August HAS card

I finally got a chance to post my Humble Artist Swap card for August! I have had a crazy month, and today is the first day that I am at home since school started.  Hubby went hunting, kids are at school, and I am enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee in my jammies and finally updating my blog.  For all of  my followers, a big apology for my lack of new content! Thank you for not "unfollowing" me! Now that kids are back in school and life is sort of getting back to "normal", I will try to post more regularly.

 

 

The over-the-top guidelines for our August swap cards were:

• CTMH products (no problem, all I ever use! check)
• Minimum 8 layers (see point at dress form shoulder? check)
• Use ONLY neutrals and one color (black, white daisy and grey wool, plus sorbet. check)
• Use one stamp set with the work "background" in it (see houndstooth pattern? check)
• Use one stamp set with the work "borders" on it (see sorbet scalloped cs strip? check)
• Have at least 3 Art Philosophy shapes (sorbet scallop border, large scallop circle, small sentiment circle. check)
• Have at least 2 other stamped images (dress form and sentiment. check)
• Minimum 3 embellishments (buttons, ribbon, hat pin. check)
• Card must be at least 4.25" x 5.5" (check)

And the swap cards I received in the mail from my talented swap buddies? FABULOUS! I love swapping with these gals, check out their blogs in my sidebar and you'll see why!

Thanks for popping in today!
Lorrinda

The Family Forest

Hello!  I see that it has been a while since my last post... but no apologies, I have been busy living this summer!

 My Mother's family gets together every 2 or 3 years for a summer reunion, and this year my aunt asked me to make a cover for the family "archives" album she has been working on.

This is the cover I made, featuring my Grandparents:

The photo was taken on their 40th Wedding Anniversary, in 1978.

 

a couple of close-ups:

 

And this is our family prayer, for the inside of the front cover:

 

A bit of background info:  My Grandparents, Adam and Emelia in the photo above, had 17 children. (That is NOT a typo). Seventeen kids, 2 sets of twins, 11 boys and 6 girls.  The oldest and youngest are 20 years apart.  And they supported them without a reality TV show for income. They grew them on a farm, raised their own food, made their own clothes, and saw that each of them had a full education.  (They did this without pampers, microwave ovens, televisions or computers.) My grandparents are guardian angels now, and they have a lot to look after...at last count I believe there are 129 of us...their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

 

Here are a few pics from the reunion, so I can prove I didn't make this up:

 

Their living children:

These would be my aunts and uncles on my mother's side, my mom is front row, center

With their spouses (also known as the outlaws):

This would be more aunts and uncles for me

 

 These are some of their grandchildren:

That would be me in white in the front row, with my sisters on either side

 And here are just some of the great-grandchildren:

My daughter is back row, 3rd from left. My son is middle row, 2nd from right

So, you can see why it is necessary for someone to be in charge of the family archives (photos and important info).  I can't wait to see what she puts into this binder.  With such a large group, I'm lucky if I can remember all of their names. It sure helps that we make the effort to get together every couple of years. And this is just my mom's clan, my dad has 8 brothers and sisters and 8 step-brothers and sisters, plus all of their offspring.

 

Fit THAT on a family tree!

 

Lorrinda

June Humble Artists Swap

Here is my card from our last swap in June.

The strict guidelines were:

• Must have a min. of 8 layers stacked
• Do not use any patterned paper
• Do not use any neutral cardstock (except for card base)
• Do not use non-paper embellishments such as ribbon, brads etc
• Do not use stamp sets with "border" or "background" in their name
• Use at least 6 different stamped images
• Create a paper embellishment that can count for at least 2 of the layers
• Card must be at least 4.25x5.5"

I must say that I really struggled with this one! I scrapped a couple of designs before I settled on this one (mostly because I was running out of time).  I had difficulty not using neutral colors, and I reeeeally wanted to add some ribbon or at least a button...but managed to create them with paper. That's what I like about these swap challenges, they force me to step out of my box and think. No patterned paper allowed? Emboss and stamp!
The cards I received form the other swap gals are stunning as usual, they make it seem so easy! You can find the links to their blogs in my sidebar, go check them out.

Thanks for stopping in today!
Lorrinda

Can you absorb sugar calories transdermally?

I sure hope not!  This month has had me up to my elbows in sugar (literally), and I'm sure I've gained 10 lbs just by osmosis and inhalation! Tell me, professional bakers...how do you not gain weight working with sugar all the time?


Here's my latest project:

  This awesome Mom is going all out for her daughter's Sweet 16. Since she has a summer birthday she has never really gotten a party with all of her friends, so her Mom decided to fix that this year. She wanted a fabulous cake to go along with the amazing day she has planned. She told me her favorite color was purple and she loved zebra print.

And I learned that you can use Stickles on dollar store candles!

Just scrape off the yucky green border that it came with, and add some glam!

I found out that purple is a really hard color to tint fondant...plus my hands were almost fushia for 2 days. Yes, I know you can wear latex gloves to work in the color, but the fondant kept sticking to the gloves so I ditched em.  All in all, I had a blast making this cake!  The zebra stripes were actually very easy after I watched a couple of youtube videos. 

I want to wish Jenn a very special Sweet 16 Birthday!

What does 4 lbs of sugar look like?

A quick post today to share a Graduation cake I was asked to make for a big party.  Here is what I've been doing for the past 3 days:

Now, this is a gigantic cake...to give some scale, the base of the grad cap is a stacked 8" round cake! It was ordered for 75 people, so should be plenty.  The cake is a chocolate fudge sour cream cake with oreo cream filling, covered in buttercream frosting, with fondant/gumpaste accents.  The grad cap board is covered cardboard, but everything else on this cake is edible. The entire grad cap is covered with modelling chocolate.
It didn't actually take 3 days worth of labour. One of these days I will have to time how many actual hours go into a cake like this, but here's how I break it down:

Design Stage-browse internet for ideas, sketch a plan, confirm with graduate's mother, browse recipes, check supplies, order supplies if needed because I live in the middle of nowhere, make up grocery list, buy ingredients, pick up supplies from the post office. (?several random minutes over a week, I'll estimate 2 hours)
Day1-bake the cakes (There are four 9x13" and two 8" round in this one, 20 min mixer time and 4-5 hours oven time but I was also doing laundry) Plus cleanup. 
Day 2-make filling and fill and stack cakes. Also make icing and crumb coat cakes (maybe 2 hours) Then make fondant and gumpaste accents (while watching TV...probably 3 hours in the evening, and let accents dry/harden overnight) Plus clean up.
Day 3-do top smooth coat icing, add all the accents, pipe the borders (approx. 2 hours), swear 800 times when I smudge the smooth coat with my boob and have to fix it (if you look real hard at the 2nd picture you'll be able to see where), swear another 200 times when I realize that the cake drum board flexes when the cake is moved (causing icing to crackle!) so hunt for another cake board to support weight, swear some more when the second board won't fit in the fridge and have to find another...pause to have an adult beverage and think...find large cutting board that will fit and slide it under the first one without wrecking the cake...get the whole thing into the fridge without wrecking it...have a second adult beverage while staring at the mess that is my kitchen. Then 5 min making a sign for the fridge that says "Open this door and you die" to keep everyone out (I have a second fridge in the garage for extras that I use for my cakes, but the popsicles and beers are in there and it's summer)  So...Day 3 was pretty much all cake related, but if you subtract time spent swearing and drinking...maybe 4 hours actual cake labour) Plus clean up.
Rough total: 3 days of kitchen chaos, 15 hours of work plus clean up time.
It's the clean up that I hate the most. Anything that touches the buttercream icing is very greasy to wash off, and there is usually icing sugar everywhere. I have a rolling cart that I store all my cake decorating supplies in, and it is usually strewn all over the kitchen and needs to be sorted out and put back.

I enjoy doing this for family and friends, but I don't think I could make this a career. Too much to clean up, and way too much swearing and drinking going on :) And, I would need to do this at Cake Boss level to make any money at it. For now, it will be another one of my messy hobbies that my family has to put up with. They don't mind too much, I let them lick the bowls when I'm done.

Happy Canada Day!
Lorrinda