Party Preparation

Today is another attempt at crafty fantastic-ness. I've put my hand up to throw my sister a sexy grown up 30th birthday dinner party. You know the type classy, elegant, simple, stunning, full of gorgeous beautiful details. Blogland is full of these gorgeous spreads, surely I can pull it off?? Haha. this will be another challenge in my attempts to combine Time and Inclination. I have both at the moment, I just need to fend of their close cousin - Laziness. I have visions of an Amy Atlas style dessert table, but here's where ability might be somewhat challenged.

So anyway..here's what lies before me as I tackle this challenge I'm really excited about.

Back from the Abyss

That's how I feel in regards to my poor neglacted blog. So much has been happening, I've not got around to recording it here. Time or Inclination?? Probably both.

When I started this blog it was my intention to give myself a kick up the butt and get into the crafty jobs I have been prmosing myself to do now for well over 10 years. But, like most things, life has steered me into a direction that has me just a little excited. I've made it clear I love cupcakes. Turns out, alot of other people love MY cupcakes as well. This has been a huge compliment. After making the cupcakes for the fundraiser recently, I recieved so many positive reviews. I've also taken them to work which has always been with great praise.

So can I turn a passion into a career?? I don't know. I spent 10 years working in the food industry, and promised myself I would never work with food again. But here I am, comtemplating the idea of a business with food. Here's teh crazy thing, I don't consider cupcakes food...they're far more incredible to be labelled food. They're little parcels of devine joy! Seriously. Whenever I think of cupcakes it brings a smile to my face. And let's face it, it's hard to feel bad eating a cupcake. Even a crappy day is made better licking the frosting off a gorgeous cupcake, followed by that first great bite. I love seeing the delight of people when given a cupcake. Next time you see people around cupcakes, just watch, people almost always have a smile. That what I love the most about them. Little parcels of devine joy.

So as you can imagine, I love talking about my cupcakes. I'm sure everyone around me is sick of the topic, but I'm ok with that. They're my passion, and I make no apologies. But my passion is certainly being recognised. I've been getting requests for event which has been the most incredible compliment. I've been getting asked how much  charge, which is always the hurdle. The truth is I love making them and I love people eating my cakes. I'd be happy to do them for free! I don't have an answer for that question just yet.

I could go on for hours, but I won't. But I will share some cupcakes I've been designing for an event I've been asked to do. It's an 80th birthday. It's taken me weeks to get these together. I had "writer's block" in coming up with the ideas for these. But I'm really happy with them. I hope they really set off the table they'll be sitting on.

Cakes for a Cause

See my problem?? Neither time or inclination have been in the same too often of late. But that's not to say I haven't been busy. A couple of weeks ago a friend made us all aware of a fundraiser she was putting together to raise money for the Childhood Cancer Association. It's terrible that we even need to be raising money for such causes, but hopefully, with enough effort and research, we can make inroads to erradicating this terrible disease. This was particularly close to home for my friend has her 3 year old godson has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia

Now like many, money has been pretty tight in our home, but I still wanted to be able to help. Knowing this was an event she was creating, and looked to my talents and offered to bake some cupcakes for her to sell. It allowed me to practice decorating, and gave her another way to raise money. I ended up making 8 Dozen cupcakes which she sold for $2 each. I can happily report she sold them all and my small contribution raised her about $190.00

But a huge shout out goes to this incredible woman. Her efforts in a regional town raised just over $1200.00. She had Hot firemen, a sausage sizzle, drinks, coloured hair spray, raffles, and even Darth Vader & Princess Leiya turned up. The raffle baskets were incredible!! The thing that was really special about the event was that EVERYTHING was donated to her. So as well as a special woman putting in hard work for a great cause, an entire community got behind her and offered support. Even her place of work were happy to allow her to use their grounds, and they have the most prominent place in town, right next to the main stop lights!

It's days like this that make you glad you helped, and even though you can have crappy days, and people can be horrible and nasty, by and large, there are still many people trying to do good.

So here are my little creations that did my little bit to help, and I can report I made everything myself, from the cakes, to the icing, to the decorations.

Chocolate Fudge Cakes with Choc Buttercream, topped with Fuchocs

Chocolate Fudge cakes with Peppermint Buttercream

Vanilla Character Cakes

Chocolate Cakes with Vanilla Buttercream and Frangipani's

Vanilla Cakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Cupcake Tuesday

Naughty Corner

That's where I need to be sitting, I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. I can attest it's largely due to time rather than inclination. It's been a crazy month, largely due to work commitments. This is only my second day off in that time. So you can expect some baking to be done later today!

It's funny how so much can happen in such a short time. Most of it has been work related, and I won't bore you with those details. But my baking seems to be moving slowly in the direction of taking orders from people who like my work. This to me is the ultimate compliment. After pushing through my fear barrier of "what if people don't like my cakes?" I've embraced baking and I've been making cakes for every occasion. It's been met with such a positive response.

I've had training courses over the past week, these can be long days taking in information, so just to add some spark I took morning tea in on 2 of the days. Cupcakes and Apple Crumble slice. Some might call it sucking up, I don't care, I love baking, and love people enjoying my baking.

Here are a few of my more recent baking creations..

Happy Mother's Day

A big shout out to all the Mum's today. Forget about changing nappies, washing, dishes, dirty faces and a house that never seems to stay clean! Let the kids spoil you, the mess will be there tomorrow ( and the day after that too!)

I love my 4 monsters. I got a sleep in with breakfast in bed. and here are the socks I got to match the new Pj's they gave me.

Witches Shoes

It's been a crazy past week, so you will have to forgive my absence. I've had shifts that start at 6am and I don't do mornings very well, especially when they are 10-12hours long. So my craftiness has been a bit limited lately. Then ofcourse, the few thngs I have done..I forgot to take photos of. What a dill head!

Last Sunday was the Medieval Festival with my best friends. It was a wonderful day. Full of food, fun and friendship. I mentioned we had planned to take a picnic lunch and spend as little a possible there. I can report all I paid for was my entry fee. That wasn't actually on purpose, but we spent so much time enjoying the sights and each other's company, shopping didn't seem to come into it. It was so relaxed. And I must say, we did enjoy not lining up for 10-15mins for cake and coffee.

It's funny what you see just leisurely sitting back. As soon as we arrived, it was a bit chilly, so out came the thermos with hot water, a cappucino sachet and some home made biccies. Morning Tea - devine!
Lunch time we had the biggest spread that I'm sure we were expecting another dozen people or so! Baked potatoes loaded with toppings, Pesto & sundried tomato scrolls and cupcakes for dessert. We were stuffed, and in need of a nanna nap I can tell you.

Since it was a day that we would all be together, I did make up a small Witches Shoe favor for the girls, and I actually remembered to take photos! You can find the instructions for these from Skip to my Lou

Aren't they cute!

It's about Friends, not Funds

I want to make a huge shout out to my gorgeous, wonderful amazing friends. I love them and know I'm incredibly lucky to know them. They are all extremely different, yet together we all just make sense. Why this big out pouring of love?

Well despite the obvious bonds of friendship, I wanted to share another example of why I love each of them. We have been a happy 4 some who all came together about 10 years ago. In that time an annual tradition of attending the Medieval Festival has become apart of our lives. It's had a few different locations over the years from Carrick Hill, McLaren Vale to now at Gumeracha. It's a gorgeous day that we frock up in beautiful dresses, gorge ourselves on Baked Potatoes, Mulled Wine, Coffee and other amazing tasty delights, and have a great day catching up. It also usually in between 2 of their birthday's. There's jousting, weddings, woodwork, knights, jesters and so many amazing stall holders with incredible trinkets. Yes I'm excited and can't wait for the fair this Sunday!

Now this year has hit 3 of us pretty hard financially, all for different reasons. So to all make it to the fair has meant some creating accounting for us. In talking to one of my friends yesterday we decided, why not take finances out of the day. One of the biggest money pits at the festival is the food. And it's almost one of our favourite parts!! We love having this once small indulgence. The Baked Potato lunch is almost as much of the tradition as the dresses. So this year...we're taking our own!! We'll cook and keep them hot in a thermos. Everyone will bring a different topping. Plus we'll bring other little snippets of indulgence from home. We've almost made it a fun part of the day to make it still indulgent, but be as tight as Alberneza Scrooge. Since we're all participating in the devine picnic spread, no one will be left to feel uncomfortable either way.

Here's an example of our previous picnic spreads when we went to Moonlight Cinemas

We're all looking forward to a great day catching up enjoying the spectacle that if the Medieval Festival.

Here are a few pictures from previous years.