Dress Editing

Any woman knows that when faced with a party or event she will inevitably feel as though she has nothing to wear or looks fat in anything she does have.

Well I am no different.

So when faced with an upcoming night out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Local 412 Plumbers and Pipefitters Union (of which my husband is a member) I immediately started thinking....crap....what am I going to wear?

Well the party is Saturday and I'm still not sure.

But I did take the one dress that looked okay on my after baby body and decided to edit it a little. Update it, if you will.

This is how it originally looked.

Not bad, but the butterfly sleeves are really not my thing.

Plus it is at least 2 years old, so I felt it might be a little outdated.

So I snipped and sewed, and snipped and sewed until I got this.

Sleeveless and with a slight racer-back.

What do you think?

I'll post a pic of us after Saturday wearing whatever I finally decide to leave the house in.

Playing at the park on St Patty's Day

Last Wednesday (St Patty's Day) we went down to Los Lunas to visit Clark and Felisa while they were on spring break. We went for a walk around their neighborhood and played at the local park. Kinsey had a great time with her Auntie and Unckie! It was a gorgeous day....the best yet this year...and I even got sunburned it was so warm and sunny!

Walking to the park...she had to bring her stroller with Elmo in it!

Then she got tired of pushing and wanted to ride in the baby stroller....glad it didn't break!

Time to play!

Sliding with Auntie.

The big slide?

I'll ride it with Unckie!

Now she's brave enough to go on her own!

Running around!

Cake Class Week 4

Last night was the final class in the Cake Decorating 1 series. I think overall I learned more that I expected and hopefully have some skills I can use in the future...as long as I can remember them ;)

The final class was focused mainly on the rose, but we also learned sweet peas and leaves. I didn't get the chance to put any sweet peas on my final cake, so no pictures of those.

I think with some more practice my roses will start looks a little more professional, but all in all I am pleased with the results of one night of "rose teaching"!



Oh, and my homemade strawberry cake was a sweet success....Roy and I had to taste it before sending the rest off to his work...I don't think they'll mind, do you?

Now on to the next class.....Fondant and Gum Paste! This one I am really excited about! Check back next Tuesday for the update on my first class.

Cake Class Week 3

This week in cake class we learned shell borders, figure piping, and 2 different kinds of drop flowers. Oh...and scary clowns which I couldn't find the plastic heads for so (no pictures of those are posted....thank goodness!)

We were instructed to bring either an 8" cake, mini cakes, or cupcakes to decorate since we were doing so many different 'looks'. I decided to bring cupcakes as they are one of my favorite treats!

I made devil's food cupcakes from scratch and filled them with a dark chocolate mousse. The icing is the class butter cream we are required to use.....and although it is growing on me, these cupcakes would have been much tastier with either ganache or chocolate butter cream. Next time!

Here are the cupcakes all ready to go to class.......

And here they are all dressed up!

Little Duckie.

Type 1 of drop flowers.

Shell border.

Teddy bear.

Kinda funky hearts.

Type 2 drop flowers.

17 Months Old

Almost a year and a half I have had this little light in my life! I can't imagine life without her and I swear she gets cuter everyday....don't know how it is humanly possible. Here are some recent shots from a trip to the park.

There's a beaver living in my house......

.......or at least that is one explanation for this:

The other explanation would be that my toddler seems to have taken an interest in wood as a midnight snack. These chew marks all appeared one night after the next last week. Now I know why they sell cribs with special 'teething rails'. Little stinker ruining her crib!

So to hopefully prevent any further damages, I came up with this:

A sort of teething bumper for her crib rail. So far she hasn't chewed through it!

I also took the time to make a quick pillowcase for her in matching pink polka dots. Both projects took less than 1 hour to complete!

Here's to sweet dreams for my little beaver!

Oh, and a peek at my next project.......

what will this super cute fabric be?????

Cake Class Week 2

I have been taking a Wilton cake class with a friend this month and last night was class #2. First chance to actually get out our tools and get our hands dirty...or icing covered, in this case.

The first class was all about making butter cream, filling bags, and baking and icing a cake to perfection. Lots of good info.....and a lot of stuff we already knew.

I made a marble cake with raspberry jam filling do decorate for this weeks class. It was fun executing the tricks the instructor showed us on how to get a perfectly smooth cake with little effort. Here is the blank slate I brought to class.

We learned piping stars, lines and writing words. Very beginner stuff, but it is nice to be formally shown the right way to do these techniques. We then were able to use these tips to decorate our cake however we chose, I used a piping gel transfer method to put this swirl pattern I drew out on parchment onto the cake. It was super easy, just time consuming. I was so sure my hand and arm were going to be sore today after all those stars!

Hopefully the crew at Roy's work enjoys my creation...I decided it was best for my diet to keep the cake out of our house!