Sweets For All!

I love both the process of making clay food for The House and the effort to "bring it to life" with the people there! Here's how Valentine's Day ultimately played out for everyone!

Of course, the baking and creating happened here:

With sweets in the foreground (and a mischievous little pup hoping he can stretch himself to get to that cake!) and savory items on the stove ...

Some heart-shaped pancakes, at your service! There
is a pile of bacon sizzling in the other pan, too. Mmm ...

... it was bound to be a great day! Clearly, typical time-of-day meal rules did not apply! Most of the adults congregated in the dining room to chat over cakes and coffee:

I think Millie and Kermit are just the cutest. So,
they got the heart-shaped pancakes. 💕

Bundt cake, ice box cake, chocolates and coffee on
the ready for anyone in need!

Meanwhile, the cousins had their own little party in the family room:

Valentine cards and all!

And, the owners of The House? Hal put on his romantic hat and created a little picnic get away on the rooftop deck for his sweetie:

He really went all out with flowers, heart lights and a back-up table of goodies:

It was sweets for all!! Literally or figuratively, as it should be 😊.

Sweets On Display

You might discern from the title of this post that I have been busy making some sweets!! It's been snowing, it's been frigid cold, and it seemed the right time to hunker down and create!! Here's what's been happening at my kitchen table!

I've had on my list-to-make candy sticks for quite some time. I used to love looking at the twirling colors in candy stores, and I *always* wanted one of the big, rainbow-colored unicorn horn suckers. My parents always thought they were too big to be eaten. And, they were probably right. I'm certain they avoided a really sticky mess in various places around our house simply by saying, "No" to the request when I asked for one! So, I decided to make a mess of them! I started with green and white ones for the upcoming St. Patrick's Day. Then, I moved to other colors ...

... until I got out the rainbow!

The laptop isn't for viewing tutorials. It's for
viewing Friday Night Lights.

I know you can already see them on the first picture. I still like the second picture, though, because I love all of the colors spread out in front of me! You can also see the start of the process at the bottom of the picture. I rolled out strings of clay almost as thin as I could get them before lining them up next to each other. From there, I twisted very gently and learned as I went to see how much I could twist before breaking it and how much small tugging needed to happen to stretch it a little. I cut them to a desired, but not measured, size with an X-acto knife. The process was a trial and error the entire time, but I love the outcomes!

You can also see in the picture teeny, tiny little rainbow balls. I loved the colors so much that I didn't want to just ditch the scraps. So, I made some jawbreakers ...

... and some cookies, both flat and twisted:

I made the fudge a few days prior because The House seemed to have a chocolate deficit.

I love making these teeny tiny things!

You can see where it gets a little thin in the middle.
That's when I was getting a warning from the clay
to stop twisting or I will break.

And, I only lost one candy stick, one jawbreaker and one piece of fudge in the can of polycrylic. 😆 I dipped about a thousand, little Easter Eggs last year and lost not one. I guess I just made up for it.

You also see in the picture that I made Shamrock cookies. I really have absolutely zero personal investment in celebrating St. Patrick's Day, but I love decorating. So, these needed to be made!

The real show stopper was made yesterday! I've seen rainbow layer cakes on many miniature sites and stores, and I decided I needed to make one of my own! I picked out or mixed colors, and then I worked them to get them nice and soft. Then, I taped two pieces of balsa wood down so I'd have something to create a reasonably similar thickness of the layers:

I use that pen to roll out clay because it has no indentations for brand or type of pen. It's perfectly smooth and works famously! By rolling the pen on the balsa, I never rolled too thin.

I also rolled out layers for icing. I started those with the same method before picking it up and pulling it thinner -- kind of like pulling pizza dough. Then, all of the layers were stacked. I probably could have taken more time to even out the pieces so they were easier to align on top of each other. But, I didn't. From there, I put a bottle cap on top of the stack, drew around it with a toothpick, and then I cut the circle with an X-acto knife straight up and down. The result?

The big step was complete! I get the cake structure looks like a disaster. It did get pulled a little as I got the cake part away from the rest of the stack. But, that's what reshaping is for! I also fully expected the sides to look wonky from the cutting, but that's what icing is for, amight? I rolled out a piece of white clay big enough to cover the whole cake, and then I worked a metal ball tool over it to create the frosted-by-hand look:

I pushed excess up around the edge for the bottom icing. It looks very cool, but it also immediately made the cake too big to fit on the plate I intended. Whoopsie. hahahaha!

Then, it was time to slice it! Tip: Serrated knives work best for cutting through clay because they don't pull the clay as much as a smooth blade does. Ready?!

Here's the reveal!

It totally worked! But, the opening on the cake itself did not satisfy me. So, I went in for another piece:

NOW the fabulous inside can really be seen!! I just love it! I left the serrated marks on it because I liked the texture. I experimented on some scrap of the layered clay to create the cake texture, and it just messed with the color layers a little too much. I didn't want to screw this up, so I did not touch it further! I also made an ice box cake with some of the scrap because I just had to use more!

These slices got whipped cream but no frosting:

I want to dive into a piece of this!! Who's with me?!

I still have the rest of the scraps while my brain churns on how to use more of it. Cupcakes? I really don't know, but I couldn't stand to toss it into the mixed-up scrap pile yet!

With energy remaining to create, I went to the other end of the spectrum in terms of color, and I made a bundt cake:

The icing got a little pale after baking the piece, so I painted it today while finding a whole new respect for the people in charge of hand-painting miniatures:

I felt SO satisfied after making these treats! Today, they are here for display. Soon? They'll be "in action"! Stay tuned!

The Spirit of the Season

Christmas is definitely up there as one of my very, favorite holidays, and I SO LOVE decorating for it! The day snuck up on members of The House this year, though, so they kept their attention on decking the inside halls! Take a peek! We'll go from top to bottom:

Just a few hanging bulbs catch the light and make the craft room festive!

While no decorations are in this room, there is intent in the space ...

... Remember when your parents said things like, "Your room better be picked up, or Santa will think there's no room to keep new gifts!" The same thing was said in this House. 😊 Fun fact: My own parents would tell me they read in the newspaper that all children who wanted Santa to visit their houses had to be in bed by 7 p.m. I totally bought it. I also bought that Santa wanted a whiskey sour instead of milk, so ...

Across the way, Polly and Cruise are chillin' upstairs taking a breather from the holiday hub-bub:

Polly's all, "I wrapped gifts and decorated. I shall now put my feet up and eat all of this Chex Mix," while Eleanor hopefully anticipates a few dropsies. I'm betting Cruise will take care of that.

The upstairs hall has a few fun decorations:

The little train was a part of mini decorations when I was a kid. I thought it looked fabulous here. 

Head on down the hall to the stairs ...

This little tree and presents will greet you when you get to the bottom:

The rest of the family room is alive with festive touches!

The boys are excited to have cocoa in Santa mugs while noshing on butter cookies ...

... while Cat is barely overseeing their indulges as she has a tray full of cookies, made from decorator sprinkles, and her own jolly mug of cocoa!

My very favorite part of the family room is the fireplace with the stockings stuffed of goodies!

In the kitchen, some decorating has been going on!

The Christmas Tree and the gift are cakes for this family. They are really the hard icing decorations that come on a piece of cardboard and get placed on, for instance, a cupcake. I used polycrylic on these to help preserve them. That was a little tricky because the poly will dissolve the sugar, but it ended up working out. (You'll note Grandpa Bud and Penny are again mastering the art of producing endless Chex Mix 😁.)

The more formal decorating is in the dining room:

I'm not entirely sure how "formal" it is when I literally stapled the corners of the tablecloth together to keep the fabric down ...

... but, it worked!! The long table is really two tables put together and covered by this fabric I happened to have in my stash. I love how it turned out especially for how much effort I put into the linens! The side table received similar treatment as a wide piece of ribbon and a few staples created a really fun result!

Jade made her way to the adult table, but she still got the fun mug:

The napkins, by the way, are just little rectangles of white tissue paper that I cut out. I figured since I was formally setting the table with some silverware and glasses that there should be napkins. I will say, though, that setting those tiny utensils was hard, so I anticipate this family eating more often with their hands.

Also around the room:

No matter the extend of your decorating, I hope your celebration was much of what you wanted it to be! I know it can't be everything this year. I get it. But, what a great day to celebrate the wonderful potential of the human spirit and to have faith and hope in something joyous and grand ...

Carrying It Forward

I still remember the first time I saw my Dad make Chex Party Mix. I was 8 or 9 years old. I wasn't a big cereal fan, so I wasn't too interested when the corn, rice and wheat Chex boxes came into the house. What I didn't know was that those boxes, plus some mixed nuts, pretzels and butter-gussied-up-in-spicing, created a wonderful blend of absolute holiday snack deliciousness! I remember standing behind and to the side of my Dad while he pulled the mix out of the oven. He used a roasting pan for the baking, and I remember the sound of the wooden spoon and cereal scraping the sides of the metal. I can still see him in his khaki pants and red and black, flannel shirt as he dumped the entire batch onto the paper bag-lined counter. I can hear the muffled scratching sound on the thick paper as he spread the mix out to allow the bags to absorb some of the extra butter. I remember the aroma of, what I later learned was, Worcester sauce and garlic powder and onion powder and, of course, butter. I remember tasting it and knowing my Dad was a genius.

That's my Dad. This is really about 8 years after from my first Chex Mix memory. And, of course I know he's carving a turkey for Thanksgiving here. But, he made that first batch on either Thanksgiving or Christmas, and we had it around both holidays from then on out, so this picture works. 😊💜

This is a tradition I carried forward. This year, the four of us took down the first round of it in just a few days.

This picture is actually the second round. I know this because My Boy ate all of the leftover pretzels on their own after I made the first round. So this one is Round Two, sans pretzels.

Anyway, I figured that as much as we love this tasty, crunchy, oh-so-satisfying goodness, I could not deprive members of The House from it any longer! So, on a recent Saturday afternoon, I pulled out the polymer clay, and I got to work. I rolled teeny-tiny strings from which to cut pretzels. Then, I rolled out the appropriate cereal colors into flat pieces from which I sliced the Chex pieces with an Xacto knife. One by one, with the use of the knife's point, I put the pieces on a solid clay foundation to make it look like a heap of snacks. I rolled some crunched foil gently over the surface, and this is the outcome:

My original plan was just to make the one, circular bowl and maybe create a pan of it for the oven. While I really liked the overall outcome of the bowl, I messed up by making the foundation shape too rounded. So, the snack mix doesn't fall to the edges of the bowl. Rather, it sits in it more like a cheese ball. All of my family said it just didn't matter, but I gave it another go with the square bowl to a much more satisfying outcome! And, of course, I had to make the batch for the oven seeing as the clay was all out again!

I made the bowl fillers so that the snack mix can be seen from all angles:

Don't turn over the oven batch, though. It will not be recognizable as snack mix. 😂 Each batch received a coat of matte polycrylic. I considered using a glossier one to symbolize the amount of butter I know my Dad used (which just added to the absolute indulgence factor!), but then I realized that, no matter how much butter was used, it was never actually shiny! So, matte it was!

The House family is pleased with it just as it is! Some of the girls are crafting and snacking ...

... while Grandpa Bud (of course) and Penny keep a watchful eye on the batch that's baking:

Meanwhile, Hal and Polly have absconded with their own stash and are enjoying it under the close watch of hopeful Eleanor:

Over the years, I've done some tradition-mashing as we amend old ones and create new ones. This is one, though, that I love to continue. It's easy, and I always think of my Dad. This Chex Party Mix project definitely ranks as one of my very favorite. 💙💛