Great American Cake Show

Last month I was busy making cards everyday for my card challenge and this month it's all been about cake!  I've entered the Great American Cake show competition at the end of April and so have been busy preparing my entries.

2010 was my first year to enter and I entered three cakes.  One was a pink prada purse cake, the second and babies first gift cake and the last a two tier mothers day cake.  I was really pleased to win 3rd place for my baby cake in my category and come home with a little rosette.

I've been thinking about what to enter this year for a while now and have had a sketch drawn out of my wedding cake entry.  The theme for the wedding cake category this year is holidays, so I have chosen to do a Christmas theme wedding cake.  I finally decided on the cake dummy sizes and shapes and set to work decorating them with fondant last week.

Seeing my design go from paper into fondant is quite amazing and so far I'm really pleased with how the top three tiers have come out.  All was going great until today when I ended up getting my finger caught in a dog leash and now it looks like it may be dislocated.  I just hope I'll be able to get my cake finished in time for the competition on the 30th April.

Here are some photos of the top three tiers so far. The top tier represents a winter snow scene with a snow bride and snow groom on top.  The second tier is a Christmas present, the third represents the Christmas tree and I'm really excited at how that has turned out.  Although I'm keeping the cake all white, it has so much texture that it has depth and interest.

Custom order of military theme cards just finished

I've just finished making a custom order of 30 cards with a military/veteran theme and will be getting them in the mail to the customer today. I got a little carried away and ended up making 40 cards so I'll have afew of them to keep on my Etsy store too.

I made a selection of sizes and styles including Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines, Veterans, Motor Bikes and USA theme cards and love them all.

They are going to be sold at the Rolling Thunder event on Memorial Day in May to raise money for the war veterans, which is a great cause.

And the winner of my March giveaway is..........

Throughout March I ran a giveaway to win 10 of my handmade cards for people who either liked my facebook fan page or made a purchase on my Etsy store.  By the end of March I had reached over 100 fans on my page and made several sales on Etsy too.  So on April 1st, I did a drawing to see who the lucky winner would be and it is Laura! Congrats!

Here is a photo of the 10 cards that will be making their way to Laura and I hope she loves them and sends them all out to her friends and family.

Now its time to get started on the 85 wedding invitation sets I have on order so that will keep me busy for a while.

Last day of the March Madness Card challenge - an assortment of cards

Well here I am on day 31 at the end of my card a day challenge for March.  It's been a fun month and I've got lots of lovely cards to show for it too, although it has been hard work to get them made, photographed, uploaded and blogged about, and being sick for a couple of days didn't really help, but I made it through!

Looking back at all the cards I did make, I've counted up them all and actually made 54 different cards, and including multiples of the same design, there were over 100 cards, so quite a productive month.  I'll certainly have plenty to take to the Washington International Spring Bazaar on April 17th.

For my last day I've made five new cards.  It started off with a first birthday card, then I added an 18th and 21st birthday cards followed by a sweet sixteen, and finally two quick thank you cards to try out a new rubber stamp!

I hope you've enjoyed following my creativity and I'll start thinking about another challenge for later in the year.

Card Challenge Days 28, 29 & 30 - It sucks being sick!

I guess with the crazy temperature changes this past week it's not suprising that I have caught a cold!  I hate feeling ill and I'm not sure whats worse, the symptoms of my sore throat and throbbing head or the side affects of the cold medication that make me feel like I'm high!

With feeling sick, I've just not had the energy or motivation to make any cards for a couple of days, but today I dragged myself into the craft room and got creating, and before I knew it I had made up two new cards and felt alot happier.

It's the last day of my 31 day challenge tomorrow and I hope to get some more cards made and posted, and then reflect on the past 31 days and all of the cards I've made.  Its also the last day of my giveaway too, so for all of those that have 'liked' my Liz Felgate Crafts facebook page or made a purchase from my Etsy store, I'll be drawing a name to win 10 of my beautiful cards!

Card Challenge Day 27 - Bassets are like potato chips, you can't just have one!

My featured card, or should I say cards for today follow on from yesterdays theme of basset hounds. I wanted to try out all three of my new rubber stamps and so ended up creating about 6 different cards in all.

Just by using the stamps in different ways I can create so much more than three different cards.  I especially like the smaller of the stamps which is just a clear outline of a basset hound as I'm able to stamp it out four times, and then cut out different 'layers' to build up a 3d basset.

I'm sure I'll be making lots more of these fun cards ready for the BROOD Ramble in September.  I attended my first Ramble last year and what an amazing day it was.  There were over 150 basset hounds of all shapes, sizes and ages there, along with their owners, all to raise money for the Basset Rescue of Old Dominion (BROOD).  I'm hoping to take Daisy with me this year when I have another booth there to sell my cards.

Well here are my first creations using Barnie, Oliver and Sebastian the basset hound stamps (well they have to have names too!).

Collection of basset cards

Card Challenge Day 26 - Bassets Rule!

Back in January we added to our family by adopting a rescue dog from the Basset Rescue of Old Dominion (BROOD), in the way of Daisy.  A cute and fun two year old basset hound mix which was going to make the perfect playmate for our border collie cross Jelly!  It was love at first site, for all of us, and so we brought Daisy home.

She's settled in great and made herself at home straight away, taking her position on an armchair like she'd always been meant to sit there.  Shortly after we got her I'd taken her to the vets for a check up and was told that she had tested positive for heartworm. this was very worrying as I knew that heartworm could be very dangerous for dogs.  We started treatment straight away which meant that Daisy had to stay at the vets for 4 days while they gave her treatment to kill the worms and monitor her for any possible side effects.

Thankfully she has now been given the all clear from the vets and shouldn't have any long term effects because of it.  Throughout all of it she's been her playful happy self and we just love her to bits.

BROOD are a fantastic organistaion who help to rehome and take care of hundreds of bassets, they are always looking for fosters and furever homes for their dogs. Check out the available dogs on their website at http://www.brood-va.org/ and see if you can welcome a new dog into your life too.

I've just added some more bassets to our house in the form of some new basset rubber stamps, and so thought I'd try one of them out this morning! so cute!