Creative Night With Luci

It was my turn to be creative on Thursday Night with the girls. I had forgotten, of course, so it all felt like a bit of a rush to get things out the bag in time. Thankfully, one of the girls reminded me and as I had months ago given it some thought, I just needed to find the materials around the house for what I needed.
Here are a few kind of step by step ideas, if you wish to make your own hearts to hang. Hang in kitchens, decorations, hang in wardrobes, great gifts.

You need:
1x heart shape to use as a template. (I did half a heart shape and cut out the material folded in half to ensure it was symmetrical- the easy way. Use squared paper/graph paper or tracing paper or just paper for your heart pattern shape. If you can't draw a heart then print one out to cut out.
You could do circle/hexagonal shapes - or triangles (these would make funky Christmas trees!) The size of heart is up to you. Too small is fiddly to sew, if you haven't gone round curved edges/corners much before on a machine - and awkward to turn inside out at the end!
(Our hearts were about 20cms x 20cms square pieces of fabric to start.)
2x pieces of fabric in colours of your choice, a bit of ribbon, some wadding/quilting to pad out your heart and a piece of lining/plain cheap cotton fabric to sew onto the top/bottom side of your quilting so it doesn't all get mashed up in your sewing machine. (How many times have I done that before when quilting things? Too many. I learned the hard way, believe me!) You may wish to have some fancy bits to add like buttons or sequins or sew on a tag saying "with love", which I made from printed ribbon.
you might also want some smelly stuff like pot pourri, dried lavender, herbs or scented sachets if you like.

1. cut out your 3x pieces of fabric and your 1x piece of wadding.

2. pin your piece of ribbon folded upside down vertically down the inside of one of your heart shapes. You will stitch this in place as you sew it together. If the fabric is patterned you put the ribbon on the "pretty side", as we called it, facing up. (the official term would be right side facing)

3. place the other really "pretty fabric" upside down on top of this piece, so both "pretty sides" are facing each other with the ribbon in between. Like a sandwich!
4. place on top the wadding/quilting shape
5. place on top of this the piece of lining/plain cotton fabric.
6. pin it all in place

7. carefully sew around most of the edge of your shape, leaving a small hem, so it doesn't fray. You will need to leave a gap open(it is easiest to use most of one of the straight edges. Trust me, I know!)
8. Turn it inside out and pour in some smelly stuff, if you like.
9. Turn in the remaining edge and hand sew (a simple over sew stitch) to seal it together.
10. add buttons or whatever and keep it or give your heart away.


Have fun and eat yummy cake!
Tudur had fun choosing his fabric


and we ate yummy cake!
Enjoy x

Creativity Bootcamp Day 9

I had to laugh when I saw the creative prompt for day 9: DRIZZLE
Would you believe it, the sun was actually shining?
Not a drizzle in sight.
Nope.
Not a drop.
Sun, sun, sun.
Me: at work.
Came home and looked longingly at this:

and found this:

I must be missing cake.
I had to eat toast and drizzle honey, instead.

I made the lemon drizzle cake today, as it is now Saturday, as I write this up.
My thoughts?
Read this:

Dear Jamie,
I love your book but I have to say, that your Nan's Lemon Drizzle Cake is a bit rubbish. I will eat this one, but have to make another one now as this one is flat.
love from Luci

Creativity Bootcamp Day 3

I said it was complicated.
MULTILAYERED was the word prompt for day 3.
I immediately thought of the film shrek and donkey chattering on about us all being like onions as we all have layers.
How true.
I am multilayered. Complicated, even.
As I am wrestling with peeling back the layers to reveal my true creative self, I am also aware of the layers I have added of protection, the negative thoughts, words that cause me to doubt or false protect.
Hmm.
The following quotes were given as part of our journalling prompts:
"Conformity is the jailor of freedom and the enemy of growth." John F Kennedy.
We have been challenged to think about the things that kill our creativity: negative thoughts, doubt can do it for me.
Inspiration comes quickly buzzing, bzz, bzz, thwap. dud.
Silence.
as I think: Nah, I could never do that.
Creativity dead right there.
I wrote in my journal a reminder to take every thought captive and a note to self to extinguish those fiery arrows that come to wound my creative heart and soul.
As I took some multilayered photos, I thought that perhaps I ought to turn the word MULTILAYERED into MULTIFACETED.




The many talents of Luci. The artist.
I will stick to one layer at a time, for now.
In the meantime, these are the funky striped, layered scrapbook papers I will use.

I have nearly finished all the prep for day 4!

All About The Cake.

It is all about the cake this week for me. I have the week off from work so in between relaxing, meeting up with family, friends and catching up with life, I am cracking on with the wedding cake for my niece.
She wants tiers and a mix of fruit and sponge cakes.
A huge and heavy 12" fruit cake, a 10" and 8" sponge cakes and then the cake topper is on a 6" base. I used recipes from these books.

The sponges will be Madeira sponge cake recipes, using the Cakes to Inspire and Desire book I borrowed from my friend Abbie. The Madeira sponge will stay fresher longer than sponge cakes. It will also be denser to balance in tiers, successfully. I hope.
I made the fruit cake a while ago, using the recipe from my Sweet and Simple Party Cakes book and have since added a bit more brandy to keep it moist!
I have been buying bits like cake boards, ribbon, icing, marzipan, edible glue (as I am nearly all out of glue), some essential cake boxes to transport the cakes to the venue and an edible writing pen to write a small personalised plaque for the big day.

The flowers will be fresh roses in a variety of sizes and shades of white and lilac: avalanche, ocean song and akito. I will lay them on top of each cake layer in between the pillars.
Pillars.
The bit that gives me nightmares.
I imagine doing a cake "toppler" and it all ending in tears and not a cake "topper" at all.
For the cake topper, the bride to be wants a bit of a surprise for the groom.
You might remember, she wants him to be wearing a football kit in his favourite team, West Ham United. Their colours are claret and blue. I have been worried that if I did a claret groom that it would clash with the purple and lilac theme, so I am using a little artistic license and using a purple shade of icing.
I have been working on the cake toppers.
The bride was lots of fun and I am very pleased with her.

I added a few blue flowers to connect her to the grooms colours.

The groom has been a challenge for me. Ideally he would need to remain upright (at least for the photos, right? and for the speeches, traditionally, eh?)

I made him in pieces, adding denture fixative powder to the icing for his body. This brilliant idea came from Sheila, who led the cake decorating course I did last year as evening class. She was full of cheap and practical tips like this one! I left him to dry for a week or too and he really is like porcelain!
The pieces are then sturdy enough to stick together. In theory. The arms seemed to go on OK, but the legs attaching are a bit of a cross your fingers and hope, thing. I have him balanced upright against a jar of jam at the moment, to encourage his legs to adhere to his body!

I just have to fix the happy couple in place, with all the lettering, spelling the word "UNITED" and the plaque with their names and the wedding date and add the football team emblem on the front. I keep making one, painting the castle in "cream" which looks gold in neat form, but then I keep splodging it before it dries, so have to re-do it! 3rd time lucky,eh?
Today I am going to bake the Madeira sponge cakes.

Tins ready.

Getting Ready for Encouragement Night

Tomorrow night is Encouragement Night for us ladies.
I can hardly wait!
We meet each Thursday and eat loads of cake and laugh til we cry at the stories of our lives for this past week but this week is extra special! Every now and then, we try and actively encourage each other, nurturing the gifts within us such as laughter, creativity and encouragement.
It helps us celebrate and enjoy life and our adventures, mis-haps and to affirm each other for how we see each other's gifts, skills, talents and value our friendship.
We try and be creative!
One time we did it as pass the parcel, where we each wrote out a favourite verse and had a wee gift to go with it. All the wee parcels were wrapped in between layers of paper. You pass the parcel round and when the music stops, you undo a layer! The prize for that layer is revealed, then the music starts again and the parcel continues to pass until the music stops again.
Get it?
It is a classic British childhood birthday party game!
We love it!

So, in our variation of pass the parcel, the encouragement cards and gifts and verses formed the layers of the parcel.It was a bit random and surprisingly, no-one got their own verse. The one I got was a real encouragement to me: about God binding up the broken hearted. The verse was written on a cloud in the shape of a heart and came with some funky plasters with words like OWW, or OUCH!

Other times we have picked names (out of a teapot) and prayed for that person during the week and written it down in a card for them. This encouragement was the verse about the Son shining on the righteous, complete with some rather yummy smelling body lotion called: "Righteous Butter"

This time, we are doing a bit of a game based on the childhood game of "consequences". With a twist of course!
In the original game each person has a piece of paper and writes an answer to a question, for example favourite holiday place, most embarrassing moment, boy's name etc. After each category it is folded down and then passed on to the next person. It can be done with drawing people, with each fold being parts of the body like head, neck, etc.
When every one has had their turn the paper is unfolded and shared/admired/read out etc making no snese at all for the snetences, or for the drawn figure, producing lots of laughter.
Tomorrow, we will do things like write down the funniest thing the person has done, what verse reminds each of us of them, bringing an object/gift/homemade craft for each person to encourage them.
Oh, and I almost forgot.
Party bags!
We are each having a party bag that by the end of the evening will be filled with Encouragements for each of us.
We have written a list of things to write/bring to go inside during the evening!
I can't wait.
More news to follow- of course I can't spoil the surprise, yet!
How do you encourage your friends?

Ready or Not!

So I saw this idea at Ruth's blog.
It sounds like fun and a challenge and stretching my creativity to the limits all at once.
She says it started here.
But I've only just joined a gym, I said.
Creativity?
You got me!
I'm in.
Are you?
I'm in ready or not.
Scary but true.
As someone once said, it might be a can of worms, or a can of butterflies.
Let's see.
Live dangerously, life on the edge, adventure.
I am usually always up for a dare.

Here Comes The Bride

The bride is finally finished.
I really like her.
Do you?

I did the flowers purple, lilac for her bridal colours and added some blue flowers to link in with the groom who will be in West ham football kit.
He, is still un-clothed, naked and in pieces and will have to wait to be clothed in his football kit when I return from the hen weekend this weekend!

All Star Thursday Night Creations

Ooh, I had sooo much fun on Thursday Night at Rachel's with the girly cake chicks.
This week, it was Rachel's turn to share something creative with us all to learn.
She taught us (or tried to teach us) to make star books!
We each had 3 sheets of double sided scrapbook paper. Gorgeous shades that Rachel chose for us from Basic Grey and 2 squares of thick cardboard and some yellow ribbon.

First though, tea, coffee and this delicious yummy cake that Rachel made.

Now, I won't pretend that the evening was easy. Competition was fierce, as was the laughter when one of us rushed ahead, or got it wrong, or misunderstood. Rachel kept saying to us, this isn't a race and it isn't a competition.
Harsh words.
Tough lessons learned.
Did we listen to her?
No.
Did we learn?
The hard way.

The things that went wrong, typically, were when we were asked to cut out 5x rectangles in 3 different sizes for our book pages. Abbie cut some of her rectangles with the plain titled edge that is along the basic grey 12x12 squares. Oops.

A few of mine were perhaps not "exactly" measured. More the "ish" variety.
Anna claimed to draw lines to cut and then cut along completely different lines. Abbie folded her rectangles in half the wrong way.

Anyway, after we had cut out our 15 rectangles, we sorted them into our favourite colourways and cut a square out of the 5 smallest rectangles.

They look like the top of a pinafore dress. Then fold them into "W" shapes. Then use loads of double sided sticky tape and stick the outside edge of the smallest to the middle, and then the middle to the largest. The small and middle stuck rectangles will now look like a "w" and the middle to biggest rectangles will now look like a "v" shape. Do this 5 x times.

I got carried away with all the double sides sticky tape and in my eagerness to make my star book, having seen a picture of the star book displayed in all it's beauty in a complete sphere,stuck my pages together in a complete spherical star shape. With tape. Without all the cardboard book cover . Or the ribbon.
"Ta Da!" I said, proudly admiring my creation.
"Did you stick it?" Rachel said.
"Yes" I said.
"Did you already do your book covers?" she enquired.
Oops.
That would be a No, then.
Everyone giggled as Rachel pointed to my 2 as yet unused bits of cardboard and ribbon, just lying there.
Everyone else was, by now, making their book covers and their "stars" were merely star shapes in folded form, loosely tied with their ribbons, so their creation could either be a book or a star.
Theirs were not stuck, fixed, securely, like mine, with the 5 sets of rectangles fastened with the last 4 edges attached with double sided tape to form an albeit a perfect spherical star. A beautiful decoration, yes, but not a star book.
So much for it not being a race.

Thankfully, Rachel is a whizz with a scalpel knife set and my "book" was quickly restored from it's brief "star-stuck" glory.
Phew. Thank you Rachel for coming to the rescue with your tools and skill.

And here is my star book.


You cold stick photos in in before sticking the pages together and without folding it into the "w" shapes, or we thought you could hang words on ribbon like star/beautiful/unique or record some of your "star" moments in your star book.
Thank You Rachel!
You are a star!
For more fabulous ides, check out Rachel's blog here.

Brr Monday

It may be May but it has been cold today.
Good job I had put on my slow cooker this morning.
Home from work and nice warm food to welcome me home.
Pork in Barbeque sauce.

A recipe from my Fix It and Forget It Book.
Pork, diced.
Onion, chopped.
1 x can/bottle of bbq sauce.
1/4 cup honey.
Cook on low 8 hours all day whilst you are cold at work.

Serve with fresh bread, a thick sweater, cosy slippers and TV whilst sitting on the sofa.
Yummy.
Click on the heating, optional but welcome extra.

A brr-illiant start to the week.

May it be warmer tomorrow.
Please.
At least I will have leftovers.
Brr

The Wedding Cake Begins

A couple of months ago, my niece asked me to make her Wedding cake.
I said yes!
The Wedding is in June.
This year.
Soon.
We chatted about ideas and she looked at some of the pictures of some of the cakes I have done previously(although a Wedding cake will be a first for me!)
She decided on a cake done in tiers and I am hoping that it will not all end in tears as I have never balanced cakes before on pillars.
She wants pillars in between the layers with fresh flowers in the bridal colours laid on top of each layer.
Lovely!
I did a little practise over the Easter holidays to see how it might all go together and remain balanced and upright and if the Bride to be liked it!She loved it and so this weekend I have begun.
The base cake is a huge fruit cake.
I used a recipe from this recipe book.
You can check out the author's blog for other fabulous ideas too.
So, today, I had a smashing time.I came up with an ingenious bowl to use.I am glad I have recently joined a gym as the cake was really heavy!My niece wants a cake topper Bride and Groom with a surprise for the Groom!
I have begun making the Bride and Groom today too.
I used the same design as for my Merry Monk I did a few months ago and am trying to be creative with colours and clothing, as the Bride would like the groom to be wearing something like this.

So I mixed, purple and blue and the Bride is coming together nicely. Just have the roses to attach next for her bouquet.
The Groom is still in pieces. I used some denture fixative powder to strengthen him. I am leaving him in pieces to dry before clothing and sticking him together.
I really really hope that he will be upright in the end - or he could look very drunk as a cake topper, photographed like that for years to come. Imagine.
Friends suggested helpfully that he could be kneeling in prayer or leaning on the Bride but I fear he might end up flat on his face!
I will keep you posted with how this project develops over these next few weeks.
The remaining layers of cake will be sponge cakes, so I will do those in several weeks' time.

Last Weekend I Made These Yummies.

Last weekend I made these Strawberry Scones. Yummy.
Can't belive that it has taken me a whole week to write about them for my blog.
Better late than never, eh?
Anyway, here are a few pictures of them and the recipe for you. Enjoy!

50g/2oz c.sugar
284ml buttermilk
50g/2oz butter
400g/14oz sr flour
125g/4 and 1/2 oz strawberries
egg yolk
1 tbsp milk
clotted cream and strawbeery jam to serve.

oven 180 C fan / 200 C/ 400F for 10-20 minutes.

1. add sugar and butternmilk together and rub butter into flour and then combine.
2. add chopped strawberries to the dough and pat out dough onto floured surface 2cm thick.
3. cut out scones and turn upside down onto lightly floured baking tray. Brush flour off scones and brush egge and milk mix onto tops of scones. Leave to rest for 6-8 minutes and bake for 10-20 minutes until golden.I used the recipe from my magazine that I am gradually making some of the inspiring recipes from.And afterwards, the washing up.If only I could train Tudur to do it, rather than just watching it being done. Do you think I have any chance?