T-Shirt Painting with Toddlers

Our 3 year old had a distinct lack of summer clothing in this unseasonably warm weather. We picked up some t-shirts from the thrift store--some cute, but some very plain. I immediately  made plans to spruce them up, then got the idea to include our daughter, hoping she was old enough to handle it. She was, in fact, absolutely wonderful.

She even had her own idea about how to decorate one of them.

 She had her heart set on the flowers and fairy from Harold's Fairy Tale.

 I cut freezer paper to the size of the front of the shirt and traced the pictures straight out of the book using a sharpie. The moon was the finishing touch--also suggested by my daughter.

 I cut the shapes out going along the outside of the lines. Then I went back and cut along the inside of the lines. I ironed the main shapes onto the shirt first, then carefully added in the inside shapes so that only the space that used to be lines would be painted.

 Then I managed to spill a bunch of water on it and I had to take some time to cry it out. The blowdrier worked pretty quickly. :)

 Finally! Time to paint! I set her up outside with some nice purple paint and let her go to town.

 She was so excited.

 She decided she was done once she got here, but she came back later and filled up the rest of the white space, just for good measure.

 She really layered on the paint, but it barely soaked through the other side. The newspaper in between the layers of the shirt was just in case it soaked through badly.

 It turned out wonderfully! Here's the fairy...

 And the flowers!

 Sooo cute! Our daughter did such a great job. :)

~Regina

Birthday Cake!

I've been working hard on a secret project for Every Creative Endevour's Creative Bloggers Got Talent contest. I got into the first round and am super excited to see what the other crafters do (and how my work compares to theirs). Fun!

Now on to my post... About a month ago, our daughter turned 3 years old! This is the first year she's actually cared about her birthday, so I was thrilled when she asked for a flower cake. I get to try to make a fun cake! Whee!

Nevermind that I've never done any sort of cake decorating before. I just sort of figured it out as I went, which is pretty typical of how I do most things. :)

The added challenge in this cake adventure was that 1) the cake and frosting needed to be dairy free (for me and our daughter) and 2) my husband only likes pound cakes, so if I wanted him to eat it, it had to be a pound cake. Picky man. ;)

Thank the Lord for the internet! I found a dairy free pound cake and an easy buttercream frosting recipe that would work well with a dairy free margarine. Everything baked nicely and whipped up nicely, so I was ready to go with my flower cake creating.


I decided I was going to do a standard 5 petal flower because they were easy enough to work around a circle and I just happened to have 6 4-inch cake pans in the cupboard. I baked the cakes the night before, let them cool completely, and then wrapped them (a lot!) in plastic wrap.

 The next day I unwrapped them and used a circle cookie cutter to cut off the edges so that all the circles were pretty much flat on the sides.

 I arranged them around the center circle to see how they looked.

 And trimmed a bit off with the same circle cookie cutter. I started with a small bit to make sure I didn't take too much off.

 Just about perfect. At this point, I spread icing on the inside of the edges so that the petals would stick to the center a bit. I was a bit skimpy on my icing at this point and the petals continued to move around a bit. I should have layered it on a bit more.

 Then I did a "crumb" layer of icing, just to smooth out the surface of the cake and take care of all the crumbs. Once that was finally done, then I could really frost this cake! The sides were the hardest for me. They never did turn out right.

 But, finally, after taking more of naptime, I got my flower cake looking decent. Then I remembered some sprinkles in the cupboard. Sprinkles cover a multitude of imperfections! :)

 I used yellow sugar on the petals and orange sprinkles for the middle. I was very pleased with how it turned out!

 Our daughter was thrilled with it.

 And it was yummy! Not quite like "real" pound cake, but not a bad substitute. :) You'll notice I also went pretty light on the icing. We aren't big icing fans around here. I was pleased with how well the icing spread and let me keep it thin.

Now we'll see if I'll be able to top myself for next year's birthday! ;)

~Regina