Our cakes are better than the GBBO, we get to eat them too! 6/09/14

Whilst watching the Great British Bake Off I was thinking about all the amazing cakes from the past months made by me or my very talented family and friends. Too good not to share and they tasted amazing too!

The chocolate fudge rat birthday cake made by me. One of my favourite/weirdest creations.

The most extravagant cake, plain sponge with cream filling, buttercream icing decorated with Malteasers and white and milk chocolate fingers. Made by me.

Strawberry cake with cream cheese icing and topped with strawberries. Made by Annie-two-pies.

Vanilla icing cupcakes with pink glitter made by me and Kath.

Salted caramel cake decorated with mini oreos, chocolate buttons and pebbles. For Olivia's 18th birthday, made by Sophie.

Another birthday cake (I want to say Sophie's 22nd?) plain sponge with cream filling decorated with fruit and chocolate fingers. Made my my mother.

Apple pie made by my nan, decorated with a little mouse and some apples by me.

A trio of brownies, carrot cake and raspberry macaroons. Made by Fiona for a come dine with me night. 

The periodic table of cakes, made to raise money for the ChemSoc. Made a variety of the chemistry PhDs (can't remember everyone...) But decorated by me, Jaclyn, Fiona and Iain.

Millionaire shortbread with plain and white chocolate. Made for a group meeting by me.

This has made me hungry, thank goodness it is Sunday tomorrow!

x x x

Pink pink to make the flamingos wink - Bestival 2012

With Bestival on the Isle of Wight happening this weekend I thought I'd show you what I created for a friend (and her friend) who are going. Every year there is a fancy dress theme and this year it is wildlife, so that could have been anything from and elephant to a ladybird. What my friend had in mind was flamingos, the campest and over the top animal ever, which is brilliant. So it was all about the pink, feathers, sequins etc. So what we ended up with is a Bjork style swan dress (everyone remembers THAT dress don't they?!) except as a flamingo!! How brilliant.

A H&M bright pink long sleeved body con dress was chosen for the base. I then promptly chopped the sleeves to make the neck and stuffed them and added a beak. The beak is painted and I used a little button for the eye!

And then came the hard part. I cut out HUNDREDS of different fabrics, all shades of pink, into feather shapes. This is what took the most time.....

I then sewed these shapes into strips by hand. I tried to sew them on as random as possible so not to make it look like a pattern or patchy. As you can see I've used netting, bits of the dress, left over fabric from other projects, offcuts, anything I could get my hands on that was pink!!

So I continued to hand sew all the feather shapes all over the front of the dress, with a few on the bum too. I then added loads of actual feathers too, I used a glue gun for this!! This took forever!! But deffo worth the effort!

When I finished them I thought the flamingo faces looked a bit too sad, so I added some fluttery eyelashes, and made feathery hair clips for the girls hair!!  I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out actually!! But by the time I was finished sewing all those feather shapes on I was sick of the sight of them!! They turned out quite cheap as well, as all the fabric was recycled (apart from the H&M dresses which were £9.99). The feathers cost 99p for 20 from eBay. All buttons and sequins were from my own collection (which I've built up for years!!). 

I can't wait to see how the girls will look in these costumes!! Definitely will stand out, no one else will have these one off pieces. Most people will just have them Primark animal onesies won't they!!

If you are interested in any costumes or fancy dress please feel free to contact me on here, on my Facebook Page or my Twitter.