The Pink Cricut

As you all know, I am very good at spending money on scrapbooking things.  For awhile, it was all spent w/ purpose--but, then as time got short--I only made time for the shopping part, and not the scrapping part. 

So, now I have a very full room of expensive toys and have just recently started to get back into the groove of crafting and scrapping with it all.  Of course, this does not mean I will stop shopping-- (Sorry, Kyle), but it does mean there will once again be purpose to my Hobby Lobby spending sprees.

Well, as I have eased myself back into things-- I have making cards and birthday decorations.  Easy projects with quick ending times.  I designed Jaxen's birthday banners, made his spaceship, treat bags, name tags, etc.

It was Jaxen's 3rd Birthday--and we were having a Party.  He wanted a Buzz Lightyear Party, and naturally-- I thought I would make the cake.  I started doing online searches for cool cakes, and found a million and one rocket ships--but, I just wasn't impressed. 

Then, I saw the idea for a tiered cake--what a great idea!  I had never done a tiered cake before, but I never let that stop me from trying something.  The cake was also covered in fondant-- which I had never successfully done anything like that before either.  Still, I was undeterred. 

Then, the unspeakable happened--everyone in our household came down with a nasty stomach virus the week of the party--and with much hesitation, I started to call the bakeries.  Unfortunatley, there were no bakeries with, "Toy Story," themed cakes.  They offered to print a picture, and put it on a sheet cake for me...but, if you know me...you know that was NOT going to happen!

So, I hoped like crazy, and started the cake on Friday.  I realized at this point, that our round cake pans had been misplaced or left at an event of some sort--(still need to shop for those).  So, we borrowed 9'' cake pans from a neighbor, and the first tier was baked.  The top tier, was to look like the mooon- so, I baked some cake in my Pampered Chef Batter Bowl.  This was the first time I ever baked a cake in a bowl, also--

The bowl cake turned out fine, and all I needed now was a smaller cake for the middle tier.  I decided to start my first batch of fondant, so that if it didn't turn out, I could buy "already-made" fondant at the store, when I went. 

I used the following recipe for fondant--and boy was it a life saver!!  I had tried a marshmallow fondant, once before--from Allrecipes, and it was a flop.  Chalk it up to inexperience or not enough crisco--the Allrecipes recipe failed me.  This marshmallow recipe, however, did NOT fail-- It was amazing and easy!

The pointers I found useful, were too grease your hands and counter like crazy--and pop the fondant in the microwave for a couple of seconds if it gets hard to work with. If it gets too mushy, add more powdered sugar, and if it starts to crack (mine never really did)- add the tiniest bit of water. 

The only difficulty I had was blending in the colors, or making the black dark enough.  With the first batch of fondant, I covered the first and third tier, as well as made the stars for the 2nd tier and the fence and rope for decoration. 

Then, I headed to the store for a smaller round cake pan and black fondant--because I just couldn't make mine dark enough.  I went to Wal-mart, and weirdly enough they were sold out of fondant and small cake pans.  So, it was off to Hobby Lobby--where they ALWAYS have what I need, plus some!

I found my pan, and I decided that since the fondant only came in sets of colors--that I would just use black frosting for the small parts of black I needed.  I also made a stop at Target, to get more marshmallows and the toys to decorate the cake.  This was the most expensive part of the cake, coincidentally.

After what seemed like the longest trip ever, I was back at home to finish the cake.  I baked the middle tier in my new cake pan--which was extra deep, so that I only had to bake one cake instead of 2 layers to make one tier.  Then I started the new batch of fondant-- which turned out perfectly, again~! Thank goodness!

When all tiers were covered fondant, and decorated- I could finally stack them.  I wasn't sure if I needed boards or dowels or what exactly-- so I used 1 dowel, which turned out was probably not enough- because the cakes did start to fall in just the tiniest bit by the next day.  Also, I should have waited to put the, "cow-spots" on because most of them were covered by the 2nd tier and the rope. 

The first tier was covered in white fondant, with black frosting spots to make it look like cowhide, and then had fondant fence around it.  The 2nd tier was covered in blue fondant with yellow fondant stars, stuck on w/ a little water.  This tier also had a fondant rope around it.  The final tier, was the moon--complete w/ divets made with a cookie scoop, and covered with grey fondant.

Toys were added, and a fondant etch-a-sketch and #3 was made for decorations.  The cake was put up high on the fridge, to keep little hands away from it...and it lasted til the party--and was a huge success.  Oh, and the fondant tasted great--just like marshmallows.  A good friend of mine, came over--and couldn't stop eating it~ She also got to help me some of the final decorating--

I am in no rush to try another tiered cake w/ fondant--but, I do see another one in my future...*don't tell my husband ;)

I wanted to get everyone prepared for something exciting!! I will be moving my Creative Blog to it's own website, within the next week or so.  I am excited for the change, but nervous about the transition.  With this blogger, it is pretty easy to blog without having to think about it too much. 

However, on my own website- I won't have these handy dandy boxes to fill in, and hit publish. I will also need to design my page, and I am on the lookout for some cute and funky artwork-- So bear with me, during this transition time--and expect more creative posts--along with video how-to posts!

Most how-to posts will be on crafting, instead of baking/cooking.  But, I will still blog about the occasional edible project. 

3 cheers to the new website~  name will be announced soon!

I had this crazy idea to make homemade clam chowder-- which was a great idea in theory, except we live in IOWA and it is the middle of WINTER. 

Hmmm... our grocery amazingly did have "fresh" clams in the deli.  However, since they were obviously flown in, they were not as fresh as they would have been if we lived on the coast.  And, since we don't live on the coast, I know very little about what fresh clams are supposed to look like, smell like, etc.

So, Kyle and I scrubbed the shells, and steamed them.  They opened very quickly, so maybe we had the heat too high?  Then, as we were taking out the meat, (family project--everyone wanted to be involved, especially Alexis) we noticed that the colors varied, and the smell varied.  We threw them all in, and continued with our recipe.  It was a fairly simple recipe, found in the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. 

When it was finished about 45 minutes later, we all sat down with our bowls of chowder.  It looked like the clam chowder I have had at good restaurants,  and the broth was great.  It was creamy and the perfect consistency.  But, unfortunatley it was very salty.  Not so salty, that you couldn't eat it, just salty.  I didn't add any salt, the clams were just too salty. 

Since, I was the only one who liked clam chowder to begin with--and one of the only ones who had even had clam chowder before--I thought some bites (with clam) were good, and some bites were very off.  It was liking eating a bowl of minefield soup.  Would you get a good bite, or a yucky bite.  Finally, one by one we stopped eating the soup--not because we were disgusted--but, because we just couldn't go through with the whole bowl.  I think I was mostly convinced that some of the clams may have been bad, and I didn't want anyone getting sick.

So, although I won't post the recipe-- I did want to share, that sometimes we do have flops in the Hamer Kitchen-- it happens.  We also learned that we need to learn more about uncommon seafood, before cooking it from scratch.  Not that clams are uncommon, but most households, in the midwest do not cook them from scratch.

Ps. We did order in Pizza later

Next, we are going to try our hand at Lobster bisque-- and I am hoping like crazy it turns out AMAZING!!

My DH does not love scrapbooking.  He does not know how I can spend so much money on stickers and paper.  He does not get it.  I think he appreciates the books I have poured over to catalog the memories of our children--but, he still does not GET it.  And, that's okay....he knows I love it.

Lucky for me, he love Gadgets.  He nearly pees his pants, when there is a new cell phone advancement.  So, when I was excited about the CRICUT-- he was secretly excited.  He surprised me with it for our anniversary.  For those of you who know the story, you know that the cricut was not my "official" anniversary gift because he later realized he wanted to get me something made from wood- for the "traditional" annivesary gift.  To make a long story short, and to leave the part out where I hurt his feelings--I got clothes from VS--on our anniversary--which I wore out to dinner to McDonalds with our babies.  Then a week or so later, I got my "wooden" gift-- which was my China cabinet.  I was a little spoiled this anniversary. 

Anyway, he had heard about the handheld computer-like device that works with the cricut.  He thought, of course my wife has to have that--because I have a cool gadgety phone (that she got me for our anniversary), so she needs the coolest scrapbooking gadget.  (I don't think that is really how it played out in his head, but for the sake of the story...we'll go with this version...lol)

So, if you haven't already guessed it--I got the GYPSY for Christmas!  Of course ProvoCraft (the makers) thought it would be a good idea to release a software update 2 days before Christmas that would freeze all of the gypsy's that updated-- mine included.  So, I had to trade mine in.  :(  We were very frustrated.

Finally yesterday, January 6th, I got the Gypsy in my hot little hands--and started to play with it.  I had to figure out this fun, new, little gadget--hoping it would be worth the hassle and the money. 

I have to say, I am not disappointed with it at all.  It saves me time, paper, it is easy to read and operate.   After the software snafu, I thought I would be equally disappointed in the machine--but, alas--I fell in love.

I am still learning the ins and outs and the possibilities it opens for me and the cricut.  But for now, I will leave you with a card that I created for a dear friend.

I used my 12x12 mat, and layered different colored paper in different sections, so I would not have to unload and reload for different sections of the card.  I knew exactly, and I mean EXACTLY to the gridpoint where it was going to cut what.  There was no mistaking where I needed to put the different colored paper.  I knew that the things I was cutting out were going to match up exactly and fit exactly where I needed them to fit-- because I could drag them and compare them on my gypsy screen.  THIS in itself is AMAZING for me.  Because, those of you who know me, know that I am dimensionally challenged.  This little machine allows me to see everything, how big its going to be, where its going to go on the mat.  I also don't have to hassle with changing cartridges etc.  *big sigh of joy