Friday Musings #12

So my many weeks of Hunger Games themed blogging comes to an end... or does it?? But really - I think I've exhausted that area of craftiness for a while. Next up - Kim's bridal shower tomorrow and then Easter next week. I need to look through the Martha Stewart magazine for some ideas. I want to do fun egg dying this year. There were so many cute Easter crafts I saw on pinterest too - a peep wreath!! But I think its a little late for that. I'll have to push it to the "to-craft" list for next year! I really need to get knitting too.....

Let Those Hungry Kids Eat Cake!

Here it is! The COOLEST cake I've ever made!! Get ready for A LOT of pictures. I took them at almost every step of the way - so here we go:

I baked a yellow cake and frosted it with store bought 

frosting - not enough time to make my own! Also, still delicious. 

I used black Fondarific butter cream fondant for my base - it is actually delicious. I had never liked fondant before, but I can definitely eat this stuff. Dying anything black is a feat in itself so I'm happy I could by pre-dyed fondant. 

Time to roll it out! It was a bit of a pain because I have the WORST 

kitchen table known to man for baking. There are 5 leaves 

in it so you get lines in EVERYTHING.

Transferred the fondant to the cake.

Smoothed it out and cut off the excess. Time for decorating!! 

I got my fondant tools all ready. I bought 

Wilton's white fondant to mold into the mocking jay.

Using the lid to the fondant and the slightly smaller lid to 

the frosting can, I cut out this circle and then painted it gold.

Next I shaped the head and used one of my decorating tools to 

texture the head to make it look like it has feathers.

I started assembling the mockingjay on the cake. I made the body 

and the tail out of one piece of fondant and cut lines into the tail.

I used a leaf cookie cutter for the feathers because that was all I had.

I filled in the wings with my feather/leaves and then made an arrow to lay across the bottom. I pulled the mockingjay's beak down a bit so it looks like its biting the arrow. 

Then I gave it the Midas touch.

Woot!

Cutting out letters!

I had to work a little with the kerning. I put way too much space 

between "be" and "ever" at first and had to move it all around.

Then I used the leaf cutter to *gasp* actually cut out leaves for the border. 

I rolled purple balls, rolled them in disco dust, 

then indented them to look like berries. 

Nightlock berries. 

And there you have it! My finished Hunger Games Mockingjay cake!! 

I have to give credit to Pikko's step by step instructions on how she made her Hunger Games cake. I followed it to make the wings and then eyeballed the rest. Ahhh - November 22, 2013 can't get here soon enough!! 

Wednesday Review: Sweetopia.net

Mixing it up a bit this week and reviewing another crafting blog!! Sweetopia.net is a website that features the baking creations of a woman named Marian. This woman is seriously talented - also, I'm pretty sure she's Canadian, thus furthering my love for the great country to the north.

What I like: 

·         AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME cookies. And wonderful pictures of them as well.

·         She uses a Kopykake projector to trace images onto cookies. I WANT ONE.

·         There are video tutorials and step by step instructions for many of her cookies.

·         Contests!

·         She highlights mostly cookies, but does cakes, cake pops, cupcakes, and more!

·         There are a lot of recipes included on her site - there are even gluten free options.

What I don't like:

·         Again, just from my own experience - where does one find the time/patience to do this much decorating!?!? I guess she may only do a few cookies at a time, which is a little more do-able, but still - this woman must have the patience of a saint! 

This is such a fun website to look through. Many of her cookies were featured in a book that I reviewed earlier - 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes. Someday… I'll get to this level of expertise! 

Hunger Games Party: Nobody's Hungry Here!

I looked through the Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook for recipes to make for the party. I picked 3 different ones - Lamb Stew, Prim's Goat Cheese Truffles, and Cheese Buns.

For the Lamb stew I pre-chopped everything 2 days before and then threw it all in the Crockpot the morning of the party.  It cooked well but there are definitely things I will change next time I make this recipe.

1.)    I'm going to buy pre-cut lamb or use beef instead. Lamb is a pain in the butt to cut up and its pretty expensive to boot. 

2.)    I'm leaving out the sugar. The recipe has 5 cups of plums plus granulated and brown sugar - so it was pretty sweet. I think it'd taste better minus the sugar.

3.)    Cut the recipe in half. Nobody LOVED the stew. It didn't taste bad, it just wasn't fantastic. So I have A LOT left over. The recipe says 8-9 servings, but it made way more than that. I've been eating the leftovers all week, and probably have enough to eat it all next week too. 

The goat cheese truffles were my favorite - a little bit of a pain because it calls for all fresh herbs. But they were delicious and ALL of them got eaten

The cheese buns were yummy too - kinda tasted a bit like red lobster rolls. Shout out to my friend Amanda who actually made these while I ran around like a crazy person decorating and getting my costume together.

I also made croissants (because how can you have a Hunger Games party without them?) I sprinkled sesame seeds on top to give them more of a "District 11" feel. 

I decorated with toy parachutes to look 

like the capitol sent the bread to us.

This one just makes me laugh.

Effie Trinket

Effie Trinket!

I began buying pieces for my costume back in December with the purchase of these:

Paper eyelashes!! They were on sale at Sephora. I cut off the deer head portion and just used the other half. I went a little crazy with blue eye shadow as well. To really get the Effie look, I should have bought white face makeup - but I ran out of time, so I just went with the fact that I am very pale and that would have to do.

I also wanted "Capitol" nails so I bought some glue-ons at CVS.

Me and Kim uber excited to watch HG!!

The hat I bought at Cracker Barrel during Halloween last year and the wig I bought online (It's a Frenchie wig from Grease.) The dress was just a God-send. I went to Goodwill and was looking for 80's prom dresses (big puffed sleeves!), but they had none. Luckily this beauty caught my eye! The pink lining was perfect and while it didn't have puffed sleeves, it did have some pretty sweet shoulder pads. 

 Me and my brother - who dressed up as Cinna, 

but nobody seemed to realize that.

I was one of VERY FEW people to dress up (I think the other 2 were 12 year olds) but I don't even care - I loved my outfit! One girl at the theater even asked to take a picture with me!