A Bit Of Sunshine In Mid-winter

This was the beautiful winter scene outside my front window... almost made me like winter. Almost. 
Fighting seasonal depression up here in the Northeast feels like an uphill battle. That I often lose. (Oh well, cant win them all.) However one of the bright spots to this season  is the birthday of my son.  I had a couple of projects to make for the occasion. 1} a pinata 2} a cake. 

 1} At first I was just going to buy a pinata, but the ones I saw at Wal-mart cost around $15! Too much. I very often look at over priced items and say to myself, " Psshhh! I can MAKE this!" (Even about things like outdoor furniture and shoes. Bad?) I just hate buying stuff I know I can make.  So I made mine out of a pizza box. It was pretty easy, but a little time consuming. 

Of course the pinata was in the design of a soccer ball. I started by cutting the pizza box into two circles. Then I cut the rest of the box into 2 inch strips that I hot-glued to the circles. Next I covered the whole thing in tissue paper. To make the sides of the pinata a little frilly I cut strips of fringed tissue paper and glued them all along the sides. I then printed out a picture of a soccer ball and pasted it to both sides. To add a festive touch I attached colorful ribbon to the bottom and curled. The finishing touch... candy! Done.

The pinata full of candy and trinkets.

I was sad to see it hit to smithereens...

2} Then came the cake, yum! I was inspired to make a sort of  Rainbow Cake. But, I thought that maybe doing a legit rainbow cake would be a lil too girly. So I only used 4 colors and called it a tye-dye cake, lol! Anywaaaay, it was another very easy project. I split the store bought cake mix into 4 bowls and used gel food coloring to make the colors I wanted. Then I took a measuring spoon and dumped the different colors on top of each other. 

Before baking.

Most of people in my family are not big fans of regular cake frosting. So I attempted to make a whipped frosting at home. It was a disaster! A bad recipe I guess. So I had to run to the store and buy the frosting that comes in the tubs. I modified it a bit by adding some half and half. It came out very good, more smooth and light than usual frosting. I think I will do this every time I buy frosting. The cake tasted soo good.

Half-eaten piece. Wish I had this right now! mmmm

*Nik*