we strung fresh cranberries this year, which i really really LOVE LOVE LOVE. i think it's the rich, earthy red color that i love so much. i also thought it was a wonderful holiday activity for mimi. so i made some pilot holes in a bunch of cranberries for mimi so she could string them easily. i found that if you string them along the cores, it's very dense and hard to pierce, esp at the top, but it's stronger that way. you can pierce them slightly diagonal to the center, which makes it easier to pass a needle thru, but the skin tears easily without the woody top edge to hold the string in place. i tried using needles and a small drill bit and ended up preferring the needle. it's easier to pierce thru with a very large sharp needle than a regular small thin one.
i also decided a small cranberry wreath would be nice to hang over our family room mirror. at first i thought a large one would be really nice, but a small voice of reason asked if i really wanted to be poking on THAT many cranberries. so i opted for a 12" one. it took me all afternoon and into the night to finish getting all those cranberries on there. one DIY site said to use toothpicks and tuck them into the wreath. i was running out of toothpicks, even using only half of a toothpick for each one. by evening, i was using wire brads and hammering them in thru the cranberry and into the styrofoam wreath form. i will have to figure out a faster method of doing this for next year.
we also had our first big snowfall this weekend. sadly the kids didnt get a chance to play in it. i did take ozzy out while it was falling big flaky wet snowflakes, but he kept ripping his hat off and then shivering so we had to come back inside after just a few minutes. mimi was at korean school as the snow fell. if she had been with us, i think ozzy would have had more fun outside in the snow.
this is what the snow looked like from mimi's playroom as it was falling:
and finally, this past week mimi won first place in the cake decorating contest at her school. she has been bugging me for years to let her decorate a cake like the ones i make. i've given her many opportunities to decorate some cakes/cupcakes for rob/ozzy/friends, but not one made of all fondant. so she had her chance when the contest at school came up.
here's the plan she drew out for the cake. the original design she wanted to have a santa face on it and flowers all around the bottom. but on day two when she was actually confronted with all that fondant and stuck trying to make a santa face, she decided to try for something easier instead. since i had some christmas cookie cutters, she chose the tree cutter to replace the santa. and since i didnt have any poinsettia cutters, she opted for some holly instead. those blue things on the sides of the cake are little sleds.
i also decided a small cranberry wreath would be nice to hang over our family room mirror. at first i thought a large one would be really nice, but a small voice of reason asked if i really wanted to be poking on THAT many cranberries. so i opted for a 12" one. it took me all afternoon and into the night to finish getting all those cranberries on there. one DIY site said to use toothpicks and tuck them into the wreath. i was running out of toothpicks, even using only half of a toothpick for each one. by evening, i was using wire brads and hammering them in thru the cranberry and into the styrofoam wreath form. i will have to figure out a faster method of doing this for next year.
we also had our first big snowfall this weekend. sadly the kids didnt get a chance to play in it. i did take ozzy out while it was falling big flaky wet snowflakes, but he kept ripping his hat off and then shivering so we had to come back inside after just a few minutes. mimi was at korean school as the snow fell. if she had been with us, i think ozzy would have had more fun outside in the snow.
this is what the snow looked like from mimi's playroom as it was falling:
and finally, this past week mimi won first place in the cake decorating contest at her school. she has been bugging me for years to let her decorate a cake like the ones i make. i've given her many opportunities to decorate some cakes/cupcakes for rob/ozzy/friends, but not one made of all fondant. so she had her chance when the contest at school came up.
here's the plan she drew out for the cake. the original design she wanted to have a santa face on it and flowers all around the bottom. but on day two when she was actually confronted with all that fondant and stuck trying to make a santa face, she decided to try for something easier instead. since i had some christmas cookie cutters, she chose the tree cutter to replace the santa. and since i didnt have any poinsettia cutters, she opted for some holly instead. those blue things on the sides of the cake are little sleds.
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