Royal Wedding Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Wedding fever? Well, I love a parade ... and pretty dresses ... and national pride ... and buildings filled with history ... and pomp and pageantry for sure ... so yes, a bit. Must say I've watched or read almost nothing to this point but as the day approaches I'm looking forward to tucking in to hours and hours and hours of the stuff. This isn't just any Royal Wedding, it's a 'man-who-could-be-king' shindig!

As my "getting into the event" I have been planning to make the Chocolate Biscuit Cake (that I'd never heard of) which is planned to be the grooms cake. There seem to be quite a few variations for the recipe - which I always like to see as I only ever take general advice from a recipe - but I think I may have landed somewhere between this loosy-goosy Nigella version (below) or the heavy chocolate to biscuit ratio without cherries, raisins and nuts, shown in the Chicago Tribune.

This Recipe at Mail Online

even more recipes for this ...

• Chocolate biscuit cake (thestar.com)
• Recipe: A Cake Fit for a King (themealticket.wordpress.com)

A Nice Sky

It was a lovely sky tonight. Just before I was able to get out with a camera, it was almost perfectly striped with pink on blue. A very nice blanket pattern I thought.

Of course, if I were to make a blanket it would more likely come out like this! I couldn't resist playing a bit with saturation levels and etc. 'Fun with Sky Art'

With any luck the dramatic skies are signally the end of the "ugh" weather and we can get on with this Spring the calendar has been promising. The garden is ... slowly starting ... and will have benefited from all the rain.

On the crafting front I have been tinkering with a few things - a crocheted tote, some new necklaces, cards and gift tags, and more ornaments with beads. Updates soon.

Speaking of blanket patterns:

• Granny Stripe Blanket (craftzine.com)

Magic snowflakes?

I've been making snowflakes. Lots and lots of sparkly snowflakes.


The little white plastic snowflakes came from the Dollar Store, and I've used them in the past on my wreaths. For these ornaments, I've painted them with a couple of layers of twinkle glitter to look a little nicer and to catch the lights on the trees.

Or, perhaps simply because I can seldom resist adding glitter. I think what turns them into something really special is the beaded hangers and needless to say I had a lot of fun playing with varieties.

I'm only sorry I don't have several packs on the craft shelves. Why did I not buy more? Ah well ... at least I bought some ... and there's always next year. Or September, when the Christmas things start hitting the stores.

I particularly like the inclusion of the clear glass beads as they should add an amost icicle effect when the tree is lit up - or hanging near a light source as you can pop them anywhere.


As it snowed today - not enough to stay on the ground but bizarrely 'blizzardy' throughout most of the day - it is also entirely possible that these are magic snowflakes.


Magic or not - I like them! And my packs of Christmas papers for thematic photography. It's all happening here at Santa's village.

Crocheted Carpet

Here's a surprise - I've finished something that I didn't even tell you I'd started. Another little experiment - crocheting a carpet. This one is for my office.

Photographing Necklaces

I'm sorting out some of the necklaces that I've made so they can become organized. I'm rather fond of these large glass beads, and the two strand sets work nicely as a statement piece.

And I like a couple of things about this round glass beads necklace. I like the balance of spacing, seems to have a nice 'floaty' look, and I also like the contrast with the small pink beads bringing out the pink flowers painted on some of the greeen beads. Something for me to remember as I tend to be fairly monochromatic with certain things.

And hey! I think I like the little photo-in photo images. What do you think? More pretty glass beads. Gold with flecks of all sorts of autumnal colours.


These necklaces with almost a 'faux rock' bead look nice as a longer double strand in my opinion, but this made for easier photographing.

Several more to 'catalogue' and then we can begin anew - the list of things I'd like to see is building in my head.

Santa Gift Tags

Does anyone know what happened to March? Yikes - only 8 posts last month I must try to do better. Plus it's always fun to see what other craft bloggers are up to as I always seem to get distracted checking out other blogs when I'm updating mine.