Easter Cookies

My friend and I signed up for a cookie decorating workshop at a nearby bakery. I like doing things like this. It provides a few hours out to meet new people. You usually learn something. It's fun, and all the mess is somewhere other than your place. I highly recommend it.

Here is the "after" photo of how the cookies were supposed to look.

We had a couple of wonderful owner/instructors who provided us with great information and demonstrated technique. We also had the photo, and a workspace. First we practiced decorating using a template and a piping bag. It's not as easy as it looks. A steady hand is helpful.

Our partially *flooded cookies were ready for our touches. We would be combining food colour painting and piping to make our creations.

The small eggs were experimental. The others were...well, clearly also experimental. Some painting, more flooding, then piping. My bunny turned out looking like an angry mouse. The back of my lamb looked like not much of anything. My carrot...pretty good. Butterfly...passable. The flower and big egg...oh well. Just don't compare them to the original photo and they don't look half bad.

Next, we were given a delicious snack. Love those scones, one savoury, and one with raspberries. The lemon square was a highlight, and the punch was tasty.

Voilà! Cookies were dry and ready to be boxed and taken home for consumption. We each received a lovely graduation cookie as well. It was a successful day. I do believe I want to keep an eye out for further fun activities at this bakery.                                                                                                                                         

graduation cookies

*Flooding is the process of filling a cookie with icing. It is necessary to first pipe a "dam", let it dry, then fill the middle with softer icing which once dry, can be painted with food colouring. Making a dam keeps the icing from dripping down the sides.

         

Hangin' In and Where I've Been

For the one of you that still looks at my blog from time to time, yes...I'm still here. I don't have that much to say these days. Unusual for me. I have several projects on the go, both real and imaginary and as such have lost my will to write. Wait. That would never happen! Perhaps just my motivation, inspiration, and energy have temporarily gone in other directions. For example, I have been planning ahead (far ahead I hope) and have been composing the story of my life in three pages. I decided three pages will suffice to give an overview, and give me the last word. After all, people will be wanting to rush to get to the funeral sammaches.

I've also been studying our house to see what I might do to brighten and refresh the place. It's too beige and too boring. It makes me sad. I don't like boring and beige is so 1990's. I must say though that the modern florals and stripes with florals on florals and more stripes are not going to happen in this house.

Here's a follow up to my hive blog. I have hives. Did I mention that? I have had hives since the new year. After endless doctor visits, it has been determined that I have hives and am fortunate that they have improved slightly. "Some people have them for ten years," I was told by the allergist, in what she surely thought was a reassuring voice. Then she added, "You've only had them for 3 months." Wow...I felt so much better. Clearly I had won the hive lottery in some way. Or had I? After all, I still have them and now we're heading into the fourth month of 2016.

Tonight as I was bathing, I decided that I had probably sung and danced to Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" once too often. My decollete area (this word sounds better in French and the area looks better on a 25 year old), felt as if it were covered in scales. I keep thinking if I ignore the hives enough, they'll give up. No such luck. In fact, they rather multiply and become more persistent when I do that. They clearly demand attention.

A few weeks ago, at Easter time to be exact, we were in Germany. Their spring season has been delayed much as ours has, but nonetheless, it was a wonderful trip. We had great, albeit short visits with family. Here are a couple of my favourite photos. The first is the historic house in which I was born (historic because it was built in the 1500's not because I was born there). The second is a picture of the Schlosspark. On the hills toward the back of the picture lie two castles Windeck and Wachenburg. Hubby mentioned he'd never been up there despite previous visits. I was surprised, so we travelled to both castles, partial drive, partial climb. Needless to say, my knees launched a protest and the fitbit easily hit 13,000 steps that day.

Here's a view of my birth town looking down from one of the castles. Pretty isn't it?

I was fortunate to come away, as always, with some decor ideas, a few new recipes, and an idea of what hubby would really like for his birthday this year.

Easter Fun 2014

I haven't been home much. After a recent trip, I came back for about a week before I began my annual work session. Since I was once again living in a hotel, this time for two weeks, I had to find some way to entertain myself. I no longer felt the need to go into the city or to an event. Old age and exhaustion in the evening seem to have curtailed my gallivanting.

I recently dreamed up the idea to have an Easter egg hunt for my adult children. After all, who doesn't love to relive their childhood with a little fun? While strolling through and enjoying the dollar store, I had an idea. I would spend my Holiday Inn evenings making a papier-mâché  head of each of the "kids".

Styrofoam balls seemed like an easier choice than balloons for the base, although they didn't totally replicate the head shapes of everyone. On the other hand, if you want to make these using balloons, you could use these as Easter baskets and fill the heads with Easter goodies...slightly creepy. I didn't have enough time to put that many layers of papier-mâché on balloons. 

So I sat. Evenings were spent in the hotel room creating heads with papier-mâché while watching baseball. I wondered about the potential reaction of the housekeeping staff upon discovering these in the room, but figured at this point, they'd pretty much seen it all. 

 I inserted doweling in the bottom of each styro ball in order to make it easier to hold while working. I also used sponge and other smaller styrofoam bits and glued them for ears and noses. It was pretty easy. I had brought a flour salt mixture from home and only needed to add water. The hotel supplied a daily newspaper. I covered each ball with one layer of newspaper in very small strips and when dry, one layer of white paper (one sheet, liberated from the hotel printer)

Inserting the doweling into an empty wine bottle was a good way to get the heads dried evenly. It is essential to drink wine prior to, and during this activity in order to have an empty bottles.

For  hair and eyes I relied on my craft bin and costume collections. Most things however, are available from the dollar store including paint. I found the mouths to be challenging. I had no idea how to create these and my heads were mouthless until I was back home.

My son's head was most difficult since he has some unusual piercings and ear holes. An earring through the nose and magnets to represent his ear plugs looked ok. Since I haven't seen him without a cap in eons, I also created a hat for him. His girlfriend had purple and black hair last time I saw her. I was in luck on that one with an old purple wig. (Unfortunately, she sported green hair this weekend...too bad). I decided to print their mouths from a photo and glue them on. It worked.














So those were the finished heads. What did I do with them you ask?  I used them as the beginning of an Easter egg hunt.

At the dinner table, each person had a small treat box. After dessert, they opened the box. There were goodies and a slip of paper saying, "Find the head that represents you and there you'll see your very first clue."

Each subsequent rhyming clue lead them around the house where they located things like candy, eggs, toys and a gift card. In order to avoid disputes, they each had their own clues and colour of baskets with gifts. The last clue asked them to find a golden egg for an additional treat. The whole thing was quite a big hit, although the most fun of all was the laughter when they first laid eyes on the heads.