Whip It Up Wednesday: Quilled Father's Day Card

For us, Father's Day is just around the corner! 

So I thought I'd share the quilled card I made for my Dad's birthday back in July.

What You'll Need:

* White glue

* Plain paper

* A "base" card

I made one using a square of patterned vellum paper attached to coordinating cardboard using brads.

* Embellishments

I used gold wrapping paper and gold 'heart' stickers

What To Do:

Assemble your "base" card. Mine looked like this:

I just attached my vellum paper using brads in each corner - easy peasy!

Next cut your plain paper into thin strips. So I could cut them into strips of even thickness, I folded the paper into a 'fan' first then unfolded it and cut along the creases. I did quite thick strips because I folded them in half to give the paper extra thickness before I glued it down. 

If you don't fold, then you'll just have more delicate quilling, so it's totally up to you!

Lightly drawing with a lead pencil, sketch your letters or whatever shape you're quilling onto your card as a guide to where to stick you paper strips. 

Roll one of the folded strips into a tight coil then let the coil unravel. Work out how you want the strip to sit, coil any 'straight' ends if you want and trim the excess paper. Apply glue to the underside of your strip and attach it to your card. You might need to hold it in place a little until it's tacky and keeps its place.

Repeat this process to finish your first letter.

Then do the remaining letters. 

I also did a strip above and below my letters, with some curly embellished edges.

I decided this looked a bit plain, so to fancy it up, I cut out a large heart from wrapping paper, put a little bit of glue on the back of it and carefully slipped it behind the vellum paper.

I also added some gold heart stickers behind the vellum.

Then I decided I didn't like the brads I'd used, and swapped them over :P

Next time I'd do the quilling in black or something dark to make it stand out more, 

but Dad thought it was pretty cool, so that made me happy! 

Have a great week!

Card Making Resources: Wordle for Parents

In preparation for making a Father's Day card for Dad, I've been playing with Wordle! Have you checked it out yet? It's great fun! Here's one I made with words relating to my dad:

 I thought I'd share a few of the graphics that I made using Wordle that relate to parents so that if you want, you can print them out and use them on a card too! 

To save an image, click on it to bring up the full-sized version, 

then right click on the full-sized version and save it to your computer!

Wordles for Dads:

 

Wordles for Mums: 

Wordles for Parents:

I hope you find some of these useful! I'll share the birthday card I made for Dad with you next week :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Whip It Up Wednesday: Nutella Cupcakes!

I've been addicted to Pinterest lately, a lot of the time I've spent has been pinning yummy foods that we can have at our engagement party - whoo! In my hunting, I found a recipe for Nutella Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing - can anyone say YUM?? I absolutely LOVE Nutella, I could eat it all day!

Now, I will openly admit that I've only just started cooking in the last few months (the shame of it all..!) and so these are the very first cupcakes I have ever cooked in my entire life! And they are YUMMY!

Can you believe I actually cooked and decorated that?
On my own?
Without any help at all?

I take no credit for the recipe of course, you have to go and visit Tartelette for that! Helene's version is gluten free but I made the flour version - mine were a bit heavy because I misread the instructions and included cornflour when I shouldn't have. Boo! They were still yummy though!

Here are the ingredients you need for the plain flour version (note the lack of cornflour ;)):

Cupcake Batter:

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground coffee

2 tablespoons milk

1/4 cup Nutella

2 large eggs

200g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

Cream Cheese Icing:

(This icing is diviiiiiine! I love cream cheese based icings!)

250g cream cheese

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup powdered sugar

60g Nutella

Instructions:

Go and visit Tartelette!

It's only fair that she get credit for her awesome recipe!

Please ignore the cupcake in the top-right corner - I stuffed the icing up on that big time!!

I made some little tiny cupcakes that I cooked for only 15 minutes, and big ones that I cooked for 25 minutes. I think both sets could have come out a bit earlier though.

Update: At my fiancé's request (wow, I have a fiancé now!) I made these again - without the cornflour and they were PERFECT. I only made mini ones and 15 minutes of baking was spot on. Of course, it may vary depending on your oven!

Happy cooking!