Hey, teacher!

I have many friends who are teachers.

Towards the end of last year, I had a significant stack of mini panic attacks as I planned (and re-planned, and re-planned) what to give each teacher of my child as an end of year gift.

Many websites will give you many different ideas and reasons behind them (written by teachers!), and all of them made sense no matter which answers were given regarding gifts!

Which, of course, made my anxiety worse.

One thing that I remember reading through my website hopping (not so much surfing, because I basically kept clicking until I found someone confirming that my idea was fine, which isn't that bad, is it?), was that teachers were a bit 'over' the whole Best Teacher/apple themed/A+ themed presents...

Which is why I was a bit surprised when one of those friends (a teacher) asked if I could make some apple/A+ cupcakes for her, as she wanted to give them to her students on the last day of Term 4 (as she was also moving to a new school far, far away).

Clearly, I need to stop using the internet so much to validate my thoughts and ideas. It just makes life more distressing. And while I'm at it, I should probably stop asking Dr Google to diagnose my sleep, skin, and weight issues, because he says crazy things like I drink too much coffee, stay up too late, don't eat enough vegetables, and I'm just not satisfied with that level of rationale.

Anyway, I made these cupcakes for her, as requested!

The apples were basically round balls of red fondant, with a small round indent (made with a chopstick) on the top that I stuck a tiny piece of brown fondant and a green fondant leaf into. I rested the apples around a cling wrap roll so that the leaves would set upright (See! I was actually aiming for realistic this time!)

A simple rectangle of black fondant represented a chalkboard, and the 'chalk' part of the chalkboards was royal icing. I wouldn't be surprised if soon the colours were switched around (white background and black writing), once all students will relate to is a smart board!

It was about this time when I realised that things were starting to look less realistic when the apple and chalkboard (clearly disproportioned) were placed next to each other on the cupcakes.

Still. An apple a day keeps Dr Google... on his toes.

Body sculpting...

I suppose I am lucky to be married to someone who is occasionally obsessed with exercise and fitness. He is a fountain of wisdom and knowledge, especially when it comes to building muscle, losing weight, eating right, and maintaining (or achieving) a healthy figure.

One of these days, I should actually listen to him...

A few months ago, I was asked if I'd be able to make a 'muscle arm cake' for a 21st birthday.

Using Husband's knowledge of body building, and my knowledge of cakes and fondant (and my excellent Google search experience), I made this cake for a friend's nephew's 21st.

Not having sculpted many cakes, I figured it was going to be tricky. I started by drawing an outline of what I needed to do, big (and small) enough to fit neatly on the cake board I had:

Using the cut out sketch, I shaped and trimmed the various cakes I'd made, and assembled them as best as I could on the board- looking as close to a muscle arm as possible- and covered them all in chocolate buttercream. The inside of the arm crevices were the trickiest, but we got there in the end!

Next, I had my skin coloured fondant (using my caramel colour that I seem to use for almost everything), rolled it out, and covered the cake.

After smoothing it out and pushing it into those tricky crevices, I trimmed the bottom and tidied up the board. The hardest part was done! ... Or was it.

I then needed to make a dumbbell for the arm to be holding (or it would be quite a strange looking cake otherwise!). This part was easiest, as I just needed to cover a small round cake in black fondant. There was a lot of guesswork for how the end little piece would look, though. It was made completely out of fondant and covered in edible silver paint. Of course, I used props from our home gym to help inspire me.

I can't remember exactly what I used to hold it up. I think it was a cling wrap roll, cut to size, that I got Husband to cut for me, considering my last experience. And to match the colour of an actual dumbbell bar thingy, it was covered it in duct tape.

Because I'm all about that class, 'bout that class.

The downside of Husband's incredible body building and exercise knowledge, is that he told me that my cake was all out of proportion- that the forearm was too big, and the bicep not prominent enough.

 Pfft... What would he know ;)

Happy birthday Sina!

Hulk, SMASH!

Today is my littlest son's 5th birthday! He started Kindergarten this year, and though we've been discussing the idea of a LEGO themed party, he was adamant about Hulk cupcakes/biscuits/something to have at school on his actual birthday.

A few days ago, I mentioned to Jonathan's teacher that his birthday was coming up, because (as per the usual birthday custom in our household) I was planning to make some baked treats to send to school with him to celebrate with his class.

His teacher had informed me that there's no nuts allowed, and that there's two children in the class with egg allergies.

Hmm... Well that rules out cupcakes (though I know there's plenty of egg-free recipes out there - I'm also lazy, remember? And I didn't have time to trial a brand new recipe to make sure it worked), so I looked into other things.

My next go-to baked treat is shortbread biscuits; but I use egg white to make royal icing, and fondant would have been too fiddly; so I seeked my favourite internet sites for what other Hulk inspired things I could make that are:

- Creative
- Simple
- Yummy
- Nut, egg, soy, gluten, dairy, alcohol, and cocaine free.

I'd found various jellies and custard-like desserts that had Hulk faces drawn onto the plastic cups, which I thought were pretty cool and do-able! So I showed Jonathan, but he didn't seem too impressed.

Through much pleading and bribery, he eventually came around to the jelly idea once I'd suggested it could be a different colour, and he demanded I make them red so they could be Red Hulk jellies.

Yes! A thousand times yes, I can definitely make them red!

Since I couldn't find my permanent marker, I waited until the jellies were set to add the faces.

It was a little tedious, and somewhat time consuming, but we managed to get there in the end, despite being slightly late for school.

With a system of gluing the mouthes, eyebrows, and eyes onto the cups one by one, they all eventually looked something like this:

At last, all Red Hulk jellies were completed and lined up in foil trays for ease of transport (something I don't often think of until it's too late).

With some spoons, of course. Because eating jelly with your hands is just messy!*

And finally, a photo of the birthday boy with one of his birthday treats ready to take to school :)

I think he approved!

... Or, he's constipated.

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY to my

funniest, craziest little boy, Jonathan!!

* Don't ask me how I know that.

Fancy.

I am not a fancy person.

I very rarely wear dresses, and even rarer than that - heels. I don't usually wear make up (though every time I do, I say to myself "I should do this more often"), and to even consider assembling my hair into anything other than a pony tail or bun is exhausting.

The fanciest I get is a flower in my hair, a little stroke of eyeliner/lip gloss, and maybe, maybe, I will shave my legs. And when I do all of that (because it happens so rarely) I most certainly feel quite fancy!

Melbourne Cup is Australia's premier thoroughbred horse race event, known as "the race that stops a nation". It is a day that could quite possibly be the fanciest day of the year. Fascinators that can catch the eye of anyone in a room, stunning shoes in every colour, and beautiful dresses that range from delightfully dainty to unbelievably freaking gorgeous.

I've never really been involved in the day. The most Melbourne Cup experience I've had included my mum coming home from work to tell us that we had won a sweep my grandfather had entered us [grandkids] all in - a tradition my mother has carried on to her own grandchildren (my children).

The staff at my kids' school all came to work looking very fancy for the day. My first thought was "Wow, everyone looks so handsome and lovely!" which was followed very closely by "I wonder how playground duty will go in those heels."

After seeing all the delightful dresses, suits and ties, and my son's teacher dressed as a "bookie", I went back home feeling quite un-fancy with my thongs, jeans, and comparatively plain top, and did the fanciest thing I know how to do.

I baked.

Using a similar idea I'd had with these horse cupcakes, and the same cutter for the saddle that I used making this Minecraft cake, I managed to find a use for many of those little bits of leftover coloured fondant I had no idea what I was going to do with (because another tradition that has continued in my family includes never throwing anything out), and made some Melbourne Cup biscuits :)

+

=

The stakes are low, and the bets are non-existent,

but I backed the green horse to be eaten first ;)

What a hoot!

Owls:

The ironic symbol of wisdom...

and an unhealthy sleeping pattern.

With their huge eyes, soothing hoo's, and... fluff, they're also a much loved creature by many teachers worldwide. So, as a 'just because'* reason, I made some owl biscuits for the teachers at school last week.

I used three round cutters - a big and a medium (for the body), and a small (for the eyes), along with some coloured royal icing and brown/orange mini M&M's:

For the melted chocolate outline, I tried something new this time. Previously, I would pipe straight onto the biscuit; but this time, I held the piping bag a couple of centimetres up from the biscuit. That probably doesn't make sense, but basically instead of 'drawing' onto the biscuit, I 'hovered' above the biscuits, letting the chocolate fall into place.

It worked great, and wasn't as rough as it usually would be when I'd pipe directly onto the biscuit.

And the best thing about chocolate on shortbread, is that if you make a mistake, you can just rip it off and do it again. Which happened to quite a few of them, as guessing where the chocolate will fall can be tricky.

Especially if you've had a glass of wine.

Originally, I wanted to colour them with all the colours of the rainbow, but instead chose six (really, it was only pink missing). Three primary, and three secondary to recall my own schooling. The owls were then arranged onto a round platter, opposite each of their complementary colours (I wonder if the teachers picked up on that)... ;)

Happy... School Day!

* It could also be a 'I'm so bored at home by myself' reason, too.

Back to school!

I will admit that there's times I wonder if I should've been a teacher. A teacher who finds amazing and unique <cough-fromPinterest-cough> artworks and activities for my students to do*, and a teacher who's classroom is always so neat and organised and colourful.

I convince myself that this could still be achieved despite my inability to keep my own house neat and organised...

It is colourful, though: It has a green chalk smear on that wall, a trail of white toilet paper through the hallway, blue toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror, red spaghetti still on the table from last night, and oh look, the lounge room is covered with bright and colourful toys and quilts... again.

Clearly, I occasionally have a fairy tale image of what a teacher is/does, making it out to be the easiest job in the world, when I know that it is most definitely not.

When these moments of teacherhood wonder and enthusiasm come, it's usually when I'm printing, cutting, and laminating pieces of paper, feeling super organised and creative.

But, suddenly that bubble of creativity pops when my hungry children start demanding that I make them food, and I look towards the clock to see that it's bedtime already and we haven't had dinner yet, when I realise that there is no way I could do this every day.

Which is why I am so grateful that there are people in the world who have chosen teaching as their profession, and who now get to look after (and teach, mentor, entertain, and care for) all three of my children all day so that I can have a few hours of silence to catch up on housework and not listen to kids (not just my own) talking/arguing at/to me for many consecutive hours over many consecutive days...

School has recently gone back. And by "recently", I mean 5 weeks ago and we're suddenly half way through the first term - and how did that happen again??

But, hey, better late than never, right***?

Since before the new school year started, I wanted to make something small but special for my kids' teachers. Being partly inspired by my stationary cake (which, really, could be given to teachers at any time of the year rather than right at the end when they have to wait for school to go back to actually use it); and also by various teacher gifts I'd noticed on Pinterest (during the 'procrastination lesson' I thought about preparing).

Of course, days went by, and weeks, and I still hadn't made anything.

But what really inspired me to finally make something, was when a friend posted this funny list of 'very real teacher ailments and diseases' on Facebook.

I thought the list was great, and with anything you think is pretty great - you want to share it. So I got creative and typed, printed, cut, and laminated them all for the teachers that have the, uh, pleasure of teaching my crazy offspring this year.

Of course, credit for this list has and still goes to A Crucial Week blog.

Fitting to the theme of ailments and diseases, of course, is hand sanitiser. So once the little lists were ready, I collated and attached them to a bottle of Germ Eraser Gel for each of the kids' teachers:

 With this picture stuck to the other side:

... Because germs aren't cool! But teachers are :)

* Because that's all teachers do, right? Painting and craft?**

** I'm totally joking.

*** Does this apply for birthday cards, too?

The reasons I eat.

I've been thinking a lot about my eating habits lately.

I've decided that to fully understand the reasons my brain convinces me to eat, I will do this little experiment and record how I'm feeling when I eat, for deeper insight into these trends I've been setting for myself.

So here they are; the top 10 reasons I eat:

1. I'm hungry.

2. I'm bored.

3. The TV is on.

4. I might get hungry later.

5. I'm happy.

6. I'm sad.

7. It's been more than 10 minutes since I last ate.

8. I need inspiration.

9. The kids are home.

10. It's so yummy!

And there you have it. The results from my experiment tracking the reasons I eat, rounded down to just ten.

... Now who wants ice cream?