Fun with felt 

We've had a few warm days. For a while it almost felt like summer, which was a bit confusing... But last night autumn came back in business, with really heavy rain and winds I could feel through the wall. That's when you know you did the right thing, choosing woolens for the children to wear the next day. 
Wool is such a clever thing. It doesn't get cold and clammy, even if you get wet from rain, snow or sweat. It breathes, so you don't really get sweaty that easily, and treated with lanolin (which is in the wool to begin with, before it is processed for textile, etc.) it also has antibacterial and anti fungal properties. It is also, to an extent, waterproof. Hooray for wool! And for all the animals that make it :) 
I've been tidying a bit in "the office" again, and found a felted handbag I made eons ago (which to me is about seven years ago, he he). I also found some leftover felt I made last year (I make my own felt with dyed wool), and decided to make a couple of lanterns (one of which I'll share with you here). So, here's today's tribute to wool.

Ah, welcome back, one of my first felt projects...

Open sesame! 

Brown cotton fabric as lining. Plenty of room for keys, phone, credit cards... Or something :3

I've twisted thin gold wire around the tips, and put some pretty plastic and wood pearls on. Thin gold chain as bag strap.

Had to try it on... The newly made crochet vest I'm wearing will be described in a different post :)

This is what it looks like from behind

Ah, how I love green :3
 

I don't like wasting stuff, so I've put felt from last years Christmas present-making to use.

Ambiance :)

I've stitched different pieces together (rectangular pieces with half-hearts, making a heart where it is sown together) with gold thread, and a ribbon to tie up the top

I like blues and purple too :3 I sewed on little purple metallic roses here and there

Keep warm <3

Ahoy there!

Aaaand there I've waited a whole month between two posts again. All plans of being a bit more of a regular blogger (like I was the first months), tossed over board. So what do I do when I'm too busy for blogging, so preoccupied I barely get time to do a smidgeon of all the things I want to do, new job, children, writing a book and other important things shouting for my attention? I throw a pirate party! Was it someone's birthday, you ask? No! This was just for fun! Because I can! And who attended? My children, of course, my husband, some of our friends, with their children, who happen to be our children's friends. Not too many, just enough to have some fun :) Here's what we did!

For a good feast I wanted a proper pirate buffé that goes well with the wee sailors as well as the ramshackled older ones...

...some nice seashell-like pasta...

...squid-wieners... 

...fish-snacks - obligatory for a nautical-themed party...

...a little decor...

...pirate juice - there was question of possibility of rum in the coffee, but alas, that was a bit too authentic for a family party xD
 

I bought a flag! Huzzah!

A pirate cave for the kids - it may not look much from the outside, but...

...when the inside is lit up like this...

...a guest bed and some miniature chairs are installed, soft cushions and toys included...

...and an old television and a playstation 2 put in place as a pirate cinema - it makes a very useful den for little pirates who have just searched for and found little sweetie-bags (or mermaid-treasures, as they were dubbed) and are in need of a safe place to gore on their loot.

The black, sleeveless jacket on my youngest child is a creation made of an inexpensive vest from Lindex, cut open in the middle, gold buttons and gold hoops, gold lace and gold shoulder-decor added :) A very easy way to make a nice pirate costume without using a lot of money. Black tights and white jumpers completes the look (and bandana and eye-patch, but they're missing here...). My oldest child seem to have discarded her vest in this picture; her's is exactly the same. The inflatable palm-tree is really a cheesy drink-cooler, but we used it as a basket to throw balls in :3 and as a prop...

Put-the-parrot-on-the-pirate... This was my oldest daughter's idea. Clever little villain... Here my youngest has her bandana back on, and we used it as a blind fold. The fabric of the bandana is so nice and soft and shiny... With gold lace... *swoon*
 

I had to make a pirate cake. It's been a whole month, I needed some baking action o.O

A few sugar paste pirates in a crude chocolate boat, nice and tasty... One has fallen over board! The actual cake was a soft, round sheet cake (vanilla with blue food coloring), a thick layer of whipped cream and blue raspberry jelly mixed when the jelly was half stiffened, then set to cool until ready, then topped with light blue whipped cream-waves. It looked a bit freaky, but tasted yummy ;)

Here we have a few of the pirates gathered to eat the cake. Edible pirates and pieces of chocolate boat were their favorite parts, but the actual cake was quite popular too. I've cropped this picture in order to respect the privacy of my little guests.

Only three months until Christmas today, so I think there will have to be some posts with ideas for presents and such soon :)

Have an adventurous day!

Piano cake and change of season

It's been a wonderful, long summer, and a long time since I've been active on this blogging-thing. But there's a chill in the air, I'm sitting here with the first cold of the season, and we've got about four months until Christmas.Yes, autumn is coming. It is a season of new beginnings - exited children starting school, students starting new courses, some have new jobs to go to (me included). Soon time to think of Christmas presents, enjoy hot chocolate again, pick berries and mushrooms and smell the strange sweetness of heather, wet grass, decaying apples and all the other odours of autumn. As for the baking, I'm still on a break, more or less, but that doesn't mean the odd cake won't appear on this blog - like this piano-cake which was ordered before summer. 

I made a juicy vanilla sheet cake, split it in two, made two sheets out of both parts, and then stacked them with banana and cream between the layers (yep, that's what the birthday-girl wanted). Then I sculpted the piano, covered it in a thin layer of marzipan, then added the black marzipan, white fondant, etc.

They wanted a girl to sit by the piano. I used marzipan, but kind of feel I should have used fondant - fondant doesn't get dry as quickly as marzipan, and is somewhat easier to mold. Oh well, she turned out all right.

...

Banana-piano, not something you see every day :3

Enjoy the end of summer ;)

Summertime and Fairy Princesses

I've been taking a break in the cake-baking department. I was going to write something about how summer has come and it's time to take it easy and spend lots of quality-time with the kids - then summer took me by surprise and now it is about halfway through in this part of the world, and over a month since the last post here. Well, let me share the last cake of spring a bit overdue. 

It was the second cake for my oldest daughter's fifth birthday - the first was a Dunderly monster cake, and on the encouragement of her two-year-old sister she chose a fairy-princess-cake as the second one. We needed a second cake since the celebration with family took place one week after the children's party - and of course I'll take any opportunity to try and make something new. I wanted to make a rainbow cake for the first time :)

To fairies relaxing among wafer flowers and sugar butterflies from Dr Oetker. Their wings are made of rice or something and are also a Dr. Oetker product :3 The rest is all handsculpted, and everything is edible (apart from candles...).

This little  girl was supposed to resemble the birthday girl, but it's not exactly a striking resemblance o.O She has a nice sprinkle of glitter on her dress, though :)

There was one more child at the party, and I made him a snail

This fairy was for my youngest daughter

Green marsipan...

...hiding a rainbow-cake with butter cream and a hint of cream cheese to make it a bit lighter. Not too shabby, if I may say so :) Each layer was mixed and cooked individually - quite time consuming, but fun result!

*munch*

Have fun in the sun :D

Crochet Doll's Dresses...

...or rather, dresses for two little soft, fuzzy friends that mean a lot to my daughters - especially my oldest one, who has an army of animal friends. The synthetic, batting-stuffed kind. She'd love to have a real menagerie in our house, but she'll have to settle for Pusi and Brum and all the other toy animals until she's old enough to become the wildlife protector or animal shelter manager it seems she might turn out to be. One of the advantages of the non-real fuzzy friends - responsibilities, smells, costs and other issues of keeping real animals aside - is that you can dress them up :3 (Yes, I know you can dress up dogs, for example, but I think that's pretty silly...)

Meet Pusi, a bit worn and not as white as she used to be, but what does it matter when she's dressed in a pink dress with glittery, blue border, sequins and butterfly buttons?

Brum in a darker pink, with wine red border and purple sequins, and a couple of see through, light pink buttons left over from a shirt or something.

Hair band with elastic threaded through, and a flower on of course.

One for Brum too :)

Here they are before they were put on. Yeees, I should flip the picture in Picasa, but it's Sunday morning and we're soon getting ready to go out, so you'll just have to cock your head a little ;)

...

Aren't they cute?

Enjoy your Sunday :)

Spray Painter Cake 

Certain things do not look edible, even if they are. Like a metallic cake sprayed with army-green and a man standing on top in a white-suit and protection gear ready to spray paint... But I'm pretty sure this cake was not only edible, but pretty tasty too - no reason to judge a book by its cover... This was ordered from a friend whose father is in the spray painter business and had a round-number birthday coming up. I had great fun experimenting with this theme; it's a good feeling to be able to rise to any cake challenge :3

A two tier chocolate and cream cake with lots of raspberries and blueberries, covered in marzipan coloured grey and then sprayed with edible silver spray and green wilton gel colour.

A fondant man with blue gloves, mask, belt boots and spray painting gear - the hose is a liquorice strand :)

A sign with "hooray!" (in Norwegian) written on it to make it a bit more birthday-ish, the silver sprayed on through a stencil I made with the font stencil from Word. I also cleaned a screw and pushed it into the corners to make it look bolted to the cake.

Does it say "eat me!"..?

A sunny and enjoyable June to you all :D