Flag Cake

For the last three years, I've been making this cake on the 4th of July.  The boys have fun helping to add the blueberries and raspberries and turning it into the American flag.  This photo is actually from the one I made last year as I forgot to take a picture of this years.  We were in a hurry to get over to a friend's house for a cookout.  The town they live in has an annual fireworks display and where their house is, we were able to enjoy the fireworks from their backyard.  Really nice!  Not the best of photos I'm afraid.  But here it is:

I've seen different variations of it, from Martha Stewart to Pioneer Woman's.  Their cake recipe is made from scratch but turns out a much larger cake using 12 x 18 baking sheets to bake the cake in.  In fact, Martha's recipe calls for 2 recipes of the cake (to make a 2 layer cake).  Guess it would work well if you want to feed a crowd!  I have made Martha's recipe, using 1 batch and baking it in a 9 x 13 baking pan for a 1 layer cake.   A recipe from Family Circle Magazine I came across used 2 white cake mixes, doctored up, for the cake base.  That's what I used this time.  I love to bake from scratch but sometimes for ease, I pick up a Duncan Hines mix and add a few things to it. 

Love the addition of lemon zest and juice to the cake mix and juice to the frosting.  Pairs well with the fresh fruit and lends a fresh citrusy taste.  It also helps to cut into the sweetness of the frosting and cake. 

Festive Flag Cake

(adapted from Family Circle Magazine)

Cake:

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

2 boxes white cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)

6 large egg whites

1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil

1 tsp lemon extract

Frosting:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) of unsalted butter, softened

1 8oz pkg cream cheese, room temperature

pinch of salt

2 16oz pkgs of powdered sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2-3 Tbsp milk

Raspberries & Blueberries for decorating

Seedless raspberry jam (for filling), optional

Heat oven to 350.  Grease & flour two 9 x 13 inch baking pans.  Set aside.  Pour lemon juice into a 4 cup measuring cup and add enough water to equal 2 2/3 cups. 

In a large mixing bowl, beat cake mixes, egg whites, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice/water mixture and lemon extract to blend, about 3 minutes.  Divide evenly between the two prepared pans.  Bake at 350 for about 22 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.  Depending on your oven, I would check after 20 minutes.  Let Cool for 10 minutes and then carefully invert cakes onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

For Frosting:  Beat butter, cream cheese and pinch of salt until fluffy.  Add powdered sugar gradually, along with the lemon juice and 1 Tbsp of milk.  Continue beating on low until well blended and reaching a good spreading consistency, adding more milk a teaspon at a time as needed.  Reserve at least 1 cup frosting for piping on a white "stripe".

Place 1 cake layer on serving tray.  Spread optional raspberry jam over cake (about 3/4 cups) but not all the way to the edge so as not to make the jam squeeze out when you add the second cake layer.  Or use 1 cup frosting instead of jam.   Top with 2nd cake layer, top side of cake down (so that the bottom of the cake is on top).  Do a crumb coat with frosting.  Let it set in fridge to set, about 30 minutes.  Remove and completely frost top and sides.  Place remaining frosting in a pastry bag with a large star tip.

Mark off a field for "stars".  Fill in with blueberries.  Place 6 stripes of raspberries on cake as shown, leaving equal spacing for the "white" stripes.  Carefully pipe frosting between raspberry "stripes".  Refrigerate uncovered to set frosting, then loosly cover with nonstick aluminum foil.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  Let stand at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes before serving. 

 

Dusting Off The Cow Webs......

Hello!  How have you been?  It's been awhile, a very long while since I last posted.  I truly didn't mean for it to go so terribly long betweens posts but that's just what happened.   Anybody still with me? 

We are well into our sweet summer break.  LOVE, love summer break and sad to say, we are past the halfway mark.   A few more weeks and we are all back into a school routine.  But lets not talk about that.  Just.not.ready. 

Here's a few snapshots of what I've been up to since I last posted:

Little Easter baskets for the preschoolers in my class. 

Yellow for the girls and blue ones for the boys.

A trip to the Biltmore House in the Spring

Tulips in full bloom at the Biltmore Gardens

Boys playing Little League Baseball

Go Yankees!

Go Giants!

A birthday.  Twelve!  Where does the time go?!

There was the end of the school year, a quickie trip to TX to see family, and Father's Day.  June seems to have whizzed by.   Had a festive 4th of July (I'll show you my flag cake for the occasion later).    

Been enjoying my little family, stitching a little, playing with my stamps a little, reading a little and lots of pinning and blog surfing.   Oh and a little organization and purging too.  Boys had a couple of sports camps this summer but for the most part, it's been a relaxing time; going to the pool, play date here and there and heading to the library just about every week.  Very thankful for the time we have together.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!  Until next time, 

 

Easter Monday

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!  We enjoyed a wonderful service and some family time with my in-laws on Easter Sunday. 

I had meant to post this card last Friday but I simply forgot in the busyness to get things ready for a quickie trip we planned with the boys for Fri & Sat.   I thought I'd go ahead and show it anyway.  This was actually a card I made last year and had a couple left over to use this year for Easter.  It's a direct case from Teneale Williams.  Her cards are simply beautiful and I love her style.   You can see her original here.

 

Everything is from SU! except for the sentiment which was typed on the computer. 

Stamps:  Easter Blossoms, Looks Like Spring (diamond pattern stamp)

Paper:  very vanilla, baja breeze, pear pizzazz

Ink:  crumb cake, baja breeze, pear pizzazz, regal rose and versamark

Accessories:  vanilla seam binding, scallop border punch, pearls, 2-way glue pen and dazzling diamonds glitter

Here's a look at the inside of the card:

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great Monday!

Spring Chick

I saw this very cute chick card by Nicole Heady and decided to replicate it using a stamp set I had that is just a little bit similar to hers.  At least the chick part anyway.  My chick comes from SU!'s A Good Egg set and the little roses are from SU!'s Everyday Celebrations set.

Sentiment is a little too close to the button but I had already cut it out and decided I didn't want to waste so went with it.  Cute little card that didn't take long to put together. 

Supplies used are PTI's white, SU! daffodil delight dsp, pool party dsp, crumb cake cardstock that was trimmed with the scallop border.  Ink is daffodil delight, black stazon, pumpkin pie (for the beak) and white craft for the flowers.  A snippet of pool party seam binding and a yellow button with strip of pool party cs for "thread".  I typed the sentiment using Albemarle Swash font on the computer. 

We had a really nice weekend but our allergies are in full swing.  Itchy eyes and noses, sneezing and drainage are our companions right now.  I really like Spring but not all the pollen that comes with it.  Hopefully it won't be too long before we are all feeling better. 

Happy Monday!

Tea Shoppe

Happy Saturday Everyone! 

Popping in with a stamped card today.  When SU! came out with this stamp set in their current Occasions Mini Catalog, I knew I just had to have it.  I love tea and all the little things that go with it.  Pretty cups, pretty teapots, pretty dainty food to go with the tea.  I find it all very relaxing and soothing.   So of course I had to get this set and this is my first card with it.

I used the layout from the mini catalog that the stamp set is featured in but added my own elements to it.  Used River Rock as my base for the card, a piece of Everyday Enchantment designer series paper, a Wilton small doily, and a strip of whisper white that was punched using the Eyelet Border punch then run thru the crimper for texture.  The large teacup was stamped using lucky limeade ink onto very vanilla cardstock and cut out.  Popped up with dimensionals and little pearls embellish the florals on the cup. 

I took a teabag and snipped off the end to remove the tea (otherwise it would have been too thick to have behind the cup) and stamped it with the little floral image in pool party ink.  Made a little tag for the teabag using the white peony image and colored it in with a blender pen in lucky limeade and pool party.  Seam binding in pool party color and a little tag with the "just for you" sentiment finishes it. 

Adding this card to Our Creative Corner's  "How Green Is Your Spring!" challenge.  The challenge is to make any papercraft to show Spring in all it's color using Green as the main color. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a wonderful Saturday! 

Liebster

On Sunday, Stitching Cat awarded me the Liebster Award.  Thank you Stitching Cat! 

Liebster is a German word meaning favorite, dearest, or beloved and the Liebster is awarded to new bloggers with less than 200 followers.  In turn, I...

1) thank my friend that awarded me and link back to her;

2)  post the award on my blog;

3) pass on the blog award to five other bloggers;

4) list the bloggers I pass the Liebster on to with their links and let them know by commenting on their blog;

5)  then share five random facts about myself that people do not know about me! 

What a sweet way to pass on links to other bloggers, broaden our blogging community and learn a little bit more of each other. 

I'm fairly new to blogging and it's fun to find new blogs from those that have left comments or become followers on my blog.  Here's my list of 5~~~some may not be exactly new but they are new to me :)

                                                  1) Viola di Nebbia @ The Little Stitcher

2) June @ Butterfly-butterflywings.blogspot.com

3) Betty @ Samplings from Sprink Creek

4) Shar @ Sharlene's Stitching Site

5) Misty @ 413 Sparrow Lane

Five things about me.  Hmmm, let's see......

1) Jane Austen movies and most period pieces are my favorite to watch on the television

2) I love to drink hot tea almost daily and it's got to be in a china cup with the tea steeped in a teapot. 

3) Love to read collect cookbooks.  Have more than plenty to keep me occupied for a long time.

4) I'm a Pin-aholic (love Pinterest in other words)

5) I do not have a green thumb.  Such a shame since I really like to see pretty flowers on my porch.  Keeping them alive through to the end of summer is a challenge! 

Thanks again again, Stitching Cat for the award!

Sunday Hello

Hello!  Had to dust off the cobweb's off this little blog of mine.  It's been awhile since I last posted! 

We have been just plugging along doing our usual things.  We have enjoyed a nice Spring break from school taking a couple of days to play at The Great Wolf Lodge, boys have started baseball once again and doing a little spring cleaning of closets and drawers.  So much more to do in that department (and house cleaning!) but at least I've made a small start.  Doing a little of this and a little of that and enjoying each day as it comes. 

At the end of February I finally put the last stitches down on CCN's January cottage.  Love, love the colors on this one!  It was a fun stitch and for now, it's gone into the finished drawer to be pulled out next year.

Since Feb has come & gone and March is soon to be over, I'm not going to start on those cottages right now.  I may start April but I doubt I'll get it finished before the month is out.  I'm not that fast of a stitcher!  So, I'm leaning on getting May's cottage and stitching that one so that I can have one cottage that has the potential of being framed and displayed in it's month. 

In the meantime, I have been stitching on a couple of things that are new.  One is something I found online.  Ran across This Blog on Pinterest and found this free chart of Jane Austen's house with one of her quotes "There is nothing like like staying at home for real comfort".  I just think it's such a pretty pattern and since I'm pretty content just being at home and a fan of all things Austen, this fit me to a tee.   I had to start this one right away.  Originally I picked out a different color way than what the designer had listed but it began to have a fall feel to it and that's not how I wanted it to turn out.   Ended up going with the recommended DMC colors she has listed on her pattern which, to me at least, gives it a more summer and brighter feel to it which is what I'm leaning to right now. 

36 Ct Vintage Maritime White Linen by Lakeside Linens
DMC threads as listed on pattern
Gazzette94

I've gotten more stitching on this since I photographed it.  I have the top and border sides done along with the top part of the phrase and have just started on the house.  Am enjoying stitching this while watching my favorite Austen movies.   If you'd like the pattern to stitch, you can find it Here. 

I'll be back soon with some stamped cards I have made recently.  Dusted off my stamps and ink pads and played around with them some.  It's been way too long since I've done that and it was such fun. 

Thank you all for stopping by and taking a peek at my blog!

Hope you have a lovely day!