Double Rainbow

IMG_1988, a photo by aloricat on Flickr.

Double rainbow afternoon in Corolla, North Carolina.

Deadliest Catch Cookies

Untitled, a photo by aloricat on Flickr.

This was made for a summer lobster party. My deadliest catch cookies.
Well not so deadly, but I just finished watching a Deadliest Catch and thought I would honor this batch to them.

This lobster cutter was a bit tricky to work with. The claws were attached to the main body by a very thin piece.  A few lobster claws were snapped in the process of making them.

First Communion Cake Pops

Untitled, a photo by aloricat on Flickr.

Super Mario Birthday Party

A few treats from my son's Super Mario themed birthday party.

I made cake pops, cupcakes, cookies and a fondant Super Mario on his Kart.

To make the Mario Cookies, I used royal icing transfers.  Very easy to do, with a very fancy result.

Take photos of Mario and print a dozen of them on a sheet of paper.  

Cover the paper with parchment paper and use royal icing to color in the image.  It's like painting with numbers.  

Cupcake Wars Birthday Party

I planned a Cupcake Wars Birthday Party for my daughter's 9th birthday.

 Everyone had a blast decorating their own cupcakes.

I first gave all the girls a quick tutorial on how to pipe and decorate with frosting.

Then I gave them a few examples of how to decorate with the sprinkles.

Part of the "challenge" was to decorate cupcakes around a theme and also create a display with their decorated cupcakes.   So each team was allowed to select certain props for their display.  All the girls really enjoyed the opportunity to decorate their own cupcakes and work together as a team to create a display.

I made cupcake cookies as party favors and we found super cute ceramic cupcakes from the dollar store to give out as well.

Spilled Nail Polish

This is what happens when your daughter spills nail polish on your brand new table...

It eats up the varnish...

And nothing can neutralize it, except paying the wood maker $500 to refinish it.

Here is the perpetrator.  Perhaps her earmuff-wearing prevented hearing me say,  "Don't use that nail polish on the brown table!"

Here's are some tips.
#1 Don't use nail polish indoors
 #2 Definitely don't wear those earmuff indoors, 'cuz you can't hear me say tip #1.

Konad Nail Design Stamper

I took my girls to the Premium Outlet mall in Orlando.

I got suckered into buying a Konad Nail Stamper.

It's cute and pretty simple to do.
But a bit of a rip off.  I found extra stamper image plates on Ebay and they were much cheaper.  Ditto for the complete sets.

I've only used it a handful of times since then.  But they girls are not allowed nail polish at school.  So we only save it or summer time use.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

What a fun day in Orlando.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is amazing.  

The only major drawback was the early morning crowd.  We could barely walk through Hogsmeade... Like crazy shoulder to shoulder to get around.  The Harry Potter ride took a whopping 100 mins to ride.  And the Wand shop was definitely way pass maximum capacity for fire codes.  Everything I read said to "get there early."  

I beg to differ.  

We went back later in the afternoon and it took us less than 30 minutes to get on the Harry Potter ride.  Plus we could really enjoy Hogsmeade in all it's snowy glory.

Easter Cookies - practice

First batch of Easter Cookies.
I got the big bin of Wilton Easter cookies at Winners the other day.  Great find.  Going to work on more designs later this month.

Plants vs Zombies Cookies

I live in a house full of Zombie slayers.  Our weapon of choice the cattail.

I made these cookies for my Zombie slaying offsprings.

But I forgot about Cattail.  I will have to dedicate an entire batch to her.  

These make strange gift to pass on to friends, neighbours and teachers.  You really need to be a Plants Vs.  Zombie lover to appreciate them.

Traveling with 4 kids

This is the loot we needed to pack for a 2 night stay in Quebec.

One of the activities scheduled was tubing.  This requires hats, mittens, scarves, boots, snow pants and jackets.  Plus all the skating gear, which is not shown in the above photo.

Plus all the backpacks the kids needed to travel with in the car.

It adds up to one full van, for just two nights here, Quebec City.

Flat Stanley is enjoying himself.

We stayed at the Palace Royal.  Nice location, ok room and so-so service.  There were 6 of us in the room.

But everyone still had a good time.

Kitchen Renovation Update

Here are a few more after photos from the kitchen renovation.

Double dishwashers.  Enough said.

These babies have been the the most reliable appliance purchases from the group of over $xx,xxx worth of appliances we selected.  They don't complain (whisper quiet) and they are always willing to lend a hand (washing dishes).

Our Viking range died on us about 1 month into installation.  No kidding.  I called Viking and they directed me to a local repair shop.  That shop showed up the following morning and repaired the stove on site.  The repair-man had the part in his car, so there was no delay.  Even if the overpriced  ranged crapped out on us after 1 month of use, the service was impeccable.  So I guess we can still rely on it.  It's still pretty in a industrial kinda way.

Our Kitchen Aid steam injected stove got really rowdy on us this month.  The fan was REALLY loud.  Let me start by saying, that oven is general is very needy.  After using the microwave, it always requires feedback..."need more time?, keep warm?, make me a coffee!"  Kidding about the coffee.  Anyways, it's needy and wants you to push buttons after it has completed it's job.  It really needs recognition for it's work.

Anyways, it got really loud.  Like "Can you folks hear me upstairs?  I'm down here baking your cake and no-one is here to watch!"

I ignored it at first.  Like I do my children when they are whining.

Then it got louder.  My husband complained it was too noisy.

So I called Kitchen Aid and they sent someone the very next morning.  Both the fans were defective.  But the repair-man did not have a magic truck that had all the parts needed to fix it.  We are waiting for that part to come it.   It's been a week, and the oven is still whining... A bit louder now.  I'm just sayin' Kitchen Aid.

Here are a few more photos of him. (Since he's needy and needs the attention).

He said this was his good side.

Lace and Brush Embroidery Cookies

Super Mario Cookies

My son has been asking me to make Super Mario Cookies since December.  I had just started decorating sugar cookies for fun and for Christmas.  Mario seemed too complex for me. I like squiggles, dots, blobs, things that don't require recognition.  I called them artsy cookies, abstract.  Super Mario needed to resemble Super Mario.  Or I'd end up with a bunch of mexican man cookies, or moustache man cookies.

I made a batch of miscellaneous cookies, that came with miscellaneous colour of royal icing and after all my cookies were done, I still had plenty of royal icing left.  All the right colours to make Mario.  So I tried my hand at the video game legend.

I found an picture of Mario on the web and I printed it out.  I placed it under wax paper and went slowly on my way.  Out of the six I tried to make only 4 survived (RIP blobs with red hats).  But the beauty of baking for children is the they will eat anything.  As soon as I mess up, someone gladly volunteers to eat it on scene.

So here he is in all his glory, with a few photos of the in-betweens.

Harry Potter Legos

Harry Potter Legos, a photo by aloricat on Flickr.

From the Burrow Harry Potter Lego Set. Using Instagram for iPhone.

Decorated Cookies

Adventures of Tin Tin (with Snowy)

Flower Embroidery. These were done following the brush embroidery technique from Ali Bee's Bake Shop video tutorial.

 Spongebob

 Spiderman

Harry Potter Lego Cookies

Made these for my daughters classmates, for a presentation she was doing on Harry Potter Legos "Her Favorite Toy".  The principal did not allow home baked goods into the classroom.  These are nut-free, as my other daughter has a food allergy, just sayin'.

Angry Bird Cookies

These cookies were inspired by a tutorial from the Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  I didn't make the black bomber angry bird; that much black icing stains tongues, teeth and lips of all ages.