I heart ukulele

Zoo Lights!

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:21:00 +0000

Angry Birds cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Angry Birds cake, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

All my nieces and nephews are really cool. I was honored when my sister-in-law asked me to make an Angry Birds birthday cake for Daisy. I loved using fondant to decorate this cake!

I took some pictures to make a tutorial for this (mainly for myself to look at in the future; I'm not sure if anyone else would like it) and I think I'll have time to put those up soon.

Hawk Costume

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:00:00 +0000

Hawk, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

Here's the Halloween hawk costume I made. She really wanted to be a hawk this year!

Dolphin Face Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:49:00 +0000

Dolphin Face Paint, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

I loved painting a dolphin! This was for a company picnic Saturday.

Skull Heart Tattoo Face Painting

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:44:00 +0000

Skull Heart Tattoo Face Painting, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

I have complete freedom to practice face painting on my kid. As long as it is EXACTLY what she wants. Ha ha.

My Obsession

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:05:00 +0000

Quote

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:17:00 +0000

It doesn't matter what age you are, it only matters that you are alive. - My kid yesterday

Buddy the Elf

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 04:53:00 +0000

Buddy the Elf, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

My mother-in-law let me paint Buddy the Elf on her. You wish she was your mother-in-law.

V's Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:28:00 +0000

Birthday Cakes, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

I made these birthday cakes and took them with us to Chuck E. Cheese. I did one of the My Little Pony 'Pinky Pie' and it didn't look so great. But V was like "Pinky Pie looks AWESOME!!" Okay, there you go! I hope to improve in the cake decorating class I'm taking now. Thanks to my Mother-In-Law Cheryl for letting me borrow her cake decorating kit!

Trying something

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:30:00 +0000

Mosaic, a photo by bambella on Flickr.

Just testing

MMMM Cakey!

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 04:17:00 +0000

Oh hai! Since I'm just sitting around completely sunburnt I'll tell you about the cakes that mom, Aimee and I baked up last weekend. I had a really fun weekend because I got to decorate cakes with some funny girls AND party hard at some birthday parties.

For my sister Cari's birthday, I wanted to make her a Stimpy cake. I made a cake and frosted it, then I used the marshmallow fondant that I learned about the week before. I rolled out a big piece to completely cover the cake, then I took smaller amounts of it to put food coloring in and made the Stimpy.

My mom came over before the party and did the writing on the cake! Yes!

Cari liked it! Happy Birthday Cari!

I also made one for my mother-in-law, Cheryl, whose birthday was the next day. My sister-in-law, Aimee, came over and she thought of a fantastic idea for mom's cake...Michael Scott saying "That's what she said". This is a favorite refrain of my mother-in-law. :-) She so silly!

Aimee did all the writing on the cake; wasn't that so sweet of her? You had to know this picture was going on my blog, Aimee.

I drawed up a picture of Michael Scott and painstaking crafted his portrait in fondant. When I was cutting out little tiny eyelids, I started to wonder if I was still sane. (Still not sure about that!)

Hmm. Well, it looks enough for him for my first try. And also for something that is going to be devoured anyway!

Aww, so cute, huh? Happy Birthday Cheryl!

Fondant Foolery

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Mon, 23 May 2011 03:49:00 +0000

Today we decorated our cupcakes with this Marshmallow Fondant recipe from About.com. I wanted to try it out to see how difficult it was, but it was easy--just nuke some marshmallows for one minute then dump in some powdered sugar, then knead the big mess. I rolled a piece of it flat with a roller and it would work well for covering a cake. But it tasted so sweet is was disgusting. Of course V loved it.

You might be wondering why I make stuff like this. It's just good for me in general to make things with my hands. Keep in mind I'm not blogging about the days I sit around and watch five episodes of Dexter. ;-)

SketchSwap

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Sat, 21 May 2011 04:47:00 +0000

V and I had a fun time using SketchSwap tonight. You have to make a drawing to get one back, made by some other person out there. Here's some stuff we did and got back.

Pointless, but entertains us.

Star Wars Day

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Thu, 05 May 2011 03:50:00 +0000

When I came home from work today, V and Dave told me that today is Star Wars day because it is the day you can say "May the Fourth be with you." V make some droid drawings after dinner.

Peep Town

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Thu, 05 May 2011 03:44:00 +0000

V made some Peepalicious cupcakes for Easter! They look great, but I had some of my MIL's cheescake!

Salt Dough Critters (aka 'Crackle my NaCl' according to Dave)

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:00:00 +0000

I recently bought a book at Goodwill called Creative Dough Crafts, by Brigitte Casagranda. It has this recipe for salt dough. I've wanted to try making stuff out of salt dough since the 80s when I saw Christmas ornaments a friend and her mom made. I like how it is made out of three cheap ingredients: Flour, salt and water.

Salt dough
2 cups flour
1 cup salt (non-iodized is easier to work with, according to my book)
1 cup cold water (or less)

I put in 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt and mixed it together.

Make a hollow in the middle and added almost one cup of water.

Mixed it up and added a little more water.

Squeezed it. It seemed like the right consistency to me. If you make pie dough I think this will be really easy for you.

Here's when i took out the dough, squeezed it together and kneaded it. The book says this:

Sift flour over a working surface and work the dough ball until it's a smooth ball with no lumps. If the dough crumbles, add water. If it's sticky, add flour.

(I hadn't read that part yet, so that's why there's no flour on my table.)

Dough ball. It's all ready to mold!

It's best to make stuff with it the same day. If you're not gonna work with it right away, wrap it up and store it somewhere kinda cool, but not the fridge.

V made a huge Agent P head.

Dave made a Angry Birds pig.

I made Perry the Platypus. I took paperclips, cut them with a wire cutter, and stuck them in the top of the "sculpture" to make a little hanger. V could hang them up on her wall after they're done.

Form the dough right on some foil so you can move it to the baking tray with ease. I baked these in a 225 degree (Fahrenheit) oven for an hour with the door slightly open. This is to let the humidity escape. Then I closed the door and baked another hour at the same temp.

To test if they're done, tap with your finger. It should sound like hardened clay, rather than a dull thud. I thought the huge Perry head was baked all the way, but unfortunately when we pulled off the foil the next day, I found out it wasn't all the way done. I think we need to keep them to a smaller size.

We made these things last week, and we were able to paint them after dinner tonight.

We used watercolor paint on um. I used a Sharpie for the eyes, nostrils and ears.

I took them outside and sprayed them real good with the only varnish I had. I think they need a different varnish and I'm going to have to experiment with that. Anyway, after that's all dry they're ready to hang up.

Thursday Night Art Class

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 03:12:00 +0000

We went to a drop-in art class through our city. V drew up a design for our sculpture and then we made it out of wire and pipe cleaners! Pardon, chenille stems. Can't forget the googly eyes!

Tears of Joy Puppet Theater

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 03:03:00 +0000

We had a super fun time going to downtown Portland with friends to see a puppet show by Tears of Joy Puppet Theater.

So happy in a sculpture/chair at the theater!

These pics were from the question time after the puppet show.

Then we went and had a delicious lunch at Habibi. I've got to get back there soon!

New Stuff for Me!

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 01:14:00 +0000

Today I'm psyched I have some new goodies on the way from my sister-in-law who has a new business. She makes some way cute stuff out of yarn and pure talent! Here's a pic of her and her daughter.

Lazy as a Daisy

This is a link to her new blog. I love the face you're making back there, niece!

Grrreat.

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 05:19:00 +0000

Cheeky! I would only request more specifics in the constructive criticism. I aim to improve!

Cat Masks

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 05:04:00 +0000

Mazatlan Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:56:00 +0000

Thanks for letting me use your markers, kid. So they love this video game called Infinity Blade.

Sunday Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:44:00 +0000

Hold Me Closer Tiny Hamster

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:26:00 +0000

Yesterday we took V's drawing of Buster the hamster (with rather disturbing paws and claws) and embroidered it on a recycled tee shirt to make a pillow. V stitched quite a bit of Buster's lovely green body and picked out the floss colors.

We also had to change his name to BuSTAR because that's obviously better than Buster.

Valentine's Day Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Angie) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 06:29:00 +0000

Dave and I are pretty lucky our kid made us a heart-shaped cake for Valentine's Day!

You pretty much haven't lived until you've tried a mouthful of mini marshmallow, maraschino cherry, almonds and coconut.