Creative Crafter

Today I went to the spirit of christmas show at Kensington Olympia, it was amazing. All my favourite type of shops under one roof! And lots of yummy food to sample! The downstairs was all gifty shops and then upstairs were all the food stalls, there were three cupcake ones. Holly cupcakes (where I bought some rootbeer and maple flavouring extracts!), Cupcake-a-licious and Pudding Cook, which was part of the Harvey Nicholls food stand. I had never seen these cupcakes before- they are the creations of Rachael Nimenko who is a pastry chef and has worked at 5 star and michelin star restaurants. (the pics are awful- think my camera is dying!) Apparently they went on sale in Harvey Nicholls in June, she tries to make them in flavours you would have puddings of.



She had these really cute mini ones on sale - you got four in a box, really nice packaging and only £3 which thought was good value. They literally are bite size though! Flavours were chocolate brownie (really rich and chocolaty), toffee apple, pear and ginger and strawberry. They are decorated really nicely - she loves using sparkle! They all tasted great -would definitely recommend them.

The best bit was she was doing a cupcake class in the workshop theatre so I made sure I got into the class and was glad I did! We all got to decorate a cupcake (cranberry and orange flavour) and got to try a nutty chocolate she'd also made. We even got to package it in her cute boxes and seal it with a cupcake sticker. She also gave some good tips for making cupcakes. She said she's been a pastry chef for 18 years but she only looked mid 20's so she must have started young! The buttercream had orange zest in it and inside we put a dollop of cranberry compote. Then got to decorate it with holly leaves and sparkle glitter, there was a little girl in front of me and she literally put nearly the whole pot on hers!

Below is my finished cupcake and the work station where I made it





I got some cool christmas stamps from the English stamp company, if you go to their website they will make stamps to any design you like! There were also workshops on making a christmas centrepiece and gift wrapping, I thought the gift wrapping would be good but it was so basic!! She was demonstrating how to wrap a square box and then put ribbon flat across in both directions. Surely people don't need a class teaching them that!! Then she'd bought a selection of gift bags from Primark and said this was a good option if you didn't feel like making the effort of wrapping yourself! So didn't leave with anything new from this workshop!

Here is another scrapbooking page I made recently - we had a fun time when my sisters and their husbands came to London and we went bowling at all star bowling in Holborn, but first we each had to choose something for each other to wear from Charity shops, hence the colourful page! It was a fun day and the icing on the cake was that they had rootbeer!

This is a page i wanted to do to show pictures of mine and gems birthdays and fathers day which are all in June, I bought the June scrapbooking paper in art base in hornchurch.



I've always been making more cards, I've made some female gingerbread to go with my male ones and tried a snowman version and then I made the cupcake one using some new stamps I bought in Rotterdam.




Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to the spirit of christmas fair at Kensington olympia, it looks like it will be good, with lots of interesting gift and food ideas. And tips for christmas wrapping and even a christmas cupcake demonstration!

I made these cards after being inspired by ideas at the big stamp and scrapbooking show I went to at Alexandra Palace. I took £20 cash and was under the illusion that including the £6 entry fee that was all i was going to spend. I was wrong! It didn't help that every stand took card payments! But my excuse is there is nowhere in London to buy good scrapbooking supplies so I had to make the most if it!

I bought a pack of 50 blank cards and envelopes at the show because I've always enjoyed making cards as well as scrapbooking and today I thought they would be a good way to experiment with the techniques I learned.



I made all the background paper for the cards - its a method where you choose 3 inks starting from light to dark. you screw the paper up then rub the first ink over it, then you brush with water and iron dry. Then you screw up the paper again and rub your second ink over it etc....i really like the effect it gives and its a quick way of making your own paper any colour you want!

I loved this christmas fabric i got at the show so thought it would make a good card using one of the gingerbread man and i love the heart bobby pin! (got this at the show too :)And I made the brown background using the technique above.

At the show they were all using distress inks but I asked if they had to be used and was told no, so I used my normal ink pads I had at home and they worked great.

I chose the lyric 'the end?' for this weeks stm challenge. I found it hard to find a lyric that I had photos for so chose some pics taken on the last day when I was leaving sidolis. It was the end but I've journalled that even though my job had ended I've made friendships that will hopefully last. It was a very emotional day for me!





I used quite alot of different pattern papers together which is unusual for me and used lots of tabs for embellishments and journalling which i made. I like the white pen I used which gave the stitch detail and finished the whole page off with a smattering of purple glimmer mist (didn't want to go to mad in case it went wrong and ruined my page!)

I wanted to scrap this picture of all of us as Bridesmaids at Mel's wedding. I had a 12 by 12 page with the quote on it but didn't want all page to be green so i used black as main background. I made the flowers using vellum. I just bought the new creating keepsakes magazine and it has lots of good ideas for making flower embellishments.

I love the song that scrapping the music have chosen this week by Nickelback - that will be my next project!

I've had this blog for a few months but its taken me this long to figure it out and so here is my first post (better late than never!)

I went home at the weekend back to Shropshire - it was nice going back. I went to all my favourite shops (qvc I missed you!) I got to catch up with my sidoli friends and see everyone in shrewsbury ward. Its good to be able to go back somewhere and feel really welcome and cared for! It was also good to drive again - after 3 months of not driving - didn't think I'd miss it! The main reason I went back was to attend a dessert course my mum got me as a christmas present. The course was at Brompton cookery school in Atcham. It was an amazing day which I really enjoyed and would recommend. It was called different and delicious desserts and they certainly were! The day started at 9.45 and ended at 4 and we went away with four desserts at the end which didn't last long! They were tasty and I can't wait to make them again.

• Orange, chocolate & almond cake
• Poached pear in cinnamon & orange syrup
• sticky date pudding with toffee sauce
• Latvian raspberry & chocolate pancakes (my fave!)

The tutor was easy going and fun and there were only 7 people on the course so it was a good number. We had a delicious lunch of Goats cheese salad made by our tutor and finished off with our very own poached pears served with mascarpone. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the desserts but maybe when I've recreated them at home I can put them up.