Museum Wax

Subtitle- How to foil an itty, bitty, shitty kitty.

Actually, our kitty is incredibly sweet. She doesn't bite or scratch. Well, she did lay down 3 pretty decent claw marks about a month ago, but it was only because she's rather clumsy and was falling off the computer desk, scrambling for purchase when she found my forearm. I don't hold it against her.

She does, however, love to knock over vases and cups of water, which is more irritating than you can possibly imagine. Seriously, all the sweetness in the world doesn't matter when you find a soaking wet library book in a puddle of water next to an empty cup on its side.

So we've become super conscientious about leaving out cups of water. But I was still left with the fact that I couldn't have vases of flowers, which made me very sad.

Luckily, one day I found this at the art supply store.



Museum Wax is made to prevent expensive museum pieces from tipping over, even in an earthquake.

But it works just as well for my purposes.



I attach the vases to plates instead of directly to the table because it's difficult to completely remove from the surfaces without running hot water over them. I have seen the Museum Putty and Museum Gel which look like they might be easier to remove, but haven't tried either of them.

And, yes, I'm sure most of you don't have the same kitty problem that I do. However, this stuff holds so well that I'm positive you can find other uses for it. I've been thinking of letting Joey use it to attach shells and rocks vertically to the back of a shadow box.

I mean really, what *can't* you do with something that does this?

Things I Am Not Proud Of

Originally, I wrote this post focusing on many of the things in my life that are, well... less than ideal lately. Not really to complain, but because I find it all rather amusing. And just as I was about to hit publish, I happened to hop over to Flickr and find some beautiful pics that Jenny took at my house in the very areas I was complaining about. It's amazing how much beauty she was able to uncover by simply focusing on it.

It also made me think about our mom, who could walk across a dry field of grass and emerge at the other end holding a bouquet of wildflowers. Her ability to do that always amazed me.



So in the spirit of both full disclosure and unashamed optimism, here are seven things I am not proud of (and a few things that I am)...

Background Info- I've been preparing for a multi-family garage sale and getting ready has used up all spare time, space and energy.

1) I wrote most of this last Wednesday, and am just now editing and posting it.
2) I was just looking at a video from Sunday, and I can see that I was wearing the same t-shirt that I currently have on.
3) I have a patch of thistles in my backyard that is almost as tall as I am.
- Those thistles did create a lush green background for some of my favorite flowers, though.

4) When I woke up with a sore throat today, my first thought was, "Ah, I can postpone that damned garage sale."
5) The state of my living room, dining room and laundry room. That picture shows the living room and part of the dining room. I know. It looks like a crazy person, no, a pack of crazy people lives here. (Feel free to click on over to Flickr for a fun Eye Spy game of crapulence.)
- Just out of frame of that picture, though, are my orchids, which I've managed to keep alive and blooming for many years.

6) I had removed a couple of containers full of old leftovers from the fridge and instead of immediately emptying and cleaning them, I forgot them on the counter. They've started to bulge menacingly and I'm worried they will soon explode. I've actually considered throwing all of it away, containers and all, because I feel that the situation is beyond my ability to deal with. And each hour that passes makes the situation that much more dire.
(But I think I may be over-reacting here.)
7) I walked around with peanut butter in my hair for several hours. Jenny insisted on taking a picture of me before she told me what she was laughing at. And I let her.

And the final thing that I'm happy with is the family of volunteer flowers (sweet peas, violas and snapdragons) that are growing out of the rocks in the back yard.


So, here's hoping all of you can focus on the flowers and not the weeds.

And thank you, Jenny, for helping me to do just that.

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Let the beauty we love be what we do.
-Rumi

Flower Cupcake Toppers

What do you do when one of your kiddos will be leaving for camp on her birthday?

You make birthday cupcakes for sharing with her friends of course.

Randa, our lovely middle daughter went off to camp this weekend and thanks to the brilliant suggestions by Anitra and Lenetta (who, after seeing my sugar fireworks, thought that the technique would work well for making flowers) I did just that.



It took me two tries to get these because, once again, I didn't cook it long enough and they were droopy. People, when will I learn my lessons? My guess is never.

Jeff (who is by far the best baker in the family) whipped up a batch of banana cupcakes and then dipped them in a dark chocolate ganache. I piped little spirals of vanilla buttercream on top because it seemed to make the leaves stand out more.

Also, hello, piping instead of frosting cupcakes... awesome and wonderful. I may never frost another cupcake again.

When it comes to making these guys, luckily I remembered to add about an inch of stem below the leaves, which helped to anchor them when I shoved them in the cupcakes.



They remind me of little kids' drawings of flowers. Since you can't control exactly where the sugar's going to fall, there's a messy simplicity that is really fun and sweet.

(In case you're interested in the specific recipes... the cupcakes and ganache recipes came from Cake Love and the vanilla buttercream from Baking Illustrated which, I think, is the easiest and also the tastiest buttercream recipe out there.)

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Related Posts-
Fireworks Cake Toppers

We're All in This Together

One of my absolute favoritest things about this blog is knowing that something I've made has inspired someone else. The first time I saw that another blogger had actually printed out one of my posts, I honestly got a little teary. (I feel I should remind you at this point in time what a dork I am.)

With that in mind, I bring you my newest category.

First up is from one of my good friends from high school. When Defne isn't using fluorescence microscopy to discover the mysteries of the world, apparently, she's pretty handy in the kitchen. She sent me this picture of the fantastic fireworks cupcake toppers she made after reading about mine. I love how she alternated red sprinkles and the toppers. And also how perfect is that red table as the background?



And then there's Stefanie from Nutmeg Stamping who took my pattern for the sheer produce bags and decided to add stamps of fruits and veges. So brilliant! I cannot tell you how excited I am to try this. I just bought some permanent ink pads, and am ready to carve myself some stamps.



Anyway, this post is just a little FYI in case you've been inspired by anything I've done and would like me to show it off here. Just send me an email or leave a comment somewhere.

Really and truly, the best part of seeing these pictures is the fact that someone followed my directions and it didn't end in a giant, smoking wreck. That truly makes me feel like I've accomplished something.

If that's a sad goal to have, please don't tell me.

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Also, for those of you who read this via a feed, I've changed out my Tutorials, Tips & Recipes to something a bit more summery, including some Margarita Jell-O Shots that you probably ought to go try.

;)

Gumpaste Frogs- A Tutorial by Kam

Recently, Jaden's favorite movie to watch is The Triplets of Belleville. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a kids' movie, though. It's really dark and weird and well, yah, you'll have to watch it yourself (plenty of it on youtube). But, what can I say. All of our kids love it too.

So, of course, she chose that as the theme for her birthday. For the cake, Aurora decided to cover a sheet cake with frog pieces. Once again, hard to explain if you haven't seen the movie. (Though if you watch from about 4:05 on this link, you'll get the gist.)

We all sat down to sculpt them out of gumpaste, but Jenny was the only one who was able to make anything presentable. My frogs were so ugly that I squashed all of them and made tadpoles instead. And even those managed to look more like sperm than tadpoles. Aurora's attempts were a bit better, but still, Jenny kicked our butts on the frog sculpting front. Then again, she's awesome like that (in a very 'perfectionist, keep going til it works' way, while my personal style is more along the lines of 'meh, good enough').

And guess what, I've got a Don't Do What Donnie Don't Does for you. Don't leave a bunch of gumpaste figures out in the garage during a rainstorm without first double, no, triple checking that your roof doesn't leak. Because ours leaks. And I had no idea that it did. And I actually cried when I saw this.


(And for those of you who are wondering why I would put these in the garage... here's my reasoning. We have a naughty cat and I didn't trust her to not eat these. I thought of putting them in the oven for safe keeping, but I was sure that someone would turn it on without realizing they were in there. Most likely me. No one goes in the garage, so I figured they'd be safe out there.)

So my wonderful sister came over the next day and re-sculpted a cake full of frogs. Isn't she sweet? And I think the second batch turned out even better than the first.





And while she was re-making them, Kam was nice enough to give a tutorial for just how to make this frog. We used cocoa to keep them from sticking and also to give them a nice "fresh from the swamp" color. It totally worked.



Aurora whipped up a sheet cake with some brown/pink cream cheese frosting and we just plunked the frogs down on it.





And this last picture... technically that is one leg and one arm, but I stuck them in there like they were a pair of legs.

Don't tell Jenny.

Do I Hear 20?

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine invited me to an auction. Bright and early, we headed out to the warehouse to have a bit of a look see.

We wandered around for some time and I found a ton of stuff that I wanted, but only a few things I actually have room for. As cool as it would be, I decided against the school nurse’s exam table.

Eventually, I bid on, and won, a bunch of vintage Pyrex bowls for $20. The bidding process was almost as exciting as the bowls themselves. (And I'm pretty darned excited about the bowls.) Though, I am convinced that the auctioneer wasn't saying actual words between all those numbers. I was desperately afraid that I would somehow misunderstand what was being hollered and end up paying 200 dollars or something.






(I have no idea what I'm going to do with those little, rectangle baking dishes, but I adore them anyway.)

Once I got home, I spent several hours searching through all the auctions in our area. I found auctions for a liquor store as well as a day spa. I also found one for a tree farm. While I wasn’t interested in the trees (they had ridiculous things like non-fruiting pear trees- why on God’s green Earth would anyone want that?), they did have some great landscaping stones. Unfortunately, from the pictures, I had no way of telling how big they were.

So Jenny and Kam and Joey and I made the hour drive to the farm to see for ourselves.


(Kam helped with the tape measure.)


(And Joey had to personally test each stone to see how it held her weight.)



The bidding was on a Saturday, and only online, which wasn’t nearly as fun as in person. Also, I lost my bids in the last half hour of the auction, so bummer.

I’m not terribly disappointed, though, because after the weekend that Jeff and I had (we began to convert one zone on our sprinkler system to drip, which left both of us tired and achy) I didn’t feel like moving any large rocks.

But I now know those auctions are out there. And I’m keeping my eyes peeled for things I could use.

Maybe you should too. Just don’t bid against me. K?

A Few Random Things About Me- 51 thru 55

So, today I am officially 35 years old. Somehow I think I feel older than I should.

Makes me think it's a good time for another installment of 8,452 Things About Me.

55- I am a storage whore. And I will drag home from the curb just about any bookcase, cubbies or shelving-type piece of furniture that looks like it might help organize any of our crap.

54- I cannot stand it when I’m under the covers and someone else sits on the bed on top of the covers. Drives me fracking bonkers.

53- I majored in molecular biology in college. So, yah, Joey gets a lot of science in her homeschool curriculum. This explains why, when her older sister Kenzie was complaining about the high-school standardized testing and how she and most of her friends didn't know what asexual reproduction was, Joey did.

52- If I need to type more than 2 numbers in a row, I use the ten-key pad, not the numbers at the top of the keyboard. I am wicked fast on the ten-key. (Which is what years working in warehouses and managing databases will get you.)

51- I find speaking a foreign language (or even just speaking with a foreign accent) incredibly hot. When I saw Jamie Lee Curtis in a Fish Called Wanda, I thought, Glad I’m not the only one. Luckily, Jeff likes to learn random bits of foreign languages and he can also do a mean Russian accent. Sigh.


(Jeff was singing this song yesterday with the accent and I had to seriously restrain myself.)