Thankful Thanksgiving

Grateful for Family, Friends and health - this year was a quiet Thanksgiving that began with the Myopia Thanksgiving Hunt (Daisy earned her colors!) and while she was riding through the fields Dan,George and I went to St. Peter's Church to help serve their Thanksgiving dinner for their outreach. Then we came home and cooked our own Turkey and all the works - it was delicious and lovely. Daqisy made an amazing apple pie. George peeled and riced the potatoes. I made a tablecloth from a lovely heavy linen and wrote a lovely Thanksgiving poem along the edge:

For each new morning with it's Light

For Rest and Shelter of the Night

For Health and Food

For Love and Friends

For Everything Thy Goodness Sends

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tromping through the fields around Myopia, gathering bittersweet, grasses and rosehips I was in awe of the colors and bounty of the countryside. We are truly blessed.

Wilton Course III Final Cake - Daisy's Birthday!

For Course III I chose to make my tiered cake without the column forms and simply stack two cakes atop one another. It was great fun to learn the fondant roses and Daisies and the royal icing lillies. The possibilities with fondant are endless - but I'm not a big fan of the taste. It's good the cake underneath also has buttercream icing and a raspberry filling. Yummmmmm.

Wilton Course III Fondant Present Cake

For Course III we learned how to roll and work with Fondant. It is quite a challenge to drpae a whole xcake - but worth the effort for the lovely effect. This present cake was taken to Milton for Mark and Sophie in honor of their March birthdays.

Violets for Violetta

It was fun to take my newfound basketweave skills and apply them to a little Violets cake I made for my mother for a visit during February.

Wilton Course ll Royal Icing Flowers

Daisy and I learned how to make basketweave designs with buttercream and spent the month of February learning royal icing flowers - roses, Daisies, violets, primroses, etc. Daisy made the pink and yellow cake and I made the one with candles! They were a blast to make and my favorite type of flowers by far.

Note that George has a frosting smiley face on the back of his shirt.....hmmmm. I wonder who did that!!!! (DAISY!)

Wilton Course I Finale (The Wilton Rose)

Daisy and I completed Course 1 at the end of January after learning the "Wilton Rose" out of buttercream. Daisy perfected the rose and made the beautiful white and pink cake and I made the Tiffany blue cake with white roses. We ate Daisy's (yum!) and gave the pink and white one to our neighbor, Susan and her family. Susan is a landscape Designer so we thought a rose cake would be fitting!

The Wreck of the Pocohontas

Last summer we were practicing painting with greys and our assignment was to paint a lighthouse using tones of grey not using black or white. Creating grey out of colors only. We a were given a lighthouse because of the typical grey days you get - of course - the purpose of a lighthouse.

Well. I hate lighthouses almost as much as Pears and Shells (sorry, Valerie) but Valerie told me about a lighthouse that Celia Thaxter grew up on and I had fun researching her - I love her writing and art and was thrilled to hear that when she lived on the Isle of Shoals lighthouse with her father one storm was so bad that they had to bring the cow into the kitchen and the chicken coop floated away! There is also a poem about "The Wreck of the Pocahontas" which describes a terrible shipwreck off the Island one night.... well it all came together for my lighthouse painting.

Person in a Pear

During this winter session of The Garage School of Art we are working on Composition and the figure. In the first week we had to tone a piece of paper with graphite, sketch a pear, and then go home and draw a portrait of ourselves within the shape of the pear. Last week we were asked to complete the same assignment using watercolor or acrylic. I must say - it was an intriguing assignment - although my kids thought it was weird that I was sitting on the hamper in the bathroom drawing a picture of myself in front of the mirror. Valerie had told us to close the door when we did this - I guess that is why!!! I used my New YARKA watercolors that Santa gave me for Christmas. The colors are yummy.

Clowns Amok

Wilton Course I Class #3 and we worked on clowns and roses - Daisy chose to stick with the roses and so I got to use most of our clown heads. While I usually get the creeps from clowns like this it was actually fun and I went to town with clowns last night - This weeks lucky (???) recipient of the cake is Sandy, another neighbor with a snow blower who very kindly blew away the additional ten inches of snow we got this weekend. I hope he likes chocolate cake and butter cream frosting...ALOT of butter cream frosting. I must say - I have no desire to eat any of this because frosting is way to sweet for me and I usually just eat the cake part anyway.

Daisy's roses were fabulous - she made he cake for the Dixon's who took her skiing last week. Next week we do a very pretty rose cake - hmmmmmm.....who would like a feminine pretty cake? Any birthdays coming up?

365 Days To Create

I've decided that this year I am going to create SOMEthing everyday. Whether it is sewn, painted or cooked (that makes it too easy, doesn't it?) I will try to post the things I make that are blog-worthy. I spen t this wonderful snowy winter weekend making aprons for the whole family! U sed a Simplicty pattern which was very easy:

I made a smaller version for Daisy with this yellow fabric with animals all over it and green rick rack. Dan and I get his and hers editions of the same fabrics - the only difference is that Dan gets green with a bunny pocket (or a bunny-in-the-pocket!) while mine is the allover animal pattern with a green pocket. I also added fabric flowers that I learned how to make from surfing the blogosphere!

NoteBook Covers!

In the spirit of reorganization and renewal in January (Don't you just love nesting in the cold winter months?) I re-covered my address book and Recipe notebook. I learned how from a great blog: http://spoonfullofsugargirls.blogspot.com/2008/03/tutorial-quick-notebook-cover.html that gives you a tutorial on how to make a cover - it was easy and fun - I added the salt dough Bunny labels on the back which were leftovers from the Christmas Dough ornaments we made for the kitchen wreath. I think I will make some more! I also made new labels for my studio which I will post at a later date when the whole studio is whipped into shape. Today- Will make aprons for Daisy and me to bring to our cake class.

Oh Baby It's Cold Outside!

It is 31 degrees under my desk here in the studio - that is what the electric heater (under my desk) said before I turned it on. I think it is now up to 44degrees after the heater being on a little while. Whoopee!It is 8 degrees outside. The birds have gone through quite alot of seed these past few days - I am thinking we need to make some peanut butter balls for them too.
The fat puffed up Robins are glorious - doesn't this one look like she has eyelashes? I think she is quite the glamorous Robin. This weather calls for some fresh baked cookies , hot tea and a fire in the fireplace. That means I need to walk to the woodpile and refresh the supply....

Mercury is Retrograde -or - MY DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK!

We gave Daisy a Cake Decorating Class for Christmas which means Daisy and I get to go to AC Moore every Tuesday Evening for 2 hours and learn how to decorate cakes! This week we were instructed to arrive with two cakes. Daisy a 9" round, already iced in white, me a plain "Shaped" cake not iced because it would be completely #16 Star Tip decorated.

I made the cakes in the morning. I made the buttercream frosting.... I carefully wrapped up the cakes in two separate cardboard boxes.

Kids home from school - met Dad at Petco to look at Fish and Hamsters.... Arrive home at 5:30 ...Have 1/2 an hour to get kids fed and homework finished before leaving for class...

Open Door...

Cardboard cake round on the floor....Box under table.... Dogs look happy.... Rufus especially!

Quickly whip together another cake, another batch of buttercream, pull hot cake out of oven at 6:35 arrive at class 15 minutes late with hot cake stil in pan... realize that I have left shaped "Fish Mold" cake at home in the rush of re-baking.... So Daisy makes her lovely 3 flowers cake and I mix colors and hang with George who came along becaus Dan is out with clients. Daisy finishes cake. It is lovely. She has written "Mom" on it.

Get in car...Start driving home.

Here THUD

Where is the cake?

Cake has flown backwards and landed upside down in back of minivan. Bad Mommy gets mad.

Get home. Need to decompress -at least the fish cake is still safe. Spend next hour decorating fish cake. Give to neighbor as thank you for snow-blowing driveway. Hopefully next week's class will be different - except we are doing clown cakes. I do NOT like clowns....