My streak of luck - I think?!

Hello to all my blog friends!! It has been a very long time since I wrote anything, but life has been going past me with the speed of lightning. Since living on the farm and having to manage a feedlot, I have had very little time for crafting, but I am hoping that it will change soon. We are planning on moving my craft room into one of the spare bedrooms; at the moment it is in an outside room and I don't want to sit out there all by myself at night. Also no security gate fitted to the room. Luckily hubby made freestanding cupboards. Once all my stuff is moved into the house, I will be able to sit and craft till the wee hours of the morning again. I have been busy with some ATC's for swaps though, but will only be able to show them once swapped out.

Since moving here I have joined our local Garden Club as well as the WI ladies group. Originally I thought I would only go as a guest, but both groups have such great members, that I decided to join both of the groups. Seeing that Monday was Valentine's Day, the theme for the WI group meeting was of cause - Valentine! As it was our groups turn for the eats, I was asked to bake 30 cupcakes and I was given a picture of what they should look like. I had to put white and red frosting together in a bag and pipe that onto the cupcakes. What a jolly mess! Firstly, the red food coloring would not make the frosting go RED, even after adding almost the whole bottle of gel coloring. I phoned the group leader and she said to just make it pink and white as a lot of her eats were also pink. What a relief! This is what it turned out to be:

This was done around 10pm after having wasted a couple of batches of frosting and having to make a new batches! Not to say anything about having baked 3 batches of the cupcakes itself! If I did not put too much batter in the little cups, the cake did not rise correctly. Hubby was happy - he loves sweet stuff. Eventually I was happy with everything, but I told them I would never bake something sweet for a meeting again. Give me savory things to bake - that I am more than willing to do.

For this same meeting, there was also a competition to make anything to do with hearts. No prizes though, only a percentage given to your entry and at the end of the year the one who achieved the highest percentage for all her entries at meetings, gets a small prize. There are different categories - I entered my goodies in the Hobby category. Every year around Christmas I make a round wreath from a specific kind of sweetie. For this competition my hubby bent the wires for me into a heart shape and I added the sweeties to that. I packed it into a cellophane bag and added some angel hair. I had no ribbon that exactly matched the color of the sweets and in our little town you will not find ribbon! Well, to my surprise, I scored the highest points in the Hobby category - 84%! The judges thought that it could work well as a centerpiece and it would be a good Valentines gift as you could also eat it. They also felt that it was well presented and of a strong and sturdy construction. This is what it looks like:

The sweets are imported from Brazil and as so many things here in good old South-Africa - it is no longer brought in! There goes all my extra pocket money over Christmas time!

For our Garden Club meeting, which also had a Valentine theme, each member had to bake 6 cupcakes and a winner would also be chosen. Not specifically for the best decorated cupcake. The rule were just that you had to stick with the Valentine theme. Again I had very little time to do this and in the end decided that less is more. I baked some chocolate cupcakes in red cups - remember I had how many flops before - this time I knew just how much batter to put into the little cups! I decided to pipe just plain white frosting onto them and add a little red sugar heart and to present them in a holder with hearts on it. The hearts and the holders I bought from a shop specializing in all things to do with cakes in a nearby town. The judge brought out six different cupcakes - some VERY beautifully decorated ones, I must say. She commented on each of them and then said that she chose mine as the winning cupcakes because I stuck with the Valentine theme the best and that 'less is more'! My motto too! I could not believe it!! Keep in mind that I am a brand new member to the community as well as to these two groups and that in a matter of one week I get the best marks for my heart 'wreath' and I win the cupcake 'competition'! I think it is just a streak of luck that has crossed my path in this last week - VBG! This is what my winning cupcakes looked like:

If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see that the little heart on top has 'I love you' written on it.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings! I so hope that my next post will be craft related :-) Though, no craft time this weekend again - we have a rally just outside of town on Saturday and the WI ladies is responsible for the food. From tomorrow it is work, work and more work again.

Hoping that you will all have a lovely weekend and that you will be able to get lots of crafting done.

Thanks for visiting!