Crafts Beautiful

I'm so very excited to finally be able to share one of the projects I've been working on recently! For the last few months, I've been doing some freelance design work for Crafts Beautiful magazine, and my first project for them is now in print!

The project is for a length of appliquéd cupcake bunting, matching birthday card and place setting and is in the June issue which is out now. It's so exciting to see it in print and I love how they have styled the shots, they've made it look so pretty!

It's seemed like quite a long wait for it to come out - I did the project back at the beginning of Feburary, but that's just the way most magazines seem to work - so far in advance that it's sometimes easy to lose track of what season you are supposed to be designing for. The weirdest thing I always find is doing Christmasy designs in the middle of Summer, there's just something not quite right with that!

I also kept it pretty quiet and only told a handful of people just in case they didn't use it, so it is nice to be able to share it now!

I've also been commissioned to do quite a few more projects in the coming months so fingers crossed I will be in some of the future issues too! It's a really exciting offshoot to my own textiles work, and something which I am really enjoying, so  looking forward to what the next few months will bring...

Anyway talking of work, I really best go get on with some - yesterday I had an impromtu trip to the seaside with a friend - was so lovely to catch up, but what with the bank holiday weekend too, I don't feel like I've done a right lot of work in the last few days and it's starting to build up! 

Oh but one last thing before I go... don't forget my giveaway (for co-incidentally a selection of lovely cupcake goodies) is still running... it ends this Sunday so make sure you enter here to be in with a chance of winning! 

Have a lovely rest of your week, back soon! xx

Cupcake Giveaway!

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Hello! Well I hope you all enjoyed the Royal Wedding celebrations on Friday, wasn't it lovely?! We had friends over to watch it during the day but there were no street parties near us and we weren't organised enough to hold our own! Was a lovely day though - thought Kate just looked absolutely beautiful, so radiant! Hope you had fun whatever you were doing...

Anyway, back to what I'm supposed to be writing about - it's taken a little while but I've finally crept up to 200 blog followers so it's now time to announce my giveaway to celebrate!

Have been thinking long and hard about what the prize should be, and have decided that it will be a giveaway with a cupcake theme this time. My cupcake items are some of my most popular, so I will be giving away a little selection to one lucky follower, including...

...a cupcake fridge magnet

 ... a pretty cupcake lavender bag

 and a cupcake writing paper set!

I'm going to try and keep this giveaway super simple this time, unlike in the past where I've had about 5 different ways to enter! So...

How To Enter

♥ To be in with a chance of winning these lovely cupcake goodies, all you need to do is follow my blog - preferably by GFC, and leave a comment below telling me that you are a follower - That's it!

♥ The giveaway will end in one weeks time on Sunday 8th May at 7.00pm GMT, and it is open worldwide so anyone can enter!

♥ As always, if you would be kind enough to tweet/blog/post about my giveaway, I would be so very grateful :) . 

Good luck everyone, hope you have a lovely week. See you back here next Sunday to announce the winner! Jenny x

Hey Little Cupcake!

Over the last couple of months, I've begun supplying several new stockists all around the country, one of which is Hey Little Cupcake!

Hey Little Cupcake! opened in Spinningfields, Manchester in February 2011, selling an amazing selection of yummy cupcakes, alongside a range of cupcake themed gifts. 

The cupcakery stocks a selection of my cupcake badges, mirrors and lavender bags, and just looks like the most amazing place, I can't wait until I'm 'up north' again so I can pop in myself!

How fab does the interior look? Love the bright pink and white floor tiles, and the gorgeous artwork on the walls! And then of course there are the cupcakes themselves...

You can find out more about Hey Little Cupcake! by having a look at their lovely website, or find them on facebook and twitter. And if you are in Manchester, definitely make sure you pay them a visit! Mmmmm yum... if only I didn't live quite so far away! 

Will be doing more blog posts about some of my recent stockists over the next few weeks, but now you are all now suitably hungry for cake, I best go... have a lot of mirror making to be getting on with! Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great rest of your week, 

Jenny x

Images 1, 5 and 6 in this post are copyright of Hey Little Cupcake!

Cupcakes, Mirrors and Blog Award No. 2

I can't believe it's a week already since I last blogged, it's gone by so quickly! I've mainly been working on a couple of new products over the last few days, in particular little handbag mirrors which I make with my trusty badge maker and my new 58mm die!

The first little range is very pretty and girly, featuring cupcakes, butterflies and flowers which are always a favourite of mine. I am so in love with this cute little green daisy fabric, and was very excited this week to find a yellow version too (see below) which of course I bought up for future projects. I just love little ditsy prints like this, especially as their small scale makes them perfect for my little badges and mirrors. I also bought this gorgeous Cath Kidston-esque printed floral fabric, which I just love. It's so bright and cheerful, I really want to make something for the house with it, I just can't decide what!

Ok so back to the mirrors... I'm really pleased with how these turned out, and hope they will be popular as girly gifts.

On a different subject, I also was very honoured this week to receive my second blog award, this time from the lovely Vivienne of Green Rabbit Designs.

This award is different from some of the others in that it celebrates handmade and artisan blogs, with 300 followers or less. The aim is to promote small handmade businesses and encourage more readers to their blogs and more visitors to their online shops, which I think is fantastic. 

I now need to pass this award onto several other crafty/design blogs. Several of the blogs I awarded last weeks 'Stylish Blogger' Award to would have been very deserving of this one too, but to play it fair, I have chosen four different blogs to pass it on to. They are all run by very talented ladies, but do not have too many blog followers yet, so make sure you go and check out their beautiful work...

Caroline Watts Embroidery

Roslyn Mitchell Designs

Artwork by Angie
Sabah Designs 

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend,

Jenny xxx

A day of cupcakes...

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I'm now back from my week away visiting my family up in Shropshire and both my shops are now open again. Had a lovely chilled out week catching up, which was really nice as I don't get the chance to see them very often. Me and my sister Harriet baked some yummy cupcakes together when she came home at the weekend... the icing and decorating part was the most fun - as you can see we were going for the 'anything goes' style of decoration, but I think it works!



The recipe we used for our cakes was taken from a lovely book called 'Bake Me I'm Yours: Cupcakes' by Joan and Graham Belgrove, but I thought I would write it out here in case anyone had the urge to go do some baking!

Chocolate Sponge Recipe (makes 24 medium sized cupcakes)

Ingredients

♥ 3 medium eggs

♥ 175g (6oz) caster sugar

♥ 115g (4oz) self raising flower
♥ 30ml (6tsp) cocoa powder
♥ 1.5tsp baking powder
♥ 1tsp vanilla extract
♥ 175g (6oz) slightly salted butter

Instructions

♥ Pre heat your oven to 170 degrees, and place cases in bun trays
♥ Put sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla extract into food processor and blitz together for 2-3 minutes. Alternatively, mix it all together using a hand held whisk
♥ Sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa together into a separate bowl and then add to the mix gradually, folding with a spatula
♥ Spoon the mixture carefully into the baking cases (be careful not to overfill, they only need one good dollop of mixture each as they do rise a lot in the oven)
♥ Place tray in centre of oven and bake for approximately 16-18 minutes, or until the tops of the cakes spring back when lightly touched
♥ Turn out and allow to cool before the decorating fun begins!



We couldn't decide on which icing to make, so we halved the recipes below and did half pink, half chocolate!

Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients
♥ 225g unsalted butter

♥ 5ml vanilla extract

♥ 450g sifted icing sugar
♥ 40ml cold water
♥ Few drops of food colouring if you want coloured icing

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

♥ 115g soft unsalted butter

♥ 50g cocoa, Dutch processed if possible

♥ 175g sifted icing sugar
♥ 45ml cold water

Instructions

♥ Beat the butter to a cream in a food processor or alternatively use a hand held whisk
♥ For the chocolate recipe, sift the cocoa and icing sugar together and gradually beat into the butter with the water. For normal buttercream, just add the icing sugar and water to the butter, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy, then add the vanilla extract
♥ Add a few drops of colouring to the buttercream mixture if you want coloured icing
♥ Spoon the mixture carefully into an icing gadget with a star nozzle to make lovely swirly patterns
♥ Decorate you cakes with sprinkles, chocolate shavings, silver balls, edible glitter...etc
♥ Sit back and enjoy all your hard work with a well earned cup of tea and a cake!



To be honest, we weren't the most careful or professional cake makers in the world, but we had a fun afternoon all the same!