celebration

It's been a while since I have posted tales of my baking skills on here so I thought I'd share with you some birthday fun that I made today for my good friend Holly. You may remember the rainbow cake that I made for Amber - this time I decided to try some rainbow cupcakes. I used the same cake recipe from the Whisk Kid blog that's mentioned in the former blog post, but this time instead of baking separate layers of cake you simply layer the different mixes in your paper cases. I suggest that you use piping bags to do this - I used tea spoons and it took me about an hour! The final cakes came out super though, and I finished them with some american 'carnival' sprinkles that I purchased from Home Sense. Enjoy!

bakery

It's been a bit of a large break in between blogs at the moment as I have been working on lots of different things. Today though, I can reveal something I have been cooking up 'Willy Wonka' style for my friend Amber's 18th birthday. A few months ago, she found an image of a rainbow cake and asked me if I thought it was possible to make - so I decided to make one for her birthday. I settled on a brilliant recipe from a blog called The Whisk Kid, whose recipe was not only fantastically written and easy to follow, but the photographs were to die for! So much so that it made me want to be a food photographer for a long time after I read this recipe...

 Anyway, I managed to get some Sugarflair gel food colouring from a brilliant local shop called Angel Cake (which you can also get online at places like this) and after two days of mixing with six separate wooden spoons and icing with a massive spatula, I arrived at the cake. Here's a few pictures of my progress (sorry for the quality, ridiculously bright cake batter and camera lenses don't mix!)

Part of the mixing process - it's a good job our kitchen is heavily overstocked when it comes to bowls and wooden spoons!

The finished cake - I opted for a lilac buttercream over a white crumb coating to hide the cake's gloriously colourful centre.

The offcuts of the trimming process demonstrate how bright the final product was!

 I presented the cake to her this morning in a custom cakebox, with a logo on the lid that I designed myself (above) so that she has something of the epic cake to keep once she has eaten it all. I even managed to sneak a piece of cake for myself and managed to get a couple of better quality photos for you.

Happy 18th Birthday Amber!

lapse

So it's been a month since I last posted, and I have lots of things to report. Firstly, I have put up my degree show and have finished all of my work! Our results came out on Tuesday and I got a 2:1, which I am really happy with. It hasn't quite sunk in that I will be leaving Falmouth this time next week, ready to join the wider world. It was also my birthday yesterday and I had a brilliant day thanks to my fab flatmates.

This amazing cake was lovingly made for me by my flatmates - Despite the appearance of it (and my cards actually) I was actually 22, not 7!

Another brilliant opportunity I had this week was to work with Natasha, a friend and colleague graduating from UCF this year from my course. She is an aspiring illustrator and photographer, and we decided to have an impromptu photoshoot around the theme of mimes. This is me posing on her bathroom floor! This was a really fun shoot and it was a great way of getting ourselves inspired to do more creative things with the freedom of this small amount of time left at university. Natasha has a brilliant website and for more of her photography you can visit her Facebook Fan page.

birthday

So here I am back in Falmouth. Time for a new term, some new work (hopefully a feast for your eyes too!) and my final year of being a student. Hopefully it will be a good one!

Before I left home, it was my friend Amber's 17th birthday, and as a birthday treat I decided that in the tradition of now two years I would make her a birthday cake. This was my first time decorating a cake using rolled icing, so it was an interesting task but I think I pulled it off. It really did taste like a proper child's birthday cake, the exact effect I wanted! I had decided to decorate it with piped decorations and to add a personal touch I made alphabet biscuits spelling out her name and age, a recipe I got from Nigella Lawson's book, How To Be A Domestic Goddess. I finished it off with Dolly Mixtures, Marshmallows and of course Seventeen Candles. Here she is with the candles lit...

And the finished product!

On actual drawing terms, I had an idea today. In our new kitchen in our new house, we have a chalkboard on our door. I have started drawing random things on it, and so I may start a blog of chalkboard drawings. Nothing serious and particularly taxing in terms of drawing excellence, but I thought it might be kind of fun. Watch this space!

discovery

I apologise in advance for the first bit of drivel. If you like pictures, scroll down and forget this bit! (Or look up and enjoy my new banner... if that's what it is meant to be called?) I'll mark the start and end of it so you can skip it how nice of me.

look away now

I never intended this blog to get personal, but I came across something a few hours ago that surprised me, something that was written to me that I have only just read. I won't post a link to it, they know who they are, I reckon.
Things at the start of this year got messy, and I didn't know how to handle them - but I know now that things in the past are unchangeable, doesn't matter how petty and insignificant or huge they might be, life is as it is in the end.

To make it clear, I'm not looking for resolution here, I just want to say this. I hate to read things that I know are intended for me when the person writing doesn't feel like they can tell me, and by writing this obviously I am doing the same, but there isn't much else I can do with this information at this point. At first I felt a little cheated and hurt, but now I realise that it's simply just happened now. It's history. Everyone wonders what ever happened to those people you lost contact with at some point in your lives, but sometimes life sees an improvement without those people, on both sides. There are some people from my past that I truly miss, and it's my responsibility to get back in touch with them, and there are those that I left behind because I had to. For my sanity.

This is by no means a personal attack, however. I am about to do something totally lame and terrible, yet strangely apt - I just watched the video to a Destiny's Child song, and those words they sang are just right for this, so I'm going to quote them. Laaaaame!

"I'm wishin' you the best,
Pray that you are blessed,
Much success, no stress, and loads of happiness,
(I'm better than that)..."



read again now

Back to important things. New banner - hope you like it, it's stuck together bits of other illustrations because it's all I have at the moment!
I have re-discovered tweeting as well, still don't fully understand it but I think I am getting there, someone might be interested!

For those of you that think this blog is full of too many words at the moment, here are some pictures, hooray! I made a birthday cake for a friend of mine who turned 21 at the end of last month, and I got creative with the decorations...

I scoured Kidderminster for that Giraffe. £4.75 they wanted, in Early Learning! Christ! Eventually I found a bag of assorted jungle animals in BM, with awesome faces. For £1.99. Awesome. Someones getting an elephant cake next.

I can't remember if I posted a picture of Millie's birthday cake.. oh well seeing as I am putting cakey images up here I might as well rekindle the joy with food! I realised recently that when I have a camera in my hand I love taking pictures of animals, plants and food. I have probably said this before and I stand by it, they are just better behaved than people! Maybe one day I will be able to control a perfect portrait shoot. But, here's a cake in the mean time.

Shiny new blog :)

Hello, welcome to the first post on my new blog! If it's looking a little amateur it's because this is my first ever blog - ten years behind the times apparently! I will add a description of my soon when I work out how, but for now, I'll introduce myself here. I'm originally from the lovely Black Country and I have now moved down to Falmouth to study Illustration at University College Falmouth, just starting my second year. I love lots of things and people - all my housemates and family and friends back home, and I have interest in lots of things. Obviously I love illustration, and I also love fine art, photography, film, music, baking, making things, and reading, among other things that escape me. I will mostly be using this blog to record things that happen to me, and things that happen in my life, as well as illustrations or nice photos I find. I'll be uploading some of my work and my photographs too if anyone is interested! I might also even post new recipes from time to time as I love making cakes! Long post to start the barrel rolling :) I hope I manage to entertain you somewhere along the blog, thanks for taking the time to read.

But for now, you can look at this cake I made for my friend Amber's birthday. enjoy!