Serendipity and Valentine's Day...

Have you ever had a brilliant idea; a unique idea you thought had surely never been thought of before and your plan was to unleash your brilliance unto the world and everyone would be astounded by your creative flair and untapped talent? Well if you have then chances are you also found out that someone else had had the same idea at roughly the same time. In fact your idea doesn't really belong to you at all because to your shock (and disappointment) quite a few other people have already decorated their Pinterest pages with variations on a theme. 

It makes me wonder if this is how trends start. Are we all connected like Jung thought in some collective unconscious and we all simultaneously decide that this or that will be popular. And now I'm sure your thinking that I am going to say that this happened to me. I'm not. It happened around me and I just happened to have picked it up.

I was looking for something to do for Valentine's day. I've always liked Valentines Day but seeing as it's just me and my baby boy this year I don't foresee any bunches of roses or chocolates coming my way. Still it is better to give than receive and as I LOVE giving presents I thought I'd make a few and get my little cupid to deliver them. 

Sillhouette America always has a free shape of the week and I eagerly await every Tuesday to see what it is. Two weeks ago it was pieces for an arrow, the flights and a heart for the head. My thought, "Oh cute, is that a pencil they've used for the shaft?  I could put a pencil in there and Rory could give it to his Granny" (she's a teacher). Sure enough I went to the Silhouette blog and there it was with a pencil in it.Check it out here. Great I thought, I'll make a version of my own and blog it.Then I get an email to say that Ilda Dias from www.ilovedoingallthingscrafty.com has just posted something new and among her beautiful Valentines creations is, you guessed it, a pencil arrow. See her works of art here.

So here is my version of the seemingly popular pencil arrow and a little something extra. I wanted to try the Sharpie marker coffee mug decorating. 

The mug came out really well. I followed these steps: 

1) cut out a vinyl stencil (unless you plan to freehand) 

 2) place it on the mug and colour in the spaces with a Sharpie marker

 3) Peel off the vinyl to reveal your image

4) Bake in an oven at 200 C for 30 mins then turn off the oven and leave to cool.

Mine still wanted to come off the mug in places so I just coated it with some clear nail varnish.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment!

The best way to say thank you...

The best way to say thank you is, in my opinion, with food and the sweeter the better! 

A friend of my mom's helped me out in a HUGE way so I decided to do something a little unusual to say thank you. 

These are plain vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing and I just got my "grass" icing nozzle so I was dying to try it out. I watched a Youtube video on how to use it and it was really easy once I had the technique right.
The letters are made of fondant icing and stuck into the cupcakes with toothpicks. The bunnies, carrots and flowers are also fondant icing. 

I love this ravenous bunny! 

I'm thinking, for the next batch, of making a cupcake wrapper that is a picket fence and maybe adding some Easter flavour for a cute gift instead of the traditional eggs. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!