Now we can cook

I bought a toy kitchen set consisting of pots and pans a few months ago so that Emma could play with it when she came to visit.  Since I could not afford to buy a toy oven, I obsessed for months about making one.  I finally recently found the right cardboard box to make into an oven.  With a little help from acrylic paint and silver duct tape I was able to transform it into this:

The oven door opens up too and is kept closed by the magnetic lock cleverly designed by my husband.

Total cost of materials = $20

Emma's delight when she saw it = priceless

Small is cute

I saw a fascinating exhibit of miniature paintings once at the Paper Mill Playhouse.  I was enthralled by them and I got inspired to make some myself.  Here are two samples I made as birthday presents for my two friends.

This one was for Debbie, my beach-lover friend.  I called it Heaven on Earth.

This one was for Robin.  That's her walking her dog on a cool autumn morning.

Recycling

Inspired by a craft book I bought about making stuffed animals out of old socks, I ventured to make a lady cat made out of Eric's old sock and Ana's old pink dress.  I wanted it to look like Sunshine (except for the fur) with big beautiful green eyes.

Here are the green eyes:

Beach buddy

My friend Debbie loves to go on beach vacations.  I think I made this floral arrangement for her on one of her birthdays.  I really can't remember, she's pretty young : ).  I tried to make it beach-themed using the sunglasses, shell necklace and woven straw bag.

Emma's Tangled birthday

For Emma's third birthday, she wanted a Rapunzel-themed cake (the Disney movie Tangled had just come out in the theaters and she loved it).  She loves all Disney princesses!  This was the most challenging cake I've made so far and I'm not totally proud of it.  It's too imperfect but Emma loved it! And that's all that matters to me.

And there's my dear Emma...

Legal Drinker

When my dear Ana turned 21, I made a beer mug cake to celebrate her reaching the legal drinking age... although she has probably consumed more alcohol than I have in my entire lifetime.

Oh the peanuts look fabulous, don't they?  Eric made them.  My kids are amazing.

Giant sushi for my sushi boy

My son Richie just loves sushi.  For his 19th birthday, I made this sushi cake and (as it has become a family tradition) brought it to his college.  We had a nice sushi dinner nearby and then had this sushi impostor for dessert.