Weekend trip out!

Went with Helen to the NEC on Saturday. It was verrrrrrrry busy! Whilst we mainly went for the hobbycrafts/papercraft show we had enough energy this time to check out some of the cake stuff. They had competition cakes there, and some were amazing! Thought I would share a few photos of some of our favs!

I loved this labrador in the water! And the unicorn in the water was pretty epic too. The texture of this hedgehog on a large Alice in Wonderland cake was amazing and I am a sucker for anything with Niffler on. :)

Helen was not at all happy about the doomed bunny cake (It was amazingly made though!). The lemons were a breast cancer awareness cake.  The princess and the pea was stunning and the beaver cupcake selection were my fav cupcake deco effort. I didn't realise alot of the cakes aren't tasted, and it was really odd seeing some of the decorations with large bites taken out in the tasted section!

Thought this one was super successful, tho not as complicated as others it was so pretty!
 

We had a fun day out, but I'm not sure if we will go to another March Hobbycrafts show at the NEC. It's so expensive compared to the Midland Motor Museum Show and has only a few papercraft aisles these days. I suppose Sewing and Baking are more trendy now, and papercrafts is all a bit old hat? :)

Trip to the zoo!

Bit of a change from the normal crafty post and back to what I used to do, blog my "Day out" photos!

Toni and me went to Twycross Zoo for the day to celebrate her birthday. Here are some of my fav shots from the day. 

 

Had quite a few depth of field issues with the pics, it's actually a bit of an ongoing struggle to take pictures through the cage obstructions, and a lot of the exhibits have perspex walls - nightmare for photos! Sometimes though, I quite like it when the focus is completely wrong :)

The whole focus of the zoo used to primates and primate conservation but now they also have other animals too. Animals hanging their heads in sadness, by the looks of these two! ;)

And I also get completely distracted by the wildflowers and forget to take pictures of the elephants.

Reminds me of an Audubon picture! I didn't realise til afterwards just how amazing the reflection was. Must remember to check for relection potential in future pics!

Penguins are the best! In a former life, my friend Toni was undoubtedly a penguin.

Bush dogs!  Really interested and I'm not sure I've ever seen one before? Also, prairie dogs, which are my first major zoo type memory. That had invaded all the enclosures at Chester Zoo the first time I went as a kid, and I thought they were AWESOME! I also think Tapirs are awesome but they weren't zooing correctly and were chilling out right in the furthest darkest corner of their pen.

At least all the small rodenty beasties were out in their pens and up to stuff! The big cats were a non event and a lot of the exhibits seemed to be empty. We were a bit worried they'd decided to not bother with animals at one point.

Some pics of my friend Toni. On the left, in professional photographer mode with a mahousive lense that small children seemed drawn towards, and on the right, with a real face of terror and peril at me allegedly making her go in the butterfly house. It was hilarious ;) If the butterflies had been moths I'd have felt ill too, but for some reason, butterflies are just not scary. For me anyway :D

I had a super day! Glad I have a zoo loving snap happy friend to do such things with :)