What I've Been Up To

Which, by the way, is HORRIBLE grammar but I'm going to go with it because "That up to which I've been" isn't very catchy, is it?

I'm still on my felt food kick here. I made more felt strawberries, bringing my grand total for these up to eight. They're so stinking cute I almost want to keep them for myself! Don't they look so nice in that vintage milk glass compote I found at the Goodwill? Directions here.

Little gyoza (potstickers). These required no sewing at all, much like the tortellini. I think I'd like to make a whole set of different dumplings for dim sum. Wouldn't that be fun? Potsticker directions here.

Corn on the cob, with a husk! I used the same directions as for the banana I did the previous day. Before sewing together the inside part, I just stitched across the felt in a grid to make the corn kernels. Corn/Banana directions here.

I made the new additions to Bubba's pantry while I was working on another cupcake order. It's funny, because I' seriously have gone almost a year without a single order then BAM! Two for the same weekend. I'm not complaining though, as we could use the money. I mean, who couldn't, right?

So uh, if you're local and you need cupcakes, check out my pricing and photos on my La Confectionista blog. (okay, shameless plug over)

One of Bubba's friends from our playgroup was celebrating his second birthday today and his mom commissioned me to make the cupcakes. I made the little hard hats and traffic cones from royal icing. They were so hard because of the detail! My smallest #1 Wilton tip didn't fit into the little crevices left by the black outlines, so I actually had to use a toothpick to get the icing in there. Crazy.

Of course, after all that it's been raining here and the humidity made the black icing bleed into the colors which totally made me so mad! Even worse, last night we noticed that the boy had a slightly drippy nose and even though we specifically told him he was not allowed to get sick, he woke up at 8:00 am hacking. This meant no party for him because I am not going to be "that" mom. You know the which one I'm talking about, the one so desperate to get out of the house that she's oblivious to her own kid's suffering and doesn't stop to think that maybe no one else wants to catch what her kid has. Uh huh.

Instead, he stayed home where he played with his newest truck (a cement mixer from his party goody bag) and his father made him some hot cocoa. You can see where his cup hit the bridge of his nose perfectly when he drank. See his poor little nose is all red because we're out of Boogie Wipes and had to use regular baby wipes. Boogie Wipes are TOTALLY worth the money folks, especially if you buy the grape scented ones.

I went and dropped off the cupcakes and our gift (we got the birthday boy a Bilibo, which looks weird until you know what it is) and then headed back home to my guys.

We had a few cupcakes leftover after I made my delivery, so I just piped on some butter cream and sprinkled little multicolored nonpareils on them. So simple and pretty. I bought the black and white gingham cupcake liners at Smeeks in Phoenix, but you can order them online at Bake It Pretty or the Layer Cake Shop. The nonpareils are just the Dec-A-Cake ones from the grocery store, nothing fancy.

And that, with the exception of the photos I forgot to post of our visit to the fire station last Wednesday, brings us to the end of July! I am glad to see it go because it kinda sucked this year. Later, July!