October 2014 - Yearning to Create

Birthday Cake Traditions

I have four daughters with birthdays in March – that’s our version of “March Madness”! And to make it worse, they’re on the 6th and 7th and the 22nd and 23rd!!!

So, just to make life a little easier, and because it’s a birthday tradition, they decorate their own cakes! Well first of all, they get to chose their own dessert – might not even be a cake (because honestly, can’t you think of lots of desserts that taste better than cake?).

Jo here chose Rice Krispie squares with caramel icing (she needs gluten free foods).

Her “cake” was too gooey to get much decorating, and too hard to stick candles in. So they’re just sticking to the caramel and were flopping over. Blow quickly Jo!

Jen planned hers all out carefully and worked with much care to get her cake perfect. She chose a marble cake.

Perfect! I like how she used candle holders as flower clusters rather than as candle holders! Love the pink and yellow colour scheme!

Okay, I did this one . . .

. . . it says Happy Birthday and has two candles – one for each decade!!! (Do you think it’s too much?) She was too busy finishing up college and starting a new job to decorate her own cake. She chose the delicious Tres Leche Cake (always love making that cake – gives me a reason to open a can of Eagle Brand and lick out the can!)

Note: I can’t believe I have a 20 year old daughter. It’s really hard to fathom since I’m only 25 myself!

And finally . . .

. . . Kat requested a rainbow chip cake with purple icing. Here she is with her finished cake and toothless 7 year old grin.

Then a few hours later, she decided she needed to add a little more . . .

. . . and now we have a finished cake!!! Wow! It took more than a few minutes to pull all that out of the cake before we could eat it. All those animals and ballerinas came from my childhood. Mom used them to decorate our cakes. The tradition continues!!!

So . . . it works for everyone – they have fun decorating and I have time for other birthday preparations. And then we put the cake stuff away until the other three birthdays in the fall. My guy and I usually chose undecoratable desserts for our birthdays – like coconut cream pie or black forest in a bowl!

Jack O’Lanterns

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “I’m not real keen on Halloween.” But I do like to decorate for the seasons so pumpkins really work for me because they can be out for Thanksgiving early in October, and hang around for fall decor and Halloween. (Let me just add that I’m so glad our Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October, rather than the fourth Thursday in November because . . . I would just die having to have autumn decor up that long when there is all that beautiful Christmas stuff just waiting to be displayed!!!)

So let me take you on a tour of a few of the fake pumpkins hanging around my house.

My kids made these, some at YW’s and some at a craft class (thanks Shauna!)

It’s just a 2×6 cut out, painted, sanded, etched, stained.

I love how the etched lines POP after the stain is applied. The eyes are nails.

My Visiting Teachers dropped this cute pumpkin off on the last day of October because they hadn’t been able to visit me that month (thanks Shauna!).

He holds leaves and sits by my fireplace, or rather, by what will someday be my fireplace.

Check my fireplace out here.

This little pumpkin is just one of those thin little wooden things you buy and paint yourself – another thing one of my gals made.

Etching and distressing sure works wonders!

This one I made at Relief Society.

You can read more about this little candle holding pumpkin here.

And this here is my kind of pumpkin carving . . .

. . . I worked hard to light the candle and slip it in the open back of this metal Jack O’Lantern!

And there’s no stinky gooey mess to clean up!!!

And there you have it – all the effort I put into decorating for Halloween!!!

Now to find some new hiding places for all that candy that’s about to invade my house!

Jack O’Lantern Candle Jar

I made this cute little Jack O’Lantern candle jar at a Relief Society Meeting many years ago – back when we still did crafts at our monthly Homemaking night!

I guess the first step would be to choose your jar.

So, the very, very first step would be to get one of these little class candle holders from your stash, or from a dollar store. Then go back to the first step!!! You need to choose a jar thats top is the right size to hold your candle holder. Mine was some sort of food jar from the glass recycling bin. (Making a cute pumpkin from garbage is definitely good recycling!)

You’ll need a little votive candle for the stem. Green or brown look nice and stem-like.

In order to paint on a glass jar, you first need to paint the jar with something. I don’t remember what it’s called, but you can find it wherever you buy craft paints. It’s a medium that makes it so your paint will stick to the glass. You really need to do this step!!!

Then paint your jar in your choice of pumpkin colour. I added a few lines which are supposed to look like the ridges of a pumpkin – see those redish lines?

And the whole thing is toothbrush splattered with black and gold paint. Be sure all your paint is dry before you paint or stencil on the face. And don’t forget to add those gold dots in the eyes.