A commission and a birthday party

The last week has been quite exciting really - it's my husbands Birthday on New Year's Eve so as per the tradition we threw a Birthday and New Year party. We didn't really have time to decorate the house up for it this time but we still managed to make a lovely luminous green cocktail for everyone to start the evening off with. We were so short on time that I couldn't even manage to find the time to make a birthday cake for my husband this year.

Luckily one of my friends very kindly text me the day before and asked if we would like her to bake a cake for the party. I jumped at this as everyone has to have a cake on their birthday and her cakes are always delicious (as we found out at the Great British Bake Off - a look at the cook book that I made of all of the recipes can be found here - Cook book - one finished). The one - very sensible! - request that my husband had for his cake was that it should be multicoloured. Personally I would have deemed this a ridiculous request and not bothered but Lynsey (Novice Crafter) did a fantastic job!

This week is that I was also asked to make 2 cards for one of my work colleagues - I have made her a couple before for her granddad so I was really pleased when she asked me again - this time the cards were for her Step-Dad. I was told that he liked Malteasers, walking, dogs and beer so this was my attempt at a couple of cards for him. One was to be from her and the other from her daughter who calls him Grandad Dezzy.

I don't think I did too bad a job of capturing all of his hobbies and interests into the two cards.

Just before Christmas I managed to get to grips with the way that my cutting machine - the Sizzix eclipse works and am actually finding this ridiculously useful now that I have come to understand it - it made cutting the letters for the front of the malteasers card so much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Also this week I have been working on knitting my sweater for the second class of the sweater club - I'm really glad that this has now been moved to February as I have no idea how else I would have got it done but I am getting there. I have finished the back and after 2 previous attempts with the wrong needles and not being able to count stitches I am ready to start the beige colour for the front panel. I am really excited to get this finished but am equally really pleased that there is a deadline otherwise I am certain it would have never got as far as it has already.

Henlow is still very happy and has been coming out for lots of cuddles recently - I love having his little run where it is next to the sofa because it tends to mean that I end up looking over at him and talking to him all of the time (possibly slightly crazy I know!). We've decided to keep him down there now even though all of the Christmas decorations have come down and he could have gone back in the far corner as I think I see him a lot more and he makes me smile a lot more where he is now. Here's a good picture I got of him having a good old munch yesterday.