Frozen Buttercream Transfer

So I was reading one of the blogs I follow this afternoon and came across a really amazing cake that used a decorating technique called a frozen buttercream transfer (FBCT). I'd seen this done before on a cake the site featured, but I didn't really feel like attempting the technique then. Well, as today is Sunday and I generally have nothing to do on Sundays, I decided to tie on my apron and try it out.

The basic idea of a FBCT is that you pipe a picture in icing on a piece of wax paper, freeze it over night, and then place it on a cake and peel off the wax paper to reveal a super awesome decoration. There's a lot more involved in it than just that, though. Here's how you do it:

First, you'll need the following:

Wax Paper, Plain Paper, Permanent Marker, Some kind of design or picture, Buttercream Icing (I used a can of Pillsbury Vanilla), Food Coloring, Piping Bags (I loaned mine to my sister so I only had those squeeze bottles, they worked great though. You can always use zippy bags with the corners cut off, too.), Tape, Cookie Sheet (or some kind of flat surface that is portable, cutting board maybe?)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Trace the image onto a piece of wax paper.

I decided to go with something easy, so I picked a picture of Pooh out of a coloring book, but you can do pretty much anything.


2. Tape the piece of plain paper to the cookie sheet. On top of it, with the marker side facing DOWN, tape the wax paper to the cookie sheet making sure there are no wrinkles or creases. Set aside.


3. Mix the colors you'll need for the picture and put them in the piping bags (or squeeze bottles or zippy bags).


4. Starting with the outline and the details, trace the outline of the picture with the appropriate color. REMEMBER: The bottom of the picture will become the top when you put it on the cake so you have to ice accordingly, from the front to the back.


5. Continue icing until all of the picture is filled in. Ice over top of the details with the fill colors, but be VERY careful not to smudge them. Use a paint brush to level out the different layers as you go.



6. Put the whole thing in the freezer. If you're actually going to put this on a cake, leave it in overnight to make sure it gets really hard. If you're just playing around, like I was, then a couple hours should be fine.

7. Pull the FBCT out of the freezer and very, very carefully untape it from the cookie sheet and pick it up. Flip it over onto the cake (or whatever you're decorating) wax paper up and push it down a little to make sure it sticks.


8. Slowly, and VERY carefully, peel the wax paper from FBCT.


9. VIOLA! Now you have an awesome cake decoration :)



This was a lot of fun to play with. I'm really glad I practiced first before trying to actually put something like this on a cake though. The black smudged a little here and there and I didn't do a great job smoothing out the piping lines. I think it was overall pretty successful. I'm definitely excited to try it again!

I made crayons!

For my birthday this year, my dad bought be a super awesome Crayola Crayon Maker!


I hadn't been able to play with it because I didn't have the kind of light bulb it needed, but now I do :) Here's how it went:

First you have to break up the crayons into little pieces so they fit in the melting tray, then put the tray on top of the light bulb. It came with some new crayons, but in the future I'll probably just use the bits and pieces at the bottom of my box of crayons.




Then you're supposed to just turn the timer all the way to the right to turn on the light and it'll let you know when it's time to pour the crayons into the mold. Yeah, this did not go according to plan. I don't know if it's a product defect or if I'm just special, but the dial was EXTREMELY hard to move. Eventually I had to have Luis do it with a grippy thing we use to open jars.


From here, it's supposed to take about 10 minutes to melt the crayons so I went to cook dinner in the meantime. About five minutes into cutting potatoes, I noticed the dial had stopped moving. Since I was already annoyed with the timer situation, I just kept an eye on the crayons until they were all melted together. Like this:


Yay! Now for the fun part...


I had to wait another 10 minutes while they cooled/hardened...then I popped them out of the mold!


Pretty cool, huh? I don't know how often I'll actually use my Crayon Maker, but it was a fun experiment. Now I have new crayons!

Times, they are a changing...

Wow. It has been a long, long time since I've visited the blogging world and I've decided to make some changes in my life and to my blog.

Since I was about 16 years old, I've been struggling with my weight. It started right after I quit playing softball and soon after started dating a new guy right around my birthday. All was well in the beginning, but things took a huge turn for the worst a couple months into our relationship. He was very controlling and super jealous...some examples: I wasn't allowed to wear form fitting t-shirts or shorts, I couldn't hang out with my friends or any other boys and if I even looked at another male while we were together it was the start of a huge argument and those are just a couple things, not even touching on the semi-sexually-abusive side of things. While we were together, he made it a point that I even ate what he wanted me to eat. I never ate salads (even though I love them) because, as he'd say, "I like girls that can eat!" Instead, I'd eat cheeseburgers, tacos, pizza rolls, and oh my gosh the amount of sweets. Now, I'm not entirely blaming my weight gain on this guy because after all it was me that picked up this stuff and put it in my mouth. The truth is though that because my activity level had gone down and I was eating so frequently, I gained weight quickly and things got worse when I finally broke up with him at the end of the summer. Reeling from our split, a "heart-broken" teenager, I found comfort in food.

Even though I knew breaking up with him was the right choice and he was a bad boyfriend, he had been one of my best friends before things went sour and I had experienced things with him for the first time at, what I consider, much too young an age (don't let your mind wander too far, though, I kept my V-Card for a lot longer). Anyways, when we broke up I resorted to my safe food: mashed potatoes. I don't know what it is about them but they're like magic, they make me feel better instantly, even still to this day. I would come home from school and eat a BOX of instant mashed potatoes and then take a nap EVERY DAY. I'm no nutritionist but I know this was bad. Already heavier from my inactive, gluttonous summer, the weight really started to pile on and over the next two years I gained more and more, graduating high school at 5' tall and 170lbs.

When I moved away from the god-forsaken town that I'm from (Ocoee, FL. - don't go there, ever), I started to feel better about myself. I took up belly dancing and made a lot of new friends through my newly found freedom, one of which that would turn out to be the most important person in my life. I lost somewhere between 15-20lbs my freshman year and felt amazing! Then I had to go home for summer and fell back into the unhealthy routine of going to work, eating, and sleeping the day away. I wasn't dancing and all of my friends were far away and by the time I made it back to FSU, my weight was back in the 170s. Then something amazing happened.

Luis was one of my very best friends from the first time we met. We were both from the Orlando area and clicked immediately. Our freshman spring semester served as a way for us to bond; AKA: get sloppy drunk together and play games as we partied the night away with our friends. But that's all we were, in my mind, just friends. Luis had other ideas. One night he stayed over night in my dorm and even kissed me a couple of times, asking me what I wanted to do with what was between us. Confident that Luis and I were not compatible, I told him I just wanted to be friends. This was great for us, we hung out the rest of the semester, went to class together, studied together, and helped each other with homework. Then summer came and I pretty much forgot about him until I walked into my first fall semester class.

It had been a bad day. I'd just started a new job and tripped on my way to my car and gashed up my knee really awfully on a cinder block. I came rushing into class a total mess, my leg bandaged and limping pathetically. "Sarah!" All I could think was, Great. Now I have to be nice to someone. Luckily, the voice belonged to Luis. After class we met up and found out we had another class together, what a weird coincidence. We started hanging out ALL the time and picked up on our routine from the last semester. But something was different this time. I definitely denied it at first, but I was definitely falling for my very best friend. I never wanted to be away from him and when he was hanging out with our mutual friend, Katie, I was annoyed that he wasn't with me. It took me a long time to give in, but eventually I did and I knew right away that he was just the one for me. Since then, although we have most definitely had some extreme ups and downs, Luis and I have been together and crazy in love for going on three years.

Unfortunately, with new love comes new habits. Eating out constantly, eating as much as or more than Luis, taking emotional roller coaster rides, spending more time lounging around, etc...has lead me to gain even more weight. Today I weigh 190lbs. I'm unhealthy and I can feel it. I can't go up more than a few stairs without getting winded, my BMI is 37.1 (obese, in case you were wondering), and I've lost sight of the body I used to have when I was 16 and a size 7. Now I'm 22 and almost a size 16, isn't that ironic. I know that my body has matured and I'll never be the size I was as a teenager, but I want more for myself than what I've got. There are things in my life that I've given up because of my size and I'm tired of sacrificing. I miss loving the beach. I miss playing sports. I miss wearing bikinis and having a tan midriff. I miss being proud of what I had under my t-shirt and jeans. I miss the confidence that comes with fitting into your clothes. I miss my tiny waist and strong legs. I miss my hourglass figure. I used to have all of that and I want it back. Bad.

I've tried to lose weight before. It never worked. I never wanted it the way I do right now. I'm getting older now and my life is turning towards adulthood. Luis and I are talking about taking amazing tropical vacations and getting married and starting a family. I do not want to be fat for any of it. I want to be able to lay out on the pool deck and feel comfortable without my cover up. I want to waltz into bridal shops, newly engaged, and try on dresses that zip all the way up and hug my curves. I want my newly pregnant belly to stand out, not blend in. And most importantly, I want to be able to chase my five year old around our backyard. I want a healthy future and it's taken me a long time to recognize the work I'll have to do to get it, but I'm ready now and I'm not looking back.

Originally I wanted this to be somewhere I could just write for the sake of writing, like I used to in my journals. Now that I've thought about it a little more, I've decided to make this blog a place to keep track of the many happenings in my life. If you know me personally, you know that I live for crafts. I'm always embarking on some new DIY adventure and I'm keen on trying new recipes, too. Luis and I have taken up a new hobby together, puzzles. I've got a lot of nail-polishes I want to try out and I'm starting the never-ending journey to a healthy body. I'm excited to keep track of my life here so that I can look back on my mistakes and achievements and learn from them.