The Crafty Red Rabbit

My brother's birthday is right around Thanksgiving time, so when we decided to make things easy and order our food from Copeland's, I threw my efforts into doing a birthday cake for dessert. Plus I wanted to give my new cake decorating turn table a spin. Thinking that his favorite candy was Reese's peanut butter cups (more on that later), I went for a triple layer devil's food cake with peanut butter buttercream frosting and featuring the iconic peanut butter cups in their various forms. I bought a variety pack of miniature cups, in milk, white, and dark chocolate, plus some Thin Reese's cups to get more height on the cake. I also got a mix of peanut butter and chocolate chips, chocolate jimmies, and Reese's pieces, though I didn't end up using the last. I stacked the cake layers, putting some chopped cups in between each, and kept the buttercream as thin as possible since the cake had all the added sweetness of the candy. I gave it a semi-naked cak...

My mom and I threw Caiden a party for his first birthday. It was forest-themed so we decorated with some forest animals, woodsy items like pine cones and branches, and planned the menu around camping food, including a DIY trail mix bar. We also had cupcakes decorated to look like moss (made with matcha green tea, breadcrumbs, and coconut). Smores cupcakes (chocolate cake with marshmallows and chocolate chips, topped with marshmallow frosting, a chocolate bar, and a Teddy Graham). I tried to torch the frosting to make it look like a roasted marshmallow, but it melted rather than burned. If I ever try it again, I think I would rather plop a giant marshmallow on top (cut in half) and torch that. A spice cake and chocolate pudding trifle made to look like dirt and worms. And among his gifts was a play tee pee from me. I also made a sign with his name (see that project here ) and a birthday banner to match the theme.

For Caiden's 1st birthday I was feeling extra crafty and wanted to make a sign of his name, something that would stand on its own and match the theme of the party that my mother and I were throwing. I had done something similar for my father's 50th birthday which had been golf-themed. His sign had been covered patterned paper that matched the party colors, set in fake grass, and adorned with golf tees and balls. For Caiden's sign, I got the same 3-dimensional cardboard and covered them in scrapbook paper with a dark brown background and a colorful leaf pattern. Unfortunately, I traced the last letter onto the paper backwards, and I had no more of the paper left. Rather than trying to find another pattern in my vast collection of scrapbook paper that would compliment the original choice, I left it bare and covered it with some lichen-looking stuff. It made for a nice effect. I glued the letters down to a wooden base and then covered the base with florist moss....

RJ asked me to make a diaper cake for his buddy's baby shower. The shower was Halloween themed, so I had an idea to incorporate some plastic spiders and fake cobwebs. I found some black ribbon with a cobweb design, although it was not as wide as I would have liked, so I paired it with a solid black ribbon that had some glitter in it. I also bought some purple flowers, as part of a purple, black, and green color palette. I knew I had some cool green moss and figured this would be great for a spooky vibe. And then while RJ and I happened to be out and about one day, we came across some Funko Pops. Turns out RJ's friend is an obsessive collector of Funko Pops and I happened to come across some in a series for A Nightmare Before Christmas. Now I had already done A Nightmare Before Christmas themed diaper cake for my coworker, Christopher, who is a huge fan of the movie. But being on a budget, I hand drew Jack Skellington and Sally and created a graveyard around the ca...

What kid doesn't love pizza? Continuing on the "food takes work" lessons, I told Caleb that we would be making pizza for our next food experiment. We bought ready made pizza dough from the Publix bakery and also pre-made pizza sauce. While I wanted to curb the impatient "When are we eating?" inquiries that were becoming a regular thing at family dinners, I didn't want to torture the boy by making him slave over a stove all day just to make sauce. The rest was plenty of work anyways. After disappointing him by telling him we would NOT be throwing dough up in the air and stretching it by spinning it around on our fists, I put him to work on pressing the dough into the pan. Getting it even and consistent in thickness was a little too much for his patience, but he managed to set up two crusts. A third was already in a circle shape that just had to be unfolded and set on a baking sheet. He enjoyed pricking the dough with a fork to prevent bubbles. ...

One day Caleb asked me if we could make cinnamon rolls. I not only want to teach him how to make things, but also to learn to appreciate the work that goes into making food, and to analyze and critique it. So when he asked about the cinnamon rolls, I told him we would make cinnamon rolls from scratch and also make some ready to bake ones that you buy from the store. In the interest of time, I made and proofed the dough ahead of time, but everything else I had Caleb do, from rolling the dough: To sprinkling the cinnamon and sugar: To rolling up the dough: And slicing (under very watchful eyes) and setting the slices into a buttered dish: The ready to bake rolls he popped out of the can (which he was adorably a little afraid to do) and put into the pan. While the rolls were baking we made icing for our homemade set and then topped off both when they came out of the oven. The result? Caleb liked the taste of the homemade rolls better, though...

So one day, Caleb asked me if we could make a layered cake from scratch. Since it was nearing Christmas, I thought I would be the perfect project for our annual Baking Day. I picked a spiced eggnog cake and frosting recipe and found some easy decorations for the top. We made some marshmallow snowmen and penguins pops, Christmas tree pops made from candy melts and sprinkles, and houses cut from wafer cookies. The snowmen and penguins were originally supposed to be coated in white candy, but my mom was concerned with them already being too sweet. This didn't affect the penguins , but unfortunately, it made the black candy that formed the snowman faces bleed across the surface of the marshmallow. We ran out of time, so I wasn't able to pipe a string of Christmas lights around the cake like I intended to, but it still came out cute. Caleb laughed his head off at how silly the snowmen and penguins looked and the cake itself turned out delicious.

It had been a while since I had made some jewelry, so when I needed to come up with some gifts for a few of RJ's family I figured it was a good time to revive the hobby. Since they were all related (his step-grandmother, stepmother, his aunt and her partner), I thought it would be cute if the pieces matched. Stacked jewelry seems to be super popular at the moment, so I decided to go with a couple bracelets each. I looked at my collection of beads and picked out a handful of different types in the same color palette. As they were all a fan beach themes, I went with soft aqua tones and then contrasted them with metallic copper colors. I went for beads in different shapes and sizes that had some translucency to them, reminiscent of colored sea glass. Magnesite in its turquoise color and evocation of nature with its organic veins was thrown in. And finally clear crystal with just a hint of smokey brown or light blue to suggest water. Since I only had a few beads of each type, ra...

The second birdhouse was for RJ's mom. She is a huge fan of the Gators, so there was no doubt that I would do a wood-burning project with this theme in mind. The house I found was a much easier shape than the lighthouse, or so I thought. This one cylindrical, with no sides or edges. I thought this would make it easier but it presented it own challenges. I had imagined drawing a large alligator around the roof of the house, with its tail curling around the point.  But without edges or sides, I needed to adjust the angle I was drawing in so that I wouldn't stretch the illustration out of proportion. From most angles you couldn't tell. But as I turned the house to continue drawing, what should have stayed as a top down perspective suddenly became elongated. You can tell the difference where the right legs of the alligators, in fact, the whole right side of the alligator, is a bit fatter and squat than the left side (since I drew it from left to right). The r...

After a slew of diaper cakes and baby showers, it was back to the burn. Wood-burning that is. Christmas was coming up and I had run across a couple of birdhouses (well, three of them, but the third one wasn't for a Christmas present). But I instantly knew what I wanted to do with them. The first was for RJ's grandparents. They used to live here in Florida, but have since moved to the mountains of North Carolina. When I saw the little lighthouse shape, I thought it would be a great idea to burn it with Floridian waterbirds and plants, to give them back a bit of their old home. Because the lighthouse was so small and had edged sides rather than being a smooth cylinder all the way around, I had to break up the images so that they could each fit on a panel. This left me with tall and skinny spaces, so I decided to go with stately, slender egrets, water reeds, and cattails.  These on their own, weren't enough, so I took some artistic liberty and added some curvy l...

Another diaper cake, but for a welcome change of pace it wasn't a variation on gray like a number of the last few seemed to have been. This one was for RJ's cousin and his wife and they had picked out an adorable woodland theme for their nursery. So I was excited to be working with nature and greenery again. So much so, I probably went a bit overboard on the green. I mean, I know I went overboard on the green. But anyways... I started with an adorable teething fox from the registry for the topper and decided on another 4-tier cake. Wanting to work with woodsy materials and natural fibers, I then got some dark green mesh ribbon and ribbon that looked like brown canvas with green edging and a strip of green and white polka dots along the middle. I couldn't decide between the two, so I went with both, alternating the two ribbons among the 4 layers. I knew I had some small pine cones left over from some other project, as well as some moss and twigs. So for som...