Happy, Little Angry Bird

Halloween is just around the corner so I got a jump start on making my kiddo's costumes.  My little one loves "Angry, Angry Birds" and asked to be the blue bird.  Thanks to pinterest and twindragonflydesigns.com I was able to get inspiration for this adorable costume.  

Essentially this Angry Bird costume is made of 2 large pillows and 2 small pillows.  The large "pillows" are attached with straps.  I fumbled along through this little project but overall it turned out pretty cute and my little one LOVES it!  I was hoping my other son would be an Angry Bird too because I have all of the kinks worked out now and I know I can do it better...but no luck.  He's going to be a "silly monster".

A for Effort???

My husband's friend requested a Storm Trooper cake for his son's party.  His wife found a youtube video showing how one mom made it so I thought I'd give it a try.  Next month my oldest son is having a Star Wars party so this was going to be good practice.  Most of the examples on the internet are made with fondant, which I don't use.  Unfortunately, the cake was WAY harder than it looked and didn't turn out that great.  However, I thought the technique was pretty cool and could be tweaked to make lots of different of cakes.  So, here's how I did it...not my best work, but definitely my best effort.

I made simple syrup for the first time, with equal parts sugar and water that I boiled in a pot.  I added a whole lemon to it as well.  Then I used buttercream frosting and my Kitchen Aid mixing bowl as a mold.

I lined my Kitchen Aid bowl.  Plastic wrap would work but I usually end up annoyed with it so I went with good old wax paper instead.

Rainbow Cake How To...

Rainbow Cake How To...

My original plan was to have the inside of the cake rainbow colored and have it iced in all white.  That's really the only way I've seen it done, and as you know by now, almost all of my ideas are borrowed from somewhere and tweaked to fit my needs.  I was telling my mom my plan and she said she thought the cake would be prettier if I made the outside rainbow colored too.  I didn't want to hear it.  I didn't want to think about how I was going to do it.  And I really didn't want to make 6 different colors of frosting.  But I did...and I'm really happy about it.  It turned out prettier than plain white and everyone was still super surprised when we cut into it!

Here's how I did it.

I made 3 white cakes, splitting each in half to give me 6 layers.  Each half was tinted with Wilton gel food coloring and baked.  Then I froze them.  After the cakes were frozen I sliced about 1/3 off the top so that my cake wouldn't be too tall.  I put them in the freezer until I was ready to frost them another day. Next I put a white buttercream crumb coat on top and in between the layers.  And then I added several dowels to hold my cake together.

I mixed 6 colors of frosting and used disposable piping bags since there were so many colors.  I used Wilton tip 12.  It's just a big open circle.  I squeezed a dollop of frosting and then squished it and swept my tip through it.  I began with the purple and worked my way up the side of the cake.

Sharing...

My oldest just started Kindergarten and she was thrilled to discover that she gets to have "share day" every Friday!  Her teacher sent home a note explaining that she needed a special bag to bring her share toy in each week.  She said the bags could be as simple or elaborate as we wanted.  We decided to make a simple bag that looks elaborate!

Since my daughter has always loved owls we decided an owl share bag would be perfect.  I went through my scrap fabrics and knew I'd find an owl print.

I drew my design on a brown paper sack and cut it out to use as a pattern.

I used interfacing on all of my fabrics before I cut them out.  Then I pinned the front pieces together.