Creative Crafter

I thought these pictures went perfectly with this weeks sketchy thursdays layout. They were taken just before christmas in Covent Garden, at a kissmas tree. You both had to hold onto a strap and then kiss under the mistletoe and this action caused all the lights on the tree to come on!



This is another layout I completed this week, me and my sister Gem went to a cool American diner place when I was visting her in Turks & Caicos, we got some delicious fruit smoothies and the biggest helping of pancakes ever! I had banana and walnut and she had chocolate chip, they were really good!

I used this weeks sketchy thursdays layout design for this page. I am finding I am getting so much more scrapping done since playing along! The pictures were taken in Rotterdam, Holland along their equivalent of the Hollywood star boulevard. We had fun looking at who all the handprints belonged to but not sure if they were all authentic!



I liked the way my tag came out, it started as a clothes label from a top I bought in oasis! And I added a shiny star to the boulevard sign in the photo. Whenever I take photos of my scrapbook pages you seem to be able to see all the smudges and fingerprints i've got on the photos, maybe next time I should wear gloves!



I better go now or I'll miss my train to Leeds! I'm looking forward to a weekend of fun with my sister involving cupcakes, chick flicks and JLS!...

my page is based on this weeks sketchy thursday design

I was looking forward to scrapping these pics of the night we had a fire at the beach on my recent trip to Turks & caicos. By was preparing the sticks for the fire and he asked me and Gem to collect some conch shells. I thought it was for some technical reason but it was just to decorate around the fire!- it definitely added something to the event. We were planning to have smores and I've never had them before. I didn't think I'd like them too much as I'm not a big fan of marshmallows but once its toasted inbetween a graham cracker and some melted milk chocolate (we even tried mint aero which was yum!) it becomes quite attractive! We had such a fun night and I love the picture of us by the title - where you can see our backs round the fire - it looks like we are attending a seance!

I decided to make some mini cupcakes to take to church tomorrow for a visiting teaching get together we are having. I was put in charge of bringing desserts so I'm taking cheesecakes from work but also wanted to make something and then I was planning to take some to FHE the following night. I used the 'love bakery' book and was going to make the Chocolate oreo ones and the banana ones..

First up the oreo chocolate cupcakes. Sainsburys had run out of buttermilk so I substituted it for yoghurt and i didn't want to use white wine vinegar so i substituted it for rice vinegar. I was using my cute new scales I got from my mum at christmas.



When I added the vinegar i got a cool chemical reaction with the baking powder! But I was a bit worried when I tried the batter as it tasted really strong of vinegar!



I got this mini cupcake pan today from John lewis reduced to £12 instead of £20 (my staying in the house all day lasted till 3, then i got a bus to find a craft/home shop my sister had told me about and ended up at Brent cross!) And I was pleased to try out my new mini martha stewart cases.



The batter was supposed to make 12 regular cupcakes but I got 35 minis! So I think the banana cupcakes are going to have to wait for another time or I'll be over run with cupcakes! When I took them out the oven, I couldn't wait to try one to see what it tasted like and luckily it didn't taste of vinegar anymore it just gives it a slight tang combined with the yoghurt and they are so moist.



Oreo cupcakes

60g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
1 egg
20g cocoa powder (sifted)
150g plain flour
140ml buttermilk (I used plain yoghurt)
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
4 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar (I used rice vinegar)

Frosting

2 oreo biscuits (I used mint ones)
40g unsalted butter
85g full fat cream cheese
250g icing sugar (sifted)

Method

1)Pre-heat the oven to 180.
2)Add the butter and caster sugar to the elctric mixer and cream together for 7 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
3)Add the egg and mix for 1 minute
4)Add the cocoa powder and mix for 2 minutes, and then ass the flour and buttermilk and mix for 2 minutes. Add the baking powder and vinegar and mix for a further 2 minutes.
5)Divide the mixture evenly between the cases. Bake for 25 minutes (12-15 for minis)
Remove from the oven and leave to cool

For the frosting..

1)Crush the oreo biscuits with a rolling pin until you have biscuit crumbs.
2)Cream the butter and cream cheese together in the mixer for 2 minutes.
3)Add the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Use a tablespoon to fold in the biscuit crumbs.



The frosting was yummy with the mint oreo and the crumbs look good swirled through the white. But if I was making these again I think I need to find a better replacement for white wine vinegar as I think the rice vinegar gives too much of a tang! Unless they are supposed to be like that....

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!