Wedding acceptance ... and a beheaded sunflower .....

I wanted to make an acceptance card for a wedding invitation and thought I might make it to suit this weeks LOTV challenge - bingo - choose any line so I chose ribbon, flower and jewels.  Actually, when I looked at the new challenge at LOTV which is set every Thursday before I started my card, I was gobsmacked to see I had made the top three! wow, I am thrilled to bits and immediately got my badge to put in the side bar.

I used this really cute die cut square from LOTV, and cupcake paper and added a bit of Stardust stickles to the bunnies and the cherries and cake stands etc.  I added a swirl cut with the doohickey die, fuschia ruffle edge sheer ribbon on top of silver glitter mesh plus a pink/white two tone 30mm mulberry rose, a pink crown pin and a pink heart pin (ribbon, rose and pins all from Ribbon Girl) and you can see I love pink almost as much as I love anything that glitters!

I decorated the inside to complement the front and added our acceptance note

I typed the sentiment myself to make the card more personal and you can see the sweet cupcake paper here (sorry can't remember which pack it is from) but I thought it was relevant as I'm sure there will be yummy food at the reception 

and here is the poor beheaded sunflower - my hubby managed to empty the pots on the back patio yesterday afternoon when the wind had gone down, and I passed him the scissors with the request to cut the flowers so I could pop them in water  ................... I should have asked him to leave a stalk ...... poor flower!

See you all tomorrow,

Mary G x

Tarte au citron, a sleepy westie and a bunch of roses ........

Inspired by the Great British bake Off on BBC 2, I decided to try the Tarte au citron using the Mary Berry recipe which was featured in the September '11 Good Food Magazine.  I had already made one papercraft project so thought I could take some time out to bake something yummy for tea-time

175g plain flour, 100 cold butter cut into cubes, 25g sifted icing sugar - made into fine breadcrumb like texture in the Chef then added one large egg yolk and one tablespoon of cold water - pulsed to amalgamate

Followed the instructions for rolling out the pastry, lined the loose based tin, pricked with a fork, put in some greaseproof paper and my baking beans (mine are actually dried marrowfat peas, they last for ages) and baked for 15 minutes then removed peas and paper and returned to oven for further 10 minutes then left it to cool while I made the filling.

5 large eggs, 125ml double cream, 225g caster sugar, finely grated zest and juice (150mls) of 4 unwaxed lemons.  I poured the juice through my conical sieve to remove the pips. I had measured everything correctly, but when I poured the filling into the pastry case, I had too much filling - or was my pastry case not high enough?  I'll make it higher next time!  I poured the excess filling into a dish and baked it in the oven with the flan.

The finished tart - I sifted icing sugar over the top and left it to cool - looks nice but can't taste until tea time.  However, Haggis always lies as close as he can to the oven when any food is being cooked, just to make sure he gets a taste, but as you can see, it took so long Haggis lost interest and snoozed in a patch of sunlight!!

My little sister Jackie brought me a gorgeous bunch of pink roses when she came for her regular Friday evening visit - aren't they gorgeous?  I have one more card to make this afternoon then I'm going to get the sewing machine out - see you tomorrow for the Ribbon Girl Colour Challenge!!

Mary G x