Tea and Cake

Morning folks!  So finally, this week we saw the long anticipated return of The Great British Bake Off to our TV screens.  I don't know about you but we are completely addicted in our house!  I even baked some cupcakes to eat with a cup of tea whilst we were watching ... **is that going too far do you think?!**  Who's your money on for this series?  I think the men are pretty strong this year ... Richard the builder, (what a shame his name isn't Bob), Ian the fiery haired Scot, (who I think could be this year's dark horse), and of course the lovely Norman with his home made cake stands! Roll on next week!

So, to continue with the tea and cake theme, I decided to make a shaped card this week using the teapot template and Afternoon Tea papers from Craftwork Cards.  Here's how it came together:

• I stuck two of the teapot templates together, scoring the back one just above the handle so that it stands up, and covering the top one with one of the pretty papers.  
• I then inked the edges with Tim Holtz distress ink in Victorian Velvet.  
• Next, I layered up two of the die cut butterflies, also from the Afternoon Tea set, and shaped them slightly with a bone folder to make the wings 'flutter' and then decorated with a few fuchsia pink dew drops from Kanban down the centre.  
• I added one of the large toppers from the Afternoon Tea collection and then made a quick flower from a piece of leftover paper from the Paper Artistry pad (also Craftwork Cards).  
• Finally, I added a pink grosgrain bow at the top using some American Crafts ribbon from my stash.

I love how it turned out!

Finally, here are the cupcakes that I baked to celebrate the return of Bake Off!  I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book, which makes lovely light cakes, and then decorated with vanilla frosting, coloured with a little pink food gel and topped with hundreds and thousands ... Mmmmmm ... perfect!

Right, better start searching for a biscuit recipe to eat with next week's episode (the biscuits, not the recipe) **oh heck ... what have I started?!**

TTFN

Bev x