Boba Fett Pizza and Darth Vader Brownies

I'm woefully behind on blog postings. I have photos upon photos taunting me to publish them with black and white words surrounding them on this blog but alas that part of blogging takes time I've not been giving it. Many things seem out of place to post after such a long time and give me more hesitation. Then last night I had an epiphany that I shouldn't care! I should just share. If it's a Christmas post in July so be it. After all don't we often find blogs and scroll through them out of time? And with the beauty that is Pinterest we can now pin those things we want to recall in the proper season. Are you a Pinterest addict? I'm in love. You can see my pins here and if you need an invitation to join the fun send me a message.

So without further ado I'll get the ball rolling with the Star Wars Day, May the Fourth Be with You! This one seems mildly appropriate to post today since my city is a buzz with DragonCon this weekend. I first became aware of Star Wars day only last year thanks to facebook.

In 2010 I  whipped up a Han Solo in white chocolate carbonite, three Yoda colored vanilla lollipops and a large Darth Vader shaped rice crispy treat. Darth isn't chocolate rice crispies. He's the regular with added food coloring for the dark lord. This year I couldn't repeat my goodies so I decide to use my Vader pan to make brownies!

But not any brownies, Double Choclate Oreo Brownies! If we're going on the dark side we need to go all the way. I gathered the above ingredients and got cracking.

Read More . . .

Read More...

The Buttercream Kitten

Know what that is? Not shredded cheese or shag carpet. That's a picture of my peanut butter buttercream frosting from my most recent cake, a kitten. I just want to lick my screen. I've loved frosting since I was a wee tot. My mom always made homemade birthday cakes with delicious homemade icing for as long as I can remember. I grew up thinking everyone's mom made their own birthday cakes and all frosting was delicious buttercream. The first time I tasted store bought birthday cake with its whipped, sweet frosting the notion I would make my own cakes was sealed. I've never taken a class to do cakes. Instead the first time I wanted to try my hand at cake baking and decorating I just called my mom. She came over to my house and walked me through her recipe for frosting, baking a cake and then how to pipe on frosting...all for a Darth Vader cake for my coworkers on the eve of the first Star Wars prequel being released. My first cake was so much better than Jar Jar Binks.

My mom gave me her old few Wilton cake pans and I've added to them through the years; I now have over 50 shaped pans. This is just a portion of my stash hanging in the basement.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Star Wars Rice Crispy Treats

Thing One had Rice Krispies for breakfast this morning. The sight of the box made Thing Two about bounce off the floor with the idea to make rice crispy treats...shaped like the Millennium Falcon and TIE Fighter. Thing Two would be the one with the Star Wars bedroom and Death Star birthday cake, in case you hadn't connected the dots.

He then promptly ran to the cabinet and retrieved this lovely box my man gave me for Christmas.

Inside it has Millennium Falcon and TIE Fighter sandwich cutters. I heart it but...

Read More . . .

Read More...

Ham Solo in CandyBaronite

I'm a fifteen year vegetarian married to a bacon loving omnivore. This doesn't cause conflict since he genuinely loves eating good vegetarian meals and I also indulge the meat beast within him from occasion. One such occasion of indulgence bore Ham Solo in CandyBaronite!

I was initially just considering dipping bacon in chocolate to make Christmas goodies.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Halloween Costume Recap: Catwoman

Best laid plans and having children goes together as well as oil and water. Halloween is a great example. You may recall Princess Fierce wanted to be Darth Fairy for Halloween. Yet she needed the costume made in advance to also be worn while watching the Dragon*Con parade. She loved her Darth Fairy costume and was convinced it was still going to be worn again at Halloween...

until...

well, until...

the boots.

These boots changed everything. Princess Fierce was given a nice $20 bill in her birthday booty. When we head off to Target to spend said money she sees no suitable toys. Instead her newly minted five-year-old self walks down to the shoe aisle. Wha? Did she just turn five or twenty-five? She tries on several things until she spies these black boots on a high shelf. From the minute they went on she was in love. She looks up at me hopefully to ask if she has enough money to buy them. Indeed she did. 

And indeed she did buy them. Then she said something else. Her heart bursting with future joy, her eyes lit up with excitement she says, "and now I want to be CATWOMAN for Halloween!"

But, but, but what about the Darth Fairy I made? *sigh* I had to admit the boots would rock as part of a Catwoman costume. And I couldn't forget her favorite person to find at Dragon*Con to be photographed with was...

Catwoman. However, I asked her if instead of being the Dragon*Con Catwoman I could persuade her to check out a much more child appropriate Catwoman.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Tony Stark and Abby Sciuto Halloween Fun

This weekend we had some early Halloween fun. My man and I had double Halloween parties on Saturday night and Sunday we took the kiddos to Boo at the Zoo. For the Halloween parties my husband thought it'd be fun to go as Iron Man. Since he's grown his hair out and sports a goatee I thought Tony Stark would be better. Plus I'd seen this instructable earlier in the year on how to make an inexpensive arc reactor and I'd been wanting to make it.

 One strand of battery powered LED lights and a 3" styrofoam disc. Total cost: $7.27

I cut the disc in half so it could be as thin as possible, then poked small holes where I wanted the lights to go.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Boys Tee to Girls Dress

My two oldest are boys, boys with shirts I love. My youngest is my only girl, a girl with a funky fashion sense. I like to get the most out of all the clothes I buy my kids and low and behold I've discovered how to make some of those boy clothes go all the way down the line to my daughter and in a way her inner fashion diva loves. All it requires is taking the best tees the boys have outgrown, finding a yard or so of coordinating fabric and adding a skirt. The boys' best tees become her spunky play dresses.

My oldest in the Dark Side of the Garden shirt two and a half years ago.

It all started with this Darth Vader topiary shirt. I found this amazing, super soft Threadless Tee several years ago at a consignment sale for $2. My oldest son loved it. Then it was passed down to my middle son. But one fateful day he decided to see if scissors would cut cotton. His query resulted in a small nick along the bottom hem. I was sad to see this shirt go before its time.  So I decided it didn't have to go yet. My daughter liked Star Wars...I could do something with this.

Read More . . .

Read More...

A Death Star Birthday

 We celebrated my middle moppet turning seven this weekend with the feast and cake of his own choosing. I spent the weekend making it happen creating my first ever stacked cake with a Death Star on top along with a buffet of baby back ribs, collard greens, corn, fried okra, mac and cheese, and lima beans. With a BBQ sauce mustache above his gorgeous grin he hugged me and told me it was a beautiful day. Happy Birthday, little man!

Making the Death Star come to life.

Read More . . .

Read More...

I Like Candy, Part Two: Darth Vader

In my previous post I mentioned the start of my new found curiosity for making candies and chocolates. It was all a lead up to this entry. I needed a reason to make a solid Darth Vader mask out of black chocolate. And I found it. My friend's fortieth birthday. He's a Star Wars fan; he'd appreciate it. I was very excited. I had plans to make Vader from a mix of milk chocolate and Bailey's Irish Cream. I was melting my large amount of chocolate over a double boiler fashioned from a large bowl when my bowl tipped, steam slipped inside the lip of the bowl, and my chocolate seized. I blogged about that mistake and the resulting yummy truffles here. What I didn't mention in the blog entry was in addition to the truffles, before I froze the chocolate seizure, I scooped out more and pressed the Bailey's-chocolate into my Han Solo in Carbonite candy mold. 

All his features didn't turn out perfect since the chocolate wasn't pourable and therefore unable to reach the small voids. However, after a toss in cocoa I thought he was decent enough to take pictures of with toys. And eat. I mean, come on, he's made of milk chocolate and Baileys. I think a dip in a hot cup of coffee would be the perfect way to release Han. 

Read More . . .

Read More...

I Like Candy, Part One: A Hunger Born

I was going to post about my chocolate creation this past weekend but thought I should do a first post to explain how this whole candy thing started. I've been baking and decorating shaped cakes for years for family and friends. Never for money or request. That makes me nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs since I'm self-taught, my only lessons being watching my mom decorate cakes when I was growing up in the eighties. Fast forward to this past February when my super fab next door neighbor asked if I'd bake a cake for her son's fourth birthday party. She said she'd pay. Oh my. I told her I'd do it for just the cost of ingredients and still felt trepidation. The theme was Lego; the design left to me. 

Originally I thought I'd do a giant Lego brick cake. Have you seen them? Basically a sheet cake with cupcakes on top all iced a solid color. Effective but I thought maybe I could do better. I did have a silicone cake mold of a Lego Man I had purchased at Lego Land. Maybe I could use that. I did a test bake in the mold and realized it would not work with cake. Cute as a brownie. But with added buttercream icing, because I do not, will not do fondant, the details would be lost. 

Then an idea occurred to me. CANDY! I'd always seen the bag of Wilton Candy Melts on the cake aisle at Michael's. Maybe I could make a candy man from the mold. And I did. And it was easy. And it was awesome! Then I made candy Lego bricks from a Lego ice cube mold. 

The cake was a big hit. And a candy love was born.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Making Darth Fairy

It all started with a google search that returned unexpected results, as so many things in my life do. I don't even remember what I was searching for when the picture of a pink princess Vader showed up. But the damage was done. My Princess Fierce saw it...and wanted to be it. We had an old pink dress from Halloween 2008 that I knew could be repurposed to this end so I told her I would make her one for Halloween. But then Princess Fierce did something better. She sparked her own creativity and decided instead of being a Princess Vader she would be...Darth Fairy! And she needed it created before Halloween so she could wear it to our annual viewing of the Dragon*Con parade on Labor Day weekend. 

For three years now we've taken the kiddos downtown the Saturday of Labor Day weekend to watch the Dragon*Con parade. The first year we barely made parade time and the kids were sad they weren't in costume like so many other specators. The next year we arrived sooner with two clone troopers and a fairy in tow. 

Two Clone Troopers on a MARTA Train last year

Read More . . .

Read More...