Nate & Jen's Wedding

Here are some pictures of Nathan & Jennifer's wedding cakes.



Jennifer wanted her cake to resemble a stack of gifts. Here's a more close up view:



Nathan's groom's cake is a depiction of an island. The couple will be living on the island of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, for two years after they raise their support. They hope to leave by October, or at the latest January 2010.



The bottom layer is the ocean and sky. The middle layer is the beach and the top layer is the island, complete with coconut trees and a grass hut. Hopefully, their living conditions won't be quite so rustic!

On the groom's cake, I used craft foam instead of fondant since I didn't know what kind of kitchen facilities I would be working in. Smart move!!

I used pre-made whipped frosting on both cakes. This was the first time I used it on such a large scale, and again, I used it because I didn't know what my working conditions would be. If I had it to do over again, I would probably use the traditional buttercream since I had some problems working with the pre-made frosting, mainly because I'm not accustomed to it.

But the bride and groom were happy, and that's what matters most to me.

Congratulations, Nathan & Jennifer!!

And Then There Were Two

We arrived back home this evening after a very busy wedding weekend. The wedding was beautiful and went of without a hitch. Well, my three year old granddaughter, Nicole, refused to walk down the isle in front of all those people, so I guess that was a bit of a hitch. But her daddy stepped in and carried her, so all was well.

And somewhere in all the traveling I lost my camera, so I don't have a single picture of the wedding to post. My niece was the photographer, so I'll get her to download some shots to my computer when I see her later this week.

The house seemed so quiet when we arrived home. And Nate's room already has that un-lived in (is that even a word?) feeling. How is that possible after only four days? I think it's all in my head.

But I won't have to deal with the empty nest thing for at least a few more days since my in-laws are here from California. And I'll be busy the next few days unpacking and putting away, so I can avoid it even longer. And then I'll have to catch up on work next week, so before I know it I'll be weeks into my empty nest and won't even realize it!!

Okay, I'm suffering from severe exhaustion, so I'm going to bed now.

Oh, by the way, I found my camera in the truck on the way home.

Oil Paintings

My son dabbles around with painting. He has since he was just a kid. I always tried to get him to take is seriously and take lessons or something, but he never did. Now he regrets it! Anyway, I wanted to post a couple of his pictures.

This one is kind of different. But I have to admit, it does look striking hanging in his room. He gets a lot of comments about it.



This is one he did for his older sister. She saw one like it and wanted him to do a similar one for her. He is actually still working on it. He's repainting the field of flowers - he said it looked like a field of blood!



He just completed this one. You might remember this. Well, his younger sister, who loves red, fell in love with the print on the napkin and asked if he could do her an oil painting like it. So he did this painting for her birthday.

I know my pictures don't do his paintings justice, and he would probably kill if he knew I had put inferior photographs of his work on my blog, but I wanted to show these to you. And there's just something about having a real oil painting hanging on your wall!

90th Birthday Party

This past weekend I made several cakes for a friend's 90th birthday party. The event was put on by her daughter, who is seventy. It was an all day event, an open house type setting, with people coming and going as they wanted.

Here is the main cake. It was basically for decoration - it wasn't touched.

I made six 1/2 sheet cakes that were divided by piece, each with a red rosebud. This is what was served to the guests. The cake flavors were white, chocolate and strawberry.

I wanted to post a couple pictures of the fruit table. It was beautiful!

An idea to stash away for future consideration.

Book Case Dressup

I bought this book case a few months back and put it in the guest bedroom, which has a green, pink and white color scheme. (I built the color scheme around a quilt top that my husband's grandmother put together years ago.)
But the bookcase was just so stark white. I thought about painting it, then discarded that idea. Then I got the idea to cover it with different patterns of scrapbook paper in keeping with the "patchwork quilt" theme.

So I bought a book of scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby that I thought went best with my colors. (And there's that door again! I really am going to do something with it soon.) I blued the paper to the sides of the shelf using Mod Podge. Here's a picture showing my progress.

After I covered both sides with the paper, I used pink & green rick-rack to cover the frame and front edges of the shelves. The bedskirt is green with a pink rick-rack type trim, so this kind of tied it all together. I just hot glued it on.

This was before I covered the shelf edges.

Had to take a break to feed a hungry toddler a snack. She really enjoyed her chocolate pudding!

Here are several pictures of the finished project.

This closeup of my rick-rack ends doesn't look that great. But they're not that noticeable unless you're about 6 inches away!

I love the way it turned out! I only had about $15 in the project, most of which was the cost of the book of scrapbook paper (half off at HL). And I didn't use near all of it, so I will have it on hand for future use.

I'm hoping to finish this room soon. I'll post pictures when I do.

Countdown To My Empty Nest

I thought I'd post a few of my son's engagement pictures. They were taken by my oldest daughter (the one with the three girls).



Their wedding is August 8th.


They are planning to go to Vanuatu within just a few months of getting married. They are Missionary Associates with the Assemblies of God World Missions. They are raising funds now and as soon as they meet their budget they will be leaving for two years. They will both be working in an adult literacy program as well as a Chrisitian school.

Did I mention that Vanuatu is on the other side of the world???

This one show her sapphire and diamond engagement ring. It's beautiful!

Nate isn't my youngest child - he's just the one who stayed around the longest.

I'm goign to miss him something terrible. He's been the only one at home for over three years now.

Don't they make a cute couple? And she fits into the family perfectly!

Zebra Cake

I made this cake for my granddaughter Emily's birthday party on Saturday. I used the whipped frosting from Sam's Club instead of making my own butter cream. Boy, did it ever speed up the project!!

Emily's party always lands at a busy time since we have our church camp the week of the fourth. Her party gets put off until Saturday after camp, so we're all dead tired, then we have to throw together a party and a cake. But all went well.

I think she like her cake, especially the hearts - she kept pulling them out and trying to eat them! They were the only non-edible thing on the cake besides the feather thingies.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed your birthday party, Emily! I know the rest of us did!

Mirror Redo

Years ago, in another life, I was a Home Interiors demonstrator. Over the years I've got rid of most of the items I had, except for this mirror (shown here without the mirror!). For some reason, I just liked it. But I had no where to hang it so it was just taking up closet space.

So last week when my grand kids were here and I was needing to do something crafty or decorative or adult, I decided to give it a quick coat of spray paint and hang it in my guest room that I am very slowly putting together. The spray painting was quite interesting since I had a three year old and an almost two year old "helping" me!

The quilt reflected in the mirror was given to me by my mother-in-law. Her mother made the quilt top years ago and my mother-in-law had it quilted recently and now it graces our guest bed.

And the door that is also reflected? I still haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with it. I want to use it in this room since it just "goes" with it. So I'm mulling over several ideas such as a headboard, a bookcase or just hanging it on the wall as it is.

I also have an old dresser with a round mirror that's been a part of our family for the past twenty years that I'm going to refinish this summer and put in the room. And I recently re-found some little plaques from my husband's childhood that I'm going to put on one of the walls.

This is turning into my nostalgia room! It must have something to do with my looming empty nest.

Maybe after my son's wedding in August will be the perfect time to put it all together!

I Made It!!

I did it!! I survived fifteen days with three of my granddaughters!!

I had planned to chronicle all fifteen days, but then we encountered computer problems. And who has time to take care of computer problems with three little kids running around?

Anyway, here are a few pics taken while the girls were here:

An evening at the park.

Ridin' the horsey, as Sylvie called it!

Hot roddin'!!

Watch out for those crazy drivers!

After the trip to the park, runaway bubbles!!

Day 5

A quick Day 5 update.

Boy, am I glad I had my kids when I was young!!

My hat is off to those of you who are in your forties with small children.

We have friends who have kids our ages . . . and have kids our grand kids ages! I can't imagine!

Anyway . . . other than being dead tired, everything is going fine. I talked to my daughter in India last night, and she is terribly homesick. She only has twelve days to go!!

I fully intended to update everyday, but we're encountering technical problems. Both laptops and my desktop were all down at the same time. Since my husband has to have a computer for our home-based business, he went and bought another laptop. And the "a" key won't hardly work. I mean, you have to push it about ten times harder and maybe it will work. So it's back to Best Buy tomorrow. I told my husband he better just get a new one . . . it's not good sign when you start having problems with a computer that's only a couple of days old!

Back to the kids. Today their grandpa took them out for ice cream and a trip to the park. They came home with a swimming pool and water balloons!! But it kept them outside all afternoon and I got a whole lot done.

Yesterday morning when I was leaving for work (my daughter watched them for the day), Nicole, the three year old, told me, "Grandma, you can't go to work. You have kids now!" It was so sweet! Then she told my son when he left, "Remember, Nathan; I love you!" Isn't she just the sweetest thing?

Well, I have to go supervise bath time. Grandpa is covering for me while I finish this post up, and there is just no telling what he will let them do!!