Pretty Pastels And Florals From Primark

This weekend we took a day trip down to Southampton, my mum stock up at Fabric Land there for her sewing business and they have great shopping there. We also have family there which is why we go so much, otherwise it'd be a long trip for lycra. It was really hot all weekend but especially Saturday, and while I'm trying to snap out of dressing for winter 24/7 I still find myself wearing black jeans and cardigans almost constantly. As I did that day, black jeans, black strap top and black and pink mini kimono - which was light, but still.

So after we got four huge bags of lycra we dumped the bags at my brother's place and headed to Primark. I spent four years of my life working there, some at this store actually so going in midday on a Saturday does not worry me. I know how to shop in Primark, I know how it lives and how it works...I know where the good clothes hide and how the sizing works. Something, I probably shouldn't be too proud of but I am, it's like a marathon and if you don't take it seriously - you won't survive. 

It's nearing the end of the month but I still couldn't resist spending £57 on a few items of clothing but mainly accessories. The first item I found was a blue skirt which fell just below the knee, and I mean 'just'. The thighs don't really come out often so this skirt covers them just enough that I won't wear tights. I love the vintage cute and fullness of this skirt (£10), it also has a pretty and subtle floral pattern which gives it a nice bit of texture without looking like curtains...although I'd still wear a skirt made from old curtains. 

I've seen some prom dresses by Scarlett & Jo in Evans which I love the look of, but want something a bit lighter for the day so tried to re-create the vibe of the look. I found some of their basic round neck tops for £3.50 each which sits really nicely under the skirt. It also covers a good amount of my chest without any spillage - always a bonus, but still looks flattering.

I've always stayed away from belt, why? No idea! But I'm definitely a lover of waist belts. I picked up these beauties from £1 to £2.50 each. I'm not going to lie, I bought a couple of these because they're Figaro colours...the others because they'd look pretty with some of my rockabilly dresses. I teamed the outfit with the back and gold bow belt, it fits really well and is really cute. Must find other things to wear the others with! 

A few of the other things I bought were two chunky floral and pastel necklaces. They make quite a statement and not normally something I would go for but I think they're really summery and WILL make an effort to wear more jewellery. I love the wire headband I picked up, I have a couple proper ones at home but this was a nice light one to wear, I have a weird shaped head and the bigger ones can often shift around but I'm hoping this one holds a bit better.

 

One of my favourite purchases was this mint satchel bag, again, most of what I bought was to match my car. I have zero shame and I don't care. I will not be happy until I find a mint coloured dress with the perfect cut...but I may just make one. 

I bought a few other little essentials that weren't noteworthy but I find that place so good for all the little thing, there are gems there but you do have to hunt if you're not a size ten and 5"8 to get things to fit as you want when you have a particular idea like I did. Luckily, I found exactly what I was looking for. We also stopped for a quick bite to eat at a new American style diner Buzz in Southampton, do the biggest portion of non-sharing wings I've seen, alco milkshakes and epic burgers. My favourite was the chef's gourmet special - anything with a slab of goat's cheese is a winner in my books. 

There were also these amazing wedding cars on Above Bar Street...totally want something
like this in my life.

Hopefully there'll be more posts of me looking like an actual girl...probably still in black.

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Cath Kidston Inspired Cake Pops

It feels like months since I've made cake pops, and probably because, it actually has been months! Which is a shame as I love making them, I've just been too busy so it was nice to have time to do some properly when asked to make a batch.

This particular batch were to be very pretty, pastel, floral and Cath Kidston inspired. Who doesn't life a bit of Cath Kidston? The colours, flowers, polka dots... it's all too cute and I love it.

I made three designs, two floral ones which were similar but with different base colours and one with polka dots standing up in floral cases. The two floral ones were made from being dipped in coloured white chocolate. Half in pink and half in pale blue.



For the floral part I cut out circles of fondant and set them on the cake pops with royal icing, for the flowers I cut out red fondant with flower plungers, added a gold pearl for the bud and again placed them on with royal icing. For the stalk and leaves I piped on green royal icing and to finish piped white pearls around the design.



The polka dot ones were sooo easy to make and look super cute. I saw these mini cupcake cases in the garden center and the floral design fitted in so well I couldn't pass them by. So when I had dipped the cake pops in white chocolate, just before they were set I put them head down in the cases so they stood up. To make them even sweeter I piped pink polka dots around them and boom, they were finished.

To make them look more professional I wrapped them up in their own little individual cellophane bag and silver tie. When they were finished they looked great and like something out of Laura Ashley and I hear they went down a storm.

I even got to use my Wilton cake pop decorating stand that I got for Christmas for the first time. This shows you just how long it's been since I made them.



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Baking Buys

Another Baking Buys post, I can't seem to stop shopping at the moment, not healthy for the bank balance...I just can't help myself. Some of these were bought a little while ago and kept for this post that you will have seen me use in past posts.

On one of my last trips I managed to pick up some red,white and blue sprinkles, red writing jelly (these use this a lot on their iced cakes), cake flags and also some tutti fruitti flavouring, it's a tiny bottle but it's super concentrated so a little goes a long way :) You'll see these feature in my next post so keep a look out.

The first of which are my Norway purchases, these were actually bought a while ago but I've only used them recently which reminded me that I actually had them! Today is actually Norway's independence day, I really wish I could have been there but instead I had the day off. Normally we do something fun like going to a theme park but there's been so much going on it didn't feel right this year so we had a nice day at home with a bit of shopping, eating and baking. Which is why I bought some of the following bits you'll see in a moment. Norway love their baking - LOVE IT! I love trawling their baking aisles in the shops as they stock so many great products we just don't get that would be so useful.



Last Week I had ANOTHER shopping trip, I couldn't resist popping into TK MAXX where I picked up this cupcake cutter, I've been wanting one for ages and this one was perfect. I also picked up a plain icing rolling pin which I forgot to take a picture of before I covered it in icing sugar, it's great for fondant and gumpaste work. Which bring me to my trip to HobbyCraft, there I bought two boxes of gum paste mix, I never bought ready rolled until my mum pointed out the price difference, £5.99 for the mix, £12.99 for the ready to roll stuff. As I was buying it for my brother's wedding cake, not knowing how much the mix made I bought two, but after mixing it (in fear) I discovered one mix made up 500g of gum paste - exactly the same as the ready made but less than half price! Love it.

 My next hit was Tesco and the garden center. I love the new products the garden center is stocking, I couldn't resist the patterned rolling pin, set of girly cookie cutters, apple blossom plungers and the cute polkadot petit fours cases. The range is so reasonable the rolling pin was only £6.99 - bargain!

 My next hit was Tesco, it's not that exciting for most but I found the blue table cover in the picture above, actually I got the cupcake one there too! I also found the Jubilee golden syrup tin, I think this would love lovely in my baking room when it's empty to hold some of my various tools, and a nice keepsake :)

Finally I hit my town to pick up something to help me make my cake pops more rounded, I found this Joseph Joseph measuring spoon, I have tried it out and while it doesn't make them perfect it definitely helps. In another little shop I found these star cookies cutters for making a star tree, I know it's stupidy early.... but I thought these would come in handy for Christmas, or do you think I could use them at other times?

 

Now I did do a big order from Sew White, a lovely website my work friend told me about, but I've already tried some of the products out so I think they need a post all to themselves :)

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Flowers and Butterflies Giant Cupcake

It feels like a while since I did a giant cupcakes, it probably hasn't actually been that long, maybe I was just having withdrawals! So I was really happy when I was asked to make a girly giant cupcake for the weekend. My favourite brief as you all know, I love the doing girly ones I find them so easy I seem to make them without thinking which leaves me more time to clean up the kitchen I've just completely destroyed!

I think flowers look really lovely on a cake and I've done so many with hearts and stars on I thought maybe flowers would be a nice look and perfect for the girly theme. I made blue fondant rolled roses dusted with gold cake glitter Choccywoccydoodah style. I still had some rice paper butterflies left so thought these would look really nice dotted around the flowers and leaves, I did think about making fondant butterflies but these are so detailed and delicate they were much cuter.

The actual cake is vanilla as is the buttercream which is coloured with pink liquid colour and beaten within an inch of it's life! The bottom, the 'case' is covered in jam and white fondant which looks really crisp against the pink top. As the roses have gold glitter I thought a nice gold sparkly bow would match quite nicely, I didn't tie it all the way round as it's a wide ribbon it looked a bit heavy so a big bow looked perfect.

I have another cake to do over the weekend, so lookout for another post soon :)

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Baby Shower - Pregnant Belly Cake

It was one of my friends suprise baby shower last month, and one thing I of course had to make her was a cake! I wanted something a little bit different and even a lil sexy as that is what she is! So this cake was perfect, cute and looked brilliant!

All pregnant women love chocolate, fact. So this cake was made from chocolate sponge, and as she is having a little boy I filled and dirty iced it with baby blue buttercream.

I coloured fondant with Sugarflair's Baby Blue food paste. I added some white fondant to look like edging and ribbon.

To carve the belly I made to sponge cakes and let them rise fully so one had a good curve. I then put it in the freezer overnight so I could then carve the belly smoothly to get the perfect bump shape.

She loved it and we all had good fun eating her cake stomach! Pin It Now!