Saturday 27 February 2010

Welsh Cakes and Gift Bags

I made these ready for St. Davids Day

  

They make lovely little gifts





I made a Template for a small gift bag, tag and handle
You will find it here if you want to use it
Just cut around the edges then fold the solid lines of the bag
Glue the strip on the side then fold in the bottom then glue
Add the handle either by glueing or using brads (I glued mine)
Fold the tag in half and punch a hole in the top left corner write inside as necessary
Inside mine I wrote "Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus"  (Happy St. David's Day)
I threaded a ribbon through the hole and attached it to the handle of the bag

To make the Welsh Cakes you will need

225 g Self - raising flour
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
100g  butter
75 g Sugar
100 g sultanas or currants (or half and half)
1 egg (beaten)


Sift the flour and mixed spice into a bowl add the butter and rub in  until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
Add the sugar and sultanas/currants and the beaten egg  then mix together until it forms a dough
This can be quite sticky so if you prefer to use a spoon instead of your hands it's ok
Using a rolling pin roll the dough to about 1/2cm thick then using a cutter (6-7 cm) cut into rounds
This mixture makes approx 14 -15 Welsh Cakes
Slowly heat a Griddle pan - if you don't have one you can use a frying pan then add the welsh cakes to cook cook on a low to medium heat  when one side is cooked turn over and cook the other side
These can be served warm with butter on
You can sprinkle with castor sugar while warm if you want

Wrap a couple of Welsh cakes in a serviette / doiley then pop into the gift bag

Monday 22 February 2010

St David's Day Card

A card for St. Davids Day
March 1st.


Have you ever tried buying a  card for St. David's day? It's near to impossible!
With Backing Papers and decoupage suitable for these cards we have on Free Craft Downloads  you don't have to 
You will be able to make your own
You can find some Welsh Dragon, Daffodil  and Leek decoupage in the Other and Floral sections
Also a Welsh Flag section with backing papers inserts and tags

To make the card I used
A Leek backing paper
Welsh Flag Pyramid decoupage
Daffodil Pyramid decoupage
and Welsh Dragon backing paper

Both the Leek and Welsh Dragon papers were printed A4 size enabling me to use the remainder of them for other cards
The Daffodil pyramid sheet was printed on A5 size paper (2 were needed for this card)

I cut out and assembled the decoupage/pyramid designs and while the silicone was starting to dry I set to work on the base card
I used a 12.7 x 17.8 cm  (5x7ins) size  greeting card  for the base to which I stuck the leek backing paper and trimmed around it
I cut a few strips off the Welsh Flag backing paper and attached double sided tape to the back of them and added these to the outer edge of the card as a border
When the silicone had dried a bit on the decoupage I stuck the Welsh dragon decoupage in the centre of the card and the 2 2daffodil ones to either side of it
From the computer I printed  Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus   - Happy St. David's Day   in both Welsh and English then and stuck them to the card as well


 This is one  of the cards I made for St. David's day last year





Over on Free Craft Stuff we have a Special Occasion section  in that you will find a St. David's Day section with ideas for Crafts / Things to make and do

Saturday 20 February 2010

Floral Decoupage Card


This card was made from a Public domain image of a flower which I then uploaded into the Tile Maker that we have on Free Craft Downloads
To make the card
I used a 15cm x 15cm  (5.5ins x5.5ins)  square card
Beige029 Backing Paper from Free Craft Downloads
Floral decoupage sheet 
A piece of brown pearl paper from my bits and pieces box
Some gold corner and border peel offs
5 small square gems

I cut out and made up the decoupage sheet then when dry I highlighted some of the darker brown areas with a clear glitter pen
I printed the backing paper (borderless) on an A5 size sheet of paper and stuck it to the front of the base card
I stuck the decoupage onto a piece of brown pearl paper 10cm x 10cm (4ins x 4ins)
This was then stuck to the base card
I chose not to put it square which you could do if you wanted to.
To the edge of the decoupage design I added some gold fine line border peel offs
To the edge of the pearl paper I added a patterned border peel off
To each of the 4 corners I added a Gold corner peel off
To the centre of the decoupage and the 4 points on the brown pearl paper I added a small square green gem

I chose not to add a greeting / occasion to the front of the card I prefer it as it is and then could also be used for any occasion

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Thank You Card

I have used some of this weeks set of premium papers from Free Craft Downloads  to make my Thank You card
This is a very large set of papers available as a zip file which can be found on the Modern flowers premium set posting in the forum on Free Craft Downloads or if you prefer you can browse through the general papers via the link in the same forum posting

To make the card I used
modern flowers 2 light  printed on an A5 sheet of paper
mod striped 3  printed on an A5 sheet of paper
decoupage modern flowers  2 sets printed on A5 size glossy photo paper
 1 5x7 size Cream Blank greeting card
4 small strips of green ribbon
1 Silver Thank You peel off
Silver border peel offs
Double sided tape
Silicone glue
4 small amber coloured gems



I used the 5x7 size card cut a strip (approx 3.5 cm) from the right hand edge on the front only
I covered the front of the card with the flower paper and trimmed the edges
I cut a strip from the striped paper and stuck it to the outside edge of the card







I cut out and assembled one sheet of the decoupage flowers and I cut out a vase shape from the striped paper





The 2nd set of decoupage flowers I cut out the complete flower only to use and added an amber coloured gem to the centre of each flower








These flowers I stuck down the Stripe on the inside of the card










Leaving the top part unstuck I stuck the vase shape in the centre near the bottom 










I stuck 4 different lengths of thin green ribbon from under the vase then stuck down the top of the vase
I stuck on the decoupaged flowers at the top of the strips of ribbon








I hope you like this finished card  The set of premium papers can be used for Mothers day cards but having just lost my Mum I couldn't bring myself to make a Mothers day card so chose to make a Thank you card instead  hopefully showing that the papers can be used for one of several different occasions

Friday 5 February 2010

A sad time

Those of you who follow the forum @ Free Craft Downloads will know why I haven't been blogging lately but for those of you who don't  it is because My Mother had been ill and passed away a couple of weeks ago, this was only 4 months after my Dad passing away as well as trying to cope with this  I have been having to sort out their house etc
After this weekend I am hoping to be able to start crafting again something I have missed doing  - at least this is some part of my life that can go back to normal

I don't like to put too many "personal" postings on here I try to keep this just for my crafts but with not putting anything on here for a while I thought it only fair to let you know why
Thank you for taking the time to read this and hopefully I can have a new project on here next week