WIPocalypse #2

Boy has the past month ever flew by. I completely forgot about the WIPocalypse challenge and working on my stitching after the first little rush I had at the first of last month. I did work a little bit on something I'm stitching for a friend, but I can't post it on here because I'm not sure if she'll read this or not. So, instead I'll post my teeny tiny progress in other areas for the month.

I got a whopping 3 hours work done on Fairy Moon. LMAO. I normally wouldn't even bother taking a picture of it, but I needed to be able to post something, so here's Moony at 78 hours.

I also managed to dig out a few smalls I did in 2007 and FINALLY got them framed. I did these for my two girls when they were tiny. They're bigger now, but they still love them. My oldest and I always read the book "Guess How Much I Love You" in which the final line is "I love you to the moon and back", and this became our key phrase for many years to tell the other that we loved them. So when I saw the "I Love You To The Moon" kit from Waxing Moon Designs, I HAD to have it! I got it off eBay and stitched it up quickly.

My youngest and I read this book as well and said the same things, but when it was time to do one for her I saw the "You're My Sunshine" kit from Waxing Moon Designs it was perfect. My youngest daughter had a thing for the song You Are My Sunshine. My Mother-in-Law sang it to her every time she saw her and Littlest DD always referred to it as her "special Nanny song". It was such a special song for her that at one point, I wasn't even allowed to sing it to her, only Nanny could. lol

So, after only 4-5 years of sitting in the finished container, I managed to get them framed for the girls. Here they are.

Hopefully next month I'll be able to post a little more visible progress, but for now Happy Stitching!

WIPocalypse!

Well, it's been several years since I've posted, or stitched for that matter but a friend of mine, Christine, posted on her blog that she was going to join WIPocalypse and after reading a bit more about it (here) I decided I wanted to join also. I'm hoping that it will give me back my stitching mojo, which has been sorely missing for a few years now.

So, I guess in lieu of doing a "progress" post for the first full moon of the year, I'm merely doing a small introduction post with a list of the WIPs I'll be working on, and maybe a few I'd like to start.

First of all, the two main ones I've had sitting around for forever and a day.

Fairy Moon - Mirabilia

This is the last picture I took of this WiP at 58.5 hours. It was taken nearly 4 years ago in April 2008! (see what I mean about getting my stitching mojo back?!)

EDIT:

Once I finished my post and dug out my stitching to get started I was pleasantly surprised. I had over 70 hours completed, but I'd just never taken a picture. I stitched for a few more hours last night and today and took this picture when I reached the 75 hour mark!

End Edit.

Summer Blooms.

This came from a magazine somewhere, I'm not sure which one. I LOVE the piece, but have the hardest time getting into it. I hate stitching it, but I know it'll be worth it when I'm finished.

Summer Blooms - 20 Hours - August 2007

What Summer Blooms will look like when it's finished! I only hope I make it there someday!

Dream Sampler by Dragon Dreams

Another one I'd like to add to my list is Dream Sampler by Dragon Dreams. I did this for my oldest daughter a few years ago and would like to do another for my younger. I've even gone so far as to buy the fabric and work the outline grid on it already. I just need to get my lazy butt in gear on this one. Here's the finished version of the last one I did.

There are others I'd love to add to the list, for example, I've already collected the patterns for Celtic Spring, Celtic Summer and Celtic Autumn by Lavender and Lace as well as the pattern for Romantic Stitcher by Passione Ricamo but I think the ones I have here with a few Christmas Ornaments from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issues I've collected over the last few years should be sufficient for now. However, I reserve the right to change my mind at any given time. ;)

Happy Stitching

Christine

Wow!

Well, It's been over a year since the last time I posted anything and almost a year and a half since I was posting regularly. I have no excuse. I'm lazy and I should be shot. Ok, that last one is taking things a bit far, but seriously I used to love reading blogs and posting to mine, but I can't even remember the last blog I read. Oh wait, I lie. I was looking at Christine's blog yesterday for the first time in forever after getting a notification on facebook from her. But other than that I can't remember the last time I checked one of my fave blogs....

Oh well, here's one post and here's hoping that I can get back into the swing of things with both reading and posting.

I won't go into long boring details of my life in the last year, because I'd end up writing too much, then I'd get bored and never finish the post. Instead I'll tell you about my year in point form. Too bad I don't have time or I'd do a powerpoint presentation and load it up..... heyyy..... that's an idea! No, No, Bad Christine. If I do this in point form I might actually finish it.

• Olivia started kindergarten last September. She loved it for all of one day before she started asking if she could sleep for "just 5 more minutes". Though she does still love school, she just hates getting up.
  
• I started working in mid September as a teller at the Bank in my town. (no names mentioned here) I've been there for 10 months and I don't hate it yet. I think that's a record for me. :)
  
• I haven't stitched more than a few dozen stitches since I last posted an update on my stitching. I seem to have lost my stitching mojo.
  
• I have been making more cakes lately and I'm really enjoying that.
  
• We finally got Rachel potty trained after many many MANY months of false starts. She had no desire for the longest time and I'd have to force her to sit on the toilet, but she's finally good, though we still use pullups at bedtime. We're not completely done with diapers yet. Soon hopefully.
  
• Rachel is finally old enough (3) to farm her out to the grandparents for sleepovers! (Can I get a 'Booyah' here? - Sorry, too much Kim Possible!) and she's had a few of them recently.
  
• I've been to the funeral home twice for two different people in the last week, so it's been a fairly sad week overall.
  
• My DH, Jason lost over 50 pounds in the past year. He even came in first place in a "biggest loser" weight loss competition at his work and ended up winning $500.00 in gift cards.
  
• We used the $500.00 to go towards a big swingset/Jungle jym for the kids.
  
• We had a bear in the yard a few weeks ago, now I'm scared to let the kids go out to play on their new swingset.
  
• I, unfortunately, haven't lost 50 pounds. I haven't even lost 5 pounds. :(
  
• I'm very excited that Torchwood will be airing in Britian starting next week and I'm looking forward to watching the new adventures of Captain Jack Harkness and his band of merry men, (god I'm such a geek. lol) even if it is only 5 episodes.
  
• I think I actually cried when I found out David Tennant will be leaving Doctor Who. *sobs*
• We got a new kitty at the Fredericton SPCA a few months ago. He's doing great. He has to be the most patient cat in the world to put up with my kids. He's a big Orange Long Haired tabby. The kids named him Fluffy, though Rachel couldn't remember that for a while and kept calling him Fuzzy instead.

I'm reaching at this point to think of anything else, so I think I'll end with a few pictures of some of the cakes I've done since I last posted some.

Olivia's "Totally Spooktacular" 5th Birthday Cake

October 2008

We had a dressup Halloween party for Olivia's 5th birthday since she's so close to Halloween and she decided she wanted a "Witch Barbie" cake. I ended up having to special order the Barbie off of Ebay because apparently Mattel only makes the Halloween Witch Barbie for "Target" each year at Halloween ... So, since there are no Target stores in Canada I paid WAY too much for the doll on Ebay.

Here is the second cake I made for Olivia's birthday. We rented the Bowling Alley and invited pretty much the entire class to the party and I didn't know for sure how many would show up so I made a second cake in case the first one wasn't enough for all the kids and parents who were there. I ended up taking 3/4 of it home. lol.

Rachel's "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" 3rd Birthday Cake

April 2009

This was Rachel's 3rd Birthday cake. She wanted a "Somewhere over the Rainbow" party. Do you know how freaking hard it is to do "Somewhere over the Rainbow" that has nothing to do with Wizard of Oz? HARD!

I managed to find items in rainbow colours instead of actual rainbow stuff for the most part. The rainbow on the cake is made of Royal Icing made several days in advance, the border is Smarties. (I had a huge bowl of pink and brown ones left over afterwards.) The rest of the cake is just blue buttercream icing and white buttercream icing.

But then look what the inside looks like!

This was pretty neat. Find the tutorial here.

I had taken the rainbow off the top of the cake when I was cutting it and I put it back on to take this picture of the inside. I didn't realize until later that day that it was on backwards with the broken side of the rainbow showing instead of the good side.

Johnny's "John Deere" 60th Birthday Cake

June 2009

My most recent cake was a John Deere cake for my Father-in-Law's 60th Birthday. This one is just plain Buttercream and a printed John Deere logo that I cut out and traced onto the white buttercream with a toothpick. I then filled it in with a #16 star tip and yellow and green buttercream icing I coloured myself. It came out pretty good except for the little wow in the front of the cake where it's not quite even.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully this won't be the last you hear from me for another year.

(Side note: it's been over a year and I see Blogger still has the freaky formatting problems that drive me completely batty. I've already had to stop myself three times from throwing my mouse against the wall when trying to get the post looking right after I uploaded my pictures.)

Cakes and Cake Wrecks

My aunt sent me a link today to what has to be one of the funniest sites I've seen in a while. Maybe it's so funny to me because I've been doing more cake decorating of late than I have been stitching. It's a blog dedicated to finding the worst of the worst in PROFESSIONAL cakes out there. This doesn't count cakes that Moms like me make for their kids, but ones that people actually PAY professional cake decorators for. OMG I can't believe what some people will try to charge people money for. it's AWFUL!

Anyway, if you want to check it out it's called Cake Wrecks and the address is http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Speaking of cakes I realize that I haven't posted anything much since January when I put up a picture of Rickey's cake. So, I've missed putting up Rachel's 2nd birthday cake and the Bridal shower cake I did for my friend Bridget just the other day. So, here are a few pics.

First, here's Rachel's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday cake the morning of her birthday party before the kids got up. On top of the cake it says Happy 2nd Birthday Rachel in my in my "Oh-So-Awesome Icing Cursive"(TM).

The cake itself is a simple slab cake for the bottom layer. It's iced with plain buttercream icing tinted green, but I forgot that I had bought some green color spray so I wouldn't have to tint the icing. I decided to be smart and spray it over top of the original green anyway- since I had already bought the color spray and didn't want to waste it. *lol* (This will come back into play later in the story. )

The red dome for the clubhouse is made using half of the Wilton's Sports Ball Cake pan and covered in red marshmallow fondant. (known as MMF from now on)

The foot is shaped using yellow MMF and the hand is shaped using plain white MMF. The fingers were stuck on using toothpicks and laid flat to dry for several days. The black arm, leg and neck are made using a length of PVC pipe (bought at the local cake store(*1)) which was inserted into the hand/leg/head and then covered with black MMF for an inch or two below that point. I left enough PVC at the bottom for the head and hand that the PVC goes all the way down to the cake board for extra support.

The Head was made of three styrofoam balls (one 6" ball and two 4" balls) found in the floral section at Walmart and painted black. Here's a tip, don't try and use spray paint on styrofoam. It WILL melt the styrofoam. I found this out first hand two days before the party with no trips planned to go to Fredericton so I could get replacement foam balls. Luckily I always plan my kids parties for Sunday afternoons so that way everyone still has their Saturdays to do their normal running around, so I got my father in law to pick up a new 6" styrofoam ball (the last one in the store!!) and a small can of glossy black paint so I could paint a new one before the party on Sunday.

The fence is yellow MMF rolled out and then cut with a curved top using my pizza roller. The gate is just white with some yellow 'snakes'(*2) on top and then a little curve cut out of the top with my apple corer. Yes, I said apple corer... I also used it to cut the MMF circles that I used on Janice's birthday cake back in January.

I then tinted a small amount of MMF blue and made some windows using the blue fondant and a few black fondant 'snakes'. I also used the black to make the door frame and a small door knob.

*1 Note: I have no idea if there is a difference between PVC pipe you'd buy at the hardware store and the stuff sold for use in food, but just to be on the safe side I'd stick with stuff that you find marketed especially for food rather than take any chances.

*2 Snakes refer to when you used to play with Play-doh as a kid (or as an adult with your own kids) and would roll out the dough in your hands and make a long squiggly snake.

Here's a picture of the same cake at the party. Notice that it only says "Happy Birthday" instead of the original "Happy 2nd Birthday Rachel"??

Well I had forgotten that we had gone to the Disney Store the last time we were in Moncton and bought the small plastic Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figureines to put on top of the cake. Anyway when it came time to put them on there wasn't enough room for the figurines and the two candles, so I had to scrape the "2nd" and "Rachel" off the cake.

Now this wouldn't have been so bad, but remember my smart idea to use the green color spray on top of the grass? (even though I didn't need it) Well, the icing from the lettering dampened the color spray underneath it and when I took the lettering off, it took the extra green off as well, leaving the original green color of the icing underneath it. lol. I had to do a lot of frigging to get it looking half decent again. You can't really see anything wrong in this picture but in real life you could still see the lighter colour where the letters had been. Or, rather, I could still see it. I don't know if anyone else noticed it or if I only saw it because I knew it was there.

Oh, stop making fun of me... you know you do the same thing too!

In case you've never seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, here's a picture from the Disney Website that I scammed so I could make sure it looked fairly close. The only thing I left off was the blue slide on the side of the clubhouse.

Here's a more recent cake I did. It's a wedding shower cake I did for my friend Bridget just last weekend. It's done with white MMF and sage green icing (I used Wilton's Concentrated Paste in Juniper to dye it this colour) and a sage green ribbon I found at Walmart. The topping is just three roses I got at my local flower shop and arranged into a small glass votive holder that I then sunk into the top of the cake.

The cake was a 10" cake (3" deep) for the bottom layer and then 3 regular 8" cakes for the top layer. (It was Marble Cake per the bride's request)

Anyway, Hopefully I can get back into posting again, and it won't be nearly so long until my next post as it has been since my last one. (I don't actually count the "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" post as an actual post... It's just a "go here before it's too late and you can't see it for free anymore" kind of post.)

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

A campy, fun musical about a villan, a superhero and a girl.

Written and directed by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and other great shows) Go visit it. Like, NOW!! It's only available to see for free until July 20th, after that you'll have to pay to download it!

Click on the picture to visit the site or go directly to www.drhorrible.com

Happy Birthday (party) Rickey

Today is my step-father's birthday. Well, not his birthday, that's not until Tuesday, but today WAS his birthday party. Mmmm... Turkey supper with all the fixins. Gotta love a FREE turkey supper.

Here was my contribution to the celebration. This "Maple Leafs" Birthday Cake!

Rickey is a HUGE Leafs fan, and has a rather large collection of Leafs memorabilia, most of which NEVER EVER gets used. The two coffee cups with the Leafs logos on them that we gave him for Christmas several years ago sit on a shelf in the kitchen. He won't use them. The Zippo lighter with the Leafs logo that my Mom got him for Christmas one year isn't even out of the package, and the rest is the same. So, when we walked in today with this cake he was pleasantly surprised, expecting just a plain Chocolate cake with chocolate icing. But he then proceeded to tell me that he loves it but "we can't eat it!" Lol. Well, too bad, there were four little kids running around that put a stop to THAT idea rather quickly.

Random Winter Pictures

A shot of my backyard in mid afternoon with the moon above the trees.

Same location, just a closeup of the snow covered fence.

Olivia, Rachel and Jason out playing in the snow.

My kids and husband in their first snowfort.

"Pew Pew" - Olivia pretending to shoot at me from lazerbeams on her wrists.

(She's been watching Buzz Lightyear on Playhouse Disney lately)

Rachel eating snow. Don't worry it wasn't yellow. *heehee*

One Smart Dog!!

An old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. He followed me into the house, down the hall, and fell asleep in a corner. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.

The next day he was back, resumed his position in the hall, and slept for an hour. This continued for several weeks.

Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap."

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children -- he's trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?"

Note: This is NOT my picture, it just came with the email joke, so I thought I'd include it here.

Visions of Dragons

I Finally finished stitching my Dream Sampler from Dragon Dreams. I've got 45 hours total stitching time on it. I didn't end up frogging out the Watercolors in the fairy's skirt. It looked fine with half stitches of the MUCH thicker Watercolors fibres, rather than the Waterlilies that it called for. I did, however frog the backstitching around the fairy's wings (what a chore that was!) and the backstitch swirls beside the fairy's wings. (which is much harder to see with the finer thread)

This one is for Olivia. I do plan on stitching it again for Rachel once I find a fabric that I suits it.

When I get around to getting it framed I'll post another picture.

Oh, I forgot to mention that it's stitched on 32 ct Iris Garden Opalescent Lugana from Silkweaver.

Cake Cake and more Cake

Well, I still havn't gotten any stitching done lately. My cousin and best friend, Janice is celebrating her 29th birthday on Wednesday, and was having a birthday party last night, so I decided to bake a cake for her.

Here is the cake I ended up making.

This was my first attempt at using rolled fondant, and I decided to try making Marshmallow Fondant. I loved it! It wasn't nearly as tricky to work with as I thought it would be. The only thing I'd do differently is I wouldn't make a square cake using fondant again. the corners were really very tricky. But the idea behind the cake was for it to look like two stacked presents, so I could get away with folding the corners on it, which I gratefully did.

I decided on these colours because it matches her bedroom, which she reedecorated just last spring.



Here is a quick picture of Olivia on Friday afternoon as we finished mixing up the cake mix and she was happily licking the spoon and beaters while the cake was baking.

Cat 3

Picture is not mine. Just posting it for fun