Cards, cakes and Christmas

Where did the week go? Here are the cards I have made this year with a fun stamp from Paperartsy, stamped in Cranberry with a dotty stamp as background and finished off with some stickles glitter glue in red with gold bits. Inside it says Happy Christmas again in Cranberry. I always wonder whether I will go the whole hog and make 80 or so cards or just do some special ones. For the last 4 years I have chosen a simple design and made them all! It gets a little tedious towards the end but I do it in stages and it is fun to choose a different design each year.


This was the advent wreath I made last weekend. I started this tradition many years ago when the girls were small and they used to take it turns to light the candle(s) at dinner time. It always marked the beginning of the Christmas season for us, when we would get out the boxes with all the books, music, Christmas tree ornaments and special things to put around the house. Now there is only one 'girl' at home plus a lodger it feels very different but it is fun to do it just the same.
Apart from some work based things this week I managed to also visit a good friend with two little girls - the ones I made the totes for. So I decided that it was time to make some fairy cakes both for them and for us. The icing is a little too 'Barbie pink' for me so I must try the colour paste that Jane Brocket talks about in her book. I fancy lavender fairy cakes with lavender icing at some point soon although that sounds less Christmas and more Spring perhaps.

It is daughter no.4's birthday tomorrow and she will be 20!! She doesn't want to be 20 so the celebrations are to be kept to a minimum!! Breakfast in bed (freshly made fruit juice, croissants and maybe some coffee on a pretty tray with a simple Lily in a vase perhaps?) followed by a small gift and then off to London to see the Millais exhibition at Tate Britain. We will then have lunch (not sure where yet but she wants to go somewhere different!) and then home for me and I think she is staying on to meet one of her sisters. The partying with friends happens this evening when she gets back from work with another trip into London. Now shall I make a cake or not? Doesn't seem like she will be around much to eat it at this rate and I have a scarf to finish yet which I want to wash, dry and package for her for tomorrow. Maybe the cake will wait for a day or so?