In a previous life I built props for theatre. At any of the theaters I was at I ended up being the fake food maker and cake decorator. You make a foam cake and then decorate it with some weird plasticy stuff – I can’t remember. My stage cakes looked pretty good – but I never got into decorating real cakes.

So, for Baby Girl’s birthday she wants a ‘my little pony’ party – easy, no problem – Target has all the stuff. Somehow though, the grocery store – who has every kind of character cake imaginable – doesn’t have a ‘my little pony’ cake. So when we were away last weekend I bought the cake decorating kit at Michael’s. I thought there would be enough instruction to figure it out. The kit came with lots of great stuff – BUT NO BOOK! That’s why I bought the kit! Oh well – we did a trial run today, to get ready for next week. It’s a little standard and hokey, but she was pretty happy and I think in the end it’s kind of cute for a 3rd birthday.

Next week it will be a big sheet cake. I used Martha Stewart’s yellow cake recipe and the frosting is from the KitchenAid cookbook that comes with the stand mixer. I also bought the concentrated icing color at Michael’s – I might need to use a little less for the real cake!

disclaimer: all photos today were taken with the camera phone.

Thanks to Amanda! She bought my first sock bag from etsy and sales continued all week…
so I added 9 new bags…take a peek!

I am so excited to be a part of back tack III. Number II was one of the first things that really impressed me when I was really getting into reading blogs (besides discovering Bloglines).

So in preparartion I decided I better make one of Hillary’s Pointy Kitties for Baby Girl as a test run. Here’s the body and head waiting to be stuffed and stitched together. It’s so silly, but it always kind of cracks me up to have a creature in parts on my desk!

Last week while surfing – we were supposed to be working – The Boy and I bumped into the Wurst Gallery – we gocco show. It was funny because we had both found it separately and then forgotten to show each other. We bought Kate Bingaman’s set of prints. We both loved them – what an easy buy!

I focused on one project this past weekend and I made a bunch of Sock Knitting Bags! Just perfect for carrying around your sock knitting. I’m really happy with them. Each one is about 10″ by 9″ and holds a skein of yarn and two circular needles. I really enjoyed making my little ‘cafe crafty’ tag – I can’t wait to try more ribbons and paint. The bags are for sale in my etsy store. Enjoy!

secret pal yarn, originally uploaded by cafe crafty.

We have a PO Box for our mail and somehow we hadn’t checked this week until today – and there was a little key waiting – which means there is a bigger package waiting. I was so excited to find knit picks sock yarn from my secret pal! Mindy lives in Iowa and is getting married soon! Thank you so much Mindy and good luck!

We watch TV.
Baby Girl likes the ads.
So – in honor of our current ad obsession…
FLOAM

We had to Floam a dinosaur

Valentine’s Day bags, originally uploaded by cafe crafty.

I made these little bags as gifts for Valentine’s Day (forever ago) and then realized when I was knitting my sock that it was the perfect size to carry my sock yarn and circulars. I love my Lexie Barnes bag, but it’s nice to have something smaller to throw in my purse. I’m going to make some more to put up for sell on etsy and see if any other sock knitters agree with me.

In the series about the only books I’m currently reading (installment two) these are Baby Girl’s two favorite books – currently

The T. Rex book and the Body book are both really well made and interesting. Baby Girl knows so much – and The Boy and I have learned a lot!