Amy Pigott: Bow

For today's blog post I wanted to share with you a little canvas that I have made my dad as part of his Father's day present. It was super easy to make and you can do anything to customise it so it suits your dad.

I started by painted my canvas my chosen colour, for my dad my only option was blue, plus I wanted to do something special on the front to represent him, and blue would be pretty pivotal for that. I used acrylic paint across the canvas.

Down the left hand side I used a piece to string, to break up the canvas. I tied a bow in the top and glued it too the canvas.

I also added this cardboard 'Dad' sign I found in my stash, just so the string didn't look too bare against the canvas.

I found some letter tiles I had in my stash, and using Chipped Saphire Tim Holtz Distress Ink, I stamped them to match the canvas.

As you can see from the above photo, everything was very blue while I was working!

I found this tag, and stamped it in Chipped Saphire Distress Ink. Then, using a stencil, I copied 'Love, Amy' coloured it in using a black sharpie and attached it under the Cardboard 'Dad' sign.

I attached the 'Dad' tiles to the top of the canvas, using 2 sticky pads on each tile.

For the centre piece I drew the Torquay United Logo (Dad's favourite football team - he was born and raised in Torquay, Devon, UK) and painted it using yellow acrylic paint and then glued it to the centre of the canvas.

I am really pleased with the outcome, its just how I imagined it. I am sure he will really love it, I will keep you all updated!

This is a really simple idea, easy to make and you can make it to completely suit you Dad's personality.

If you try this don't forget to leave me a comment below, linking to your post and/or photos, I would love to see them!

Not my usual form of craft I must say, but when my friend mentioned about buying a cupcake class from Groupon I couldn't say no - who could! An afternoon of sugary goodness and cupcakes to bring home! Lush!

I took the class with my friend at Sweet and Floral Sugarcraft School in Enfield.

First things first, we separated our fondant into different shaped balls, following a chart, for the things we were going to make.

Next we learn how to colour our fondant, not using the usual shop bought liquid colours (this makes the icing too watery and difficult to work with) but gel colours. We were taught how to add the colour and work it through. We then got on with colouring each of our balls of icing.

The first thing we started doing was the bow cupcake. When I looked at this I thought 'eeeek' how am I ever going to be able to do it, but I think you'll agree it worked out pretty well! We were talked through everything step by step and although I felt too heavy handed, it worked out ok! And I thought the colours looked cute together too!

Next it was on to making roses, this is what I was scared about! Knowing that when it comes to delicate work I often feel very heavy handed I was concerned if I would be able to be delicate enough to do well. Well, I don't know what happened, because how the hell did I produce two amazing looking roses. It must have been a total fluke!