Jane Means

At The Country Living Fair show last month I discovered Jane Means. Her stand was such eye candy, with rolls and rolls of delightful ribbons and Easter decorations. Jane Means, an ex florist, started her business in 1995 making bespoke cards and wedding stationery which became very successful and a card she was commissioned to make for the Queen was on display at Buckingham Palace Mews. In the late nineties Jane turned her hand to her real passion, gift wrapping, and after completing her teacher training she started gift wrapping courses in her parents Lincolnshire watermill.

Jane is now known as Britain's gift wrapping expert and runs a gift wrapping school up and down the country, appearing on television and featuring in many glossy magazines and national newspapers.

From the website:

"She has worked for a well known French Fashion house in Europe, wrapped a gift for the Queen and personally gift wrapped for various celebrities (She won't disclose names!)."

She also designs her own ribbon collections and decorations, which are featured regularly in the press and are sold online and wholesale.

I bought quite a few of her wonderful ribbons on the day and have started incorporating them into my Easter decorations, coming soon...

Have a sweet day!

Easter Baking Pretties

Today in my series of posts "Inspirational Pins", I bring you another Easter Inspirational board, this time with the sweetest flowery cupcakes and what's not to love about the piped grass cupcakes with eggs? For more Easter inspiration, both in and out of the kitchen, check out my Easter Pinterest board!

• Creation cupcakes
• Fields of flowers cupcakes
• Pansy cupcakes
• Spring posy mini cakes
• Spring flower cupcakes

I must dash. I have got so much baking to do!

Have a sweet day!

Cake Ink

This week on Flickr Faves Sunday, I bring you the wonderful work of Janelle of Cake Ink. I just love her co-ordinated cakes, bakes and sweet treats she made for an 'Enchanted garden' mini dessert table. Cake Ink. is a collaboration of Samone, graphic designer and owner of Red Letter Studio, and Janelle, of Cupcakes by Janelle, and is based in Melbourne’s bayside. Check back soon for some more of the most inspirational photographers on Flickr.

Some beautiful shots from my Flickr favourites (clockwise from top left):

• The perfectly delightful Butterfly cupcakes
• The ever-so-cute Cloud marshmallows
• The colour co-ordinated stylish Pink lemonade
• The whimsical Butterfly biscuits

Have a sweet day!

Thank you cards shop giveaway

I'm so pleased to announce a giveaway worth $50 of store credit for Thank you cards shop, and it's open to readers worldwide!

Thank you cards shop is the brainchild of Vancouver based graphic designer Amy Lowry, who loves stationery! She got her start in designing stationery for her own wedding almost 6 years ago and from there she was hooked.

Almost everything about her wedding was DIY, from the favors to the stationery, to the bridesmaids jewelry and the cupcakes at the after party! When it came time to design the 'thank you' cards for the wedding she found herself short on time – and ended up shopping for cards, but wasn’t totally happy with the selection available and the lack of customized options. So, years later Thank you cards shop was born.

All of the wonderfully designed cards are digitally printed on high quality white card stock and professionally printed and beautifully packaged in her studio. Amy also owns a blog where she posts free printables and shares pics of her lovely photo shoots, amongst other treasures!

To enter, please visit Thank you cards shop and then leave a comment below this post letting me know what you would spend your store credit on. The giveaway ends on Saturday, April 23rd 2011 at 10pm (GMT) and I will randomly select and announce a winner on Sunday, April 24th.

To increase your chances of winning this fabulous prize, you can gain one additional entry for doing each of the following:

• tweeting about this giveaway
• blogging about it
• following/subscribing to the Torie Jayne blog/twitter

For the first two, please leave a comment below with the link to your tweet or blog post.

This giveaway is open to readers worldwide.

Good luck and have a sweet day!

Easter Hanging Butterflies

Easter hanging butterflies for my Easter tree

On a recent trip to the New Covent Garden Market in London I spied a massive box of clear acrylic butterflies. I had bought similar looking maple leaves just before Christmas and had loved how they looked after a lick of white paint and some baker's yarn. I knew I had to purchase some of the butterflies with the view to paint them in pink and blue to match my Easter Palette.

I love how they turned out and now I need to get on with making this year's Easter Tree to hang them on.

Easter Hanging Butterflies
What you will need:
14 Acrylic butterflies
Pink frosted glass beads
Blue frosted glass beads
28 green wooden beads
Mono filament 0.23mm
Flamingo Fun pink paint
Blue paint





Instructions

1. Wash butterflies in warm soapy water and leave to dry
2. Paint seven butterflies in pink (I did three coats) and leave to dry
3. Repeat with remaining butterflies in blue and leave to dry
4. Cut 20 cm of mono filament





5. Thread mono filament through hole in centre of butterfly and tie in a knot
6. Thread three beads in alternating colours down both ends of thread, and push below knot
7. Thread ten beads in alternating colours, finishing with one green bead down each side
8. Knot ends

Last year's Easter Tree hung with hand painted eggs and bunnies

2009's Easter tree hung with hand made felt Easter birds

Have a sweet day!

Deck-The-Halls

One of the prettiest Easter boutiques at The Country Living Spring Fair was Deck-The-Halls.

Deck-The-Halls was started by Paula on the kitchen table 10 years ago. In her words: "It was a weird start as my father died unexpectedly on Christmas day, only 6 weeks after my son was born so we did not really celebrate Christmas and I found it hard to put it away that year. I started making Christmas decorations and friends were asking me for them. I decided to see if they were just being nice by taking them to local shops, who then placed orders. I started exhibiting at Country Living Christmas 2005 where we won the editor's choice for the best stand and the rest is history!"

Paula now works full time on designing and making the collection with her husband and sells to shops including Liberty’s.

Have a sweet day!

Easter Butterfly Bird Houses

Easter butterfly bird houses for my Easter table

For the past couple of years I have decorated each guest's table setting on my Easter table with a hand-painted bird house with a little straw nest filled with chocolate eggs inside. This year I wanted a change so I have gone for small wooden bird houses which I have decorated to match my new colour theme of pink and blue, and decorated them with painted paper butterflies to match the butterflies on my bird trail tablecloth.

Easter Butterfly Bird Houses
What you will need:
Six wooden bird houses
Pale blue and pale pink card
Tonic Studio multi-detail craft punch - Butterfly
PVA glue
Flamingo Fun pink paint
Blue paint
Green paint
White paint
Blue feathers
Pink paper filler
Foil wrapped chocolate eggs




Instructions

1. Masking tape body of house below roofs
2. Paint three roofs in pink and three in blue (I did three coats of each colour) and leave to dry
3. Masking tape off roofs and paint body of houses in three coats of white, leave to dry
4. Masking tape off body and paint bottom of houses in green, leave to dry.





5. Punch out three butterflies in blue card and three in pink card
6. Fold wings back
7. Paint front and back of pink card butterflies in pink paint, paint front and back of blue card butterflies in blue paint, leave to dry
8. Put a small dab of PVA glue on back of butterflies





9. Stick a pink butterfly to a blue roof and vice versa until all roofs have a butterfly on top
10. Separate pink paper shredding filler into three piles and blue feathers into three piles
11. Fill blue roofed houses with pink paper shredding and pink roofed houses with blue feathers
12. Fill houses with loads of foil wrapped eggs!

Easter Bird Houses from 2009 and 2010

Have a sweet day!