Making, Baking and Creating

I love to bake and when one of my kids' birthdays rolls around, I'm all about baking,  making and creating. It's not to say that I'm great at it but I love to do it. So, whenever there's a birthday, you can find me in the kitchen trying to make something sweet for one of my kids, my husband, or a friend ;D

I think baking is easy. All I do is run to the cupboard--like Old Mother Hubbard--but instead of bones, I pull out cake pans and I don't always know what I'm going to make in the beginning but once I get going, something pops in my head.

It's easy to do. All I do is stack layers and cut and shape or simply decorate until I have what I want.

And, I have a BIG family so this fall I made more than a few cakes.

Here's how I did it.

I started with a couple layers of cake (this one was two pineapple upside down cakes that I stacked  together) because my son loves Pineapple... then I covered them with fondant.

And started to decorate.

I was only thinking of pineapple...so this is where I began. But then I had  to add a little bit more.

But Luke's birthday is in October and this didn't seem very Halloweenie . . . and I was thinking of scary eyes...so on the backside I added a couple of Oreo eyes

But that still didn't seem like enough...so I baked a couple more small little cakes...just in case

And I stacked those together to make pumpkins. Then I frosted them with some orange cream cheese frosting.

And to top it off, I used a PayDay Candy Bar as the stem. I guess I shouldn't have added the fondant leave because my husband said that made the cake look like an orange apple. Oh well, I never said I was  great.

And then we sang and ate and ate...oh, but first,  Luke had to blow out his candles.

I think this photo makes him look like he's breathing fire... and that  inspires  me  to make a  dragon cake...next time, I think.

Anyway,  I'd  love to hear about the cakes  you make,  bake  or create. 

 

Haunted Little Lending Library - it's Spooktacular

I've heard of haunted houses and haunted graveyards or even creepy crypts

But have you ever heard of a haunted Little Lending Library . . .? 

Well, now you have. See that ghost peering out the window at you -- or the spirits floating in the wind just above the doors?

Yep...my little lending library (which just happens to match my house--see the house in the background?) is haunted--at least during the month of  ShOctober ;D 

I just couldn't leave it alone...you might say I was haunted by the idea of decorating the little library. And, if you take a moment to look really closely, you'll see witches flying across the front and pumpkins and bats blowing in the breeze, just underneath the eaves. But that's not all...there's more to come.

We (as in my husband) will be installing a couple more things, including a teeny-weeny chandelier -- that will really light up (if everything goes according to plan). 

And another classic sconce on the inside wall of the library. 

I guess you can tell, I never had a dollhouse and always wanted one. But this is even better. My little library gets a lot of traffic because it's right on the bike path, next to a busy street. So, people stop by all the time to "check-out" a book. Of course it's all on the honor system. Books  are free to take and keep, I just ask that, sometime in the future, those who have taken a book, drop by one of the books they want to donate. It's a "pay-it-forward" system.

When I asked my husband to build me this lending library, he went all out. He installed hardwood flooring, wallpaper and even a chair rail on the inside. He had to handcraft the tiny siding to match the Victorian Gingerbread on our house and then he installed a cedar shake roof. I love this little library but, like I said, for the month of October it's totally haunted.