{butterflies and cake decorating}

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This is the dress I got for a friend who adopted a baby girl. It's from H&M and has the matching diaper cover too.

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I also made her some butterflies to put on the wall in the baby room. I told her she doesn't have to put them up, she could do whatever with them. But she did like them. She said the baby has a butterfly quilt in her crib so this was perfect.

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Babies are pure magic.
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Sienna wanted to paint butterflies yesterday. I drew the pattern on colorful cardstock and way we went. At the end she had black paint all over her hands hence the handprint on this one. :)
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Let them dry and cut them up. Bend the wings gently. Use sticky dots to attach them on the wall. Love these.
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Mine are so boring compared to Sienna's but at least I had fun painting too. Kids are such natural artists.
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I did go to the cake decorating class yesterday. I had so much fun! I didn't have a cake but a friend wanted me to decorate her cake as she was busy with other stuff. So ta-dah! - the very first cake I've ever decorated with cake decorating tips. Not bad for a first one. We learned how to make white looking frosting. You have to get "white margarine" (not all stores sell it). Normal butter or margarine makes it dirty looking. If you're not good at drawing free hand, you can print any picture and use it as a pattern. Then you get this clear gel looking stuff (I forgot what it's called already, you get it from Michael's) and draw the lines of the pattern right on the paper. Then you put the paper upside down on top of the cake and tap gently. The gel transfers on the frosting and then you have the pattern on the cake. Cool. :)
We did a very simple pattern due to a time limit. But you can go as crazy as you want with patterns and all the different tips. These kinds of cakes are fun for kids' birthday parties. If they have a favorite cartoon character, for example, you could draw that on the cake. Etc. The sky is your limit. The icing is way too sweet for my taste but kids love it. I want to find out how I could use whipping cream instead. I think there's stuff that you can use to make the wh.cream "sturdier".
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Here are the recipes, in case someone's interested:
Best Cake Ever
1 Box Cake Mix
1 ½ cups Water
1 pkg pudding (4 serving size)
½ cup Oil
4 eggs
1 TBSP Vanilla
Mix together the cake mix with the dry pudding - try to get out as many clumps as you can – using a wisk works well.
Add eggs, water, oil and vanilla and mix with a hand mixer for about a minute.
Pour into sprayed/buttered 9 x 13” cake pan and bake at 350F for 35 minutes.
Variations
Chocolate: Devils Food cake mix & Chocolate or Fudge pudding
Vanilla: White cake mix & Vanilla pudding
Lemon: Lemon cake mix & Lemon pudding
Spice: Spice cake mix & Butterscotch pudding
Buttercream Icing
1 cup White Margarine (Superstore has it)
1 tsp Almond extract
2-3 TBSP Water
4 cups Icing Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2-3 TBSP White Corn Syrup
Mix with hand mixer margarine, water, and flavourings with 2 cups icing sugar. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add remaining icing sugar and mix well. Add the corn syrup and mix again.
If you want Chocolate icing just add desired amount of cocoa (usually ¼ - ½ cup).
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There you have it. :)
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ps. I should have brightened the cake picture. The frosting was white. :)
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