Craft Room: Complete!

For a while now I've wanted to add storage to the craft room.  I found a couple of ideas I liked on this blog and was leaning toward the repurposed china hutch but never found one that was cheap enough to make over.  I went with the bookcase idea instead--three particle board bookcases side-by-side and brought together with a piece of crown moulding for a cohesive look.  My sweet dad offered to help me but I kinda jumped ahead and did it on my own. 

Before:

After:

Check out the moulding!  Isn't it pretty?  There are little roses and vines all the way across.  (On a side note:  If I ever hear a kid ask "when will ever use this stuff?" when talking about geometry I will have an example ready! Angles were pretty important when cutting the moulding.)

As you can see I've already put this thing to good use.  It's also serving as some storage space for my business stuff, too!

While we're at it, here are some pictures of the rest of the room.  It's changed a little over the years.

View from the doorway:

Seating area:

I've also got a big mirror I repainted, too.  It's big and heavy and I'm not sure if I'm going to put it in here.  Still thinking about that one.

Kicking off July

A few snapshots of projects that kicked off July:

It's Curious George!  He made an appearance at Abbey's birthday party today.  I'm still experimenting with strawberry flavors (that's what this curious little monkey was made of).

This next "cake" was a first for me in two ways:  it was my first pull-apart cake AND it was my first time to make marbled cupcakes!  It really got me thinking about the yummy combinations that could be marbled.  I see some marble experimenting in my future!

Finally, a couple of my favorite kiddos had a combined birthday party and I made these Sesame Street-inspired cookies for their party. 

Thanks for stopping by!
Adi

Recent Cakes

Wow, has business certainly picked up!  I've had the opportunity to make some really neat cakes and orders lately.  From dinosaurs to telephones to massive amounts of cake I think I have confidently broken in that new oven.  Let me take you through some of my most recent projects:

First is a dinosaur cake for little Liam.  I helped with a dinosaur-themed shower for my pals Amanda and Garrett and brought the cake for it.  I found a cute pattern online and adjusted the colors to make this:

Along with cake I made some cookie sandwiches.  Yum!!  I rolled them in little dinosaur sprinkles. 

I got to make another dinosaur for a baby shower for a teacher at school.  The hostesses wanted it to reflect the nursery colors of the baby which resulted in this cake:

He got some spikes down his back and some tiny little toes.  I'm not sure there were any dinosaurs in these colors but I sure like the little guy. 

I shared a booth at the Central High School craft fair with my pal Jenny of Party the Night Away.  One of the moms from the drill team that sponsored the fair ordered 150 cupcakes for their Mother-Daughter Tea a couple of weeks later.  It turns out that's a lot of cupcakes!

Another vendor from that fair ordered some cakes and cookies for her son and daughter's birthday party.  Here's my favorite cake from that package:

A former coworker of mine ordered a cake for a luncheon she hosted for another former coworker of mine.  The honoree is a receptionist and they refer to her as a "smooth operator."  I think that just about explains this one:

I made a couple of massive sheet cakes for the eighth grade awards ceremony at school.  I don't have pictures of those but trust me, they were HUGE!  Like, just barely fit into the massive back seat area of an F150 huge. 

One final project was a cake for my friend Bear's graduation.  We went through our graduate programs at roughly the same time and he finished his this semester.  His wife Heather threw him a surprise party that was organized by Jenny from Party the Night Away.  Here are a few pics of the celebration (including the checkerboard cake!):

Thanks for stopping by!

New threads

I'm taking a break from the sugary posts to bring you several projects I recently made.  I've been pinning ideas since December and it finally hit me that I need to try some of this stuff!  In my browsing of ideas I came across the blog of a really cute college girl at A&M who just so happens to be 5'9" and loves to sew, which means that all of her patterns will automatically fit me!  Check out her blog here.

The first thing I made was this shirt:

Her pattern called for a knit fabric but I had a large portion of this sitting around.  If you decide to use something than other than knit you'll want to make sure you hem up the sides first so they don't fray.  I followed her directions blindly until I tried it on and realized the edges around the armholes would be raw.

The second thing I made was not a pattern but more of an easy old stand-by for summer:

This was an impulse buy when I was at Joann's looking for another project.  I liked how long the material was, especially since most of the pre-smocked fabrics are designed for little girls and wouldn't make it to my waist much less my calves!  The polka dot print is so fun and I love these colors together.

The final project has affectionately been named the "Grecian Goddess" by a few of my coworkers:

Here is where the part about the girl being 5'9" comes in handy!  I can't remember the last time I tripped over a dress.  I left it too long on purpose just because I could!  If you can sew in a straight line you can sew this dress--it is that easy!  It's a compliment-getter and super-fast to make...give it a try if you're feeling crafty.  (And then do a "walk the runway" shot using your sidewalk like it appears I was doing.  That picture turned out funnier than I intended!)

Happy sewing!

Adi

Sorin's Football Cake

This little cake started off as cupcakes, then turned into a pull-apart cupcake cake, and finally transitioned into what you see below:

I was excited to have an excuse to make grass!  I've always thought this was the coolest technique.  Through this cake I learned that grass + gravity are not a good combination.  I guess there's not enough surface area for the little bits of grass to stick to and not fall off the cake.  Instead I just made the sides green to match and piped little sprouts of grass in the corners of the base and stars to match the ones on top around the rest of the base.  I made the lacing more toward the top of the cake to leave some room for the message. 

The inside of the cake is a two-layer chocolate cake (that really moist version that I use for cupcakes works for a full-size cake too, I am happy to report!) with a layer of buttercream icing between them.  The football on top is chocolate, too.

Happy birthday Sorin!

Baby shower cake for Adelaide

Thanks to my awesome office mate, Cyndi, I got to make a baby shower cake for soon-to-arrive baby girl named Adelaide.  I combined a picture of her quilt

with the doodle-y flowers from the invitations to make this:

The cake was a butter cake recipe with my go-to icing.  My favorite part is the bird flying by with the "Welcome Adelaide" banner.  The cake was whimsical and fun.  Best wishes to Adelaide and her family!

A little teaser

Hungry yet?

The Next Big Thing

La de da, grad school's over, lots of spare time...for me to get lazy.  Funny how having MORE time makes me LESS productive.  Combine wanting to relax after 3.5 years of school with my newfound love for Pinterest and I was quickly turning into a couch potato.  I've enjoyed discovering a few new blogs, too (shout out to http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/).  I like to read leadership articles and blogs like the now-business-savvy girl I am and the theme for this new year seems to universally be "stop talking about doing something and actually go for it!"  I've talked about starting my own business for a long time and have flip-flopped between opening a bakery or a scrapbooking retreat.  Upon discovering the Texas Cottage Foods Law (letting bakers sell goods out of their homes!) and realizing that I do not have the kind of startup money needed for a scrapbook retreat it seemed like the bakery was the way to go. 

Thus, Sweet Creations by Adi was born. 







I'd noticed around Christmas that on more than one occasion when I handed people their gifts they responded with "is it cookies?!"  I've also noticed my cookies do really well at bake sales.  With virtually no startup costs and an aresnal of delicious cookie recipes I decided it was time to do this.  I filed for my DBA (Doing Business As or "assumed name") last week so the name is official.  I've calculated ingredient costs and I'm working on pricing as well as a facebook page (which you should go right now and like:  Sweet Creations by Adi's Facebook page).  I've still got a little bit of research to do on taxes and fun stuff like that but pretty soon I hope to announce that this sweet little business is up and running.  I'll keep you posted!

Adi