Thursday, November 4, 2010

Making a Cake For Mom: Edible Playdough!



Here is my once a year absolutely unhealthy birthday cake story. I thought since it was my own birthday, I shouldn't make my own cake. It was a busy, busy day, so I bought one at the store, had them write "happy birthday mom" and hid it in the car so baby D wouldn't sit on it.

Well, shortly after arriving home, I found baby D in the car sitting comfortably on my cake and happily pushing buttons on the dashboard. He is so fast! I scraped the frosting off the lid back on to the cake, but it wasn't nice anymore.

The older kids are always thinking up cute things to do on my birthday, so I thought they would love to decorate my cake. I made up a batch of edible playdough in bright colors and when they got home from school I said, "welcome to my birthday party. The activity is to decorate my cake."


I was expecting a few flowers or something, but they wanted something really one-of-a-kind, so this is what they came up with: The characters are Yoda, Ahsoka Tano, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Aalya Secura from Clone Wars. My daughter said she couldn't do Anakin without brown, so she skipped him. The red everywhere was "laser fire". I was very impressed. It was a great birthday present.



The cake was brownies and the playdough was marshmallow, so it tasted a bit like rocky road. I liked it.

Marshmallow Fondant (Edible Playdough)

2 cups miniature marshmallows (4 ounces)
1/2 pound powdered sugar/powdered sucanat (2 cups)
1 tbsp water

This recipe does involve some cooking, it tastes like the marshmallows in cold cereal to me.

Melt the marshmallows with the water, either in the microwave or in a pan on the stovetop. Stir regularly until the mixture is smooth. You can add color now, or knead it in later.

Add the powdered sugar and mix as much as you can. Then tip out onto a surface dusted with more powdered sugar, and begin to knead in any loose powdered sugar. It will be sticky at first, but then will become a smooth dough.

If you want to save your marshmallow fondant for later, wrap in plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

Making an Ahsoka Costume part 2




First, I made Ahsoka's headtails. Basically it is an ivory jester hat with one tail fatter and longer and blue stripes glued on it. We use crushed panne fabric. A cheap, easy to sew on fabric that is easy to find at halloween. To finish this costume, we glued the gold halo part onto the headtails. Then for the dress I picked up a long sleeve orange shirt at a thrift store and sewed a maroon skirt onto the bottom. (The skirt is one and a half times the length of the t-shirt and then gathered.) To gather I sewed a wide stitch across the top leaving long pieces of thread at the ends. Gently pull one of the threads tight to gather the material to the proper length then sew it into a tube. Then sew the tube onto the skirt. (For Ahsoka's top I sewed that onto the t-shirt as well. It didn't have stretch so on the back I left about an inch gap in the tube top so it would stretch when my daughter put it on. We lucked out and found some floral print purple fabric on clearance that looked right for the belt. I had been planning on painting the floral print on lavendar fabric. The belt buckle is gold fabric glued onto cardboard with a pin glued on the back so we could pin it onto the dress. We just glued velcro onto suedcloth for the arms and legs, but this was a pain, I'd skip it or find another way if I did it again. I think the most comfortable would be to attach the gauntlets to tights and t-shirto, so they slide on and stay on easily. I did make a belt too, but it wasn't comfortable enough, so my daughter didn't wear it. This costume was a big hit with all the clone wars fans at school.

Lip Gloss Making Activity

I was teaching a lesson on uplifting thoughts for the activity day girls in our ward. We talked about having uplifting thoughts and how music can help us clean out bad thoughts. Then we made lip gloss. I wrote a little poem to tie it all together. It is based on Elder Packer's talk "worthy music, worthy thoughts" (http://lds.org/cm/display/0,17631,8045-1,00.html)

This is what the finished project looked like, I had some old pots in my craft cupboard that I recycled for this project it turned out really cute.

We used this recipe:
1 tbs petroleum jelly (melted)
4 drops stevia (or 1 tsp honey melted)
a few drops of koolaid (1 packet dissolved in 1/4 tsp water)
1/4 tsp mint extract (optional)

Lip Gloss Poem
The lip gloss I have made today
Reminds me I should smile,
And make the thoughts inside
My head uplifting and
worthwhile.

For ev’ry minute that I live
My mind is like a play.
With thoughts of either good
Or bad always on display.

Now sometimes in the theater
That is running in my mind
Little dark and impish thoughts
Come sneaking from behind.
And then it is my duty,
So the Spirit can abide,
To find a way to clean them out
And shape things up inside.

The prophets have advised us
On a way this can be done,
They’ve said when thoughts
Aren’t what we want…
The best thing is to hum!

So once again I grab my gloss
And rub some on my lips
And hum my very favorite hymn,
It always does the trick!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Family Halloween Party 2010


Clone Commander Fox


Doctor D

Ahsoka Tano

Jedi Master Luminara Unduli


little a was asleep, but I'll throw this picture in anyway...

My cousin's daughter hopped in the photo shoot and she was cuter than all of us...

Halloween Preschool Party