the one they do after they have been naughty but you cant tell them of because of the cute face they pull, damn that look. Here is Pookie and the I'm so cute look.

And here he is after his first bath, he loves being in the tub but hates being dried off.

Catch Up

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, I cant believe Christmas has been and gone already :-(
I've been a busy bunny recently so got lots of photos and more to come later.

First I have Halloween photos I know its late but I made some spooky cookies for a Halloween party I went too, my fingers were killing after piping out the icing evil things, anywho here they are:

At the moment I'm doing up my bed it was looking a bit dated and left out because all the other pieces of furniture had been hit with paint and wallpaper. I'll have photos of the bed once I've finished.

Christmas was fun I made a very alcoholic Christmas cake with half a bottle of Teachers whisky in, lets just say its been a very merry Christmas :-)

I also made the cute polar bear that Kirsty made in 'Homemade Christmas', that show was so good. Not sure if I'll let anyone eat him though I made the mistake of naming him Steve.

My lovely sister was up for her birthday which is a few days before Christmas it also happened to be on the most snow filled day for the past decade at least and when it snows you have to make snowmen. Who knew making snowmen is so much hard work my fingers did not like me afterwards. It took two attempts to get Bruce super sized and even then it wasn't that big they seem huge when your a child (I know your a lot smaller then but still).

This is Mini Bruce before:

And after our second attempt a bit taller:

My room got the complete Christmas overhaul with my lovely Christmas tree and also Claude the panda has his festive antlers on.