This Halloween cake will make you..... queasy?

Every year, Kade's school has a cake decorating contest. The finished cakes are awarded as prizes for the Cake Walk activity at the Fall Festival.

This year, Kade is definitely into gross things, so he thought this idea for a cake would be utterly disgusting... in other words, perfect!

Mr. Kade and his cake, Sick Pumpkin.

Gramma is a genius with cakes, so she helped Kade with this project. This is the second year in a row, and it's one of Kade's favorite traditions! She came over with all the goodies and they got to work.

(This is one of his go-to faces to make for pictures...)

Cake Details:
Pumpkin- Chocolate cake covered with handmade fondant. Kade designed the face and helped attach it.
Barf- (Some emails between my mom and me were really funny - "Oh, we should mix in some coconut and marshmallows to give the barf some chunkiness and texture!" - if anybody was spying on my emails, they should be a little grossed out and confused by now!) Vanilla cake tinted green. My mom used a knife to shape the cake into a wavy, bumpy design. The frosting does have coconut, marshmallows, and even little chunks of chocolate in it. Kade then added gummy worms, jelly beans, chocolate eyeballs, candy corn, and some other bits of candy around the top and sides.
Extras- The crow on top of the pumpkin is saying, "That's what happens when you eat too much Trick Or Treat Candy..." and the two spiders are saying, "Eww!" and "Gross!". The tree is a group of branches spray painted black with a little sparkle added. I cut out little black bats and hung them from strings. Little decorative fall leaves were glued here and there, with a few glued on to the cake board as well. We made a tiny ghost to live in the tree, and a spider on a web.


Kade and his Gramma had a great time, and he was so proud of his icky-looking (but delicious!! We had some of the leftover cake and icing, and it was so yummy!) creation! Hopefully whoever won this cake at the Cake Walk wasn't too afraid to eat it... haha ;)

It's been a copycat kind of weekend!

Kade has a fever again (I hope he'll be well enough to go to at least one of his last 3 days of school!), so I've had some down time these past few days. I'm sure lots of you have heard of Pinterest already. I've recently become somewhat addicted to it, and decided to make use of some of the ideas I've saved!

This first one is something I've seen all over the web,
but here is the Pin:
Crayon Monogram

And here is my version:


I found these really great shadowbox frames at Ben Franklin for only $5. I decided to add some little froggies, because Kade said his teacher loves them. I hope she likes it! She really is one very special teacher, and Kade will miss being in her class!

The second one is a series of week-by-week pregnancy photos:
Belly Pics

When I was pregnant with Kade, 8 years ago, I didn't do anything like this, and wish I had! I do have a few pregnancy photos from then, but I just love how you can really see the change happening in this series, using the same background and outfit each week. Here is my take on it, using Kade's little chalkboard to keep track of the weeks:


If only I were as cute as the other girl! Also, my picture shocked me- I think I look way bigger than 12 weeks already! Oh well, no matter how I look, I'm just SO happy that I have this little baby growing in me, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! :)

The internet can be a great source of inspiration! What have you been inspired by lately?

Custom Star Wars Laptop Bag

My sister just got a new laptop, and requested a special custom bag to tote it around in! She, like many others in my family, loves Star Wars, and wanted her new laptop bag to reflect that. On the front flap is the Rebel symbol in red:


And on the inside of the flap when you lift it up is a while Imperial symbol:


I got to try out my sewing machines applique feature, which I hadn't used much yet. It was surprisingly easy! I used HeatnBond on the back of my fabric, traced the image (which I printed and cut out), cut it out again, removed the backing, and ironed it onto the black canvas. The stitching didn't take very long, but there were a lot of corners to turn on the white symbol! I really like how it turned out, and how professional the appliques look! It's the HeatnBond, I love that stuff!


The flap closes with two small velcro tabs. The bag is padded with batting, and lined with black fleece. The strap is adjustable. There is a quilted pocket on the inside for all the cords.


Next up on the bag list- a purse that looks like an owl, for my niece! I am in the middle of designing it now, trying to figure out the best and cutest way to make it. I may want one for myself, too! :)