Corrinne Day

Last night I went to see Placebo (yes you may all laugh) and they covered Nirvana's All Apologies. I wasn't so sure about that, but I forgave them as they dedicated it to Corrine Day, to which I responded by saying (to myself because I was obviously flying solo at this gig!) has she died?!

I first heard about Corrinne Day when doing my usually 'I'm going to read every piece of writing on the back of this record' thing that I love to do. Not long after noting down her name I watched a documentary about her on the BBC.
This documentary was a diary of her work and illness. Hear I found out she was instrumental in the making of Kate Moss, championing the androgynous heroin chic look so popular in the 90s!!

Her battle with her illness ended in August of this year.

I just wanted to say that she produced one of m,y favourite series of artwork for one of my favourite records (and collection of singles).

Ask Carrie Craftster....

Like all good agony aunts, Carrie Craftster can improve your life greatly, so if you've got your knitting all knotty, your stitches in a tizz or your cakes aren't rising to the occasion, ask her how you can make it better.
Send her your craft to:
sugarpaperzine@hotmail.com
(with the title ASK CARRIE!)

fruity!

So, what I thought was not that long ago (but is probably a few months!), I went blackberry picking, but they weren't quite ripe enough yet, so today I went again and was shocked to see they were all shrivelled up until I realised IT'S NEARLY OCTOBER!!! where has 2K10 gone?

I persevered and got this pitiful bunch:

In other news the apple tree my sister planted (with pips from an apple) in a yogurt pot back in the 80s in a flat in Bradford is bringing out some juicy ones this year:And I've just made my first batch of lemon curd (something I usually leave to my mum) the recipe will totes be in Sugar Paper #6.

This looks pretty sweet....

Therefore everyone should go!

cARTft Idol!!

A month ago Kandy and I went on a birthday day trip. We started the trip off by going to the
Intuition (The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection) at The Whitworth Art Gallery.

The exhibition was really good and I enjoyed seeing so many of the works (particularly seeing some of Henry Dagger's work up close and personal!!).

Some work we really liked and was that of.....

Madge Gill
The work of Madge Gill is very intricate and enticing yet seeming quite dark. This may have something to do with her not so smooth upbringing and later becoming very spiritual to the point that she claimed all her work was guided my a spirit named MYRNINTEREST.

Now the reason we want to call her a cARTft idol (that's me trying to put the word art and craft together!) is because not only was she handy with a pen but with a knitting needle, crochet hook and needle and thread.

In the exhibition is also some embroidery that is a huge piece of work and extremely detailed, after learning she did a lot of her work in bed by lamplight and with the vision of just one eye, I was in awe!

It inspires me to see needlework classed as art as it something I am trying to work on myself and so often thing needlework and other crafts can get passed of as just that without gaining extra merit.

Novelty Cakes

So it seems I have managed to get to the end of National Cupcake week without eating, making or even sniffing a cupcake, this must be some sort of crime!! I had every intention to knock a few out and get them on here, but my week has been full (and not of cupcakes), working, making zineing and watching The Runaways film (finally) have taken up all my time, and therefore made for a pretty shoddy week of cupcake blogging, find a much better one here from the cool Carla.

As it's getting late (ish!) and I get bored of trawling the net for pictures after like 3minutes, I shall post a few of my favourite novelty cakes (because you all know how much we love novelty!):

two things I loved as a child (and still now, Mario and Lego)

check out those bad boys!!! They're taken from the book Hello Cupcake, that should be landing on my doorstep any day now, so when I eventually get some free time, expect me to knock out so real (novelty cake) beauts!!

Inedible cupcakes!!!

Right now you're obviously thinking what an absurd idea, a cup cake you can't eat, well look at these bad boys....

And what goes best with cupcakes? A cup of tea of course...
(Cup cake beenie, cup cake lip gloss from Fred Flare, cupcake cushion from Knit And Destroy, teapot and cup necklace from Helpless Romantic, teapot and cup brooch from Hannah Makes Things)

It's big..but is it the biggest?!

In case you forgot..it's national cupcake week, so I've been looking for the world's largest cupcake...a pilgrimage following a trail of sprinkles, edible glitter and icing...and I think I found the most recent 'world's largest cupcake'.. I found lots of images claiming to be 'the one' but then went to the trusty source of the guinness book of records, and I think this is the one...

Baked on 15th August 2009 in Detroit, they were making an even bigger one than this but it expanded and broke the oven...DAAAMN..I'm not surprised though! They were determined to do it and 'baked through the night' to beat the record that had only been set one month previously, the cake weighed 555.197kg

Here's the official with his tapemeasure..oh aye, it's a big un, we'll give em the record! The one that they beat the record for was pretty special cos it was for Spongebob's 10th anniversary, here it is on top of a tower of cupcakes.

Totally small compared to the above effort but it was a one-woman feat, no 'gourmet team' on this job...and it was for spongebob!

Now I feel like breaking a record...any suggestions of which record attempt Sugar Paper Gang should try to break on a postcard please.

Y'all should come to this.....

You may have heard me banging on about my super talented painter pal Alison here before, but this isn't going to stop me now!

She has her first solo show at International 3 gallery from 24th September-30th October with a preview evening on 23rd September.

I may have written a little something for it, you'd be a fool not to see it!!

HAPPY NATIONAL CUPCAKE WEEK!

So I hear it's National Cupcake week, and so to celebrate here at Sugar Paper towers we're going to spend all week talking about cupcakes!
First off I want to tell you all about my favourite thing to put on a cup cake and that's MASCARPONE!!

My favourite alternative to butter cream is the swwet soft cheese mascarpone. Mixing this with icing sugar makes a great topping for cupcakes.

Add anything you like, from vanilla essence to lavender, lemo to a dash of cocoa. Not as sickly as using butter, but sweeter Mascarpone is THE BEST. try it!

Seleena Daye vs The Film Review

So this is one of those blog posts where I try to talk about films, this time it's this one:

Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

A week and a half ago I went to watch this film, after what seemed like the longest wait (coincidentally the last time I waited so long for a film was when I was waiting for Art school Confidential, which is also adapted from a comic, which for the record was a big disappointment).
So yes I think I covered that this film is adapted from a series of comics, which I love, as with anything adapted from a book, you always know it will not quite live up to the book.

I went in there excited, I had already been quite vocal about my opposition of the casting of Micheal Cera as Scott (no where near arrogant enough), but I didn't let that stop me doing a wee in my pants.

First thing we noticed when we got in the cinema was how hot it was, then I noticed that the audience was largely male (90%-10%) and nerdy, this coupled with the fact it was (Orange) Wednesday resulted in a sweat fest. I have never been so hot in the cinema in all my life, like full on testosterone sweat box, There was a point where we we're struggling to breath.

Anyway, the film. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read the comics or seen the film yet, so I'll just tell you what I thought.
I (think) I loved it!
Once I put aside that there was nothing I could do to change the casting of Scott, i began to enjoy it. Mainly because almost everyone else is so perfectly cast. Kieren Culkin as Wallace in particular (and here I agree with my pal Holly that Kieren has become our favourite Culkin , Macualy was mine when I was 6) Stephen Stills, Julie, even Anna Kendrick as Stacey was good and all the exes cast so well, Chris Evans spot on and who doesn't love Jason Scwartzman?!?!
The fight and band scenes were real good, they got the right balance of computer imagery and elements of the actual comic in there.
Young Neil comes alive more and Kim Pine is still my favourite (more Kim Pine!).
I did think that if I hadn't read the comic, would I be a little confused about what was going on, I will have to ask a friend who sees it who hasn't to know that.

I was asked if I thought Ramona and Envy were hotter in the comic or the film, most definitely the comic, which is a shame, I'm not sure what Envy lacked but it was something, think her smacked arse face was the wrong kind of smacked arse face!

The same person (Ben) that asked me who was hotter, also said they enjoyed the film, but it lacked the heart of the books, which I agree with.

I really enjoyed this film and will watch it again and again, but if I hadn't read the comics it would one of my favourite films.

I am going to see it again this week (and probably again next week) so all this will most likely change!!

If your life had a face I would punch it.

Party Rings!

Some of you may be aware that my friend Katie likes a party ring now and then (see party ring cake I made for her birthday last year).

So yes, I primarily made this cake because some time ago Party Rings started containing gelatin, I thought Katie was aware of this, so made her a party ring cake to try and make up for the fact she can't eat the biscuits (also because I wanted to do feathered icing).


Unbeknown to me, she didn't realise party rings were full of animal, and this shocking truth was revealed to her at my birthday shenanigans this year (party rings are of course an ultimate party snack!).


So to make her feel a little better, I went one further this year and made her some Veggie party ring biscuits she could scoff down without any guilt!
To make the biscuits I used a rich tea biscuit recipe, here's how;
for one batch you will need:

-4oz/100g plain flour
-1/2 tbsp baking powder
-1 1/2 oz/30g caster sugar
-pinch of slat
-3oz/75g unsalted butter cubed
-a little milk

Pre heat the oven to Gas mark 5/ 190 c, grease a baking tray.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl then rub in the butter until you have the consistency of breadcrumbs.
Add a touch of milk and mix until you have a firm dough.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface, roll out quite thin, around 2mm. Cut out ring shapes and mark faint lines on the top.

Bake for 8-10 mins, leave to cool.

To make the icing put a few tbsp of icing sugar in a bowl and add warm water a little at a time until the consistency of thick glue.
Put into separate bowls to add food colouring.

To feather the icing:
Spread the base colour over the top of the cooled biscuit, then take a teaspoon and dip in the top icing layer, dribble across the biscuit quickly to make thin lines and using a cocktail stick drag these lines vertically.