Cupcake Week Buzz!

So, the cupcakeyness is going well!

I've been working like a dog this week, trying to put together the daily cupcakes for posting on my flickr (which is probably the best place to see the latest creations!) and working full time and working on my new jewellery range, which I announced yesterday via twitter would be called 'Afternoon Tea'. It's based on cakes, strawberry jam, sparkly, girly accents and vintage brass - gorgeous, fun girly pieces that look great together or on their own! Right now, I have some fabulous charms on the drying rack that I'm going to turn into bracelets and pendants, some filigree brass cameos which will have long, dangly chains, and some sparkly elasticated bracelets. I'll be making some new earrings this week too, and will be releasing everything over the weekend in my Etsy, Folksy and website shops! There'll also be some fab exclusive pieces for the website, more about those tomorrow :)

So, I challenged myself to make a different cupcake every single day to get me in the Afternoon Tea mood! Here are the first part of the weeks bakery fabulousness!

Clockwise from top: vanilla with pink buttercream and sprinkles, white chocolate chunk with green fondant sweetie icing, lemon with hot pink icing & vanilla with white chocolate topping. I've just finished baking today's batch, and I'll take a photo of them tomorrow when it's light. They are mini chocolate cupcakes with chocolate & cherry topping - yum, my favourite yet. And yes, I probably will have to go to the gym next week (and for many more weeks) to work off all this cake I am consuming. But I need energy and sustenance for how busy I am right now!!

Keep an eye out, as tomorrow, along with the choccy cakes and the rcipe for some lovely cupcakes for you to make, I'll be showing a few sneak pieces of my brand new collection!

Cupcake Week

I will be launching my Spring range on Saturday the 28th of February! I'm so excited. It has a Cupcake theme and I have lots of pieces on the drying rack. The whole range will be available across all my stores, Etsy, Folksy and on twinklyspangle.com, which exclusive pieces being made available for my website only!

In order to celebrate, and get in the cupcake mood, I'll be making a different kind of cupcake every single day until next Saturday! Should be fun, right? I'll be updating with the Cupcake Of The Day daily here and on Flickr, where I hope to also post some shots of the baking process. I have to warn you, I'm not a baker! I can just about make the odd pancake should the need arise, but I'm generaly manage to cause some sort of disaster. I've cleaned my whole kitchen specially for the occasion, and I aim to find someone different to try each days cupcake and explain why I'm doing it to! I hope it will spread a bit of the twinklyspangle word. So, let's get started!

Cupcake Of The Day - Saturday

Vanilla Cupcake with Pink Buttercream Frosting and Sprinkles

They were delicious! I managed to get my fellow Saturday workers at Siblu to try them, and I think they went down okay, although everyone thought I was a little odd. The icing was a little sugary though - I used fondant icing rather than standard icing sugar - possibly a mistake.

Later on today I'll be making mini lemon cupcakes, yummy!

New Earrings and Tizzalicious Studs

Firstly, Kitschensinkuk, the store I bought the shrink plastic from was WHSMITH. Those bastards! I can't be too annoyed though, because it did say in the instructions (VERBATIM!):

"You may not get a perfect result. In fact, this is a fun product not for professional use"

Great, well, thanks for saying that on the outside of the pack rather than inside so I didn't know until AFTER I bought two packs at 9.99 each.

I have some fun new earrings in a new style for twinklyspangle. I plan to stock many more of these in lots of colours, but for now, a yellow version is available in my Etsy shop, to see how well they go down:

They are glittery and really lightweight. If you want a special colour, contact me and let me know.

I also saw these today, by the lovely Tizzalicious. She makes really fun kitschy jewellery in many colours that I just adore. I saw these and they reminded me of Amsterdam (she is Dutch, I thinks) I wish I had them for my last trip there!!

A Shrink Plastic Meltdown

I spend a large proportion of my free time colouring in shrink plastic. I do it during quiet periods at work, and also at home in the evening. Thus, when I make a mistake, or if the shrinking warps or goes funny in the oven, or sticks to itself, or I forget to punch a hole in it (tally so far - 3 times) I get very irritable for about an hour. But nothing compared to the horrendeousness that was last week. I spent all of Thursday getting my printer working. Because I bought a cheap deskjet in a sale at Wilkinson, I have to reinstall the drivers every so often, which takes about an hour to download, then another half an hour to install. Then another hour working out why it is just feeding paper through and not actually printing anything (no reason found as yet - but printing seems to occur 1 out of 10 sheets)

Anyway, once it was set up and I had sorted out what I was going to print on the new inkjet shrink plastic I had bought for 2.50 a sheet in the Rip Off Store Ltd, and printed it out, and cut it out with scissors and actually got it into the oven, the stuff warped so tragically that I had to start again. I went through about 8 sheets trying to get it right, and eventually ended up with a sort of oval shape which I quite liked. So I started varnishing and went to bed.

I woke up Friday morning, to this:

As you can see, the ones I have varnished reacted badly to the ink/varnish combo. Despite very kind comments on flickr, I have yet to see how I can use these. So I tried again.

And forgot to punch holes in the big ones.

FINALLY I worked out that I needed to spray them with acrylic spray first. One layer didn't do it (another batch wasted) but now I have a batch ready to varnish that have a very thick layer of the spray, so *fingers crossed* I think I may have cracked it. I'm bored out my skull with the repetition and probably won't bother with inkjet shrinkies again. Grr!

Anyway, I'll show you them when they are done. Rant over.

On a lighter note, we are getting a kitten! Here he is, the little scamp:

It will be two weeks until they are ready to be parted from their Mummy. We don't know what we are calling him yet, I just hope the Big Ginger Beast (our other cat) doesn't eat him. We already have a cat, a baby and a tarantula, and people are advising me against adding to my brood. But quite frankly, I'm feeling hormonal and it's either the kitten or another baby. (!) I've gone for the kitten, less pain, extra weight and general expense.

Please don't forget to check out www.twinklyspangle.com for my latest stuff - we are currently still offering free shipping on all purchases.

www.twinklyspangle.com

My website is finally launched!! My Dad has been working super hard to get it all up and running and look how I like it, there are still a few tweaks needed, but it is ready to go!

Therefore, if you want to purchase some twinklyspangle goodness, I would be much obliged for you to do it through the new website, to show my Dad it wasn't all a complete waste of time. As a thank you, I'll throw in a free bundle of goodies for my first customer on the website :)

You can check out what we have listed there here! I'm so excited! I would love to know what you think :)

Now I'm obsessed with dotcoms, what are your favourite craft-based websites and why?

New Crafty Crush

Remember when I was obsessed with omglia? Well, I still think she is fab but she seems to have run off to have a 'real' life (I mean, really, how rude). So I have a new girly crush in the form of the most beautiful and interesting Kitschensink.

She makes funny pendants out of comic books that I adore, a really original take on the resin jewellery craze. She seems to be refusing to put them in her Etsy shop though - grrr.

She also makes fun heart rings and lego block jewellery - this snowflake ring is my fav because it's so cute, and obviously, since there seems to be no let up in the weather over here (it's snowing again!!) I might have to treat myself to one if she has one left.

I also love her new lockets on beaded chains, how cute and kitsch are these?

Anyway, I'm following all the useful forms of stalking that the Internet allows - twittering her, flickering her and peering continuously at her shop & blog.

In other news, I am feeling very unwell, I have a cold that I cannot shift, there is a bit of crap stuck in the lens of my Dad's digital camera that I can't seem to shift therefore cannot take any macro shots (please Easter Bunny bring me a DSLR - any old one will do). The baby is teething, the boyfriend has been off work most of the week with the snow and has spent all week shouting obnoxiously into his Xbox 360 headset and making me want to kill him. And it is my birthday today and I'm utterly skint.

The Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake Recipe

Had great fun at work today making this, the chocolate cake in a mug & microwave! It was surprisingly nice, and we did it with hot chocolate powder instead of cocoa power - still great! The chocolate chips are a must :)

The most dangerous cake recipe 5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (high). The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. EAT! (It can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

New Look

I've finally finished working on my new look blog, which will match the new design and launch of my website, http://www.twinklyspangle.com/.

I hope you like it!! I think it's a bit more streamlined and I love the colours, please let me know what you think!!

In other news, I have been featured on the adorable niftyknits's blog. You can read the interview here

I'll be returning the favour shortly, but in the meantime, here is a cheeky peek at something from her shop:

It's exactly what you think!! She's a rascal, that niftyknits.