Halloween

Okay, I'm really slacking at this blogging thing. Since starting Etsy, whenever I am online I'm busy with that...

I don't really have alot to update on, but I do have a couple of Halloween pictures. Ray and I didn't have a Halloween party this year, as we do most years, since we really didn't know what his work schedule would be. He actually ended up having it off, so we just sat home and watched scary stuff on TV. I dressed up, since I had already gotten the teeth for my costume.



Ray didn't dress up, but he did do all of the candy giving, and ended up getting a little too "festive" with the candy eating, himself. And, YES!, he will kill me when he finds I've posted this picture. :P



Ray is currently over in Pennsylvania. He left Wednesday and won't be home until the 19th. Then his rig here in town should be going out, so he still won't have any time off. Halloween was the only days off he's had in at least a month. But as he says, "too much work is better than no work at all..."

My Etsy Shop

Okay, I've been working on my shop on Etsy for about a week now. I have a few items up for sale, though I still need to go back through and take better photos of them. I was in such a hurry when I put them on that I wasn't worrying about the quality of the picture. lol... Yeah, I know that's bad. You're photo is what sells your merchandise. Anywho... I chose my shop name to be "The Red Canary" lol... I thought it was cute. :)

Etsy Buy Handmade theRedCanary

I've been having fun making things for it. I even have a custom stamp with the url ordered and on its way, and I have sew in clothing labels. :) yay!

I'm not doing this as a job or anything. I just love making things, and there's only so many things you can have around the house. :P I figured this way I can continue to make things as a hobby, but have a reason for it as well. If they sell, great, if not well... I had fun making them. :)

More cake.

So, I decorated a couple more cakes this weekend. One was for my dad's family reunion. They were doing a Mexican theme, so I made little red chili peppers to place on top of the sheet cakes.


The other cake I made was a two layer cake made for my mom's birthday. I used butter recipe chocolate cake mix, and I filled it with bittersweet chocolate ganache. Yum! Her favorite color is light yellow, so I made yellow roses. I went to Allred's (floral nursery) and found a cute little hummingbird pick for flower pots, so I place it in the cake as well. :) I had a hard time getting the icing smooth, but for my first attempt at a 2 layer, I think I did okay. :)




It took me nearly 8 hours to make, but I'll only get quicker in time - I hope... Lol.

Course 2 complete

So, last night was Jen and my last day of Wilton II. Wilton III starts next Thursday. To complete the class we had to assemble our final cake with all of the flowers we made and dried throughout the course.

The first picture was taken on my phone, so it's not quite as clear:




I had this next picture on my phone, and while I was transferring them to my computer, I figured I'd share it. This was when Summer came out to stay the week before the family reunion. My mom and dad both had to work, so I was watching her for the day. My mom couldn't leave work for lunch, so Summer and I took lunch to her. While we were visiting, I guess Summer decided that I needed a facial, so here it is:

Then these are just a couple of pics of Sadie cuddling in her mommy's lap. :) She's so cute.

Cake time!

So, Jen and I have passed course one in the Wilton cake decorating class. Thursday starts course two. Can we do it? YES we can!!! (okay, I've apparently watched too many kids shows with the kids.)

I made a chocolate cake with a mint center. I had once slice of it after class, but luckily I had a friend (Brandy) who was daring enough to take it home and eat it with her family. lol... Thank goodness because I probably could have eaten the entire cake! Yum!!

Okay, so originally planned on making a white cake with a strawberry jam center. I stayed up extremely late Wednesday night baking the cake, and figured I'd let it cool and ice it in the morning, before leaving for the city. Well, The next morning I uncovered the cake. I went upstairs for, and I'm not exaggerating, about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. I came back down to this:



Sadie had been eating my cake!!!! So, I chucked it. Luckily, cake mix was on sale 2 for $3.00, so I had bought two cake mixes the night before. I had a chocolate cake mix on hand, and had to hurry and bake the cake, let it cool, level it, tort it, fill it, ice it, and smooth it before leaving around 1pm. Needless to say, my cakes now cool on top of the refrigerator.

Our instructor insisted we get pictures of our cakes, and of ourselves with our cakes, holding our certificates. I look like I'd been through the ringer, but I'll share anyhow. :P







I did my roses peach. I was pretty proud of the roses, even though they kept toppling over. I still can't quite get sweet peas, and I definitely need help on the bow. lol... My practice ones were so much better. :P Oh well, practice makes perfect, eh?

I'm excited to start course 2 on Thursday. We're going to start learning some really neat flowers. :) Wish me luck!!

Crawfishing.

So, Ray and I have been trying to catch crawfish all season long! With this unpredictably cold weather, we've had no luck. Well, we decided we had better give it one last try, before calling it quits. We went up to Monas (sp?) Creek, threw the traps in and decided to go for a ride around the country side. We went up to the canyon to scope out some camp sites, and then came back. After and hour and a half we pulled our traps and...



Crawfish!! Okay, so not the biggest catch in history, but it was pretty exciting to us. lol... We put the crawfish in the cooler, threw the traps back in the water, and headed to my mom and dad's house to freak my mom out with them. We even made her watch, as we boiled them and ate them. (and yes, I sucked the head. lol...)

When we went back to gather our traps, we had a few more crawfish in them. We ran to the store, bought some shrimp and decided to make it dinner. There wasn't enough to justify pulling out the big outdoor crawfish pot, so I just boiled them on the stove. I put so much cayenne in the pot, that walking in the house was like being sprayed in the face with mace. lol... Ray loved it, I got heartburn. lol... It was worth it though. :)



A couple of days later, Ray and I went camping. I made my first quilt to put on the bed in the camper. Not the best quilt in the world, but it's just a camping quilt. Tada:



This was Sadie's first camping trip, since we never found the time to make it out last summer. She had a blast! I had too many pictures to just post one at a time, so I made a slide.

Unfortunately, on our way home Tuesday morning Ray checked him voicemail, since there's no service on the mountain, and he ended up being called to work early. There were some problems with Ray's relief on the rig, so they needed him to come out and fix the problem. Hopefully the guy they've hired to replace Ray's old relief will be able to keep things together enough that Ray can actually spend his entire days off, actually off! :P

Father's Day

Once again, Ray worked on Father's Day. He was actually going to have it off, but his schedule changed so he worked it. I can't remember a Father's Day that Ray has had a chance to see his dad.

I, as we all know, went to Heber with the fam. :) It was fun seeing everyone, even though I ate 2 cookies and 2 pieces of Laverne's rhubarb cobbler, yum! :P It was a little stormy driving out. We hit a massive hail storm and had a hard time not sliding all over the road. The drive home was much calmer.

Sherie showed me the quilt she's making. So cute! Now I'm jealous. I haven't dared venture into quilt territory with my sewing machine, yet. lol...

Jennifer, Steven, Summer, Violet, Ray and I got my dad a new flag for Father's Day. His flag on the flag pole was getting tattered from the wind. He was REALLY excited about it. We put it up last night, and he just sat outside and stared at it. :) His flag pole is pretty special to him.

After putting up the flag, my mom came over and helped me set up my patio set. I figured that now that I have a back yard, I can actually enjoy it out there! :) (I'll take pictures when I get the patio cleaned off. lol.) Ray bought me the set for my birthday a couple of years ago, but we never really enjoyed it too much because we didn't like eating dinner out there in the dirt. lol... Then we colored her hair and watched Amazing Wedding Cakes and Bridezillas. I don't think my mom knew there were people out there that actually act like that. lol... It was pretty funny. Oreo and Sadie were pretty excited to see her, and they mauled her do death! They drive me crazy!!! lol...

Wow, the excitement of my life. lol...