First Finish of 2014

It is called Mt. Rainier Santa. When I saw the kit I knew I needed to add it to my collection!

"Her name be Hannah!"

For each of my brother's children I have cross-stitched a Care Bear and sewed it up into a pillow, an example can be found here. His youngest recently celebrated her first birthday and I figured it was about time she received hers as well. I had the cross-stitching finished before she was born (or maybe right after), and found the fabric in my stash. I just never got around to finishing it earlier. During one of my brother's visits, I was holding and chatting with the baby, and called her "Hannie". Her older sister quickly corrected me and said "Her name be Hannah!"

Here is Hannah's pillow-


A close up of the cross-stitch-


It's a good thing I finally finished since Hannah will be a big sister herself this year and I need to get started on another Care Bear.

Cakes for Hire

In 2011 I did my first cake decorating for hire. All were for people at work. Taking all those cakes for the birthdays at work sure "paid" off :)

Here are photos of 3 of the 4 I did. I guess I missed that last one, oops.

Here is the first, for a co-worker's daughter's birthday.

This is for a co-worker's wife's birthday.

This one was for a co-worker's daughter's first, first day of school (she started Kindergarten this year).

The last one was a combo for a co-worker's two children's birthdays. Their birthdays are within days of each other and they were celebrating together so half the cake was girly for the daughter and the other half was more manly for the son. It was quite fun to do, too bad I missed taking a photo.

Celebrating Birthdays at Work

My company does a great job of celebrating co-workers birthdays. A card is sent around a few days early for everyone to sign and when it's delivered it contains a Cold Stone gift card. We decorate the desk of the birthday person with streamers, balloons and other fun things. We also bring munchies and sweets for the celebration. In March I took a cake for a team members birthday and ended up doing one for everyone else through the rest of year. I got photos of a lot but not all.

Winnie the Pooh was actually for a baby shower. We like celebrating new babies too.

Side note on this one, I "convinced" them the chocolate cake crumbs caught in the white frosting was done on purpose, so the ball looked like it had some dirt on it :)

Christmas Time

As has become a tradition of sorts, I made the gifts I gave to my siblings families for Christmas again this year. This is a project I have been wanting to do for ages but was unable to until this year.

When we were young our Mother crocheted a Nativity, or Creche for us to play with. When my parents were getting the their house ready (ie moving their stuff to a new location in the house so my Sister would have room for her things) to leave on their Mission to Paraguay I came across the pattern and snagged it. It was a photocopy from a magazine, and kind of difficult to follow so I decided to re-type it into an easier version for me to read. I still couldn't read "crochet" though.

After my Parents moved to California for their mission there I would take the pattern and supplies with me on visits in the hope my Mother could help me get started. Things never really worked out with that so after they returned home this Summer I "made" her sit down and help me. Here is the results -

This one is for my Sister and her Family


And this one is for my Brother and his family.
My mother often mentioned she needed a baby Jesus for each of us, so we wouldn't fight (she also said this of my sister, meaning she needed twins so my brother and I each had a baby sister to play with ;) ). Because of this I decided to make a baby Jesus for each of my nieces and nephews, so for my sister's family this meant two more and for my brother this meant 5 more. I also made a manger and filled it with yarn hay for each baby.

There was not any pattern for a "stable" so I grabbed some plastic canvas, florist wire, Tacky Glue, thread, yarn, and felt and "threw" these together. My Sister's was first and after finishing I found out it was 1.5" to tall for any box to be found, so with my brother's I adjusted the height and added the star to the wall. My sister has a star as well it's just detachable. I lucked out and a co-worker sent my team a HUGE can of popcorn, leaving a box perfect to ship her nativity to Washington!

I am happy with how they turned out, and so happy they are finished. I was literally finishing the last details as my brother and his family drove up the driveway :)

So - It has been awhile . . .

Much longer than I realized! So much has been going on I quite literally did not have a moment to post an update until just now!  Since February, Spring arrived and with it much house and yard work to do.  I taught 10 Cake Decorating Classes, and attended a training seminar for Wilton instructors in the area.  Worked my regular 8-5 job each week, with several hours of overtime thrown in there.  Participated and performed in my local Church's production of "Women at the Well".  Decorated many cakes (some of which were for hire!) and welcomed my parents home after a four year stint in the Mission Field.  Since their return in July, the house has been turned inside out with redecorating and remodeling, moving things about and settling in, planning for a "Homecoming" party that included over a hundred guests and a week long trip to the Pacific Northwest.


I'm working on posts with photos from these activities and will hopefully be able to post them soon.  Until then here's a little taste of what is to come.

One of my Patriotic Cakes

PARADISE!!!!

The end of Christmas

The following two were done for my siblings and their spouses. They are very different and challenged me in different ways. The first was for the Murris. It's called Blackwork (for obviously reasons) but I cheated a bit and added burgundy colored beads instead of black. They're room is white, black and red so that's why I decided to do this one for them.

This was for the Westergards. It's inspired from a Thomas Kincade original, who they really enjoy. It used some metallic threads that made the lights look sparkly.