Homefront: Monster Birthday Party and Tie Dye Cake Tutorial

This monster party was mostly for me. My boys would probably choose an Angry Birds/Avengers/Minecraft party, but I still have motherly influence while they are young, so I can only do these cute themes for so long.

 

The tie day cake was a hit and super easy to do. Make your cake batter as directed. Separate it into bowls and color each one. Gel food coloring is brighter than the liquid drops. The more dye you use, the brighter the colors. Drop the colored batter in your pans, then take a toothpick to marble them around.

Once baked, the colors lose a bit of their vibrancy, but once you cut into the cake, the colors really pop. Slice off the round top of the bottom tier and place on cake stand. Frost the middle layer, than add the next cake on top. Use foil strips under the cake sides (as I show here) so the frosting is easy to clean off the stand.

For the monster, the edible method is to skewer two large marshmallows with a toothpick (as in this cupcake I learned to make a while back). But I was out of marshmallows, so I used a cake pick and wrapped it in foil, than just gooped frosting on it. The pipe cleaner antenna is best to wrap around a toothpick, than wrap the foil around it before frosting. I forgot about this step and added it after the frosting. So, my monster looked more like a melted alien after messing with it. For the cool fur texture on the cupcake, I used the star/grass piping tip, and a denser icing. The neat eyeballs are little monster eye candies sold in the cake decorating aisle.

These little pipe cleaner kits and monster masks were about $1 from Michael's. I let the boys glue them together with regular school glue, than I hit it with my glue gun for staying power, since we all know how they would fall apart in seconds otherwise. The boys had lots of fun making these. This was his first birthday he got to invite a non-family member. We made english muffin pizzas for dinner, though Isaac insisted on chicken noodle soup with stars. (He even asked me if he could sleep with the can.)

 Turning 7 and blowing out trick candles is lots of fun!

My 5 year old recently had a birthday in which I made a fun, sprinkle filled cake with vintage dinosaurs and we hung up tons of balloons in his doorway he could run through. Sadly, those photos got lost :( Sorry sweetie, if I ever find them hidden in a folder somewhere I will post them! When he blew out the candles, his wish was for "Jesus to come down so we could all see him and know he was there."

Homefront: Forgotten Chairs

Over the past many years, I have moved several times, and with each move, things have to go. I am not a sentimental person when it comes to most material things (aside from my horrific, towering, craft stash), but one thing I love is chairs. I miss almost every chair I get rid of, even stinky, broken ones, because I always think they can be fixed, and can be put in a corner somewhere. I really miss this blue chair. It was $7 at a garage sale, it leaned back, it was super clean, pretty comfortable, and a neat modern shape. It would have been super easy to slipcover or fabric spray paint. Oh, I miss that spray painted chair in that post tons too! But now, I can feel a little peace in my "Chair Addiction" Pinterest board, knowing that unloved chairs are being rehomed and rescued every day. Do you have a particular item that you have regretted getting rid of?

 

Homefront: Christmas Tour of Homes 2012

I changed my long and narrow living room layout to three separate areas from the two I showed last week.  so this is a little teaser. More on that in another post though, because today is Nester's Christmas tour of homes, and I finally feel festive!

 Isaac is in first grade, and he wrote me a beautiful story of his Christmas plans!

 

Until I find my mini nativity pieces, the lion and lamb ornament will keep this cute stable company.

 

 The candle is an advent candle. You burn it one dot each night, until Christmas Day it is down to the last dot. I love this book, A Special Place for Santa. For those who struggle with meshing Santa and Christ together, it tells a lovely story of the historical Santa, and how he ties into the Christmas story.

 We made festive, candied, chocolate dipped stirring spoons for hot chocolate or coffee for the kids teachers. Check out the tutorial, they are so easy and yummy!


2012 Christmas Tour of Homes via The Nester linky party 

Homefront: Living Room Split in Two

Well, we have been here a few months now and I have not actually shown a photo of this whole space aside from small glimpses here or there. Our one living area downstairs is both long and narrow, and we needed to create a few functional spaces here, a play area/computer area and tv area, so I split the room in half. My sis took these photos while she was visiting for Thanksgiving (hence the pumpkin decor), but as of a few days ago, I have already changed a lot of this around and put up our Christmas decor.

I still have some painting of furniture to do, lots of things to put up on walls and those two recliners fabric are in pretty bad shape, so that will need to be dealt with eventually, but so far it is a charming little home that works for us and is ever changing. I have restyled it now into three areas instead of the two shown here, so that will be fun to photograph and post about, but I can enjoy the metamorphosis through these images.