Latest bakes

So recently Iv'e been doing a little bit of baking so I thought I would share what Iv'e made.

Pink and white girly cake

Here's the communion cake I made for a little girl called Natasha. She asked for a white and pink decorated 2 tier cake. The inside was chocolate sponge with chocolate fudge icing. The house also smelled like chocolate all day. 

Very chocolate cake

Another communion cake this time for a little boy called Josh. He asked for a very chocolatey cake. So here is what I made. It's chocolate sponge, dark chocolate fudge icing with milk chocolate fudge icing around the top. I was also asked to decorate it with gold letters and a butterfly. The little gold balls on the bottom are painted malteasers. 

Cookies

I seem to be making these cookies a lot recently. There chocolate chip and sprinkle vanilla cookies. There so easy to make and I made it even easier when I made up a big batch divided it up and froze them so all I had to do was defrost and bake. 

Look What I bought.

Today I finally got around to getting myself a new laptop. I have had none since last summer when my last one broke and this time there was no repairing it. I had it 6 years and had taken quite a few knocks so it was it's time really. I didn't mind at first not having one as I was going to travel for a bit so my sister bought me a tablet as a present and it was perfect for that. But now that I'm home and am sick of borrowing other peoples laptops I decided to get one. I actually wanted to get one ages ago but just couldn't make up my mind. Then I saw this Chromebook while looking them up online and it sounded perfect. I have heard about them before but didn't know all that much.

This is the one I choose. It's a HP Chromebook 14. It was only €270, nice and light and is 14 inches. It has 2GB ram which is fine for me and 16GB hardrive which also is fine as it uses google drive for storage and I am getting myself an external hard drive anyway. My last laptop I stored feck all on as after a while it will only slow everything down. I have never used Chrome OS before now but its so simple to use. It's a bit like linix so I'm happy. Other then that its exactly what I wanted and best of all so pretty. Its white and blue a particular shade of blue that I love. 

Hopefully from now on I will have lots more blog posts now that I don't have to wait for someone to not be using their laptops lol. I have been finding that part a little difficult so now I can finally get on with blogging all I want. 

Travel Haul Part Two

As I'm clearing out old stuff I'm replacing it with new stuff for travelling. The cycle never ends. I bought some practical stuff this week as well as some fun travel accessories. 

First if all I got this purple zebra print travel pillow and matching luggage tag in Dunnes Stores for €8 for the pillow and €3 for the tags. I just love the print and the way the pillow is filled with little beans. I got one last year that was memory foam and at first I found it comfortable but after a while I just found it uncomfortable and irritating, it felt like a rock around my neck or something. I'm hoping for better luck with this one. I saw them in pink as well but went for the purple as someone pointed out that most of my stuff is pink ....woops. 

I also got two packs of vest tops and a pack of socks in Lidl for great prices. I'm genuinely impressed with the quality of the vests and socks. The tops came in packs of 3 with either mint green, pink and white or blue, yellow and grey and also a 3 pack of black but I didn't get those ones. They only cost €6.99 for a pack and came in loads of sizes.I even picked my sister up a packed while I was there and she was delighted with them. I love vest tops they come in so handy for when a top is a little to low for my liking, a little too sort which I always find and hate or when I'm wearing a sheer top or blouse. The socks came in a pack of 7 for €3.99 and came in a couple of different sizes, I got size 21/2 to 5 even thought I'm a six and a half but I got socks there before in a bigger size and they where too big. They colours are lovely and bright and a change form just plain black and white, and well you can never have enough socks. 

Round up of my week

I'm currently doing six weeks of work experience which I am really enjoying and also delighted that all my exams are finished. I have now done two weeks and have only four more to go then I can start counting down the time until I go away. I am also saving for my trip so not going out all that much and trying not to spend money on things that I don't actually need. I'm already trying to minimise the stuff I already have as I can't take it all with me.

My sister was also on holidays in Spain and when she came back this week she brought me home this gorgeous watch. I don't usually wear watches but I have hardly taken this off I just love it. I am made about the little diamonds and rose gold with the white strap. The watch face itself with the Eiffel Tower is so nice. 

She also brought home these nail polishes. The last few times she was away she has brought home Yes Love nail polishes and we both love them. They are only about a Euro and the quality is quite good. The other nail polish is Easy Paris which I haven't heard of before but so far it seems good too. My sister has been wearing the coral Yes Love polish and is really happy with it the colour is great and it hasn't chipped or worn off so far. I can't wait to give these all ago but unfortunately they don't stay long while I'm doing my work experience in fact my nails are not in good condition the last two weeks. When I finish I need to get them back in shape. 

Also this week I have been making invitations for my parents 30th wedding anniversary party this summer. I offered to make them and to be honest turned out to be a bit of fun. I used one of their wedding photos and turned it black and white and put it on the left of the invite so that I could put the writing and details on the right. I have of course covered most of that as I don't think they would be very happy to put them details up for everyone to see haha. I then put a black border around the the outside and printed them as size 4x6. I did have one glitch when I couldn't get them to print properly the black ink kept coming out very strange, then I realised that I forgot to that off the little tab on the ink before I put it into the printer. All I could do was laugh seriously something that I would do. I cut out the invites out around the outside of the black border and placed them on top of another piece of card slightly bigger. We bought the card in the Art and Hobby Shop, they where €19.99 for 100 A4 cards which is great value as we where going to buy them individually and it would have worked out much more expensive. I have been doing a few every night when I'm home and only have a few more to do, then have to write them slick them in envelopes and post them. 

My Mam came home with this the other day. It included a chocolate mould that looks like little presents, a box for the chocolates and little bags and ribbons that are meant to be for the marshmallows that are inside. I can't wait to try the marshmallows because I love marshmallows they are my favourite food ever. I try not to eat so much of them any more because if I could they would be all I would eat. But how cute is the chocolate mould and box, its a great idea as a little gift instead of buying chocolates I always prefer home made the shop bought but maybe that's just me.

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Another week, another cake

After the last cake I made for a book club member I was asked to make a another. I got a phone call from the woman that asked for it and said that she loved the cake and so did her son. As he is making his Confirmation and liked the cake she asked if I could make one similar but in white and blue and instead of books on top could I put a dove on it. A dove is the sign for Confirmation.

The cake I made was chocolate sponge with chocolate fudge icing. I cover it in white and blue sugar paste. The decoration was white and blue beading, Confirmation day on the top and the name Alan in the center on the front. I also made a white sugar paste dove. I had not originally planned on doing this as I have a dove plunger but I couldn't find it so thought I'd give making one go.

So this is how it turned out and they where very happy with it as was I. I was so organised for this as I'm also studying for exams so had to be on top of everything but then just as I was about to decorate it I re tore the muscle in my calf so had to hobble around the kitchen for a few hours. I was exhausted the next morning. hopping around on one leg takes alot of effort. I also burnt my hand while melting the chocolate for the fudge icing. I'm a bit of a disaster if you haven't noticed but I do get the job done in the end. 

This weeks Baking

This week I was asked to make a cake for someones 50th birthday and of course I said yes. I love any excuse to make cakes. They asked for chocolate cake and as it was from the other members of her book club that it had books on it or something along those lines.

When I got home on Thursday and I got stated on making the cake and then icing and decorating. It worked out quite well that one of my favourite movies just happened to be on so ended up watching Saving Private Ryan and decorating a cake. I surprised it didn't turn out army themed.

I made a chocolate sponge and chocolate fudge icing, it smelled so good and the smell of chocolate kind of lingered in the house all evening. I used white sugar paste to cover and decorate it. I had never made sugar paste books before but it wasn't that hard to do.

I wanted to keep the colours bright so I went for pastel type colours in pink and yellow. I'm very happy about how it turned out.

White nails

I keep seeing pictures of white nails recently and absolutely love the idea so I decided to try it out recently. This is how they turned out. Unfortunately they didn't last that long, by the end if the next day they had chipped a lot but I'm not that surprised as I used a nail polish that I don't even remember buying or where it came from. I think it may have come from a french manicure set. Anyway I still love the look and will definitely be investing in a better polish for my white nail look.