Dear Twitter...

I like you, I really do. I like random pieces of (largely useless, thank you Qikipedia/Grey Sky Thinking) information being delivered to my phone. I like knowing what celebrities are up to and seeing random odd photographs of their pets/shoes/nails/lunch. I like the @ messages, and I like the direct messages, especially being of an age where having real-time discussions with people on other continents is still rather exciting to me (I know, I'm a lil old Quaint-o-saurus).


I even like hashtags, unless I'm using the Mac at work, what with Apple having discarded the "#" key in favour of random crap they made up themselves which serves no discernible function.

I don't like you enough to download any of the many Twitter apps onto my laptop. I only run two accounts, and one of those is an "Official" one that I don't need access to unless I'm actually broadcasting information with it. Which means I use your regular ol' website...bringing me to the main issue:-

I don't like your new layout. For example:

This is my Twitter homepage when I DON'T have a private message (if you click on any of the images you can view them larger...which may help with the following visual part of this presentation):

And this is my Twitter homepage when I DO have a private message:

Do you see the message alert? Really? Have another look. Give up? OK, I'll show you where the massive, noticeable message alert is:

That's it. One tiny little glow. No numbers, no envelopes...One small glowing blue blob. To make matters worse, sometimes the blob glows, and sometimes...It doesn't. Useful eh?


May I make a suggestion, Twitter? If you want to be all subtle and whatnot with your message alert and avoid numbers and envelopes and all of the common stuff everyone else uses, at least light up something noticeable (and make sure that it lights up every time). Might I suggest the lovely debossed bird that is just ripe for the glowifying, circled below:

Now wouldn't that be better, Twitter? Maybe it already lights up for something else, I don't know. But if it does, I am yet to find out what it is.

Love,

Me

Check It Out! Prints Charming

Before Christmas I discovered the AMAZING Prints Charming Design, where the lovely Kathryn can stamp hand, foot, finger and even paw prints into 99.9% sterling silver, and make some absolutely gorgeous jewellery and keepsakes.

Cufflinks

Circle of Love Pendant

Keyring

Even drawings can be put onto your keepsakes.

Or the lil bumps who will eventually make the drawings!

I fell in love with this idea! ;)

This is the pendant Kathryn made for me (one for me, one for Mum for Christmas).

We LOVE them.

Kathryn is a complete dream to deal with, so helpful and such a talent, so please drop her a line through the Prints Charming website for more details and to place your order.

Looks Sweet & Innocent...

I decided to make a lovely cake for Valentine's Day.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but I've made a lot of lovely cakes in my time. So this should have been a relatively simple task.

You might gather from the fact that it gets it's own blog post, that it wasn't.

Looks all sweet and innocent, right? I even used copious amounts of edible food glitter* **.

That pale layer right there, THAT is where the trouble starts. Now someone in our house (who isn't me) LOVES strawberry flavoured things (but won't eat strawberries...don't get me started. Anyway...) so I thought I would make a chocolate cake with an awesome strawberry layer in the middle. I've had a major thing about multi-layer cakes, ever since I saw this video of the 24-layer chocolate cake on the menu at Steakhouse 55 in Disneyland, CA.

So I made the chocolate layers, no problem. Then came The Demon Layer (as it is now known). The problem seems to lie squarely with this stuff:

Super Cook Strawberry Flavouring.

I can't smell the stuff without gagging, but what the hell, it's Valentine's Day. I measured the satanic liquid. MEASURED. And for 500ish grams of cake mix, I used UNDER the recommended amount. Way under. I also added half a bottle of fuschia pink food colouring (also Super Cook) which, as you can see, did bugger all to the colour of the cake. (Starting to lose faith, Super Cook).

*bake* *cool* *assemble* *decorate liberally with edible glitter and giant Smarties*

Then we came to try the lovely cake. In fact, we were so excited to try the lovely cake that I forgot to take a photo of the complete lovely cake, hence the photos have a chunk missing.

At first I dismissed this photograph because of the screwy focus. Then I realised that it's actually quite cool, because it draws the eye right into the cake. And who wouldn't want to be up to their eyes in cake?!

Well, not this cake, my friends.

Even the faux-strawberry-flavour lover was stumped to find a word that adequately described how disgusting that strawberry layer is.

But then I discovered a method of eating the cake that makes it all sweet and innocent and delicious again:

Around these parts we call it "Destrawberrification".

* I went to buy the edible food glitter at Hobbycraft. It wasn't labelled "Edible Food Glitter", so I took it to the counter to pay for it, and asked:

"This is the glitter you can eat, right?"

"Well,  you can...In moderation...I mean you're not supposed to just eat it straight out of the pot with a spoon, or anything, but in moderation...*sees my concerned/slightly offended face face* I'm sorry, I'm sure you wouldn't do that, but we have to say that now."

"Now?"

"We're not allowed to talk about why..."

I still REALLY want to know why.

** Edible food glitter is completely inert to the human digestive system. As in, if you forgot you ate it the night before, you might be slightly concerned the following morning.

#FairyPoop

;)

Project: LOVE

I was going to title this "Project: LOVE - Reveal", but then I realised that I never gave any sneaky peeks at this project, so...Here is the project reveal you weren't actually waiting for. Be excited (and amazed that this is perfectly timed for Valentine's Day ;).

This is one of the ones that I had to wait to reveal, for obvious reasons, and it's one of my favourite things I've EVER made. EVER. Even over the teddy-sized Elvis jumpsuit (don't even ask).

So, here goes:

I put the names on it wayyyyyy before I was ready to do the outlining. If I hadn't, I would have kept it!

This is the magazine version (The World Of Cross Stitch, Iss. 178):

And my finished version:

(Why yes, I do work on the floor on an upside-down tabletop. I also sew on the hearth at a very strange angle. Works for me! :P ).

And the back, because I love it almost as much as the front:

♥♥♥