Writing Letters

Ours is a digital world. Our lives are fast and we have technology to make them faster. In all this mess we seem to forget the important things.
I don't know a single person who sends letters in the (snail) mail anymore, even though receiving something in the mail (other than a bill) is one of the best feelings in the world.
Reconnect with someone who have moved interstate or overseas. You may not get a reply, but just knowing you made someone's day can brighten your own.
With this in mind, I'm going to use this idea in a slightly different way. The special person in my life is my one-year-old cousin and goddaughter.
Since she's too young to read and would probably eat anything I give her, I've come up with a plan. I got this idea from a friend's 21st, whose dad wrote him a letter on the day he was born and then read it during the speeches. His mum got a group of his close friends to write him letters, put it in a scrapbook and each person read their letter out during speeches as well. It ended up being his favourite present.
For Kiara I am going to write her a letter every year around her birthday, make it all pretty, put it in an equally-pretty sealed box and give it to her on her 21st birthday.
Imagine receiving a present 21 years in the making!

The first step is to find your materials in your local Arts & Crafts store.. I've gone with a pink flower theme.

Here you can see I've got two different types of paper, an envelope, some stick on jewels, some pins to attach the paper together and some heart sparkles.

I used a stencil to make her name the centrepiece of the page and wrote my message underneath. This year I've just gone with a simple poem about how happy I am to be her godmother.

Using gel pens I wrote it all out.. it's best to get a few spare pages so you can test your different pens. Using gel pens on glossy paper with stencils can often lead to smudges so you have to be very careful and clean the pen tip and stencil after every turn, allowing the ink to dry before doing the next letter. After I finished writing the letter I added my little stick on jewels for decoration.

Happy 1st Birthday. Here I've used the other paper I have, using my stencil again, but with my silver paint-pen. Paint-pens are even more difficult to use than gel pens.. This took me a while to get it right!

Stick both pages together using one of the pins, decorate your envelope and put inside.

As a last little touch I added 4 photos of us in her first year.. This one is my favourite and is the first time I ever held her! 

Have a go at writing letters to your loved ones!

Happy Making!

Naé Danielle..

Birthday Cakes

I recently had my 21st birthday, and as I was going through old photos for my slideshow, I came across birthday photos from my childhood. The thing that surprised me most was not the fact that my hair used to blonde and curly, but the amazing-ness of my homemade cakes.

 

Just look at how I am dragging the table cloth towards me to get at the cake!

As the years went by, we got older and busier. Birthdays came around and it was always a bought cake. Now, bought cakes cane be good (I remember getting the same one for several years), but nothing beats a homemade cake!
So, for my 21st, I decided to make one myself and went with my favorite character, Tigger.

 

I’ve been obsessed with Tigger ever since I met him at Disneyland when I was 6 months old!

Please note: Planning ahead for something like this is a must! Coming home with 4 hours until the party starts, with nothing else done and showing mum a cake tin saying ‘Look what I found!’, is not good for anyone’s stress levels.
So, as mentioned above, we used a cake tin. You can get a cake tin from a cake decoration shop and you just pay to hire it (may include bond). You get instructions on how to use it and such, but you will need to purchase things like icing and food dye separately, something that they will also most likely have. Now, while all this sounds like a lot of money, it ended up being way cheaper than buying a cake!
First things first is to put in your cake mixture and cook it. While that is being cooked you need to prepare the board (we bought a silver one from the shop) and the icing. Mix all the colors you need in, but be careful not to get it anywhere. We found this out after mum tried to remove some black dye from her finger and ended up with black teeth for a few hours!
Once the cake is cooked place on the board and begin to decorate!

Once it comes out of the cake tin, you can see the mold-lines, which you outline in black to get the shape.

 

For the outline we chose the color white because we wanted Tigger to stand out. To get the ‘Smooth’ effect we used our finger dipped in hot water and ran them over the icing until it went smooth.

 

Amy and Mum. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to pull off my party OR my cake without them! They’re amazing!

 

More piping! Piping bags and tips are a must! We had a few different shapes for different effects.

 

Adding the final touches and extra icing covered cupcakes for decoration.

Until finally…

 

Ta-Da!

So my cake ended up being a huge success! Everyone had some and said it was great… Although I wasn’t very happy with them for eating Tigger!!

Have a go at making your own cake and let me know how it goes!

Happy cooking!

Naé Danielle..