Party attire

Each year for his birthday, I make Starboy a felt badge t-shirt that he can wear for his celebration. I wanted to make him a squirrel shirt this year, but I didn't have a t-shirt with the right colors. I only had dark gray. It's hard to find plain t-shirts with a nice cut and no breast pocket. And forget organic. It's hard to find a plain t-shirt at all.

Last year I made Starboy a blimp shirt, embroidering the felt badge on by hand. It's hard to see here, sorry. I'll have to find a better shot.

This year I went with a simple toadstool, in the interest of time. I'd still like to do the squirrel shirt, if I can find the right color tee.

The blimp took me several days to make, but the mushroom came together in an evening. One movie. I use chain stitch and regular embroidery thread, and no backing (which doesn't do well in the wash; I don't really recommend it).

I love how simple it is.

Construction Cake

Grandma loves to create theme cakes. 

I can't find the site where I originally saw a construction site cake like this, but it turns out if you Google "construction cake" you'll get hundreds of great ideas. The cone candles are from Amazon, and I think the truck set was, too.

The cake actually was one large brownie on the bottom layer (two mixes), and a layer cake for the top two layers (one mix). The frosting was brownie frosting, a little stiff. But super tasty.

Starboy named every machine. I probably couldn't do it with cue cards.

Starboy LOVED this cake. He wouldn't let go of the trucks—he actually didn't finish his cake and ice cream, so he could play with the trucks.

Birthday dinners

Initially, I'd planned our August party as double birthday celebration, to save me from further party planning.  But then the project was delayed. 

So two more family dinners it was. For Starboy's birthday: Cheesy enchiladas with spinach (before topping and baking).

Ravioli salad with gorgonzola, apples, sun dried tomatoes, poppy seeds and lettuce (assemble yourself)

 And baby bear pancakes!

 Sweet potato puree, cranberries, spinach and raisins as eyes and noses.

With cinnamon, yogurt, and maple syrup (by request). Then of course Starboy wouldn't eat them because the spinach was highly suspect. "I don't like that green stuff."

Luckily Community Worker Grandma saved the day with a fantastic Construction Job Site Cake. Come back tomorrow to see detailed photos!

For Techman's birthday, we had the ravioli salad and homemade molasses clove cookies, with a candle holder from his childhood. It's made out of plastic clay, something I hope that Très Juliee is able to do with her beautiful fondant creations.

Techman loved the ceramic tile handprint that Starboy made for him.

It ended up being more planning than I'd bargained for, but it was nice to have intimate birthday celebrations with family to mark the dates. I'm still looking forward to our party with friends and family!

Linen-like verbiage

After four years, we finally decided on a rug for our living room. It has the feeling of a rag rug, but also feels a little modern, with the offset stripes and pops of color. The saleswoman talked me into two coordinating throw pillows ("You always can return them," she suggested with a straight face), which look great despite the price, but our two old 12x18 pillows, which are disintegrating, do not. 

So I looked online to see whether there were any shorter pillows that coordinate, or whether I should just find some fabric and make a cover. (I had a thought to cut down an 18" square cover, but I don't think I can handle the piping.)

I read the description of the pillows that coordinated, and it's like a parody of catalog descriptions: 

Handspun raw matka silk straight from the cocoon is handwoven, hand-dyed and beaten with bamboo sticks to bring out the lustrous glow and wonderfully soft linen-like texture. Detailed with handwoven silk ribbed piping in coordinating color.

How am I supposed to compete with that?! Hand-beaten fabric glowing lustrously? Silk matkas? What, even, is that?

It looks like I'm going to have to travel to a Thai night market to find anything that would—heeeyyyy....now there's an idea.....

Grandma's fairy garden

Starboy gave Grandma a fairy garden kit for her birthday. She chose some plants from the nursery and a rock from her yard, and constructed a lovely fairy play place.

 In process. Starboy helped water and offered supervision.

Cheese and fruit mandala with veggie patty

Veggie patty, apple slices, banana slices, grape halves, cheese stick slices. The veggie patty didn't go over so well, but he ate three of them for breakfast. I'm finding that finger food is going down more quickly than food with a fork.

The veggie patties are pretty tasty—grated zucchini, mashed sweet potato, minced onion, an egg, a small amount of flour. Make into balls, roll in breadcrumbs, then bake 15min per side at 350˚, flattened on a greased sheet. I make a whole batch then freeze them, and warm them up for a quick breakfast.

Garden toadstools

I had some Fimo and Sculpey in my art stash, and decided to try my hand at baking some 'shrooms for the kids' fairy gardens at our summer party. One movie, one TV show, and two squares of plastic clay later, I ended up with a dozen or so toadstools...

...some of which fell apart right after the kids picked them up. I didn't use a strong seaming technique between the stem and the dome. Actually, I didn't use any technique at all. I forgot that kids would probably be playing with them, not just looking at them.

I really didn't enjoy the process, and the clay stained my fingers and smelled bad. It smelled worse when it was baked. I don't think I'm a Fimo person. But I hope some day that Très Juliee is—I would love to see her beautiful fondant creations in a permanent form, that families could save, and that folks back east could enjoy as well.

In the meantime, feel free to link to better inexpensive mushrooms for fairy gardens, whether homemade or store-bought. And Fimo techniques.

Planting Prep

Scenes from a day of preparation—planting table decorations for the Fairy Party far in advance. Since we're planning to party shortly after we get back from the west side—where we're staying while our house is being painted—I thought it would be a good idea to prep ahead.

Venus* and her kids helped out; she's got the same crafting addiction I have. Unfortunately (and fortunately) she has a paying day job that limits her hands-on time with craft. So she recruited Lila* and Barclay* to help us out. It wasn't a hard sell.

It was a great day of planting and pizza. The kids really got into it.

Venus made this beautiful setup. The pots were on super sale at Joann.

The houses are from various thrift stores, and so are some of the other planters.

Don't you want to live here? With a fire in the fireplace and a cup of cocoa or tea? Okay, never mind it's, like, 95 here and what's the deal with the snow?

I love the lush color. Enjoy it, though. The heat fried everything and I get to nearly start over when we get back home.

I know, it's a killer, isn't it? I thought I was saving time by having everything ready in advance. Sigh.

*To help with privacy, everyone gets a code name. Please help respect this if you make a comment.

Keep it Simple—Lunches

Homemade cheese scones, fruit, cucumber • Blue Cupcake photo

My friend Trés Juliee* does not live a simple life (hey, she has kids) but she continually reveals the beauty in simplicity that pares life down to the important essences. Where I dream up ways to layer and enmesh (and complicate), she says, "Let's just go." Where I "add just one more thing" and again "wait—one more," she says, "Ça suffit"—that's enough, keep moving, let it be beautiful on its own.

And so it is with her kids' daily lunches: Simple, just enough. Whole, organic foods. Beautifully and easily presented.

 By request from the kids: Snacks for lunch, with iced water bottle • Blue Cupcake photo

She uses Rubbermaid LunchBlox** to create her bento-style container, which she says fit perfectly into Liam's and Oceane's Pottery Barn Kids lunch bags.** I've used LunchBlox as well, and—except that they are plastic, which isn't great for the environment—they're great. I have liked the sizes and shapes of the containers: They are lightweight and easy to find (Target), and the packaging says they are "BPA free."

Noodles with peanut sauce, fruit, nori snack • Blue Cupcake photo

Juliee has decided to post a photo of each day's lunch fare online, to help inspire other parents packing lunch boxes in the morning. She's not big on "kiddie" food, so I'm looking forward to ideas for my own box lunches as well.

For the summer heat and a loose tooth, the soft lunch: Couscous with raisins, yogurt, nori snack, fruit • Blue Cupcake photo

Follow Trés Juliee and Blue Cupcake on Instagram here or search for  "blue_cupcake" on Instagram to see her daily lunch posts, and more. And please check out her yummy blog with her beautiful cupcakes and cake creations! My not-so-secret hope is that it all is published in a spiral book one day, with a few recipes and a LOT of indexing, for quick and easy lunch inspiration.

 Hummos and pita, crudite, fruit snacks, fruit slices • Blue Cupcake photo

*To help with privacy, nearly everyone here gets a code name.

**Trés Juliee, Blue Cupcake and this blog do not have any affiliation with Rubbermaid, Pottery Barn Kids, Target, or any of the food manufacturers or growers pictured here.

Challahogs

I haven't made bread hedgehogs in a long while, so I thought I'd make a practice batch before the fairy party.  I couldn't remember what recipe I used in the past, so I tried a new one, for challah, from Completely Delicious. I played it safe and did not double the recipe. I get into all kinds of issues if there is math involved.

Challah is a very sweet traditional bread with a lot of honey or sugar, and eggs. It's delicious and very kid friendly. It's typically eaten on the Sabbath and holidays, but I don't think it's improper to eat it on other days. I suppose I should do some research on that before serving it on a Sunday. Hmmm...

You don't need a mixer with a dough hook, but it does speed things up when your mind is feeble and easily distracted, like mine.

At this point in the process, before the final rise, you can divide the dough into three parts and braid it, which gives the loaf structure. Or, you can make rolls.

I made the mistake of waiting until after the final rise to make cuts for hedgehogs and mice. This completely deflated the bread. Look at the beautiful rolls in the background. And the sorry, flat mice in the foreground. Yeasty fail.

I recommend making the snips and placing the features before the final rise. You can use any yeasted roll recipe, I just wanted to try the challah.

 Also, don't forget the egg wash. These plain challahogs didn't get their clear coat. They look sort of meh.

These guys got the egg wash, but really suffered from being cut after rising.

 Luckily, the flavor of the bread didn't suffer, though the consistency was a little less airy than I might have liked. Good thing it was just a test run.

 Challahogs make great turkey sandwiches, and are a good snack!