Hi there!
So, this is a slightly different post to my usual crafty goodness, but I thought I’d share some pics of our jubilee celebrations!
Preparations for the party began on Saturday, I baked 36 cupcakes using a basic vanilla sponge recipe which I am sure you can find online so I won’t post it here. As you can see I had 24 Union Flag cases (the other 12 were plain white cases).
Once I had finished the baking for the day I started work on other preparations: 
I painted my nails myself, which was ok if you don’t mind a bit of fiddly painting, I also did my fingernails, with Union Flag thumbnails and red fingernails, but I forgot to take a photo and I’ve removed it by now! It was quite quick and easy if you fancy doing the same thing for the upcoming olympic games; First you need a blue base (get a good solid bright blue), once that’s dry using a VERY THIN brush (you can buy these, or I used one from an eyeliner I wasn’t going to use) paint a white cross, and then add in the diagonal lines, I decided to do this very last minute and had to make do, but I’d recommend using french tip whitener. Finally, once the white is dry, add a very fine cross in red (+) (again I’d recommend a good solid bright red) and then add the diagonals, leaving a small gap like the flag has. I’d also recommend covering the lot with a topcoat or some clear nail varnish to stop it chipping.
After all this work (haha, it really didn’t take long, and of course I didn’t sit doing nothing while my layers dried) came the task of icing cupcakes! Now I’d never done this before, and I was a little nervous about my first “swirl icing” endeavour on such a large scale! I did however spend a little bit of time talking to people and visiting a few sites online to assure myself I could do it! I made a simple butter icing, do you want the ingredients? Ok, Butter, and er Icing Sugar. Yep complicated huh! How much kinda depends on what you need! I needed quite a lot, but I did each batch separately and in different colours, (food colouring) so when it came to adding liquid, I simply used less butter. To get a good swirl, I used a star tip on a piping syringe. I love the “don’t use a round plain tip” advice online, using these produces “poo cake” for lack of a better expression. And looks pretty awful. The star tip, makes it look all pretty! When all this was finished (late Sunday night) I was ready for the party!
And there they are! OH’s mum got me a cake stand as well, so they were set off wonderfully! As you can see, the blue was much lighter than the red, but I had no complaints! And they looked fab, even if I do say so myself!
After all this, it was time to relax and enjoy the party, which we did, I even managed to catch a little sun! Which now, on Wednesday has long gone, and the rain has come back. But still, at least we had a lovely day for celebrating! 
Here’s a pic of OH and I enjoying a nice cup of tea in the sun! As you can see, nobody disappointed when it came to the dress code!
Back to the crafty posts in the morning!
I hope you have a great day whatever you’re up to,
Happy Crafting!
