Like cakes through the hourglass, so are the days of my life

I know that as you get older it's supposed to feel as if time is speeding up, but I can hardly believe that it's been over a month since I last posted here. This morning I spent about 15 minutes before I got out of bed just lying there groggily trying to figure out what day it was and if I was late for work even though it's Sunday. All the days seem to blend together, the passing of time marked only by the styles of the cakes that I make and plan to make.

In late June, I made a 6-inch birthday cake for my mom. It was a mixed berry cake with orange cream icing/filling and fondant decorations.







Last weekend, I made a 6-inch cake and mini cupcakes for my coworkers. They were chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing, and I used a couple different types of sprinkles, violet coloured sugar, and silver dragees for decoration. The lighting was poor when I took the following pictures, but you get the idea.











By the way, despite what the My Little Pony-esque colours and the precious wee cakes might suggest, my coworkers are not six-year-old girls. That didn't stop them from wolfing it all down, though.

I’m going to try to make a cake a month just to keep my icing and decorating skills fresh. You start to forget things after a while, which I discovered when I tried to make buttercream icing last weekend for the above cake and nearly messed up the order of the recipe. I picked up Wilton’s 2012 Yearbook yesterday at Bulk Barn and it’s given me some great inspiration for future cakes. Some of the cakes in the Yearbook look so fancy, fussy and time consuming that I'll have to modify and simplify things consideribly if I'm going to try and replicate any of them. My mother saw the Yearbook and told me that she wants the candy and ice cream themed cake on the cover for her next birthday but that's way out of my skill level at the moment. Good thing I have 11 months to practice.

I can’t believe August will be here tomorrow.  Late August to December is my favourite time of year, mainly because the anticipation of Halloween and Christmas--not to mention my birthday in late November--seem to infuse everything in life during those months with a bit of extra excitement. I woke up this morning and made a list of things I need to get to make Halloween cupcakes and cookies, and I picked out some Halloween cookie cutters to buy online (they're cheaper than in-store). I have a lot of my Christmas gift shopping done (yes, really), and I just ordered some different styles of How the Grinch Stole Christmas themed cotton fabric (this, this, and this) to make a Christmas tree skirt.  I need to get back to working on my Christmas decorations, too. My desk in my office/craft room is covered with little bird shaped pieces of felt that need to be decorated with tiny beads and assembled to make tree ornaments.

Finally, although this isn't making or baking related, my living room was repainted, as you can see from the painting-in-progress photo below that was taken on Friday.


I just wanted to document the big change from red to green! As much as I love my new Grinch-coloured living room, I miss the vibrant cherry red. After the tape was peeled off, I went around with a smaller brush and tried to cover up the bits of red still peeping through under the green around the baseboards and doorframes. Everywhere I looked there were hints of red, and just when I thought I’d covered over the last patch of red, I’d spot another one. You'd never know from looking at my living room now that it used to be painted red thanks to my obsessive touch-upping, which I can only liken to trying to find and clean away every last incriminating drop of blood at a crime scene. Not that I have any experience with that sort of thing. I'm just saying.