7 Layer Studio

Catching Up

Oh, what a busy week this has been!

We had a 4 day weekend, so after 3 soccer games on Saturday and an especially busy Sunday, we decided at the last minute to rent a little cabin at a gorgeous nearby park to escape it all on Monday and Tuesday.

I think it's safe to say we all had a really great time...even without any electronic devices!  Or maybe I should say, especially without electronic devices. 

Argh, Matey!  Who needs a Wii when there's a pirate ship in the mini golf course?

We were the only ones at the mini golf course, and Hyrum played something like 7 games in a row.  Can you tell he was very intent on his game?  The equipment was only a couple of dollars for an entire day, so we goofed off at the vacant golf course for a wonderfully long time.

Can you believe the incredible scenery surrounding this course?  The older kids could have stayed even longer, but Hazel made it quite clear that it was high time to make our way to the giant playground. 

I just could not get over how beautiful the trees were, especially in the evening as the rich, golden sun streamed through the foliage.

The weather while we were there was absolutely, positively, PERFECT.  Unseasonably warm in the mid 60's, no wind, gorgeous clear skies...have I mentioned it was perfect?

I'm usually not a huge fan of yellow, but golden autumn leaves, in all their various hues, really take my breath away.

So I'm skipping around in the chronology a bit...on Sunday I wanted to get some family photos taken for the Christmas card that I always have the best of intentions to make and send out.  Because of daylight savings and a late church time, we only had about 15 minutes of prime sunset time for pictures that day.  It was the usual mega-drama to get the family ready and out the door, and then poor Hyrum hurt his finger and spent about 5 precious minutes being upset about it (hence the Hyrum-less photo above).

Awww, isn't that the sweetest picture ever?  Nothing like a giant hug from Hazel to turn those frowns into smiles.

By this time, Eliza had gotten her feelings hurt and was sulking in the van for another 5+ minutes or so (tick tock tick tock as the sun was setting).

So I got the two younger kids to have a leaf throwing party in the meantime...

...and they were having such a fun time...

....that Eliza thought she might as well join in after all.

I managed to get a couple still (sort-of) shots of the kids and was setting up the self timer for the official family portrait when Hazel decided that she was absolutely not going to stay up where it was sunny any longer.  The shady path leading deep into the woods proved too tempting and she disappeared down the forest trail.

...And thus ended our chances of getting a family portrait that day in optimum autumn lighting (sigh).

Off we went to chase Hazel down, tripod in tow, and we eventually convinced her to pose with us for some family shots, despite the fact that the sun had disappeared below the tree line at this point.

This was the best we could come up with = mediocre at best.  I think I'm going to have to endure another round of family-picture-taking-torture again, unless you all can convince me that this one will do.

I tried a black and white version too...is this any better?  What's your vote?  Do over or make one of these do?

While you're thinking that over, I wanted to show you this collaborative quilt project my friend Sharon and I did for a mutual friend who just had a baby boy. 

I sewed the quilt top and back using my fabrics from The Garden Club, and Sharon worked her magical quilting touch on the rest of it.

Didn't she do a fantastic job on the quilting?

The big blocks of fabric were like an open canvas for her, and she had a great time doing all sorts of super fun designs within the blocks.

And check this out...she even sewed "Garrett" into the quilt in several places!

Isn't that such a cute idea?  What a great way to personalize a baby quilt. 

Sharon sewed the binding on too, bless her heart.  I can't stand doing binding - it seems like it takes as long as all the other steps of the quilt combined and I get very impatient.  I just want the darn thing done at that point!

I have another quilt that Sharon quilted for me that I'm looking forward to showing you...I just finished sewing on the binding while at the cabin (I felt like a pioneer, stitching away in my log cabin like that..minus the electricity and heater, that is).  I have to admit that working on the binding was less irritating when I had no other distractions/optional activities.  I just snuggled up on the futon and stitched away while Eliza sat beside me reading Harry Potter - the last book! - and it was so relaxing and cozy.  A very good memory-in-the-making for both of us.

 

 

 

 

Birthday Blast

My sweet boy is now 7 years old!

As you can see, he was pretty excited about that.

We had a rocket/airplane party, as you can also see.  Yes, those are permanent markers, which was a big mistake.  Actually, the big mistake was not covering my table first (sigh).

I bought these planes at the Dollar Tree store, and the kids LOVED them!  Hazel mostly loved to color hers....she doesn't believe in leaving anything white.

The boys had fun coloring, but they were mostly interested in testing out their plane's flying/crashing capabilities.

More crashing than flying, because we had to settle with turning our basement into an airfield (it was cold and rainy that day), but fortunately we had several extra planes and performed a lot of emergency wing replacements.  The planes kept the boys happily occupied for more than an hour = awesome.  It was a noisy, chaotic kind of awesome, but awesome nonetheless.

Here are some step-by-step pictures of the rocket cake:  I used unglazed cake donuts and stacked them one by one on top of a 2-layer round cake.  The sticks are Wilton wedding cake dowels, and they worked great to keep the donut tower stable.

Once the donuts were all stacked, I smeared  frosting all over the place.

This is where I SHOULD have used fondant, but I simply hadn't anticipated the difficulty of smoothing frosting on such a tall skinny cylinder, and I didn't have any fondant on hand.  The party was starting in 2 hours with my kids to pick up from school in 2 different places, and there was no time to run to the store.  So please forgive the bad frosting job - not exactly showpiece worthy, but the kids certainly didn't care.

Oh - the cone shape at the top was created by frosting a waffle cone.  With a LOT of frosting, since the diameter of the donuts was much greater than the cone.  Next time I'll use smaller donuts.

I used red Twizzler licorice ropes - the kind you peel apart - for the lines, and donut-shaped gumdrops and store-bought cookie frosting for the rest of the details (the gumdrops were heavy, so I poked a piece of toothpick into the backs of the gumdrops before inserting them into the sides of the cake).  The rocket fins were obviously graham crackers (score the crackers gently with a steak knife, then snap off the pieces), and that cookie frosting was obviously oozy and annoying.  :-)  Next time I'll make my own to pipe with.

Note that the rocket is sinking into the cake base...this is what happens when the cake base starts out frozen and then thaws, thus becoming squashed under the weight of all those cake donuts.  Oops.  Another unforseen booboo.  I should have put dowels or a wedding cake tier beneath the donut tower to hold it up.  Again, the kids didn't care so I didn't fret too much about it.

 

Speaking of rockets, I thought I'd share a cute little rocket-making activity I did for Hyrum's birthday 2 years ago.  You can read more about it HERE.

You could also do a similar thing with veggies and fruit instead of sugary things....

You could use a cucumber or banana for the main rocket body, and use your imagination to go from there...peeled and sliced apples or jicama for the fins, raisins, berries, and/or dried cranberries for the details.  I keep meaning to do some demos to photograph for the blog, but so far haven't had time.

So much to do, not enough hours in the day...but at least maybe this will get you started.  If you have a birthday boy with aeronautical aspirations, may he have as much of a blast as mine did!

 

 

Oh, the Weather Outside Is...Sunny?

 

But I'm in the Christmas music spirit anyway!  I love Christmas music.  No, that's an understatement.  I ADORE Christmas music!  So my entry today for the Gratitude Countdown until Thanksgiving is...Christmas Music!!  I've been biting at the bit to post Yuletide tunes on my music playlist, and I was going to wait until after Thanksgiving, but I can't help myself.  That list is by no means comprehensive of what I love, but I haven't had time to add any more to it.  It's a start, anyway!  I put it on random play so you should hear a new arrangement all the time. 

The image above is from a linocut that I did years ago.  It was so much fun to do, although it was a bit tricky to carve the letters backwards so that it would read correctly when printed.  Fortunately I only had to do 3 letters!  I've always had a soft spot for this little print.

So go jingle your way through the day, and even if you live in a hot and sunny place like I do, may you feel the goodwill, excitement and quiet giddiness that the season can bring!

In honor of autumn, I made a new bag yesterday.  It's for my househunting trip to Virginia next week, isn't it fun?  I just love polka dots.

 

I'm a little nervous of how Hazel is going to handle the 14 hour travel time...she has turned into such a wiggly bug the past few months!  At least it's just Hazel and me on the trip.  Steve couldn't take the time off so he's going to be at home with the other kiddos.  Thanks in advance to my friends for helping to watch Eliza and Hyrum while I'm gone!  Even with the inevitably crazy travel, I'm excited to go.  I'll be able to see some good friends I haven't seen in 5 years, so that will be loads of fun.  I've got a lot to do before I leave...so I'd better sign off now!

Ghoulish Grub

 

I hosted a little (okay, not so little) Halloween party for the neighborhood kids today, it was a lot of work but so much fun to do!  We had all sorts of themed foods, most of the ideas coming from FamilyFun.com.  Some of them, like the worm bowl, were a little too convincing...they're just sliced hotdogs boiled in water to make them curl, but most of the kids wouldn't touch them!  Even my own children, who love hotdogs, repeatedly declined even trying them...I guess they were a little too real to be appetizing.

 

Don't they look disgustingly great?

The dish that the worms are in is a trifle bowl...makes you want to dig right in, no?

They were served with Blood Sauce (ketchup) on the side in a separate little bowl.

 

These bones were made from the refrigerated breadstick dough you can buy at any supermarket.  I pulled at each dough section gently, made slits at either end and then rolled/formed the rounded bone ends until they looked right.  I sprinkled the tops with a little garlic salt/parsley combo.

Next time I'll butter the tops of the dough a little bit before sprinkling the seasoning on. 

The store-bought dough wasn't as tasty as homemade, but with an entire haunted menu to deal with, I was very grateful for the convenience of the dough-in-a-can!

 

 

Here are my tiered plates all loaded up with gross goodies...cheese stick witches fingers, cracker spiders, and monster mouths.

 

These were the most time-consuming project on the menu, but so much fun!  Each mozzerella cheese stick was cut in half, with a place for the olive fingernail carved out of the curved end of the cheese.  The knuckle creases were carefully carved out as well.  The olives were sliced twice lengthwise to create 4 sections, and a small portion of each quarter was cut off the bottom.  The "nails" were attached to the cheese with a touch of cream cheese.  Note:  in retrospect, it would have been better if I had placed the cut olive pieces on paper towel prior to putting on cheese, as it would have absorbed some extra moisture (thus making it adhere better to cream cheese and cheese stick).

 

I made little peanut butter sandwich tombstones, and piped chocolate frosting on them.  My kids didn't really get the whole RIP thing, even after I told them what it stood for.  The edge of this dish was embellished with a crepe paper "skirt" made by folding up a section of crepe paper, then cutting the fringe along one edge.  I then wrapped a narrow black ribbon around the top, but since the edge of the plate was curved and at a slight angle, the ribbon didn't want to cooperate very well, even with lots of bitty pieces of double-rolled tape to hold it in place.

 

I had a great time finding ways to elevate the dishes; it has such a great "fancy shmancy" effect, and it makes the table display much more interesting...not to mention the extra opportunity for more ribbons!!

The spider cake is sporting another version of the crepe paper fringe + ribbon.

 

The wormy spider brew was a big hit - the kids loved the taste of it as much as they loved the spiders and worms in it!  It's very simple to make:  I used a packet of strawberry Kool-Aid, a half-cup of sugar (instead of the a whole cup like it says on the packet), added about a quart of water and a container of frozen lemonade concentrate and stirred until the lemonade dissolved.  Then came about a liter of 7-Up, a bunch of ice and more water until it tasted right.  Not too sweet, and with a fun kick from the carbonation and lemonade!

You can't really tell from this photo, but I didn't actually use a punchbowl.  It's an inverted lid to one of those chip/dip and/or cake platter combos (I was using the other half as an elevated graveyard for the tombstones) and I have it resting on another bowl with ribbons sticking out all over from beneath the glass dish.  A very versatile piece of dishware - I have used mine in so many ways.

No kid's party is complete without cupcakes.  I got lazy and just used some little toothpick cupcake decorations I bought at Walmart.

I know, you're probably disappointed in me (and you thought I was such a purist) but hey - efficiency and convenience has to take precedence sometimes.

 

Speaking of Walmart, that's where I got these darling little paper bags. (and the tablecloth, and the paper plates and napkins...)  There's nothing in them (much to the disappointment of the kiddos), but they really brightened up the table.  To form the larger square ones, I put a square glass vase inside temporarily until I was able to fold the top down crisply like a present, then I removed the vase and carefully taped it shut and added a ribbon (of course).  The smaller one is just folded over twice with holes punched in the top to thread the ribbon through.

 

This spiderweb cake is just a single 8 inch layer of cake.  I froze it, and made a quick icing with a bit of soft butter, about 2 cups powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk (sorry, I didn't measure so I can't give exact portions).  The consistency wasn't extremely thin, but it wasn't as stiff as normal icing either.  I dumped the whole little bowl of icing onto the middle of the frozen cake, and it slowly oozed its way down the sides (with a little bit of encouragement with a spoon).  The cold temperature of the cake resolidified the butter in the icing so it set up pretty quickly.  Then I just swirled some chocolate icing on the white icing and used a butterknife to make the lines distort a little bit, retracing the knife marks with more chocolate icing.  Very quick and easy!

I almost forgot the Monster Mouths!  After cutting the wedges of apple, I placed them in a solution of lemon juice and water (the acid prevents the cut apples from browning) for about a minute.  Again, no specific measurements; I think it was about one part lemon juice to 4 parts water.  The almond slivers kept breaking when I'd try to shove them into the apple, so I took a butter knife and poked it into the flesh of the apple to make grooves for the almond slices.  That technique worked much better!

Here's my good friend Andrea helping the kids with the most popular item (!), the punch.  People think we're sisters, and sometimes get us confused because they can't tell us apart, which is very funny to both of us.

Since it's almost midnight yet again, I think I'd better call it a night and post the games portion of the party tomorrow.  I hope you were able to find something fun to treat your kids to on or before the big trick-or-treating excursion!  Children get so excited about fun and creative ways to make themed food, and it's really not that hard to do.  So go make some bones, worms, or brains for your kids and have a Happy Halloween!

The People of Chin

So my friend Edith posted these hilarious pics of her kids doing the Chin People thing, I know it's been done before but it is always so funny!  I think they did a particularly convincing job, and since her kids have a variety of hair colors and textures, it makes it all the more interesting.  You can go see all of the Chin Family at her blog.  The stuff of memories. 

As for projects of my own, I've been kind-of spinning my wheels in that category this week.  I have several things almost done, but not ready for sharing yet.  It's been a busy week, what with Halloween costumes to make, the activity involved in trying to sell our house and find a new house in DC area, and an emotional one too because one of the daughters of our dear neighbors has been diagnosed with multiple types of cancer.  

Lily is only 3 years old, and it is just heart-breaking.  Since they just recently discovered the tumors, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what is likely to happen and what treatments they will need to use.  She came out of her first surgery last week, with more to come.  She's a trooper, though, and one of the most strong-willed, spunky, and loving kids I have ever met.  If anyone can beat the odds, Lily can!  Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers during this extremely difficult time in their lives.

Ghosties

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I drew up these little ghosts for a project at Eliza's new school (for those of you who read about my previous struggles with Eliza's original school, the principal and the new teacher she got shifted to, I ended up removing Eliza from the school altogether and was able to get her into a nearby elementary school that is MUCH better!  The environment at her new school is wonderful, and her teacher is great.  What a relief).  I thought I might as well post them for everyone to use (personal use only, please!) for coloring or other ideas.  I'm going to try and turn them into PDF files when I have a bit more time, because I think then you'll be able to print them out better...but for now here they are.

KidScience: Growing their first crystal

 

My kids love PBSKids (the only TV channel I let them watch!) and among their favorite shows is Arthur.  In one episode, the kids have to come up with a science experiment and Francine chose to grow a sugar crystal.  Eliza has been fascinated by the idea ever since, and so I thought I'd help my kids grow their own.  I didn't think it could be that hard; just dump a bunch of sugar in some water and watch it accumulate on the string.  Well, several days later and no crystal to be seen, they gave up on their unscientific mother and went to Daddy. 

Like the good researcher that he is, Steve went online and promptly found several methods for growing sugar crystals (none of which used my "dump a bunch of sugar in cold water" technique...imagine that!).  He helped the kids choose a "recipe", and several cups of sugar later (including some that got spilled on the hot flat ceramic stove, and is still there to this day...but what's a little scorched sugar in the name of science?) they got their real crystal environment set up. 

 It has been so fun to see how excited the kids have been during the crystal growing process this past week.  Every day, first thing in the morning and right after school, they check their crystal to see its progress.  Then they run and tell me (or bring me to see it too) and yell excitedly about how much bigger it had grown since the day before. 

I think we're going to have to find some more science experiments, the kids have been having such a blast with this one.  Any ideas, anyone?

 

Here are a few quick shots of the kids I took today.  I took the tripod and camera outside and had Eliza take some headshots of me (you may have noticed the new photo of yours truly on my sidebar...after 6 months I finally got around to getting my picture taken for my mug shot!) for the blog, and of course the kids wanted to pose too.

 

Here's Eliza looking all sweet and coy - Mommy's eager little photo apprentice.  She did a good job standing there pressing the shutter button for me - thank goodness for digital photo technology, where I can delete the 90% of goofy expressions and blurry shots and only save the few "keepers". 

Things sure are easier nowadays in that regard...I remember the eagerness and excitement of waiting until the whole roll of film was shot, taking it to the drugstore for processing, waiting a day or two to get it back, and then the final moment arrived; seeing the long-anticipated photographic results.  There were many times when I would be disappointed at a messed-up shot due to closed eyes, silly expression, or some other goof-up that was too late to do anything about...I sure am grateful for today's cameras with instant replay and large LCD screens on which to review your shots.  Yet another indicator of our instant-gratification, "I-want-it-now" mindsets....although I must admit that I'm quite happy with this particular manifestation of immediate results!  Go digital cameras, go.