Between Cupcakes and Tea - The story of Us

(Elna, Ilsé, Val, Claudene & Benice)

The story of Elna & Benice really started in early 2008.

 Claudene, a mutual friend, saw a lovely project on Stampington's "The Studio" website and wanted like-minded paper crafters to join her in making their own versions of "The Little Book of Beauty and Inspiration".

For the best part of 2008, the three of us met every Wednesday morning, working on our books of inspiration, getting to know each other, sharing our highs and lows and planning our futures.

(Little did we know that Elna & I would travel to rural France in 2011 to pursue our mutual love of all things French and attend a workshop by Dayle Doroshow in Durfort!!)

Wednesday mornings also included a ritual of tea and cupcakes - hence the name for our blog "Between Cupcakes and Tea".

We dug into our secret stash and opened our trousseau cases, looking for our most beautiful papers, ephemera, quotes, beads and stuff that we've saved for "that special project".  Sometimes we had enough to share with the other two, but in most cases we only had one-of-a-kind.

Elna called her book "Love's Log Book" and she has already shared some of the pages with you on February 15, 2012 and February 11, 2012.

This is the cover of my Book - La Vie (Life is).

I decided to use a quote/poem attributed to Mother Teresa as my inspiration.

La Vie

 Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is beauty, admire it.

Life is bliss, taste it.

Life is a dream, realize it.

Life is a challenge, meet it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is costly, care for it.

Life is wealth, keep it.

Life is love, enjoy it.

Life is mystery, know it.

Life is a promise, fulfill it.

Life is sorrow, overcome it.

Life is a song, sing it.

Life is a struggle, accept it.

Life is tragedy, confront it.

Life is an adventure, dare it.

Life is luck, make it.

Life is too precious, do not destroy it.

Life is life, fight for it.

Here is the back cover of my book.

Please pop in again soon - Elna and I promise to share more of the pages from our "books of inspiration".

Red Velvet Cupcakes - the Ina Garten way

It seems I've been watching way too much TV over the festive season!  In particular programs featuring sweet stuff.

My mother-in-law came over for tea yesterday and I decided to do some baking.

I am a complete sucker for cupcakes and Red Velvet Cupcakes really make my knees weak.

So after a bit of "Googling", I opted for The Barefoot Contessa's recipe and by the time our guest arrived, they were ready to be served.

Her recipe is super easy and the texture of the cupcakes exactly to my liking.

Wishing you a year filled with cupcakes!

Making Whoopie Pies and Macarons

I had a "play date" with one of my baking friends today and we decided to give Whoopie Pies and Macarons a try.

 For the Macarons we've used a recipe from Sarie Kos
(one of South Africa's leading food magazines).
We divided the mixture into 3 to create 

Passion Fruit (Yellow)

Raspberry (Pink) and

Grape (Purple) Macarons.

I think they are still a little "rough around the edges", but at least they have "feet"!?

Whoopie Pies have fascinated me for a while and I even bought a recipe book, devoted solely to the wonders of the Whoopie, a while ago.

We've opted for the "original Whoopie" with a marshmallow frosting and I think they look almost too good to eat!?
These measure about 2" in diameter and once assembled,
they were rolled into 100's & 1000's (sprinkles) to pretty them up.

Not bad for a Saturday afternoon, even if I have to say so myself...

Thank you for visiting and hope you have an opportunity soon to give your inner baking diva a chance to shine.

Recipe for only TWO cupcakes

With winter approaching, I find myself spending more & more time indoors, visiting some of my favourite blogs and websites...

While browsing Craft Gossip, I stumbled upon an entry on "How to bake just two cupcakes" (May, 5th 2011) in the "Edible Crafts" section.

Now that sounds like a great idea for when Elna visits and we need something to enjoy with our tea while "cooking" up lessons and kits for future classes!?

Go check out the original recipe on "How Sweet It Is"

and then read how you can convert it into a chocolate version on "A Cup Full of Cake.

Thank you for visiting.

PS - The first photo was taken by my DH and the second is from my personal library.  I did not know if I could use the photos from the blogs mentioned above?!

International Charm Day - A South African version

We hosted our second “International Charm Day” on April 28th, 2011 at my studio in Centurion, South Africa.

(Or as Amber Dawn from Inventive Soul calls it - International Handmade Art Charm Day!)

Guests were treated to Turkish Delight and Passion Fruit cupcakes in honour of our blog name!!

(Elna and I did a whole lot of baking on Wednesday!?)

Ina brought her friend, Tessa, along for the day.

Eretha, Teighler and Jeannie proudly displaying their “Bobbin Fairies”!!

Donè, Dawn, Marnè, Maryke and Rita relaxing after a very creative morning!!  Dawn decided to bring her daughter, Maryke and her two granddaughters with for the morning.

Dawn and Rita attended our workshops at Soul Sisters where they caught the "Bead Bug" and, if you look closely, you will Rita wearing her Soul Sister "Fiber Watch"!?

Guests made a "Bobbin Fairy" - to keep and...

... a "Message on a Thimble" which was swapped out for one made by another guest.

Maryke, Dawn and Marnè trying hard to get the split-pins attached to the ribbon-clasp!?

The studio was a hive of activity with ladies scratching for beads, ribbon and fibers.

Oh, what fun we had!!

A huge "Thank You" goes out to Amber Dawn for starting this wonderful opportunity to share with others!!

Please hop on over to the International Charm Day website to see other related events...

Renovation Therapy

 Elna and her hubby are busy with renovations, which include a lot of  digging, hammering, welding, concrete, dust and unorganised chaos!!

We are in a very busy part of our creative calendar and knee deep in designing projects for the Bead Book, finalising Elna's project & kits for next week's Hobby-X (see picture above), sourcing products for our two Soul Sisters projects to be presented in July (85 of everything needed!?), experimenting with Ice Resin and constructing a "Brag Board" to display our works of art...

The last thing Elna needed was to be "locked up" in her home in the middle of summer, with all the windows closed (to keep the dust out), 15 strangers in her yard and enough noise to drive her into a new blood-group.

When I visited her on Monday she was in a complete "flat spin" - South African for "having your knickers in a knot" and not her CCC (cool, calm & collected) self !?

The solution - Cupcakes and Tea of course!!

Yesterday I visited again, but this time I came bearing gifts...

... yummy cupcakes to make all of her troubles go away for at least the five minutes it took us to finish them off...  I did not make these myself, but you should know that they tasted even better than they looked!?

Thank you for visiting.

International Charm Day

We had an amazing day yesterday...

More than 30 of our friends and clients joined us in celebration of International Charm Day.

There were eight different designs to choose from - each person had to make three identical charms, keep one and swap the other two with charms made by two other guests... Most of our guests are paper crafters and this event has opened a whole new world to them!!

These are the eight designs that were available. We also had a pink range - especially for Claudene!! We used rubber-stamping, double sided tape and glitter, rub-ons, alcohol ink, paper serviette decoupage, paint, wood domino's, quilting fabric, tulle, paper flowers and sewing material to transform ordinary beads into extra-ordinary beads and in some cases even create charms from scratch!? Charm # 1 was inspired by Disney from Ruffles & Stuff.

Needless to say there were many cupcakes, tea and chocolates!?

The charming (pardon the pun!) Michelle and Retief from the Bead Book popped in for a cuppa and we are now even bigger fans of their publication:)

Elna made these divine business cards to ensure our guests remember our blog address ;)

Here Elna is busy explaining a technique to one of our guests while Retief (from the Bead Book) is looking on.

We would like to thank Amber Dawn for her vision when she proclaimed 28 April International Charm Day!! Yesterday has most certainly created at least 20 new beading converts!!

Mission accomplished!

"Melktert" fit for a Queen

I spent a wonderful morning with a friend on Tuesday and she took me to her favourite coffee shop at the Weltevreden Farm in Johannesburg.

This is how they serve their "Melktert" (Milktart)! It differs slightly from the traditional way, in that they use phyllo pastry for the crust.

A huge storm broke out and we were forced to find shelter in a local scrapbooking shop. Thanx Lisa Myburgh from the Memory Shed for making us feel at home!

Till next time

Benice

Cupcakes (almost) too good to eat

Elna and I joined a bunch of "old" and new friends yesterday to celebrate the birthday of one of our BFFs, Claudene. The pink cupcakes had a Rosewater icing and tasted just like Turkish Delight!!

The setting was in a gorgeous store in Northcliff, Johannesburg, called "enStyle". We felt like real Victorian Ladies, having High Tea in the late 1800's...


Thanx Claudene for a very special day and putting a smile on Elna's (and my) face!?