Cupcake Coinpurse Winner!!

Congratulations!
The winner of the Cupcake Coinpurse is....

*Drum roll please*

TiedupMemories!!
Please contact me with your postal details!

Thank you to everyone who became followers and all those who left me such sweet comments, I have been feeling quite loved of late!

I have quite a busy weekend coming up, with a Fringe arts festival opening parade tonight (stay tuned to see photos of the colourful outfits my sister and I wore) and Soundwave - a heavy metal music festival tomorrow! Yeah I know I don't seem the heavy metal type of gal, if you were judging by the sweetness of my blog, but I do dig it!

More Fundraiser Cupcakes

I had such success with my koala cupcake sale, I decided to do it again! I made a big batch of Magnolia Vanilla cupcakes, and frosted them with vanilla butter cream frosting. I made half purple, and half pink, and topped with pineapple lollies and cut up rainbow sour strips.

I raised $115 again, and it will be split between funds towards the bush fire affected wildlife in Victoria and the appeal for the floods in QLD. Some towns in QLD have been flooded completely for 2 months, and they need our help!

Don't forget to leave a comment in the post below to be in the running for the Cupcake coin purse!

My First Blog Competition!

I have decided to do my first Competition!!!

My first reason for doing this is to thank the people in some small way, who have followed my blog so far, your comments and encouragement means the world to me, if I could send out coin purses to all of you individually, I would!
My second reason is I am hoping to get to know a few of the lurkers who come and visit sometimes, I would love to extend my network in the blogging world, because I love getting comments from new people, and I love visiting new blogs in return.

So this is my first blog give-away prize...

One of my hand embroidered felt coin purses!

I don't wish to make people jump through a million hoops in order to enter this competition. All I ask is two simple things:
1. Become a follower, if you haven't already. (Apparently, even if you don't have a blog, you can sign up with google then become a follower)
2. Leave a comment on this post.

That's it! I will be entering the details into the random generator website, then announcing the competition winner on the 27th of February (Australian time).

Koala Cupcakes

As you have seen in my previous post, the bush fires that occurred in Victoria left a trail of devastation, destruction and loss behind them. Australia and people around the world have banded together, and so far the donations to the Red Cross Bushfire appeal have reached over $100 million. I cannot express how proud I am to be an Australian at the moment.

However, I am still feeling for the animals, still so many to be found and treated for burns and smoke inhalation. Just looking at all the pictures showing on the news of the koalas, and kangaroos with bandaged feet, it breaks my heart. I needed to do something to help.
Some of you might remember the flamingo cupcakes that I sold at work to raise money for the Adelaide zoo, it worked quite well, so I decided to sell cupcakes again.

I chose to make koala cupcakes, as Sam the Koala has become quite an icon now. I made a batch of Martha Stewart's one bowl Chocolate Cupcakes. And one batch of Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes.

I love my Cupcake Courier

I frosted the cupcakes with butter cream frosting, used chocolate buds for the ears, dark chocolate chips for the eyes, and a chocolate covered peanut for the nose.

Sorry about the bad quality photos, very little time and very little good light!

At the end of the day, I came home with $115 to go to an organisation called Wildlife Rescue and Protection, who are out there rescuing and treating our native animals in Victoria. I would really love to do this again later in the week.

Zen Cupcake Giveaway.

If you haven't already heard, Zen Cupcake is holding a mega competition for some Juicy Couture Cupcake earrings that I am absolutely lusting over. Here is where you can see what to do to enter.

Valentines Cookies

Happy Valentines to everyone!

Darren and I don't particularly celebrate Valentines day, despite my adoration for all the beautiful sweets and treats that come out for the holiday, the whole day seems a bit of a way of forcing couples to spend money to prove their love for one another.
I would much rather just spend time with my boy, go out for some pasta and watch our favourite TV shows together, and that is exactly what we did!

I did make cookies for the day, I haven't made cookies in ages, and I picked up some beautiful heart cookie cutters whilst in Pt Elliot, that I was dying to use. I turned to CakeJournal for advice on cookies and royal icing. I used the recipe suggested from The joy of Baking, with some minor adjustments.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups of Plain Flour
1/2 Cup of Corn Flour
225gms Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
1/2 Cup Icing Sugar
1 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
1 Egg, Lightly Beaten

Method:
Cream the butter until smooth (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes). Beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Gently stir in the sifted flour mixture just until incorporated. Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in cling wrap, and chill the dough for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F (177 C) with the rack in the middle of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch (.5 cm) thick. Cut into the shapes you wish using lightly floured cookie cutter. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, or until cookies are lightly brown. Cool on rack.

I didn't want to use egg whites in the icing mixture, so I just made an icing out of icing sugar, lemon juice and water. The white batch rather stiff, to form the boarders. The pink and blue batch rather runny to fill.

The cookies turned out rather buttery-floury, pretty much how the shortbread that we used to get in those Scottish tins at Christmas time tastes...if not a little softer.

A special new friend

In the last month or so I have made a new friend, before she was more of an acquaintance, but we soon realised we had a lot in common! I love making new friends :)

Now Kelly is one very talented girl. She sews amazing clothes and accessories, and has her own sewing business called Vitae. Not only that, she takes amazing photos. She is one creative inspirational chick.

Now there are a couple of projects Kelly is doing that I think needs a shout out. Firstly she is taking her business to an 'alternative' fashion show in Melbourne called Circa Nocturna. She is making 3 incredible outfits to present at this show to help promote her business. Now you can see some of her amazing work at Deviant Art, and her official page is at Myspace, she also has a new blog, so go over and give her some love.
Kelly is also working on her photography skills by setting herself the challenge of taking a self portrait for every day of the year, you can see her work so far on her Flickr. Now you will notice that there are some pretty cute cupcake pics on there too, and I would just like to say that I inspired that! Woo!
These are my favourite cupcake photos Kelly has done:

It was Kelly's Birthday too this week, this is the coin purse and earrings I made for her:

Australia Bushfire Tragedy

Bushfire affected Koala - Pic by Russell Vickery

Please spare a thought for all the Bushfire victims, who have lost loved ones and their homes in the raging bushfire's in Victoria over the weekend. So far a confirmed 182 people have lost their lives, and an estimated 10,000 bush animals have perished, and thousands more livestock. If you happen to be a rather well off person, please consider donating to the red cross bushfire appeal, or to the Victorian RSPCA, who are working around the clock to help affected animals.

Maison Blue - Cupcake Boutique

Yesterday, as I mentioned was my friend Kim's 24th Birthday. Kim is one of 3 of my best girlfriends, Rose and Jess are the other two. The four of us have been friends since the first year of high school, a whole decade ago!

We still do a lot together, and it is always guaranteed a nice time, I love that we are all so comfortable with each other, we don't feel the need to fill every moment - like a long car trip, with inane conversation, we can all be silent... off on our own thoughts, there are no uncomfortable silences.

We had heard of this cupcake place Maison Blue a while ago, and looked forward to trying it out, it is about an hours drive from Adelaide, in a place called Aldinga. We had their 'High Tea', which was $20 a head, and looked and tasted quite lovely!

Jess with the tier

The place was located in the middle of a vineyard. I enjoyed their decor and presentation. As far as customer service goes, they were a bit distracted due to a large party arriving soon for a 40th Birthday. We actually had to go up and ask about our tea! Apart from that it was a good experience.

Gorgeous Birthday Girl

Workin on a weekend

Not 'work' work though! I have been working on Swaps and Birthday Presents! I made a new coin purse and discovered a new love for polymer clay jewellery.

This Swap was for the Glytter Kyttens Valentines Swap, 5 items, 1 Card. My partner liked purple, tattoo/Betsey Johnson style, and preferred hand made things, and no candy! It made me stretch my imagination and I really like what I came up with! I love hand embroidery but it is so time consuming.

This is a what I gave my friend Kim for her Birthday, she liked it thank goodness, and I have to admit, it was a hard gift to part with! I think I will have to make myself a set!

Mini Banana Choc Chip Muffins

Hey there, I just finished making these muffins, and they taste so yummy I thought I would share the recipe! I actually found the recipe in a magazine I was reading during my lunch break at work, I was delighted to find they put it up on the website too! This was really quick and easy to make, great for school/work lunches, and they are mini, so you can eat lots ;)

Mini Banana Choc Chip Muffins (from Woman's Day)

Ingredients

125g butter, chopped, at room temperature
½ cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups self-raising flour
¼ cup plain flour
½ cup milk
½ cup dark choc bits

Method

1. Preheat oven to moderate, 180°C. Lightly grease a 12-cup friand pan.
   
2. In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Mix in banana and vanilla until combined.
   
3. Sift flours together, then fold into creamed mixture alternately with milk until combined. Lightly mix in choc bits.
   
4. Spoon into the prepared recesses until 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then lift out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Then eat 'em!

Cupcake Apron

I finally did it! My first sewing project! Oh my new sewing machine is so easy to use its just WONDERFUL! Look forward to many more sewing adventures, this is just such a good feeling to make something like this myself! Well, I did have tips from Mum and my new sweet sewing genius friend Kelly too.

I wore it when I was making chocolate mousse tonight, and in true Jessy fashion, I managed to get it splattered with chocolate already! So sorry about the crappy photo, it now needs a wash before I can photograph it again....and well, I couldn't possibly wait to share!

American Candy Stand Cupcake Cafe

My sister and I had a nice afternoon recently...despite the scorching heat, I picked her up from school and we drove over to the other side of town, I had won tickets for two to see Twilight on Myspace (I find that very amusing, also I don't like to admit I am such a hard core fan!), the catch being that particular cinema was far away in Norwood!

I had heard of a cupcake cafe opening up down the Norwood Parade, and so we decided to find it for some sweet refreshments before the movie. Of course it was easy to find! A big pink sign led the way! And the interior...I had died and gone to heaven I was sure! Pink pink and more pink!

I chose the white chocolate raspberry cupcake

Caitlin chose the crazy about Maltesers cupcake

I was very impressed with the cupcakes, they were moist and delicious! I will definitely be going there again, check out their website, and be inspired by all the wonderful flavours on offer!