Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas one and all!  I know things have been a little quiet on the blog front lately...I haven't had any cakes to do, and thanks to a string of minor health problems I didn't get around to doing the flower-making practise I had planned.  At least my toe is getting better now, and I'm just about over a fairly nasty cold, so hopefully once the Christmas "silly season" is over I can get back into it.  Have a wonderful Christmas Day, and best wishes for 2010.

Ouch!

Last night was the last session of my final class for the year, but unfortunately I didn't make it.  I've had a long-running problem with an infection in the nail bed of my right big toe that flatly refused to heal, and I ended up having to have the nail pulled out.  That spelled the end of any further snow globe attempts, not to mention that I didn't even start decorating the cake that the snowglobe, if I'd managed to make a decent one, would have been put on.

A bit of a disappointing end to the year... I never got around to trying the patchwork again either, so I guess I did end up throwing my hands in the air and writing off the rest of the course.  But on the plus side, course information for next term is up on the Hunter Community College web site, and I'm doing another four classes in February and March.  I don't have any cake jobs on at the moment either (which isn't a bad thing with my toe still being a tad sore), so I'm looking at spending some time working on flower making.  First job is to refine my rose technique, then I'll probably practise making the lilies and frangipanis that we did in the last class.

Third "Christmas & More" Class

I wasn't too impressed with Tuesday night's class... I'm re-doing pretty much everything we did at home.  We started making our gelatine snow-globes for next week, then did plaques with patchwork cutters.  My gelatine wouldn't dissolve and was full of lumps and bubbles, and I had a shocker with the patchwork.  After a trip to Cupid's yesterday, I re-made my snow-globe (still took 3 attempts and wasted a lot of gelatine), and I bought a plaque cutter and the "Santa, Sleigh & Reindeer" patchwork cutter.  The plaques that Marilyn made for us to work on in class weren't what you'd call impressive, and after looking at the Patchwork Cutter web site myself, I found that she hadn't even taught us the proper techniques for using them.  I was tempted to throw my hands in the air and write off the rest of this course, but for my own peace of mind, I need to re-do the things we were meant to do to prove to myself that I can do it.

For Joanne

Rohan asked me to make a nice cake for his mum to thank her for the help and support she's given us through a difficult time.

Second "Christmas & More" Class

Back-tracking to Tuesday night's class... we coloured and wired the lilies we started in the first week, and learned how to do frangipanis.

Happy Birthday To Me!

My birthday today, made myself a coconut cake covered & piped with white buttercream, with shredded coconut pressed onto the sides.  No more cakes in the works at the moment, so DEFINITELY going to make an effort to get my last few posts written up by the end of the week.