Projects Aplenty

COVERED IN SUGAR: I remember the old days, when I used to blog five nights a week. Seems like that hasn't happened in forever. We've been so darn busy by the time I head for bed (after 1 a.m. twice last week), blogging just isn't on the to do list. 

I can't recount all of the missing time, but I'll try to hit a few highlights.

First, the sugar storm. ...

We had two big projects this week. One was an artsy cake for a 14-year-old. When we inquired what she liked, the list returned was chevrons, teal, Broadway musicals and her bass guitar. That's a diverse list. How to fit that all on one cake without having it look like the elephant the group of blind men designed per the ancient fable? 

Annabelle asked a few more questions, including which musicals, exactly, the cake recipient favored. When she got that list back, we decided to make some mini playbill posters (edible, of course), to 'hang' on the top tier of the cake. The bottom/bigger tier would feature the teal and chevrons. And then the cake topper would be the girl's name, age, and her bass guitar.

Since CJ was busy with college coursework, I did most of the cake baking (two entire recipes of chocolate cake, which were stacked and filled with vanilla buttercream with mini chocolate chips for some crunch). The top tier was a yummy fresh strawberry cake with a very berry filling, crumb coated and then covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

Meanwhile, Annabelle toiled on the art elements. She painted five mini Broadway playbill posters for the cake using food coloring as paint, marshmallow fondant as the 'canvas,' and a tiny brush to create the images. 

She also had to do a fair amount of math to make the chevrons work. No surprise that our homemade cake wasn't perfectly square - each side was a touch different width, so the chevrons strips had to be adjusted for each side of the cake. 

Also, you have to engineer a stacked cake like this. The tall top tier was super heavy, what with the dense cake, the filling, the icing and fondant covering. We had a support column under the top tier to help hold it up (or else it would have sunk into the bottom cake, for sure), and we had a center pole extending up into the top tier, so it wouldn't slide off. 

Fortunately, our engineering worked, and the cake was in one piece when we made it to the delivery spot. The whole party was Broadway themed, and the table settings and posters and signs and treats they had were all so pretty - it was magical.

It took Annabelle just a minute or two to set up the cake. When she was done, the mom of the birthday girl was speechless. Then, she sat down and started crying. She was so happy with the cake - hooray! Pretty amazing that sugar and butter can bring someone to tears. 

Concurrent with the cake making, we had another 'little project' - three trays of cookies for a friend's memorial. Naturally, we made custom cookies that spoke to the dearly departed one's life and personality.

The cookies ran the gamut from high school letters and mascot to the BMW logo, some Oregon references, clothing choices and more. Annabelle even converted some coasters so that the lettering looked like our friend's name (it originally read 'FLICKER').

It was appropriate that the image on them was friends around the fire, because that's how the party they were shared out wound up - with friends standing around a fire, talking about their friend.

MoPOP WORKSHOP: Last Friday, 4.5 hours of our day was spent at MoPop (the Museum of Pop Culture, formerly EMP [Experience Music Project]), down at Seattle Center.

Annabelle and I were there for the first of a three-part art workshop about writing and drawing comics. 

In the workshop room, Annabelle sat in the front row, and I sat in the back row. I was required to be present during the whole workshop. My idea was to get a little work done quietly in the back, but I made a decision early on to, instead, quietly participate. It's not often I get to just sit and write or draw for fun these days. 

We had a number of exercises. A fun one was we were asked to write instructions about how to build a sandwich in 6 or so comic panels. Then we had to pass our instructions to our table neighbor. I was handed this ...

I had about a half hour to produce this ...

At one point during the session, we ventured out into the Fantasy gallery at the museum and we were supposed to draw something that caught our eye there. I drew a dragon. Not sure what Annabelle drew. Later, we were asked to write about our recollection of when we met our best friend. And then we were told to make a comic out of that, but we had to integrate the object we drew into that story. That was interesting. 

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: As if we don't have enough going on right now, also on our 'to do' list is readying for a really big event we're helping host this coming Wednesday. It's an "Empty Bowls" event, which is where guests are invited to a big old soup feed and it's hoped they'll donate to charity while there. (Our charities this year are Teen Feed and Birthday Dreams - names regular readers of this blog will recognize.)

We've been busy folding fancy napkins, tracking down table runners, and making little "souper man" centerpieces. Tomorrow, we'll be making four kinds of soup to take on Wednesday morning, before the sun rises. 

I just loved it today when we pulled up to the site where the event will be and saw this sign quoting "Spock" advertising it!