Batman Minion Cake (Daughter's 14th)

My daughter asked for a minion cake;only dressed as batman. He's made from two square madeira cakes, halved and sandwiched together with jam and buttercream, with the risen middle part of the cake ontop for his domed head. I managed to colour the white roll out icing all the colours needed, although the black took so much colour paste I sent hubby out to buy ready coloured for the light saber. The brown was tricky because the ratio was difficult to get right, so after a quick google I used cocoa powder (well, drinking chocolate because I'd used the last of the cocoa powder,oops) which worked well. He took two days to make but I'm pleased he turned out so cute.  

Light Saber Cake (Youngest Son's 10th)

My son asked for a black light saber, (something about the video game he plays). I made two chocolate whisked sponges but rolled one length ways and one width ways. It is filled with jam and buttercream and covered in roll out icing, the black already coloured.

SOLD Knitted Jack Frost

I am selling this one for charity because I adore Jean Greenhowe's designs and love to knit them but she does not allow you to sell them for your own profit. She does give her permission to sell them for charity or the local school/church which i will pass on to them. Jack Frost is carrying a pail for the frost and a brush to frost everything over. I've left the pail open so you can fill it with sweets instead. He's taller than a 30cm ruler and costs £30 plus p&p (lowest at the time).

SOLD Knitted White Christmas Fairy Mice

I have made these 3 White Fairy Mice by Alan Dart. He allows you to sell them provided you give him credit for the design, duly done (thanks Alan). They are for sale individually or as a three. One in a blue dress, one in a yellow dress and one in a pink dress, all with sparkly silver wings, star and hanger. They are £18 for the set plus p&p (lowest possible at time). You are not just paying for the materials but for a lot of intricate knitting, assembly, care and time taken, to make them look just like the design, plus they are stuffed with fire retardant filling for safety.  

If you are interested in buying them please leave your e-mail address as a comment and i will get in touch via e-mail. Your e-mail address will NOT be on view because i have to verify comments first so only i will see your e-mail address. I can also post outside the uk once a postage price is agreed. 

Thank you for looking. 

Knitted Halloween Characters

Just a few Knitted Characters for Halloween as I was in the flow of knitting. They hardly took any time at all and the spider was made mostly by my 9 year old son.

Halloween Cupcakes

Red velvet cupcakes (recipe from issue 7 of Cake Decorating magazine). Decorated with glacé icing and feathered to look like a spiders web. The spooky cupcake picks came with the special  edition Halloween magazine.

Again red velvet cupcakes, but they were supposed to be scary pumpkins only i put the orange sugarpaste icing on the cakes before reading the instructions for using the stencil.  It was impossible to stencil on the cakes, it should have been done flat before putting on the cakes. They don't look very scary now but tasted lovely.

Halloween Cookies

One each of the Halloween cookies just to show the shapes. Ended up with about 50 after using the chocolate cookie recipe in the cake decorating magazine (issue 3). Very easy to roll and cut but cookies were too soft for me, i like a bite and a crunch to mine. No time for icing to decorate as a last minute decision, we don't 'do' Halloween usually!

Hessian Appliqué Potato Sacks

2 meters of Hessian for £6, made into 4 large potato sacks 30" by 20". That's only £1.50 each, you can't buy them for that! A bit plain though, so I added some appliqué letters and potatoes, all cut by hand. Useful for the potatoes from our allotment! 

Small Recovered Cushion with Zip

I made this cushion cover in a couple of hours and it has a Zip! 'Tis my husband's neck pillow for his chair and desperately needed recovering. I bought the fabric from the charity shop for abut 40p and had the zip from years ago in my stash. The fabric was a type of wrap and although it looks snagged, that's the way it's supposed to be.

Flourless Chocolate Raspberry Cake (Hubby's birthday)

For my husband's birthday last week i wanted to make this cake because he loves raspberry ripple ice cream, unfortunately I now know this does not extend to fresh raspberries; but he liked the chocolate cake part. The recipe came from 'The Home of Fabulous Cakes' currently on TV, hosted by Fiona Cairns, who made William and Kate's cake for the Royal Wedding. The cake uses toasted ground hazelnuts instead of flour and  the egg whites had to be whisked like a meringue before being incorporated into the mixture. It's topped with a chocolate ganache then the raspberries. My first go at ganache and it worked, I especially loved the taste of hazelnuts through the cake too; I love hazelnuts..

Zingy. The EDF Energy Mascot

I found a free knitting pattern on the internet for Zingy but there wasn't a picture to show the finished toy. He's cute but I think he should have a fatter bottom half, so think I'll re-work it.

Knitted Shepherds and Sheep

The Shepherds

The Sheep

All Together

How big?

The last few members of the Nativity Scene I knitted for a friend's daughter, for her classroom at Christmas. Now the extras are ready to join them this Christmas.

Butterfly and Cupcake Iced Cookies

These biscuits were just extras after making the cookie stacks earlier. The butterfly and cupcake biscuits were made with the cutter that came with the cake decorating magazine. Instead of run out icing I rolled out ready to roll white regal icing very thinly using two (clean) plastic rulers as depth guides and my fantastic mini silicone rolling pin. Pink paste colouring was added to the white icing for the top of the cupcakes. They were finished off with soft peak royal icing in white for the bottom of the cupcakes and the butterfly bodies, and red for the 'cherries'. The pink edible glitter that came with the magazine was used on two of the butterflies and I bought blue, (from a lovely lady with a stand in Hartlepool indoor market) for another two butterflies, and hologram white, used on the top of the cupcakes. The second photo is a bit darker to help show the glitter better.

Wedding Cake Cookie Stacks

From the new cake decorating magazine issue 21. I just had to try these, they look so special. The originals were pink but I chose to make variations of blue as I'm not a pink person. Only took two days, one to make the biscuits and flowers, the other to ice and assemble. I used the cutters I had, not having the five petal flower cutters and I think it has worked well. Oh and I bought some edible glue! to stick the flowers on.

Crochet Circular Doll Blanket

When i was little one of my dolls had a circular blanket, i still have them in the loft. Unfortunately i ended up with the hole in mine, fortunately i can crochet so i made a new one. (I'll try to find the original i used as a pattern). 

Blue Crochet Squares Teddy Blanket

What to do with a few crochet squares i'd made just faffing about? Well, I added a few more with the oddments of wool i had left that matched and made a blanket for a blue teddy bear. (not the ongoing project; still ongoing!)

Crochet Baby Blanket

I crochet this last year for an expectant mum where i worked at the time. Forgot to add to my blog then but reminded as i'm working on another crochet project right now, hopefully to be finished soon if it works out; a bit of an experiment and modification. 

Chocolate Moulded Topped Chocolate Mini Cupcakes

My youngest son (age 9) made these for his teacher as a leaving present. They are mini chocolate cup cakes with lilac buttercream on top with chocolate moulded teddies, lego men, lady and baby robots.

21st Two Teir Cake (Second Eldest Son)

I made this special cake for my second eldest son's special birthday. Madeira cake for both teirs. I added sparklers later too.

Miniature Perfume Bottles

After a lot of trial with various glues, I finally managed to make these miniature perfume bottles from an old bracelet, without them falling apart again. Epoxy glue, where you mix two parts together was the answer.

Small Fondant Covered Cakes

This is what the madeira cake was for! Again from the new cake decorating magazine. The recipe used fondant icing sugar which just needs water but yet again i didn't read to the end so didn't have any! However, here's what  i did do which worked a treat. use 200g normal icing sugar, make as water icing i.e. 2 to 3 tablespoons of water but add 1 tablespoon of glycerine (like the food colour/flavour tiny bottles from the supermarket) and a drop of food colouring. I repeated this for each of the four colours and it was enough to cover four pieces each, with enough left over for the piped decorations,

Coffee and Walnut Loafs

Two coffee and walnut cakes topped with butter cream and half walnuts. I needed something else for the oven to save electricity while cooking the maderia cake for the next project (which took a while to cook). The recipe came from the new cake decorating magazine. A lovely surprise to end up with two, i never read the recipe all the way through so found out late on that the mixture needed splitting into two tins!

Home Made Easter Eggs

I was so excited to find some easter egg moulds in Tesco. Once set, the eggs were easy to get out of the silicone mould. Need to practice more to get the inside smoother and in tempering the chocolate properly to avoid those white patches. (The easter bunnies, ducks and mini eggs worked well?!) I have found that Galaxy chocolate flows much easier when melted compared to Cabury's. My favourite to eat has always been Cadbury's though! 

Easter Cake

Another make from the new cake decorating magazine. Lots of piped flowers and blue butter icing.



Easter Biscuits

My first attempt at runout icing. Took me all day to pipe outlines and fill each section but well worth it, very tasty. The idea came from the new cake decorating magazine, theirs were butterflies though.