A little something for the weekend

Here's some Cupcakes I made this weekend and I have to say they taste as good as they look, especially the chocolate one! They were soooo easy to make and I've included the recipe.




My Favourite



Vanilla buttercake
90g butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanill extract
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup (150g) self-raising flour
2 tablespoons milk

Butter cream frosting
125g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups (240g) icing sugra
2 tablespoons milk
50g dark eating chocilate, chopped finely
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
pink food colouring

Decorations
Anything you like

1. Preheat oven to moderate (180C or 160C fan-assisted). Line 6-hole large or 12-hole standard muffin tray with paper cases.

2. Beat butter, extract sugar, eggs, flour and milk in small bowl with electric mixer on low speed until ingredients are just combined. Increase speed to medium, beat until mixture is changed to a paler colour.

3. Divide mixture among cases, smooth surface.

4. Bake large cakes about 25 minutes, small cakes about 20 minutes. Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

5. Make butter cream frosting.

Butter cream frosting

Beat butter in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy, beat in sifted icing sugar and milk, in two batches. Divide mixture among two small bowls. Add chopped chocolate to one and sifted cocoa powder. Using colouring to tint one pink.

Tip

I found the icing to be quite thin so added more icing sugar till I was happy with the consistency. Instead of using dark chocolate I used milk chocolate (Galaxy to be exact).

Enjoy........lovely to eat but bad on the waistline ;-)

Products

Some new products now on offer from Amara Ritchie Photography. There are many other options available and with Christmas not too far away (eek)....... Calendars are the perfect stocking filler for Grandparents and family. I'm currently offering the Long Wall Calendar but please ask for more details.



A gorgeous and contemporary and stylish way to show off your images.
Overall size of around 24x24 inches with 9 equally spaced 6x6 apertures.
Your images are carefully placed behind highly polished 15mm thick acrylic blocks and then fixed into each aperture in your chosen order. The product is finished with a high gloss lacquer in three popular colours - red, black and off-white.



Why not send out your images on a Christmas card.....



Alternative framing.....

Beautifully presented in a material lined black display box. Mounting the print to the back of the 30mm block gives a prism effect, allowing you to view the image in different ways from many angles.



Or why not treat yourself to a stylish 12"x12" custom designed Coffee Table Book to show off to all your friends.



Amara Ritchie offers many products with a variety of framing choices, please ask for more details.

I WANT your ideas, I WANT you to tell me what you WANT so that we can work together to create something that you will love.

Cute Bundles

I know I said I would blog more but it would help if I could remember my password to get in. It normally takes me about half an hour or I figure it out!

Anyway, on Sunday I had the pleasure of photographing this gorgeous little girl called Murron. Her name is from the film Braveheart and she sooooo suits it. She had the cutest, little face and was an absolute joy to photograph. It was rather tricky in getting her to sleep with a few piddly accidents on the way but who cares when you get shots as gorgeous as she was. So mum, dad and I sat and waited and chatted and had numerous cups of tea until little Murron fell asleep.

Things have been pretty hectic with me these past few weeks but I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just popping in to say hi

I've been really busy lately.....doing what I don't quite know ha ha!

It's nice to be back to normal and by that I mean no college, kids back at school and my house finally looking like a house rather than a dumping ground. I think I had two years of housework to catch up on. Apart from that I've a good few shoots lined up over the next few weeks and coming months which will no doubt keep me busy. So if your looking for any Christmas photos to hand out to Grandparents or families now's the time to book. Talking of Grandparents I have to say a "Hi" to Granny who now has a laptop and managed to find her way to my website ;-)

Tutu's will be available to purchase soon.....so again if your looking for a little girls gift this xmas why not pre-order.

Last weekend hubby and I went to Lonach Games for the first time, well first time for me anyway! It was brilliant and I managed to grab a few shots of Billy Connolley, but the best part was the March and the Pipe Bands. It always sends a shiver down my spine when you hear those guys play.

Right, I'm off to make a cuppa tea and I do promise to try and make more effort with my blog. Any suggestions that you want to see on here let me know!

Little Man

Not only does Cody have Auntie Joanne to deliver him but he has his own personal photographer ;-), how could I not resist taking his photo? Mum, Dad and Cody arrived just after lunch time in which they were here till about supper time. Cody likes to stay wakened most of the day you see.......... and likes to sleep all night!! Lucky for mum and dad but not for me. We had to wait a good while until we got him into that sleepy, drunk like state that is soooooo cute. Anyone who says photographing babies is a breeze is lying, I have to admit that I do love photographing them though. The hat and wrap were knitted by my 80 year old Granny (Cody's Great Granny), she's on her third one while I'm still trying to knit my first ;-(
Oh we also made the papers today........pic to follow soon ;-)

Paul & Sarah

Just wanted to share Sarah and Paul's wedding with you. This was the most relaxed, well planned wedding I have been to yet. Paul being a photographer himself has seen many weddings I'm sure so, the attention to detail was bound to be perfect. I was also quite honoured to be asked to do their wedding, even though it's quite daunting to photograph a photographers wedding. They chose to get married at Loch Muick, a favourite place of theirs and then it was onto the Craigendarroch at Ballater, again a fantastic choice of hotel. It was quite a cold and windy day but Sarah was brilliant considering she was suffering from the cold.....she didn't complain once. I have sooo many images yet to go through but just wanted to share a sneak preview.

Special Delivery

Meet Cody, my 6 day old nephew delivered by myself on Tuesday morning by huge surprise.

It's been a horrendously busy, hectic, stressful week to say the least but I will never forget Tuesday 28th July!!

My other sister called me at 7.50am and asked if I would come down as Kelly was in labour and she had to go and get ready for work. I arrived at Kelly and Matthew's house by 8.30am. Kelly was coping really well with contractions, i got her up to go to the loo and she said she felt the urge to push! I told her that was quite normal and she asked for me to help her back to the loo. Hubby called me at 9.20am to ask how things were and I said fine and that I would call him back in 5 mins as Kelly wanted to go into hospitals NOW! (We were waiting for Matthews mum to arrive as she was driving them in). Just as I put the phone down I told Matthew to call for an ambulance. Kelly looked at me and said I feel something down there!! I told her I needed to look, I then looked at her and said baby is coming now and that she needed to push on her next contraction. With that she gave one push and out popped his head, his wee face began to look blue, so I tried to stimulate him where he then turned round and slowly moved his head. I yelled at Matthew "where's the fooking ambulance", Kelly saw me panic for a split second so I had to calm myself and said "everything is fine but you need to push on the next contraction. She gave another push, and baby Cody was born at 9.30am. I unravelled the cord, gave him a clean till he cried and placed him on Kelly's tummy and waited a further 10-15 mins for the ambulance to arrive. The best present an auntie could ever wish for!

I then did her dishes and went to the hairdresser for my hair appointment an hour later than I should have been!

BTW......isn't this stuff only supposed to happen in magazines?