Scenic wall art for Sas

More Saskia stuff. I saw a similar idea on Debbie Travis' Facelift so decided to make this for Saskia's birthday. She: 1) loves nature and sunsets, 2) was jotting down quotes she found in a magazine on our plane trip to Vermont, and 3) is always commenting (i.e. complaining) that her walls are so bare. So I thought this would be a fun gift for her.

I didn't actually make it today, but I did finally "make" a picture of it! : ) Had to do it while they were all up on the wall again -- we're having issues getting them to stick! For the record, a while after adding adhesive pads to the corners instead of the centers of each square, we heard the first one fall off again. -sigh-

Oh, I guess I should mention, the squares are CD covers - the thick ones. I pulled the black CD holder part out, put the picture in the back of the cover, then snapped the CD holder thing back in place. Maybe I should've tried the slim cases.

The quotes (and ideas for layouts) I found at allposters.com under Inspirational Magnets.

Saskia's birthday cake

It's Saskia's 16th birthday today and here's her cake.

Back when we were making the cake for the Exchange Student Picnic, she had seen a birthday cake in my little cake book and commented that she liked it, so that's the one I chose as my inspiration. I know she likes sunsets and I think this cake kind of invokes that feeling...
I used 2 9" rounds - cut the dome off the lower one but left it on the top one, why cut off good cake, right? (Though I wish I could figure out how to bake cakes without them getting such a high dome in the middle... I wonder if those wilton "wrap" things would help...) Then did a crumb coat and covered it with a big bowl. When I went to put the good thick coat of frosting on the top, it pulled the crumb coat off. Aaargh! I wonder if that was because I had covered the cake and so it didn't "dry" right, or if the frosting I was using was too stiff. I ended up adding more milk and then it worked.

Kid-sized picnic table.

I have always wanted to make my own furniture. So when I saw The Complete Book of Woodworking on the bookmobile, I just couldn't pass it up. Later that week, JG was over with her kids and she saw the picnic table instructions I'd marked in the book and asked if she could build one with me. Super idea! I tend to start things and not finish, so it's great to have a partner!

So we got enough materials for 2 tables, spent a few days in their big backyard measuring and sawing and saying "Oops, we marked it wrong" and buying another piece of wood and sawing it correctly this time and screwing it all together. And voila, 2 cute-as-can-be kid-sized picnic tables -- one for her kiddos and one for mine! And all it needed was four 8' 2x4s, four 8' 1x6s, and a bunch of 3" screws (per table) as well as a jigsaw for the curved cuts and another saw for the straight ones. (You could use the jigsaw for those too, but a circular saw would probably give you straighter cuts. We got to use the compound miter saw JG had on loan from a friend! Sweet!)

It took me a while longer to finally get the thing sanded (Thank you Brian for letting me borrow your orbital sander!!!) but it's done now, ready for the last bits of summer.

A cake honoring Moms

We had a little "party" in our PAIIR class today. Everyone was bringing treats -- some healthy, some not so much. Mine fell in the not so much category.

In thinking about how to decorate it, I remembered that MOM upside-down spells out WOW. And I thought that would be a nice way to sum up everything that we do as moms: prepare food, offer food, clean up food, repeat 3 times daily; never-ending laundry and tidying up after the "hurricane" has swept through; wiping little noses, and little bums; and all the rest that makes up a stay-at-home-mom's day. And don't forget the "big" stuff moms give: the love and guidance, the humility and selflessness required, the safety and comfort, and hopefully too, the FUN! So, moms do deserve a big WOW every once in a while.

This was a simple two-layer chocolate cake. Had a little chocolate store-bought frosting left from something else, so covered the top with that. And also had some pale green home-made frosting also left over, so covered the sides with that. Then green dots for lettering and a border. And brown dots because I didn't want to have any frosting leftover. Plus I felt it still needed that certain "something". Didn't realize the end result would make me think I'd be biting into a mint-flavored cake. : )