Birthday Craze- A tale of five balloons

For my youngest daughter  birthday party I chose her favorite book- an hebrew book called "A tale of five balloons" by Miriam Ruth.

It's a nice story, one my husband and I were also told when we were young, and I thought that using balloons as a theme would be easy.
I decided to focus mainly of the desserts table, and chose the red balloon, which end the story to limit food coloring to the minimum.
As I catered for both kids and adults I tried mixing high-end desserts with sweets I know the kids enjoy.

The real challange was the cake. I bought this baking pan from Ikea, and had a bit of a hard time figuring out the baking time required, as I had to use more batter the I usually do, but I managed.
You can see the results of my first trial in those little cups with cream on top. it was a hit! :)

After I had the cake I had to decorate it, and seeing how I hate fondant icing, I went for chocolate, except of course for the red balloon.
I decided to draw the ending secene from the book and put it on the cake:

In hindsight I should have used white chocolate

Drawing with chocolate turned out to be quite easy. you print the painting you want, put a ppc film on top and draw with melted chocolate and a thoothpick. after you let your drawing dry completely, you attach it to the cake and carefully remove the clear film et viola!

I also baked red velvet cupcakes, and tried to use as little food dye as possible:

remember the unsuccessful cake? i devoured it with a fork and added some red sparkes and ta da:

I also made my all time favorite oreo's and cream cheese pop cakes, always a success:

Baked some balloon shaped butter cookies (I didn't have a balloon shaped cookie cutter, and was to lazy to create one from foil paper, so I improvised with a knife... could have been better). the top is royal icing and the ropes are sour candies:

And my favorite, jelly candies and home made marshmallow in little jars:

Happy Bday sweetie

Feel free to ask for recipes.
Tal

Finding free patterns on the web

Even tough I know feel brave enough to try and draw my own patterns, it took me quite some time to get to this point, and even know I prefer to sew base on a known pattern, drafted by someone much more qualified than me.
Finding free patterns is quite easy actually, though I must admit I prefer those who come with a detailed tutorial (I promise to make some of my own really soon), and those are a bit harder to come by.
The second thing you should look for is the sizing. free patterns usually come in one size- the pattern's maker's kid size... and even than, there could be huge differences. for example: I sew two identical dresses for my girl- one in a size 5T and the other in a size 2T, only to discover the 2T fits better on my older daughter (but as a shirt cause it's too short for her), while her 5T dress would probably fit her best in a couple of years or so.

I use Pinterest most of the time, as it is much easier than googling, and much more convenient to store links as everything has a picture to remind me of the content of the link.
you can see my SEWING board here. Feel free to follow.

One of my favorite paterns is the Muu Muu dress pattern by Pretty Prudent. I'v tried it from different fabrics, with long and short sleeves, and loved it everytime. It's quite easy and could be a great started project if you're taking your first steps in sewing

This was my first dress from this pattern:

What do you think? Have you tried using this pattern? I'd love to see which fabrics you chose

Sew much?

It all started about three years ago. I was pregnant with my second daughter and was nesting non-stop. my older daughter was about to turn two and I was palnning an unforgetable birthday party. I was always into baking and hosting, and so this as a great oppurtinty to show off our new home. (I promise a seperated post on the party)
Looking for gifts ideas I came upon a blog giving away a free dress pattern for a two year old, and thought that could be a great gift (along with the photo books I make each of my girls every year and the pretend kitchen I upcycled along with my hubby).

Some googling and I found an online fabric store, ordered some fabrics and decided to give it a try. I sew by hand, as I didn't have a sewing machine and really didn't know how to use one. It took me a couple of weeks, sewing when no one else was home, while watching TV or talking on the phone, but it was ready just in time for the big party... and my daughter LOVED it!
By than I was hooked and asked for a sewing machine as a my birthday gift. I got a vintage singer, at least 80 years old, with only one stitch and bobbins I had to thread by hand, but I enjoyed evey second of it.
As time passed by I realised I needed more out of my sewing machine and ordered Janome DC1050 from Amazon. Now I could sew zigzag stitches as well (not to mention buttons, zippers and stitches I'm still not sure what they're meant for). another year has passed and I wanted to start sewing knits, only to discover my machine didn't respond well to them, oh the disappointment.
A couple more months had to pass until I finally decided I need a Serger much more than I need a new cell phone (my screen broke abotu half a year ago, but it's still working), and bought the JUKI 644D. and ever since I sew much more and enjoy evety minute of it.

In this blog I want to share my love for sewing, baking, and  DIY crafts in general
Would love to hear your thought and comments
Tal