Happy Fourth of July!

I hope all you American's have a wonderful fun filled fourth of July. I promise I will be back with lots of great stuff. It's been a very busy/ extremely lazy month and a half. I hope I'm recovered :)

So far we've had lots of fun with parades and picnics and looking forward to fireworks!!

cakes

I've got 3 cakes and 2 sets of cup cakes to make in the next couple weeks. Cake is on my mind. This white cake was surprisingly easy (besides the enormous amounts of frosting it required.) But it packs a punch. I found the how-to on I am baker. Find it here. And yes, hers is much better than mine, but I'm learning.

My first attempts at cake making were at best pretty sad. Here's the buddies first birthday cake. . .  good thing he was only one and didn't know how bad it was. It even leaned to one side. So I decided that I just didn't like making cakes and that it was too sloppy for me. I like clean crisp edges and neat lines--easily achieved with paper. Not so much with cake. Goopy, unpredictable and messy. Yup. Always getting the crumbs from the cake into the frosting. 

Last year I decided I was going to learn how to make a decent cake for the buddies birthday (below). So I picked the brains of a couple of really great ladies at church, one of whom used to teach cake decorating classes. (yep, I'm too cheap to take an actual class). Here are some the most important things I learned from them.

When making a layered cake: bake the cakes. Let them cool, take them out of the pans, and wrap them tightly in saran wrap.  (but not so tight that you crumble the cake :) Then freeze them overnight. It's about 10 times easier to frost a frozen cake than it is to frost a soft crumbly cake. And the best part of all is that when you freeze it, the moisture is kept in the cake and you end up with a much moister cake.

When frosting the cake I also learned that you don't go over and over the same area with the knife. An easy way to do it is to pipe the frosting on all over the cake with a big tip and then just spread it flat so you don't make such a mess.

And finally, I really like using fondant: crisp edges and neat lines :) I made my own marshmallow fondant, which is kind of annoying, but really much yummier than the already made kind. I used this recipe from all recipes. When you are ready to use it just roll it out with some powdered sugar to keep it from getting sticky and then use cookie cutters or fondant cutters (or new sculpey clay cutters) to cut them out. Get them wet with a tiny bit of water and stick them on your cake.

Anyway. This week I'm going to attempt to make a chocolate ganache for a fancy chocolate cake I'm making for a mother's day tea party. It's amazing how much more confident I feel with a few cake making success behind me. I'm no pro and I've still got a lot to learn, but I've decided that making cakes is surprisingly fun, time consuming, but with some attention to detail do-able.

Animal Alphabet Flashcards Giveaway Winner

The winner of the animal alphabet flashcard giveaway is Gentri! Congrats! Email me at yellowmum (at) gmail (dot) com  and I will send you the pdf file!

If you missed out they are still available in my shop! Find them here.

sewing

This is the buddy's quilt I'm hoping to finish in time for his birthday in a couple weeks. I started it way back here, and am finally buckling down. Deadlines help with the whole finishing something business.

I actually don't really like sewing. I liked it at 4 when I had my own mini sewing machine and would sit and sew scraps together to make barbie quilts sitting by mom who was sewing on her real machine. And it even came in nifty in home ec when I already knew how to sew. Easy A. And I still really love the products that are produced from sewing. But I just don't like the actual sewing part. The running the fabric underneath the whirling needle part, oh, and the ironing part. So monotonous, so tedious, yet so much attention to detail required. It's hard for my ADD brain to stay focused (no, I haven't actually been diagnosed with ADD, but since both my parents have it, it's a safe bet).  But, I keep at it. I keep coming up with projects. I keep seeing things and saying "oh, that would be so much easier/cheaper/cuter if I did it like this . . . " And then I find myself back at the sewing machine trying to keep myself from losing interest before it's done. I guess it's a love/hate relationship. I love the freedom of knowing how to sew and being able to do something, and so I guess I love creating the ideas in my mind and seeing the finished product. Those are the fun parts. The coming up with a creation, and the finished piece. Maybe that's true with life too though. Some times the daily grind is really monotonous, but the plans and goals, and the accomplishment of those is so very exhilarating and fulfilling. 

Kids

May is my favorite month, and least favorite in some ways too. But we have a lot going on in May, including my birthday :) So in honor of that I'm going to try and post a little something more about myself each day.

But first, can I just tell you how much I LOVE the target dollar bins? They must know how much I love yellow . . . and stripes . . . and grey with yellow. Yes, I bought the only two I could find.

Now, back to sharing more about myself. That's hard for me. I'm a pretty private person, I think a lot of it is due to insecurity. I wait until I know someone pretty well before I open up-and that doesn't help with the making lots of friends bit. But I want to be more open and I really admire people who are so open not just online but in real life too. So . . . I've been thinking a lot about my kids lately. I really love my kids. Like, really love them. Last night when I was putting the little sweetie to bed she was looking up at me and I was looking down at her in my lap and she just smiled her big happy smile and put her forehead against mine and started laughing and laughing. It was such pure happiness and sweetness I was soon laughing right along with her. She is so full of love and life. I can't get enough of her. I haven't always felt such a connection to my kids. In fact, when I was first pregnant with the buddy I wasn't really sure I wanted kids. It seemed like I was going to be giving up a lot more than I was getting. But I'm so glad I took that leap of faith and carried on. Those first months were rough, really rough after he was born. But I look back now and I realize I was so wrong. I did give up things, but I gained so much more. Being a mom and having a family has brought more real joy and fulfillment than any hobby or other job ever could. I just wish more people knew how great being a mom is!



Have a great day! And don't forget we've got another week for the giveaway--see below!

Animal Alphabet Giveaway

I've put some new ABC cards up in the shop--look familiar? I originally made them as posters, but I'm kind of loving the smaller size of the 4 inch by 5 inch cards. I made a fun little book for my kiddos by putting the Animal shaped Alphabet Cards into a simple photo album. My animal loving sweetie has been enthralled with it. 

They've been a bit of a hit, and we really haven't had a giveaway for a long time . . . so we're having a giveaway! 

To enter for the printable Animal Alphabet leave a comment telling me what you'd do with the Animal cards. 

Giveaway ends Monday, May 7th. One winner will be posted May 8th. 

enjoy!

FF- 5 a day

One of my good friends asked me months ago if I would come up with a way to keep track of eating 5 a day-you know 5 servings of fruits and veggies (although is it total or is it 5 veggies?). Anyway, I guess it's up to you. I finally did it. A simple monthly calendar that has five little circles around a number (the day of the month) so you can fill in on each day how many healthy plant things your eating :) It's actually been really good for me to start thinking about adding that extra fruit or veggie at meals. But I may just need a separate calendar for each family member (those picky eaters!)

You can find the calendar here. 

Enjoy!