Humpty and Dumpy and Marshmallow Birthday Cake

I made a couple new guys from a new pattern that I have been sketching for awhile now. Their legs---or, more accurately, their feet are jointed. They are hilarious to me. I love the looks of polite little fellows in ridiculous attire.



My man is one. Unbelievable. I wanted to share his birthday cake recipe with you because it is super special. It's the richest cake I have ever eaten and definitely the richest thing that Walter has ever-in-his-whole-year-of-life tasted. The recipe comes from a Babe the Pig cookbook (my favorite pig). It's a vegetarian cookbook, though definitely not a vegan cookbook, as you will be able to tell by the copious amounts of butter required. The book was gifted to me ages ago by my beautiful friend Gretchen. It's a very good cake. Go make it and eat it to celebrate Walter being 1!

Great Grandma's Chocolate-Marshmallow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients:

Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated white sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut (I omitted this)
1 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package (10 ounces) large marshmallows

Frosting:
1 box (16 ounces) confectioner's sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
1 stick unsalted butted (softened)
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Butter a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan---butter is good.

Making the cake:
sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt.
In an ample bowl with an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter until smooth and creamy (5 minutes or so). On low speed beat in the eggs, one at a time.

On low speed, beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture until well blended. With a wooden spoon, stir in the pecans, coconut and vanilla. Spread batter into the buttered pan.

Bake in the 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the top of the cake is set and dry looking.

Remove the pan from the oven, place on a wire rack, and immediately cover the top of the cake with the marshmallows. Place the cake back into the oven until the mallows melt about half way, 6 minutes or so. They should be puffes and soft. Then remove the pan from the oven again. Use your mitts! Place on a wire rack to cool.

Making the frosting:
In a bowl, mix together the confectioners' sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter until creamy. Gradually beat in the milk until the frosting reaches a good spreading consistency. Beat in the vanilla. Spread the frosting over the marshmallow layer.

Yum.

Worker Bee

I have been very busy sewing and building up my stock for a photo session with Tall and Small at the end of the month. I have been surprising myself with how much I have been able to make. It's nice because through work, ideas seem to come. It's like magic. I made these simple mustache pillows to make my studio seem full of friends. I like them, I plan on making more and selling them in the shop.



My little man turns one soon. I wanted to make him a mini strong man as a present. He has already seen him, chewed on his arms and threw him at our dog. Why does he do that? Poor Albert.


Shelf is filling up! My back and arms start to ache after too much sewing. Walter and I are taking a day off and high-tailing it out of here to a bigger town with a book store and an indoor playground (and a hot chocolate with whipped cream).

Celly

Celly Cow is for a friend's daughter. I used to work with this friend ages ago in a cafe that was in a bookstore (a decade ago? Sheesh! When did I become able to measure my life by decades!?). She was so much fun, she slowly climbed up the ranks and became manager, but before that we used to play entire games of Scrabble in the back kitchen in between customers. It was my first job, and my favorite. I miss my clothes smelling like espresso and cocoa powder. There were huge windows there and I loved working in the mornings before the sun rose----baking cookies at an unseemly hour while the doors were still locked and then opening up and serving coffee to the same senior citizens day after day. It was great. So Rebecca (Celly's mom) has an amazing blog full of amazing recipes and useful information if you have ever been inclined to grow a vegetable garden. Plus, she is really witty so it' a good read (she wrote me the funniest letter after I gave birth and it made me laugh so hard that my weak bladder had me running to the bathroom every other paragraph).

Celly once went to a farm with her mother. Though the goats were cute and the pigs were pink, the cows were who stole her heart. She liked the black splotches scattered all over their ginormous bodies. She looked at the cows for a very long time and even imagined their splotches to be different objects from real life. She saw a splotch that looked exactly like an Easy Bake Oven. Celly wanted to lie down on the hay and stay over-night at the farm to see those tubbies jump over the moon. She wasn't able to, but when her mother gardens she gives Celly some alfalfa to munch on (a cow's favorite food) and Celly paints splotches on her clothes with mud. Then she lets out very loud moos and her neighbors peek out their windows to make sure their street hasn't been invaded by cows!

Monster Fiona

This little gal was a special special request. I had so much fun. It is going out to the daughter of a woman who brought my Etsy shop out of hibernation and then sprinkled it with sweet powdered sugar in the form of utterly cute feedback. She could turn writing feedback into an art-form. She calls her daughter "monster" and her daughter calls her "queen". They sounds perfect for one another. I can imagine the fun they have. Queen mom wanted a little Fiona doll in an Monster outfit for little monster for Valentine's Day. Here she is:

When Fiona heard the grumbling under her bed she didn't respond like an ordinary child. She didn't scream for mom or pull the blankets over her head in fear. Instead, she listened extra close. She grabbed her night cup from her night-stand and put one end to her mattress and then listened out the other side, like in the movies. The grumbling was rumbly and hollow and she immediately knew what the problem was. There was a monster under her bed. And, it was terribly hungry. Fiona, being the soft-hearted, resourceful gal that she is, scurried off to the kitchen to remedy the problem. She got two slices of bread and all the condiments within reach. Then she layered them artfully on top of one another until she had a very colorful sandwich. Then, with her best penmanship, she wrote the "Fiona Special" on a doily and put them both on a nice china plate (the monster technically was a guest). When she delivered the sandwich and lay back on her bed, she heard many satisfying gulps and then a belch, which though rude in some cultures, meant gratitude in "monster". The monster was floored by the kindness and culinary abilities of such a child. In return, the monster, being a gifted seamstress, stitched up a warm monster coat for Fiona. The monster made sure to prominently stitch on a bright pink heart for the kind little girl. Back in the land of Monsters, they have adopted the "Fiona Special" as their national meal.

In other news, I am very excited! I was offered a chance to be part of a book about doll artists. It will be featuring my studio, me, my dolls and it will include 3 patterns, and 9 other doll makers (I don't know who). It comes out in May of next year, but the photos and work for it need to be done by the middle of next month, so I am going to put my Etsy shop back into voluntary hibernation while I build up my stock for pictures. This means that I also can't take on any special requests for awhile (but I will be finishing up ones I've already taken, of course). My friends form Tall and Small are going to take the photos for me! Until then, Walter and I need to make my studio more interesting, I think.

Pink Cheeks Pillow Line!

I finally finished two pillows for my Pink Cheeks pillow line. I am having so much fun. I work on them between special requests. I draw little sketches for them in the kind of moleskine that's meant for comic book planning, so there are a bunch of quiet little pillow squares waiting to be designed. It is a perfect medium for the time being. It's suited to motherhood and my latest need for immediacy with creative projects.

A little bit about the line:

Each pillow is appliqued on 100% cotton denim, so they are strong, sturdy, soft and natural (how I like my men couldn't resist). They are stuffed with non-allergenic premium polyfill. I use machine stitching, hand stitching and embroidery to put things in place as well as this material called Wonder Under (sounds like a Captain Underpants sidekick) to keep edges from fraying. I make up what I do as I do it, so each pillow is a unique work of art waiting to fancy up your couch or send your child into dream land. On the back of each pillow is my logo, hand drawn with fabric markers.

I hope you enjoy them!

Katamari Ella!

This strange creature was definitely out of my comfort zone. Can you tell? But, I appreciate a good challenge. Especially if it's for a good friend. So, I had to transport myself back to geometry class and think about shapes and gussets to get this thing right. It is a Katamri Damacy character. And, I had no idea what that was, but from a quick Google image search I can see that she (?) is adored by her fans and has developed quite the cult following. She's from a video game. I'm sensitive to those. Do you remember when either a video game or a tv show was giving all these children seizures several years ago? Well, I think all video games give me seizures, I have a low tolerance. Or, maybe it's just that everyone is better than me at them. I never saved the mushroom princess, not once, even with the utmost concentration, the kind that lends children to stick their tongues out of their mouths. My brothers could rescue her in about 10 minutes, while eating sandwiches and carrying on unrelated conversations. Hmph. I do like games in the three-dimensional world, however.





Katamari Ella was born into this world with a need for speed. Her legs are still strange objects to her, beyond her control, but she knows one day they will be powerful things that will take her to magical places full of sugary snacks! Standing still makes her nervous. There's too much to do and too many shiny, beautiful things to look at. She can not bear to sleep to miss a single moment! Her parents have caught on to this. They lovingly rock her to sleep, the faster the better. The movement is soothing to her and eases her into dream land, where her legs make sense and do what they're told.

Huckleberry and Ella

I love special requests, but sometimes when they go wonky I like to retreat to my comfort zone of people in cozy bear suits. So, what would have been a blondie boy in a penguin suit, is now a blondie boy in a bear suit. But, he's sweet. And, the penguin boy was giving me trouble, so I put him in the corner with my scrap pile (let that be a warning to you, Walter not really). Hopefully the recipient won't mind. There weren't any parameters for this particular request, but the giftee's mom and dad like the Pittsburg Penguins, so I wanted to make a Penguin kid, oh well. I used a special kind of fur for this bear boy---it's called Sherpa fabric and it has a suede underside. It also feels softer than warm butter. It's so nice to touch. A comfy, soft friend is so the right kind of medicine in the winter time. My comfy, soft friend goes by the name Albert (my miniature pinscher). When he is on my lap, I get so lazy.

Huckleberry can ice skate like a professional. He is not sure how it happened, but ice skates to him feel natural and much more comfortable than any pair of shoes, even his moon boots. His favorite place to ice skate is on outdoor rings with real chilly winter air blowing around. He likes to go so fast that his cheeks turn as red as his heart and his face starts to go a little numb. It is even better when it is snowing because the flakes get stuck to his eye lashes and tickle his face. The very best part of skating outdoors though, is the coming home part. His parents usually make him hot chocolate so he can thaw his face out in the steam from his mug. Then he snuggles between them and they open their heavy, hardbound books, and read to him about various adventures.

Usually when I am planning new Pink Cheeks, I draw silly things and then I go through my fabric and pick things that work. However, my latest trip to the fabric store was really spend-y. I saw very loud, colorful prints and I grabbed them like hot-cakes. Not that there was a line of people waiting to buy them, I just didn't want my frugal Franny side to put them back. I am going to make a few masked vigilante ladies with them. Here is one. I am putting her in the shop today!

Ella is tired of bullies. She thinks they are ridiculous, silly little things. She doesn't believe in violence, but the next time she sees a bully bullying, she is going to throw on her mask and fuzzy boots and give them the stare-down. She's not sure how her plan will work, but hopefully she will weird one bully out enough so that he rethinks his ways.