A Magnolia Church Wedding

With my Nephew getting married last year, it inspired me to make a wedding table centre piece which I subsequently entered into a competition.
Sadly, I didn't win anything, but I enjoyed making it and thought I would show you.

It took a bit of planning and creating templates, but I was really pleased with the way it turned out.
I put a battery operated tea light in the centre to light the 'church' up, which looked lovely with through the stained glass windows.

The 'stars of the show' were the beautiful Magnolia stamps - Tilda and Bridesmaid and Edwin standing groom.  I seem to have neglected my stamps recently and have been spending a lot of time with my dies, but this shows that the two combine beautifully and is something I really want to spend more time with in the future.

In the Days Before Bright Heart Craft Lights

It has been an age since I last updated my blog, which was really down to work commitments and having two years of looking after both sets of parents.
In the first year my Father in Law had a small stroke while we were on holiday and was still recovering from that when my Mother in Law had to go into hospital for open heart surgery.
As they were both too poorly to look after themselves, they moved in with us for a while and all card making was put on hold.  Luckily they have both made good recoveries but then last year, my Dad, who had been suffering from dementia for a couple of years, had a fall which was enough to trigger something in him and suddenly, overnight, became completely helpless and lost.
Mum couldn't manage and we had to arrange for a care home for him which he was only in for a couple of weeks before being taken to hospital and being there for a month before he sadly passed away.
Hopefully, all that is behind us now and I was so pleased to be asked recently to join the design team for Tattered Lace.
I have yet to receive my first commission but watched with interest their Christmas show on Create and Craft this week and, in particular the new Bright Heart craft lights they have bought out.
It reminded me of when I used to decorate cakes and for two years I made Christmas cakes using the small strings of battery operated lights you can buy for home decorations.  Oh what a difference these new lights would have made!  Although I was pleased with the results, the battery pack was so bulky, I can't wait to get hold of some of the new ones and make special cards with them.
Here are a couple of pictures of the cakes I made

This is the first one I did and this is what it looked like normally, and once the lights were turned on this is what it was like:

The next one I made the following year, was of Rudolph and his sleigh on a rooftop - even his red nose lit up!

I hope you like these ideas and I will be blogging a lot more in future, especially if I can give you any sneaky peaks of anything coming your way!