Paper Art

Today I was very blessed when I clicked on this. It is like eye candy.

M&M Candy Wedding Cake

M&M Candy Wedding Cake,
originally uploaded by dahliascakes.

This is one of the most creative wedding cakes I have ever seen. I love the idea. I am thinking I will try this idea on some other cakes.

Black and White

I've been looking around for some inspiration. I made this quilt a couple of years ago. I named it black and white. I was involved in an art quilt project called humm, I think it was the quilt journal project? It's been a while, anyway the idea was each month I was supposed to make a quilt size 8.5 x 11". On each quilt I was to learn a new technique or try something I had not tried before. I got 4 quilts made, before I fell off the 'I'm not depressed wagon.' I want to get back to trying more arty stuff. I'm done making costumes for the week except for the Ben 10 shirts and I can't find the black fabric I washed to make them with.

Today

Click here.

More about Thursday

I made Cornish Hens for dinner. I found this recipe at Epicurious.com and changed it a bit. I used half the honey called for and I left out the ginger. I used canola oil instead of sesame oil. It was a HUGE hit.

The boy had to do a report on an animal. His first choice was monkeys, but we could not find a good library book on monkeys. He choose gorillas instead. The report was really cute. "Gorillas are covered in fur. Babies weigh 5 pounds. Adult females weigh 200 pounds and males weigh 400 pounds. They eat bark, leaves, and fruit. They live in Africa. Gorillas love to play tag." He also had to make a diorama in a shoe box.

Cookies

My all time favorite job that I have ever had was at Cookies by Design. I had been a SAHM for 15 years. I had been VERY sick for a whole year. After a third surgery that year at the end of June I started making a slightly faster recovery (no more chronic infections). The kids were all going to school in August and I needed to get a job. I was really scared, I still did not feel great and was really at a loss as to what to do. I found an ad in the newspaper for a 'cookie artist', WOW! WAY COOL! I went and applied and got the job. It was the perfect job for me. I LOVED the people I worked with. I LOVED the cookies. I LOVED playing with the icing. I LOVED the special bouquet orders where creative interpretation was needed. I LOVED helping to set up the baskets. Yes, there was some aggravation, but I LOVED the job.

So while I was working at this job The Boy had career week at preschool. One mom who is a 911 operator came in and did a whole thing on when to call and what is an emergency. The Boy asked if I could come and tell about cookies. I asked at work and was told that a while back another employee went all her kids schools teaching about this. They considered the preschool a donation and gave me everything I needed to put on a FANTASTIC display for the kids. First I sat them down and told them what kind of training I had and answered questions. Than I demonstrated my craft, lastly I gave them each several cookies to decorate.
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Ok, more and bigger pictures can be seen here.

Sunday

Its really quiet here today. Sa and So are with friends.
The top two pictures are the same except one is sharpened the other one is not. The bottom picture I used the flash and did not change anything else. Well the top two pictures were supposed to be next to each other and after I up load them I don't know how to change the alignment.


This was really fun to watch. Yesterday The Teen and The Boy spent most of their day playing a video game together. They laughed and squabbled and had a really fun day.

Princess Peach

Where I put the bright pink together with the light pink it doesn't lay quite right. I will probably rip it out and try again. I'll be doing some waiting at the dentists office this morning. Sa is OK with how it lays but I'm the one who has to look at it while she wears it.

Bargello Fun

Something fun hanging on my wall.

It Begins

Much to do today! The 'Princess Peach' dress is waiting to be made. The harp case for Sa is waiting to be made. The 'stained glass cake' is waiting to be decorated and Tristan's challange is waiting to be met.

Costumes

Just being 'Yourself' has always been important here, but sometimes its fun to be someone else for a while.

Not Just a Wig

When life gets out of control change what you can. I bought a blue wig. It's nice. It looks good on me. I wore it around town until the teen snagged it.
Of course she had to add pig tails to it.
The Teen's pictures of herself can be seen here.

The Elephant Project

Hallelujah! The elephant project is done! It started innocently enough, I was going to get together with another family and do a fun project. We were studing elephants they were studing Africa. I said lets make some paper mache elephants. I inquiered about building big things out of paper mache and sadly asked the wrong people first. I even reaserached things as best I could on the net before begining. I started before the person who really knew what to do got back to me. We started with chicken wire frames. The chicken wire was not as sturdy as I expected it to be. So we stuffed the frames with news paper and they got really heavy, also the legs got wobbly. So we stuck wooden picks in the legs. Than we coated the elephants with news paper and began to put mache paste on them. I learned lots of things.

Some things I learned along the way...
1, chicken wire and small kids is not a good mix
2, large structures built out of chicken wire should have a sturdier frame inside
3, small projects can easily become overwhelming (oh, wait, I already knew that one, just add ADhD to any project and it becomes TOO BIG)
4, the best way to make paper mache is to mix 1 part flour to 5 parts water, heat and stir until thick and smooth.
5, this mixture will rot if left on the counter over night
6, if it rots it smells worse than your old gym shoes that you wore all day with no socks than it rained
7, 3 gallons of rotten mache paste is really hard to dispose of (if you live in the city)
8, the best way to apply mache paste to a surface is to brush it onto newspaper and than stick it to the object
9, its a good idea to let 3 coats dry overnight before attempting to add more

Pictures of the process can be seen here.
This posting word program sucks! Where did I put that HTML book???

Stained Glass Cake

This is a picture of the cake I made for my sisters surprise birthday party. The party starts in an hour. More pictures can bee seen at Stained Glass Cake this was a very fun cake to make. I made the piping gel with sugar, corn starch, corn syrup and water.