Life {Monday 24th}

This past week I've been having a half term break from school work. I have no finished projects yet to show for it, just a few works in progress, mainly of the sewing kind. But spring is in the air, and I've been finding many opportunities to use my new camera. This morning we had a quick trip a local garden and the light was so warm and bright and everything seemed so right for photography! I followed this robin around for a while and he was most helpful, looking at the camera and staying still for me to take his picture.


These muffins are the result of a half an hour spent with a little friend of mine. It's so sweet to see her enthusiasm for things like licking the spoon and washing up!


The daffodils are out, hooray! Every time I catch sight of them above my desk I'm happily reminded of the slow shift in the seasons.


And here is a sneak peak at one of my sewing projects. I'm hoping for to complete this pot holder and write up a tutorial sometime soon.

I do hope you enjoy the week that lies ahead and that the lovely weather will continue!

Valentine's Red Velvet Heart Cake

I made this cake early because it was actually an engagement cake to celebrate today. I wanted to use red velvet cake and a heart shaped tin, which I think worked well. The recipe for the cake was from The Pink Whisk blog, and used gel food colouring rather than loads of liquid food colouring. You would need about one and a half tubes of Dr. Oteker gel food colour in red. It looks really red inside it's just where the edges are browned more the colour doesn't show through as strong! The recipe made 24 cupcakes, which was three layers in a medium-sized tin for me! Taste-wise, I don't think the recipe was completely perfect but my family and I really enjoyed it. I am excited to try one with beetroot next!

The cream cheese icing is from the same blog's recipe, and I mixed in 100g of cooled melted white chocolate at the end. It tastes absolutely divine with the tangy cream cheese and sweet white chocolate and deliciously creamy! I used a palette knife to smooth the icing in between the layers. It behaved really well as it wasn't too thick or thin!

For finishing touches I simply used dark chocolate and beetroot chips which I think look like red petals or confetti!. For the chocolate I simply used a peeler to make little curls. The recipe for the beetroot chips is here, the only changes I made were to use no salt or pepper, and I thought I could get away with baking them at the same temperature as the cake but they were a little bitter tasting then. Also, using a one small beetroot made just enough and I thought they looked better smaller.

Bible Posters 5: John 3:16

One of the things I love to design are posters of bible verses. I have been working on creating digital copies of some of these lately. As the first series on my blog, I am going to show these, one at a time, on Sundays (yes, today it's late!) on the blog. I hope you like them. At the moment I want all my posters to stay here on my blog, so I have labeled them with my blog address. 

I saw this idea on Pinterest where someone had written out John 3:16 and marked out the letters of the word valentine. This was interesting to me as I thought about how the verse about God's love could be related to valentine's day, which is about our love for others.  God's love is far a greater, deeper, and truer love than any emotion a human can feel. We cannot fully understand his love, but we can see it evidenced in our lives and in all the world around us. In no way is this love better demonstrated than on the cross, where he sacrificed Jesus for us. Our love is often based on selfishness, but God's love is demonstrated in an act of amazing selflessness- he died for us! And as the verse says, this love brings life to us, because it frees us from sin. If Valentine's day is about celebrating love, what better love do we have to celebrate than His?

I made these posters using picmonkey.com free photo editing, adding text to a background found online. I used several effects and couldn't choose which I like best! Which one do you prefer?

New Camera!

For a long time I've been looking at beautiful DSLR photography and made a little wish for the future… that one day I would get one of those lovely big professional looking cameras with the cool lenses. And in January, part of that dream came true, when I brought the camera body. Today the lens arrived and so now I will be taking photographs with a Cannon DSLR. It isn't top of the range or even new but a big improvement to my the digital camera I have been shooting on before. I'm really exited to be using my new camera and using manual with some tips from my older sister. Here are some of my photos using manual mode.

Valentine's Wax Resist Card

So many of the valentine's card designs I've seen around the web are very simple designs and I've been wondering if I could create something similar. The card I came up with only took about 5 minutes to create from start to finish and it was super easy too! Try making your own card with a unique design to give to someone you love next week!

Supplies needed:
•   Blank white greeting card
•   Drawing pencil and rubber
•   Wax crayons
•   Watercolour paint
All you need to do is be able to create a design using words and/or pictures and copy it onto your card in pencil. Draw your own design in rough a few times first so that you can tweak it until you are happy with it. If you're having a hard time with this you could find a design and copy it.

Rub out the design so only the faintest lines are showing as a guide for the next step, where you will draw over it.

Test out your crayons on a piece of paper and then cover with a thin wash of paint. If the paint comes away from the crayon. Wax crayons and watercolour paints are the things to use. Trace over the design in your crayons.

Cover the design with a thin wash of watercolour paint in a complimentary colour. Leave to dry with the corners weighted down to stop the card drying out of shape.

Happy February!

Happy February to all blog readers and I hope you're looking forward to this month! This month I'm hoping to move into more art, craft, and sewing related posts and what a better month to start than the month of love! And because Valentines is on the 14th, and this is 14 things,  I've created an inspiration board with fourteen items from around the web to kick-start creativity. Check out for craft and card-making ideas, sewing tutorials, recipes, gifts ideas, and something for the home too!

Art:
Love One Another Art Print valentines art prints from jdc to brighten your home- jonesdesigncompany.com

Craft:

Valentine's Day School Lunch Notes free printable love notes- chickabug.com
(Check out their valentines store for more gorgeous printables!)

Card-Making:
Valentine's Wax Resist Card tutorial on my blog- 14-things.blogspot.co.uk

Fashion:
Butterfly Printed Silk Scarf any one of these beautiful silk scarves would make a lovely gift- uk.monsoon.co.uk

Food:
Rhubarb and Ginger Breakfast Muffins a delicious breakfast recipe for the 14th, or any day this month- keziacooks.blogspot.co.uk

Chocolate French Toast make your own chocolate chip artisan bread- simplysogood.com

and top with cream and strawberries- myweirdlifeunderarock.blogspot.co.uk

Valentine's Oreo Pops step-by-step photographic instructions for how to make these sweet treats- lilluna.com

Whale You Be My Valentine? whale cookie recipe and free printable treat bag labels- bakerella.com

Gifts:

Lip Gloss how to make lip gloss yourself- joythebaker.com

Knitted Hearts download this pattern for free and knit up some super cute and soft hearts- magpiepatterns.com

Home:
Floral Love Cushion
a beautiful cushion available in three colours- dotcomgiftshop.com

Sewing:
Heart-Shaped Pot Holders a charmingly cute pattern with instructions- marthastewart.com

Love Note Valentine's Day Bunting free tutorial on how to sew 14 pouches, each with a love note, for each day leading up to valentines-  lilluna.com

Love Birds embroidery pattern by polka and bloom- magpiepatterns.com