27 April 2010

Birthday Card

Hello everyone thank you for stopping by!

This week I made a birthday card and took part in the following challenges:
Crafty Angels - summer
Magical Crafts Challenge - something for the girls
Totally Papercrafts – has a recipe - 4 embellishments, 3 papers, 2 ribbons/lace, 1 image
Penny's Paper Craft Challenge – open, anything goes
A Gem Of A Challenge – a Birthday theme.

As you can see it is lots of challenges - I love challenges!
My mom and I jump from link to link, and blog to blog and then find many different challenges.


Here is the very interesting Friday Sketchers Challenges lay out by Carole.

And here is my card.

I embossed the plain green paper and gave it a thick distressed border.
The flower paper also has a distressed border.
I wrote Happy Birthday on the tag and put a piece of green ribbon next to the tag.
At the top I’ve put dotted lace.
This is one of my new Sugar Nellie stamps called Rope Swing, I just love her!
I’ve put some glitter on her shoe laces and on one of the patches on her dress.
I’ve added four mini, glittered brats to give it a finishing touch.

I really hope to win one of these challenges.

Crafty Greetings

21 April 2010

Thank You Card

Happy Wednesday every one! Thank you for stopping by on my blog.
This week I took part in nine Challenges:
Just Magnolia’s First Birthday blog hop with a twist – lay out. (Make sure you visit this blog hop)
Simon Says Challenge – anything with wings.
Practical Scrappers - glitter and bling  
Stamp Something - something layered
Creatalicious Challenges - Flowers and Wings
Stampin for the weekend -  Ribbons and bows
Magical Crafts Fortnight Challenge - Something for the Girls
One Stitch At A Time - Thank You Challenge
Here is the Just Magnolia Challenge lay out.

And here is my card.

I used a magnolia stamp.
I’ve put two gems on her dress and some glitter on her little hair band.

This part of the card is my favourite part, I cut scallops for the circles and put two flowers on the side ones and on the middle one I printed, Thank you.

On the right hand side circle I’ve put a butterfly next to the glittered flower.

Here I made a pink bow.(which was very hard to make with my hand)
I also put gems on the photo corners to give it a girly look.

Hope you have a blessed week.

Crafty Greetings

19 April 2010

Happy Birthday Card With Lumpy

This week I took part in six Challenges:

Simon says Challenge - Anything to do with movies and add some Dry Embossing
Totally Papercrafts - like to see signs of spring.
Polka doodle - using Animal images
Cute card Thursday - Touchy Feely

Here is the Friday Sketchers Challenge lay out by Inge.

At the Simon says Challenge you had to make something to do with movies, and I decided to make a card of Lumpy the Heffalump of Whinny the Pooh.
It is a movie for small children and since the card is for a little girl who turned 4 years old, I thought it will be nice to make her a Lumpy card!

My mom stitched the sides of the paper with pink yarn to give it a special look.
I put a little corner on the bottom, right hand side of the image with a little flower on.
I’ve also embossed the light pink paper with big and small dots, to give it an animal skin look.

Here I’ve put two of my pretty sparkly flowers.

And here I’ve written Happy Birthday with a dark pink, on a light pink, blocked on dark purple.

Hope you have a blessed week.

Crafty Greetings

15 April 2010

A Wedding Anniversary Card


Hello every one, I hope you are all having a good week this far.

This week I took part in six challenges!
Totally Papercrafts - Distressing
Polka Doodles - Wedding theme.
Penny's Paper-Crafty - Anything goes!
 Abc challenge - Sparkle
At Totally Papercrafts you had to make a card using ''Distress''. Distress makes cards look old and I use it on all my cards on the sides of the paper - it just looks better.

Since I’m going to give this card to my grandparents for there 52nd wedding anniversary, I thought it would be good to make it look ‘old’ using much thicker distress.
Here is my card

And this is the Friday Sketchers Challenge layout by Beatrix.

This stamp I brought at Funky Kids and it is part of the Sugar Nellie Collection called ‘First Dance’.

I’ve cut out the 52 with my silhouette machine and then distressed it.

On the right hand side, I’ve put pearls on the ribbon. I love the effect it creates.

I wrote ‘Happy Wedding Anniversary’ on the tag.

Here I tore the paper and decorated it with distress and decorating chalk to give it an extra old look.

That is all for now.
Have a blessed weekend

Crafty Greetings

14 April 2010

Baking A Pound Cake

I have finished baking sponge cakes and have now started with butter cakes.

You may remember Sponge cakes were made by beating whole eggs, separated eggs, or just egg whites with sugar and then added the butter and/or flavourful ingredients and last, flour and or other dry ingredients.

Butter cakes are made by whipping air into room-temperature butter and sugar and then adding eggs and flour, or by adding melted butter to beaten eggs and sugar or the so-called high-ratio cakes are made by combining butter with the dry ingredients and then adding the liquid ingredients. The high-ratio cakes are a relatively recent invention, you will never see recipes for them that predate the 1940’s.

The most traditional Butter cake is the Pound cake, made by creaming room-temperature butter with granulated or superfine sugar (we used Xylitol) to work air into the butter. Next, eggs are added, one by one, until they form a creamy emulsion with the butter and sugar. Last, flour is added and worked into the butter mixture as quickly as possible so the butter isn’t overworked.

Many butter cakes are made in the same way, with variations at different stages. Among the most common of these variations are cakes in which baking powder is mixed with the flour before the flour is folded into the butter mixture. There is NO baking powder in the Pound cake.

Butter cakes are flavoured by adding melted chocolate to the butter-sugar-egg combination or by folding melted chocolate or cocoa powder into the batter at the end. Butter cakes are also flavoured with simple ingredients such as spices, poppy seeds, chopped nuts, lemon or orange zest ad vanilla or other extracts beaten with the eggs and butter.

Some of the richest and lightest textured cakes - very similar to madeleines - are made by combining melted butter (sometimes mixed with cream or milk) with beaten whole eggs and sugar, before adding the dry ingredients. If you want a luxurious cake, with a tight crumb, consider one of these. I will do madeleines under cookies, later in the year.

The first butter cake I made was a pound cake.

Traditional pound cake is made by combining equal parts of weight of butter, eggs, sugar and flour. It contains no leavening such as baking powder and as a result, can be rather dense, but in a satisfying, buttery kind of way. Any airiness that traditional pound cakes do have is a result of beating the butter and sugar for a long rime - until the mixture has the consistency of sour cream - and then continuing the beating while adding the eggs. Flour is added at the end.

This pound cake is especially moist and buttery because milk is added as well as extra butter. It is suggested that all-purpose flour is used, because you need the extra gluten to absorb the mild and extra butter. We still used spelt flour, so although it is more dense, it is wheat-free!

We baked it in a bread pan, but you can bake it in a round cake pan too.

Make 1 loaf cake (5 by 9 inch)

Ingredients:
Butter and flour for the loaf pan
1 ¼ plus 2 tablespoons (350g) butter, sliced, at cool room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar (Xylitol)
¼ teaspoons salt
5 eggs
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest, optional
1 tablespoon grated orange zest, optional
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (2 cups spelt flour)

Butter the 5 by 9-inch loaf pan and put rectangle of parchment paper on the bottom.
Flour the sides of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (280 degrees C)

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar and salt on high speed for about 8 minutes, or until fluffy.

Don’t be tempted to shorten the beating time or you cake will be heavy.

Scrap the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula every minute or so.

In a bowl, beat the eggs, milk and vanilla.

With the mixer on medium speed, add the egg-and-milk mixture to the butter mixture, one-third at a time.
Wait until each addition is thoroughly incorporated before adding more.

The mixture will have the consistency of sour cream or small curd cottages cheese, depending on the temperature.

Add the lemon zest to the batter and beat for 30 seconds more.

Turn off the mixer and add all the flour.

Beat on low speed for about 5 seconds, or just long enough to mix in the flour with no left over lumps.

Tip:
Worked in the flour as little as possible, to avoid making the cake tough.

Scrap the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, then mix for 5 seconds more.

Scrap the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Don’t smooth over the surface of the batter or it may lose some of its airiness-it will settle as it bakes.
Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a tooth pick or knife insert in the centre comes out clean.

Let cool for 15 minutes before turning out of the pan.
I used lemon glaze for decoration.
Meanwhile wash your dishes and make your glaze

Lemon Glaze:
This simple glaze gives a sweet and tangy note to loaf cakes such as pound cake and carrot cake.

Makes about ½ cup, enough to glaze one pound cake
1 1/3 cups confectioners’ sugar (we used Xylitol)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons heavy cream, or more if needed

Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl and stir with a whisk until smooth.

Whisk in cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the glaze is smooth and falls in a thin stream when you lift the whisk.

Drizzle the glaze over the room-temperature pound cake and set on a cake rake on a sheet pan.
Let the icing drip down the sides for a rustic, homespun effect.

Serve sliced. The cake keeps for several days tightly wrapped in plastic.

Bon Appetite!

10 April 2010

Simon Says Challenges And A Spoon Full Of Sugar

On Thursday a friend of mine came to visit for the day, to make cards.
A few weeks ago I bought a few rubber stamps online from Funky Kids, and on Tuesday afternoon they arrived.
So my friend and I could choose from the new stamps to make our cards!

We decided to take part in the Simon Says Challenge and the challenge was to make ‘a card for a child”.
Then I saw the A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge and the challenge was A Card for a Boy.  The card I made is for my cousin's 4th Birthday and I decided to took pard in the A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge too.

Kelly-Anne and I busy making our beautiful cards.

This is my friend’s card.
I think it’s very pretty.

The two cookie cup rectangles open-up, so you can write a special message or a poem inside.

This is my card.

This is one of my new stamps, called ‘Arthur’ and I think he is very cute and is perfect for a little boy’s birthday card.

These balloons I cut out with my silhouette machine, I embossed them with my Cuttlebug. I stuck the two green balloons and the blue balloon on pop-ups and then wrote 1 to 4 on them, since it is a fourth birthday card.

Kelly and I enjoyed the day a lot, and we where very sad when the day ended and Kelly had to go home.

Have a blessed weekend

Crafty Greetings
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