I made this to go in the boys room. I got the idea here. Their favorite book lately is We're Going on a Bear Hunt, so I thought they would love the bear. I love it! And now I have something cute to go on their bare walls.

Green Dinner!

This was our St. Patrick's day dinner. A stroganoff-like stuff with broccoli, peas and a GREEN roll. They are little pull-apart or clover rolls. I thought it was fitting. Clovers, green...

I put green food coloring in the dough when I was mixing up the rolls, and I wish I had gotten a better picture, but underneath the browned top it is green bread. I hope it is as apetizing tomorrow as it was tonight. :) Other than that we didn't do much today but wear green and play with green shamrock stickers. The boys thought the stickers were so much fun and I stuck one on my husband as he walked out the door this morning. I don't want anyone but me pinching him. :)

P.S. We found out today that my hubby did pass his test so now he just has to graduate in May and he will be licensed and ready to practice physical therapy. yay! I think it was that Irish luck... :)

Luck O' the Irish

I am thinking that this month I'm needing some of that Irish luck. From potty training to my husband's licensure (physical therapy) exam, I need to find a way to channel some of that! And if along the way I find a pot of gold, that would be awesome too.

I was inspired by Fabric Paper Thread's lovebird mobile so I thought I would make a St. Paddy's Day mobile.

First I found a silhouette of a clover (google) that I liked and traced it right of the screen. I found a little toy with a circular end and traced a few coins on some coin-looking paper. Then I grabbed some double-sided tape and some thread.

Sorry I don't have any pictures from this point until completion because my camera decided not to work.
I taped some thread to one side of each coin and placed the other coin on top to tape them together. Then I taped the thread to the spots I wanted on the clover and put the other one on top!

I found a clipart Irish looking hat, cut 2 out and put on a green band, buckle and taped it to a spot on the clover.

I stuck a pin through the top and put some thread through it. Then I hung it from the light in my kitchen. I really like it!

It would look really cool with some glitter and other embelishments, too.

Seriously, why don't I do more things with paper? It's inexpensive and fun! (and I have loads of scrapbook paper that is just sitting in my basement.)

Here is the pattern I used.

I also cut out some four-leaf clovers--here via here--out of some cute green paper and hung them around my living room. Bring on the good luck!

Flubber/Flower cake

I had leftover fondant from McQueen, so I thought it would be fun to do another cake with it. Our family had a little party for several of us who have birthdays the last week of Feb/first week of March, so I made a cake!

I baked two round lemon cakes, chilled and frosted them.

Then I covered the cake in yellow fondant. Fondant is really pretty easy to put on a cake. Just roll it out in plenty of cornstarch and using the rolling pin, lay it on top of the cake. Pull it a little and smooth down the sides, working around the cake.

Cut off the excess fondant and viola!

I didn't have any flower cookie cutters, so I fashioned this funny looking flower out of floral wire. It doesn't look perfect, but it has the sort of cute whimsical look I was going for.

When I started cutting out flowers and laying them on, I realized that they look like flubber. Remember the movie?

But when I added the whites of the flowers in they looked alot better, much to my relief. :)

Ready to transport to the party.

I also added some red fondant to the bottom for a more finished look.

Ta-dah!

Lightning McQueen--The twin's bday cake.

My little twins decided awhile ago that they wanted a Lightning MCQueen cake for their birthday. I decided I would try to scuplt a cake since I didn't have a car cake pan but wanted to do the 3-D thing.

Now, why I thought I could do this I don't know, because I have never been good at sculpting anything, so as a result I lost interest in the project before it started and had no expectations for a great cake.

But, I went ahead and did it anyway. First, I baked 2 square cakes, cooled slightly, floured a cookie sheet, dumped them out on it and chilled them in the fridge overnight.

Then I stacked them, cut the front of McQueen 5 and 1/2 inches and added some cake to the tail to make the length about 10 inches.

I looked at a picture of Lightning and tried to cut his shape out. As you can see, he was a little lopsided.

I frosted the cake, let it sit in the fridge again for about 30 mins, then put a little white fondant where his teeth should be. Then I rolled out the red fondant and covered him.

I cut lips in the red so you could see his white teeth coming through. This was probably my favorite detail.

I fashioned a spoiler out of fondant and used icing to stick it to the back.


Then it was about midnight so the race car went back to the refrigerator.

In the morning I started adding some more details.

Then the finishing touches and cleaned up the plate.

Wa-la! Those are googly eyes on the cake. I just didn't want to try to do the eyes and this was easy and turned out just fine.

You can see Lightning's lopsidedness. Oops, I should have been paying more attention to the knife instead of just trying to get that part over with. It was a scary moment for me.

Ka-chow!

The twin's initials. McQueen also got a # change. He used to be 95, but for our cake, he was 96. Nice attention to detail... :)

My husband saw that I was strugling to cut out the lightning bolts, so he gallantly stepped in and helped me out there.

We put lightning bolts on the cupcakes too. My sister came and helped cut them out. It's a little time consuming. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but my fondant started to dry out a little so some of the edges are a little rough on the cake and cupcakes.

Another great view of the lopsided top.

like I said, my favorite detail. It wasn't my idea. I looked at some cakes online and saw a lady do this. My cake looks like a 2 year old did it next to hers... Basically I tried somewhat unsuccessfully to copy her.

But really all in all, I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I always want everything to be absolutely perfect so maybe next time I will lower my expectations and enjoy less stress and just the results.

Hmm, I'm not sure, but I think that was just a turning point! :)