Apprenticeship Awards Ceremony!

Hello my lovelies! As you can guess from the title of this weeks post, I’ve had a busy week and exciting week. My week started off as usual, a busy week of work ahead, first up I hosted my first ever live stream for the non-profit I work for which was nerve wracking but exciting. Then this Thursday I had my ‘Celebration of Learning’ event for the college where I did my first part of my apprenticeship (I’m currently doing the next level up at the same place).

When the day came to go to my ‘Celebration of Learning’ and awards ceremony I had no clue what sort of thing to wear; which is funny, since I’ve actually got several posts on here all about fashion and outfit ideas! But you know how it is, you forget about what options for outfits you’ve already got when you’ve got an event coming up.

I figured smart casual is the best way to go, since I had no idea what everyone else would be wearing there. Maybe I’ll do a post on smart casual outfit soon, let me know if you want one in the comments!

So, I ended up going with my more Griffindor inspired look because it’s one that’s a good comfy and smart casual look that can be dressed up or down. To make it a little smarted than in the picture to the right, I swapped out the trainers for heeled boots with burgundy, red and white embroidery and swapped the cardigan for a smart coat.

Alright, so after I finally decided on my outfit, it was makeup time! I’m a little stuck in a rut with my makeup to be honest, but it works for me so I did my usual routine and I was lucky enough to be having an amazing hair day which is something you have to worry about if you’re a person who wears their natural hair texture out and about!

Here’s how my makeup and hair turned out (featuring Nikkietutorials in the background haha):

Let me know if you want to see my makeup routine sometime! Also, this was the first time I’ve worn my natural curls to an event!

After I was finally ready.. we left for the ceremony! Something I knew about the awards ceremony was that Warwick Davis was going to be there, presenting everyone scrolls and awards! And if you couldn’t tell already from my outfit, I’m a big Potterhead; so I was crazy excited!

So, one stop at McDonald’s for something small to eat and off we went to Peterborough Cathedral. Now, if you’ve never been to the Cathedral there, it’s absolutely beautiful, especially the painted ceiling, so definitely check it out if you’re ever in that area!

We made our way into the Cathedral, were taken to our seats and then at 7.30pm it began! It was amazing to see so many people together to celebrate how much they’ve achieved with all of their family and friends there to support them.

Here I am with my mum and Matt! (They coordinated by accident haha)

We all took turns going up to receive our scrolls in front of the 700 people that were there and had our photos taken with Warwick, and I’m not gonna lie, it was hard to keep it together meeting him, especially with so many people watching!

I’ll have professional photos to check out and put up soon of me getting my scroll; I’ve just gotta wait for them to be sent over from the photographer at college! So in the mean time, here I am on the little screen by our seats.

After everyone went up for their scrolls it was time for the awards to be announced. The first award to be announced was the ‘Apprentice of the Year’ awards. Now, I heard someone behind me say they were told beforehand that they were nominated for the award, so I just assumed that meant that I wasn’t in the running since I hadn’t heard anything and that was fine by me. After all, I got to meet Warwick, something I never thought I’d do, so I was already over the moon.

Then they started announcing the nominees. They announced three names, and then the last name gets announced, and its mine. I was just sat there like:

So I’m just sat there like, wait what?! I wasn’t told about this! And then they do the whole.. ‘And the Apprentice of the Year is…’

And they say Victoria Morton. Me! My name!

I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t really paying much attention because I didn’t think I’d win, so it took a second for me to actually realise what was happening and get up to walk to the front to get my award.

I won’t lie, it’s still not really sunk in now! But here’s what the award looks like! The only award I’ve ever gotten other than blogging awards from the amazing blogging community is a most improved dance plaque from when I was about 10. And that’s a ‘most improved’ award.. aka I was the worst one there hahaha. My dancing career was very short lived. Which I think we can all say is a good thing.

Anyway, back to the awards! I was presented this really cool diamond shaped award and had another photo taken and then when I got back to my seat I was congratulated by my loved ones. And to think, we debated even going to the event! The part I loved the most about this was: number one – it was a complete surprise to myself and my loved ones, and number two – it reinforced in me that it’s perfectly fine to be an apprentice at 23 years old, and just because I’m older than typical apprentices does not mean I’m no good at my job. Oh, and that you should always be proud of your hard work.

Then the event ended and I was lucky enough to get another photo with Warwick and say a proper hello; since when you’re getting your scroll, you can’t really just stop and chat whilst hundreds of others are waiting for their turn.

For those wondering: Warwick was so lovely and genuine and was happy to take a photo with me just before being bombarded from children!

So whilst I wait for my other photos to arrive, here’s the photo I got!

And that’s what happened at the awards ceremony this week! It was a happy, shocking, exciting, stressful and fun day!

Friendly reminder:

Don’t ever doubt yourself based on where other people are in their lives. You’re right where you need to be and you’re doing amazing. Be proud of your achievements no matter how big or small, you’re incredible!

Well, that’s all from me today, have you ever felt like you’re behind or not where you’re supposed to be in life? It’s completely normal to feel like that, but remember, everyone’s journey is different and taking a different path in life is no better or worse than others.

Have you been to any events recently? What did you wear? Let me know in the comments!

Love,

Easy Christmas Nails

Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas parties are in full swing and that means not only am I looking for outfit inspo on Pinterest and Instagram, but also Christmassy nails that you can actually do yourself at home. So I decided to try a few of the designs out for myself to see what ones are actually doable for all of us at home!

1 . Classic Red and Gold.

These were simplest to do, just paint your nails red, let them dry and then add a simple tree onto either your ring finger or any other finger you want to stand out! This one can be done with any colours too if you’re not into red nails!

2 . Candy Cane Stripes.

It’s impossible to mention Christmas nails and not add some candy cane stripes into the mix. I did these by painting my nails white, then adding on the stripes with a small brush, if you’re a bit shaky when doing your non-dominant hand, get someone else to paint the stripes for you!

3 . Christmas Puddings!

These went pretty well, I didn’t have a green nail polish so the holly leaves on these ended up being a gold shimmery colour, but I think the glittery look makes these even more festive.

4 . Snowmen.

Who doesn’t think of snowmen when they think about Christmas and Winter time? This are so easy to do and only require 2 nail polishes at the very least! A white for the base and another one for the snowmen faces, you can use a different colour for the carrot noses if you want too. These are a classic for Christmas nails!

5 . Blue and White Christmas.

I think these are my favourite out of all the designs because it’s something I haven’t really seen that much and because even though this is one of the more complicated designs, it can still be done at home. Also, these nails will look elegant in any colour! For these I painted all the nails white except for the navy glitter one and then added all of the designs on with a small brush (any kind of brush should do the trick as long as it’s small! I use a tiny acrylic paint brush.)

6 . Pinky Nude Snowflakes.

These are another favourite of mine, when I think of pinky nude colours I don’t really think of Christmas; and that is what makes these perfect for the person who wants a bit of festive cheer that isn’t screaming at you in the face. For these I used the same method as the above nails!

Which nails do you like best? I think I’ll be going with the blue and white or pinky nude designs, I love the different patterns on the nails with a bit of sparkle! Are you planning on having your nails done for a party? Let me know what you like for your Christmas nails in the comments below!

Merry Christmas lovelies!

Love,

The UKBlogAwards voting is now open! It would mean the world to me if you could vote for me (the weight of my worlds)! You can vote here!

Rainbow Cake Recipe

Hello my lovelies! Who’s in the mood for some cake? Because this week I’ll be giving you my recipe for a big rainbow cake! And to make this cake even better (because who doesn’t like rainbow cake..) this recipe can be diary free should you need it to be!!

This cake is a simple vanilla sponge cake and can be adapted for any flavour of cake! I use this for all of my cakes and I’ve never had someone not like it. You can also make this into cupcakes – I’ll probably do a cupcake recipe soon too.

So, here’s what the cake looks like:

Looks pretty tasty doesn’t it!

Right, onto what you’re going to need, I’ve put together a shopping list you can download here!

For the cake:

• 9 oz Salted Butter (it can be spreadable or not, I used Vitalite as my mum is intolerant to buttermilk!)
• 9 oz Caster Sugar
• 9 oz Self-Raising Flour (make sure you save a little flour to thicken up your cake batter if you need it!)
• 6 Large Eggs
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• Red, Orange, Green, Purple and Blue Food Gels (these can be found in sets or separately)
• Baking Paper
• Cake tins (2 minimum, I used 6, but it can be done with 2!)
• A cake stand or plate to put the cake on!

For the icing:

• Salted Butter (I eye-balled this and made more icing when needed)
• Icing sugar (I eye-balled this too, but would recommend getting 2 large bags of icing sugar, this icing is all personal preference!)
• Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue Food Gels
• Mini Marshmallows
• White chocolate icing tubes – I got these from Tesco (pipe dairy free chocolate if you’re making this dairy free!)
• Any other decorations you want to use! (I used smarties)

So, onto making the cake! Here’s a quick clip of the process!

 

1 . Pre-heat the oven to 180°C for fan-assisted ovens or 200°C for other ovens.

2 . Lay out baking paper on the worktop and draw around the bottom of your cake tins and cut them out, I recommend cutting out the baking paper like this:  After this I grease my baking tins and put the grease proof paper into the tins shiny side up. Then put the tins aside for a bit later.

3 . Measure out all of your ingredients. When making this cake I luckily had access to 6 cake tins, but if you’ve only got 2 tins don’t worry, to bake your cake in batches of two cake layers, use measurements of 3 oz per ingredient and repeat this another 2 times, which will give you 6 layers of cake.

4 . Add the butter and sugar into a big mixing bowl and cream them together.

5 . Then sift in the flour , pour in the eggs, add the vanilla extract and mix together. I usually start mixing with a wooden spoon and then move onto using an electric whisk. If the cake batter is too runny then you can add a little more flour. (I love how you can just chuck everything in the bowl with this recipe!).

6 . Once the batter is mixed, separate the batter into bowls into equal parts for however many tins you’re using.

7 . Then, add in the food colouring gels! I used quite a lot to make my cake extra bright, but it’s up to you how much you use!

8 . Pour your batter into your tins and smooth it around to make sure it’s evenly dispersed. (When you pour in the batter, it may seem like you’ve not got enough, but the cake will rise a little and you don’t want the layers too thick or the cake will topple over!).

9 . Bake the cakes for 13-15 minutes and check they’re cooked through with something small and sharp, I use toothpicks, if it has no batter on it, it’s cooked! Take out the cakes and place them on a cooling rack.

10 . Repeat stages 1-9 twice if you’re using 2 tins per time! When you’ve taken your yellow cake out of the tin, use a knife (or cookie cutter) to cut out a circle from the middle. Then slice the cake in half; this will leave you with two rainbow layers for the top of the cake! Then you can go ahead and snack on the circle of cake you just cut out haha.

11 . Whilst your cakes are baking and cooling, it’s time to make the butter cream! This one doesn’t have specific measurements as everyone has their own preference for how they like their buttercream to taste. I use quite a large amount of butter and icing sugar.

12 . I begin mixing the butter and icing sugar together with a fork so the icing sugar doesn’t create a huge icing sugar cloud, and once most of the icing sugar is mixed in I go in with an electric whisk to make the buttercream light and fluffy.

13 . Put about 4/5 of the buttercream into a piping bag (you can use a sandwich bag if you haven’t got one! Or you can get a box of disposable ones from Tesco). Then begin by putting a small amount of icing onto the cake stand/plate to stick your blue layer of cake onto the stand/plate.

14 . Then pipe layers of icing onto each cake layer, the colours should go (bottom to top): Blue, Purple, Green, Orange and finally Red. Then cover the top and sides of the cake in buttercream and smooth out as best as you can.

15 . To help smooth out the buttercream further I use baking paper, shiny side to the cake, and use your hand against the paper to smooth over the icing.

16 . After you’ve smoothed out the cake, ice the two rainbow shaped layers together, add icing to the top layers of the rainbow shape and put on top of the cake and smooth over with baking paper.

17 . Separate the left over buttercream into 5 bowls and add in the food colouring gels.

18 . Put the coloured icing into different piping bags or sandwich bags and pipe over the rainbow to give it some colour!

19 . The add on some white mini marshmallows onto the bottom of the rainbow so it looks like clouds.

20 . Then warm up the white chocolate icing tubes (follow the instructions on the tubes for preparing them) and squeeze drips over the edge of the cake and cover the top layer.

21 . Finally, decorate with any sweets you want and enjoy!

Here’s how it looks when it’s finished!

I hope you like how this cake looks and tastes!! If you decide to make this yourself then please tag me in any photos you put on instagram @theweightofmyworlds or on twitter @worldsweights, I’d love to see your cake creations!

Have a lovely week everyone, you’re the best! Love,