Happy Birthday to.........ME!!

We were due to go to Lanhydrock for a bit of lunch today but the weather has really taken a turn for the worse so we have decided to switch the fire on and do our own thing in the warn and the dry.  Sophie has been painting her nails and doing her hair!.  Hubby has been doing some cooking and I have been trying to find somewhere to put my birthday cards!!

I shall be getting my much neglected sketchbook out once I have written this post and spend some time on that.

Having a birthday close to Christmas or even on Christmas Day can be a bit of a challenge.  As I have grown up I have experienced the one present that does for both occasions, the presents that have been wrapped in Christmas paper, the Christmas cards that have doubled up as birthday cards and so on.

(It bothers you less as you hit middle age and can in fact make you laugh.)

Trying to find a spot on which to put up your cards requires some rearrangement of festive mail and as for organising any gathering that has to be booked at least a year in advance.  Hence having gone away for at least two birthdays and Christmas in recent years.

However this year I have made a  bit of a break through!

Hubby rang round a few friends on the quiet to see if they would be free this evening and they are.  He did not tell me for a few days so it was a bit of a surprise but he had to tell me when he started putting too much food in the trolley the other day!

So the wheels were set in motion.

I started to think about a cake and catching up on my blog visiting I saw a lovely Christmas Cake idea on the Pink Whisk blog page and the 12 Days of Christmas and instantly loved it.

This is the version featured on her web page.  The dark icing is purple which is hard to find but once I saw some pale blue that was it.

I invested in a set of snowflake plunge cutters and bought some SOFT silver balls, I worry about teeth with the other harder version and I will confess to buying a shop bought iced cake due to time and Sophie was my little helper!

My cake is a bit smaller than the one featured on the Pink Whisk.  I used a saucer to cut the pale blue icing and used a little water to stick it to the top.
I rolled out the white icing and needed a few practise goes with the cutters as they are a different style to the ones I usually use because the plunger pushes the icing out nice and flat but you still need to carefully peel it off the bottom of the cutter.  We decided to add a silver ball to the centre of each snowflake and using the end of a clean chop stick, I marked out the position of the swirls and pushed in the silver balls.  This was the hardest bit really.

Around the edge I bought some pale blue chiffon ribbon with twinkly bits but these would not show up in the photographs, and then by chance I found some blue and white rice paper snowflakes to sprinkle on the cake board.

This is intended to be a Christmas Cake decoration but I really liked it and well.....if you can't bet them then join them.  I thought it was a bit different  for a birthday cake and will not be expected by everyone coming by this evening.
Yesterday I made some cupcakes which I shall be decorating with butter icing and some of the rice paper snow flakes plus some mince meat parcels using filo pastry.  Loves those, Yum Yum!

So I am  nowoff for a nice cup of Christmas Tea and to spread out my sketchbook to see what I can create before I need to pack it all away until after Christmas.
Take care all.
x