Lego Crayons

 

Yesterday, our little red turned 3!

The boys picked Legos as their birthday.

We will be working this into their party on Memorial Day Weekend, but, we are also using Legos in this week's activities.

today we took all our broken crayons and made them into Lego crayons. The boys actually both loved peeling the paper and sorting the colors.

Grant is usually not a "craft" kind of guy but he enjoyed this activity and even after Clark left he stayed and continued to help mommy.

Grant wanted red Lego guys. Clark wanted multi-colored Lego blocks. I can't believe that they didn't argue over the selections! They had lots of fun tucking the cut up pieces into the molds. These molds were so worth the purchase.

Mommy made some blocks too :). After they were done they played with new "Legos" for quite some time. Grant loves lining up the Lego crayon guys. We'll use the ones that haven't been used as party favors. I may need to go hide them tonight.

 

FFA Banquet Cake

Last Saturday we attended the Red Oak FFA Banquet!  My husband lovingly asked if I would make the cake.  I lovingly said yes (completely forgetting a board meeting the day before and an annual report to present). And so . . .

BAM - a new first!  Yes, that is ALL buttercream frosting.  Yes, I piped it all.  I simply don't have the money to get a fancy edible icing paper printer.  If you're wondering that is a 1/2 sheet cake, double layer with filling.

If you look at the photo up close you realize how not so great it looks on close inspection.  However, it looked great if you just looked down the table.  When I was looking for ideas for the boys' birthday cakes I found a few blogs that used Buttercream transfers (just Google Buttercream transfer and you'll find lots of good tutorials including a video from Wilton).

You see, I am NOT artistic.  Regardless of what my middle school art teacher once tried to tell my mom and I at Parent/Teacher conferences one year - I do not have potential artistic talent.  My brother - totally different story - me no.

However, I've been told I'm somewhat creative and very resourceful (thank you internet era).  So this technique fit the bill perfectly.  Basically, you find a coloring book page or simple graphic (admittedly I chose a very intricate design for my first try), reverse the image and pipe it on waxed paper layer by layer.  Put another piece of waxed paper on top and smush it down a bit.  Freeze.  Remove top layer of wax paper, place on cake remove other piece of wax paper and hope you did just the right amount of smush.  Technical - I know.

Grant's cake idea became much more realistic when I realized this is actually possible!

We also took some cake truffles.  Blue and yellow (and yellow insides).  That blue was the Wilton Candy coating blue.  Sometimes it doesn't have to be the exact shade.

Finally, my little helper.  I love that a full sheet pan is nearly as big as he is!