A Couple of Fall Projects

I have wanted to make an advent calendar that was not about Santa Claus.  so for about 3 yeas plus I have been thinking about how to do this.  using the Greg Olson picture of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem as my inspiration I have finally made a calendar.  It was a challenging project as I had to figure out everything as I went along.  So with this introduction here is the finished project. The things that looks like mountains above the calendar are sofa pillows.  I do think they add to the image.  I hope my grandchildren will have fun with it for many years.  Joseph, Mary, and the donkey slide along strings one number per day.



Some very good friends of mine needed a wedding-cake for their sons wedding.  Not just any old wedding cake but a french wedding cake since the bride was from France.  I wasn't too keen on the project since it involved caramelized sugar and spun sugar which I had never been able to do very well.  But Trevor  overheard me turning it down and immediately challenged my decision.  He looked up on the internet how to do spun sugar and told me that if "that woman on the video" could do it so could I.  Needless to say I called my friend back and said I would do it specially after seeing what the bakeries were offering.  It was about a 30 hour project and the boys got involved with the technical side of making it so it would be able to be transported without falling apart.  I forgot to mention the wedding was 2 days after thanksgiving.  Anyway my friends were very happy with the finished result and here are some pictures of how we made it:

  this last picture is the underpinnings for adding the cream puffs.  the cake was just short of 1 yard tall.  My 4 year old grandson got up early and a checked the frosting while we were all asleep, but we were able to repair it.

The blisters on my hand from the caramelized sugar are almost healed up and I learned a new skill and Trevor and I had a fun experience making someone happy.