Saturday, April 14, 2012

Cakes & Cupcakes

I love to bake and decorate cakes. My cakes will certainly never get mistaken for professionally decorated cakes, but I have fun trying to be creative. Sometimes they turn out well and sometimes they don't.

I've made a few cakes over the past couple years for my nieces and nephews. Well, so far I've only gotten to make one nephews cake (twice) but hopefully this year I will get to do the other two too.  Although, I have to say I think I'm going to switch to doing cupcakes.  The frosting part is way easier.



Some of my past cakes:


Sister in laws 18th "Halloween" Birthday:





Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Photo Editing: PicMonkey

Have you been sad that Picnik is going to be gone soon?  Well, I just found out about PicMonkey (from the Picnik site actually) and tried it.  I think I like it MORE than Picnik.  No collage feature yet, no batch upload and no "history", but currently it's completely free although it indicates their will eventually be a "premium" version.  And even though there is no batch upload, I feel like it's faster, maybe the way everything is laid out.

Anyway, thought I would share with everyone just in case you haven't heard of it yet!


A couple of pics I was testing it out with...







These Peas Taste Funny

One More Baby Shower Tutu

A dear friend of mine has as sister who is having a baby girl, due in May.  As soon as I heard she was having a girl, I knew I had to make her a tutu.  My friend told me her sister was into to orange and green and then the shower invite said her theme was Monkeys.

I already had green on hand and also the green waistband.



 The flower is on an ribbon lined clip so that it can also be worn directly in the hair if desired.




I love making homemade burp rags.  But to be completely honest, I haven't been 100% happy with the ones I've made for the last two recipients.  I even skipped it for the most recent shower gift before this.  I've been putting some batting in them to add some extra absorption and I have not been sewing the finished edges (yes this has a technical name, but I'm blanking right now and it's midnight!) because I didn't feel confident enough in my sewing abilities...  :)  But I JoAnn had a good sale on "comfy fabrics" so I picked up some of the soft minky brown material and this super cute monkey print.  So I tried one out.  Overall I was happy enough to give it as a gift.  Definitely had some flaws but I think sometimes I'm my own worst critic.  









I'm seriously in love with making these tutus.  As a matter of fact, outside of giving several of them away as baby shower gifts, I've been working on getting an Etsy shop up and running and my first items (the only things I've had time to work on lately) will be these tutus.  My Etsy shop is not quite completely ready to go, but I've still sold 6 of these already just to people I know.  I'm really excited about them doing so well already because we are taking a big step in our house and reverting back to me (mostly) staying home.  I'm leaving my 25 hour a week M-F job for one that will likely be less than half those hours most weeks.  So I'm definitely excited to think that my craft business might at least keep me crafting!


Partying this week at:

I Heart Nap Time

Wow Me Wednesday @ Ginger Snap Crafts

Skip To My Lou

These Peas Taste Funny