Cath Kidston Inspired Birthday Cake

My favourite mug at home was a gift from my lovely girls and features a beautiful Cath Kidston rose design on blue. I've always planned on making a cake using it as inspiration, so when my Mother-in-law's birthday came around, it was the perfect opportunity! The cake is completely gluten free (so my daughter, Nan and I could tuck in too!), vanilla sponge on the base with lemon on top.

 

It was actually a very quick cake to make and probably one I have enjoyed the most. I love that each time I design a cake, I learn something new to take onto the next one - I hope that never changes!

 

 I found that by being relaxed about the decorating process, making more impulsive decisions rather than mapping everything out, made the creative process much more fun. I am looking forward to my next docrafts Creativity Magazine commission now!

Thanks for looking!

Jill x

 

Birthday Card - You are never too old to dream a new dream...

I made this card for my brother's birthday - he has just started sea swimming and has set himself some personal goals for this year!

I used a combination of the docrafts Creativity Club Sentiments Collections (1 & 2), Xcut Build-a-Scene dies XCU 503156 (for the waves), Xcut Dies Rectangle Parenthesis XCU 503045 (for the text panel), plus a mix of Papermania Capsule products and a blue wallaper which I got as a sample from a DIY store!

 

Thank you for looking!

Jill x

Festive Wedding Cake

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope you have all managed to escape the flooding and power cuts the recent weather conditions have resulted in - we have been blessed in our part of Dorset, so, so lucky.

 

One of my New Year's resolutions is to catch up on my blog posts - I have a backlog of craft/cake projects to put on...here is the first!

 

I was recently asked to make a wedding cake for my Boss's sister - the brief was to make it festive with a cranberry/silver and white colour palette with a touch of holly, making a sugarpaste ribbon the feature on the top tier...

 

To create the ribbon loops, I mixed some Gum Tragacanth (a plant derived powder which is used to stiffen sugarpaste, making it set harder and hold it's shape), into the cranberry paste, wrapped it in clingfilm and left it overnight. I then created the loops from lengths of paste and secured a cocktail stick into the end of each loop using a little cool, boiled water, shaped them and left them to dry out.

 

 

 

I opted to use the cocktail sticks as the cake had to be transported across country

and they prevented the loops from slipping!

 

 

What I love about cake decorating, is that each cake teaches me something different and

new and inspires me to try out more techniques!

 

Thank you for looking

Have a great 2014!

 

Jill x