Coloring Eggs

This year we tried a new technique with our egg coloring this year - masking tape. We punched out dots with a hole punch and cut triangles and stripes. It worked really well to block the color from dying the egg. Once dry we peeled off the tape and re-dyed in different color. Max and Riley liked mixing the colors. It's probably best to use a dark color first and re-dye a lighter color second. 

Minecraft Creeper Cake

Max's Cub Scout troop had a cake decorating contest for the pack meeting this month. The contest had four categories, Cub Scouts, Video games, Spring, and Scary. Of course Max picked video games, and Minecraft is what he is all about these days. After finally settling on a Creeper character we got started.

We used 2 brownie pans for the cake (since everything in Minecraft is square). Max picked a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. After baking and cooling, we trimmed the cakes flat and put chocolate frosting between the cakes. We also added frosting on top just so the fondant has something to stick to.

For the decorating of the cake we bought Wilton fondant from the store, best decision ever! It was super easy to work with and so quick to get right to the fun part of decorating. Then separated our fondant into three equal parts and mixed in green food color making each a bit darker.

Then we rolled each flat and cut long strips of equal width. Yes I really used a clean ruler.

We then wove the strips together so they made a grid of color, no particular order because it's random in the game. To finish it, we rolled over the fondant with a rolling pin lightly to flatten and make it a solid piece and then trimmed the ends off. I saved all the odds and ends and kneed them together. I rolled this out flat and wrapped that around the cake body.

Finally we rolled out black fondant (note you can not "make" black from standard food colorings - you must buy black) to add the Creeper face. These are stuck on with a bit of frosting on the back. 

All done! You have a super easy and fun Minecraft Creeper cake! This fondant was so easy to work with I am going to use in again in another birthday cake project coming up.

Hand Lettering

Today I did another hand lettered chalkboard sign. I bought the chalk board originally to write dinner menu plans on but the kids just liked to erase the letters as soon as I put it up. For some reason when I do the hand lettering they leave it alone. So now we have a Lucky sign for a few weeks. This March is odd since St.Paddy's is tomorrow and in two weeks it will already be Easter! Time to dig out those baskets.

You can see my other hand lettering here and here.

Lucky Shamrock Badge

I can't believe we are already almost half way through March! Where did the month go? This Sunday is St.Paddy's day so we are getting ready to enjoy some corned beef and are laying out our green. My husband's family is proud Irish folks and we like to celebrate the holiday.

I was inspired by this post for Valentine Medals by Abbey Hendrickson and thought it would be great to adapt for St. Paddy's Day.  It's pretty easy to make and just takes a few supplies.

Paint your design on a 2 inch wooden disk. You can do any design or words, but I choose a shamrock.

Bend a piece of wire or in my example I used half of a paper clip. Tape the wire to the back of the wooden disk. Be sure to use a large enough piece of tape that it is secure.

Fold the ribbon in to a "V" shape and iron down flat. Fold over the tops of the ribbon and iron them down too. Put a safety pin through the top of the ribbon so that you can attach it to your jacket or bag.

Finally sew the badge on to the ribbon with a few stitches to secure it and your done. The badge is ready to protect you from bad luck or at least pinches...cheers to your good luck!