MOTW and more Barbie goodies

Hey y'all, sorry it's been a few days, been busy getting my kiddos ready for Back-to-School. My oldest started his Junior year of high school on Thursday and my younger 2 start 1st and 5th grade today. Yes our kids go back really early here! lol After having them home for a few monthes, it seemed strange for the house to be silent all day. I'll admit I slept for most of the day. I haven't been sleeping well for the last few weeks with my hubby being away at school so I guess I was catching up.

First off my MOTW (which I actually just took off today) was using the next 2 polishes in my first nail wheel. They are both by Sally Hansen. Royal Romance #2 and Lavendar Marquise #3. I started out with 3 coats of Lavendar Marquise which is a sheer pale pink leaning Lavendar. (the weird thing about this polish is there seems to be 2 variations of this color and I managed to get them both! One is distinctly pink while the other is more pearly with just a hint of pink (#4 in the wheel pic) even using 3 coats of each!) I had initally planned to do a french mani with the darker Royal Romance as my tip color. I tried using the curved tip guides and just couldn't get them centered right. So I decided to just sponge over it. While the edge of the tips still showed only up close, so I was really happy with my sponged gradient mani!)

Up next is a few Barbie items. I really should be cleaning and packing and all that good stuff, but I think I'm kind of in denial about this whole moving thing! :-( So I have been playing with clay!
I started out making a peach slice cane. I got the idea while eating my breakfast peach the other day. It took me some foodling and messing about to get the right colors for the peach flesh as well as doing a skinner blend to get the inner red shading you find in a fresh peach. I think I did this cane atleast 3 times before ending up with a color combo I was happy with! I ended up making it a round cane for ease of reducing, but simple cut each slice in half at the red center before gently shaping. I think they look pretty darned good! I spent several hours on Flickr searching for peach desserts looking for the best ways to use my slices. I'm happy to say I found several and look forward to making some yummy desserts eventually!

Bren's been baking again

She's getting into the holiday spirit already. Today she worked on cutout cookie. (I love them but find them WAY more effort than I care to put forth) After mixing up a fabulous sugar cookie dough, Bren cut out trees, stars, hearts and teardrops. I was a little confused by the hearts and teardrops but Bren turned them into masterpieces.

I added the How-to pics to my Flickr.com account HERE Just clike the Next -> button at the top of each picture to see the next step. Written descriptions are underneath.

Bren's Busy Baking!

Bren was sooo very excited when the mail showed up today...a package from Hong Kong! I ordered some more Re-ment dishes of ebay and Brens' chef whites arrived! She had to try them on right away. Ooops didn't realize the pants were capris, but
Bren says they'll be really comfy in the kitchen. Although we are thinking about adding a bit of lace to the hem for a little bit of 'flirt'! Our resident fashion maven Ellie declared that the red scarf would be better suited to tieing back Brens' hair. We both agreed!




After she got into her whites, she flounced off to the kitchen for a marathon baking session! I could hear the mixer going and bowls clattering as Bren sang along to the radio as she worked. She is a rather impressive baker as she got quite a bit accomplished today.
--Scrumptious Nibbles Sampler...Chocolate and vanilla butter cookies, jumbo cream puff, and a key lime tart in chocolate cookie crust. Also on this tray are a couple bars of the gourmet chocolate Bren uses in all of her chocolate dishes.
--5 layer chocolate and yellow checkerboard cake with whipped cream frosting.
--Black Forest Cake with buttercream frosting and homemade cherry filling
--Cream Puffs, Jumbo and MiniBite
--Bren's Famous Rich Dark Chocolate cake with Madagascar Vanilla Bean frosting!