The Lady Beekeeper | A refined beekeeping experiment

DanyCon 2024

Posted on September 9, 2024 by lexicolton

Sorry for the missed post last week! I was scrambling to do some last minute prep for DanyCon! Everyone flew in Thursday night and most flew out Monday so we had 3 full days of Danycon fun! It was fabulous! Our last guests left this afternoon so the house is quiet now… we’re all thinking about next year already.

Theme

This year we did Medieval Danycon. This meant – shirts that look like knights, a Shakespearean (I know this is renaissance) murder mystery, an extended D&D session and plenty of medieval themed games!

Party Favors

The favors for this year were pretty basic – we had everyone pick their D&D character in advance so they got an unpainted mini, this year’s t-shirt complete with cape, a DanyCon bingo card and a copy of Excalibohn.

Side Quests

Mark and Erin made some amazing “side quests” for Danycon which were a Connections, Strands and Wordle for each day. I’ve added them here below if you want to try your hand!!

Friday

Most people were working Friday so we did mini painting during the day and nothing formal for gaming. For dinner we did the Maiming of the Shrew murder mystery. This year I randomized the characters everyone got (honestly this is how I should always do it). Weirdly every single person but one was off gender so we had some great costumes. Dinner was Impossible Shepherd’s Pie with salad and sourdough cookies for dessert.

Quite a cast of characters for “the Maiming of the Shrew”

Saturday

Saturday was heavy games. Once again with Will’s website that allowed you to pick a game in advance things went much smoother than previous years! The medieval games played were Lords of Waterdeep and Kingsburg. We then had a dinner of salad and tofurky “chicken” and biscuits followed by D&D.

D&D

Our D&D adventure this year Will and I decided we wanted to each DM both groups. We usually split the group in half and somehow make the adventures meet up, but we knew people suspected that twist. Instead we focused on the fact that it seemed everyone loved to compare their experiences. So we decided to plan two shorter sessions; I’d run one session Will would run the other and the players would swap so they get to do both. This unfortunately didn’t exactly play out as expected. My session took almost 3 hours for my first time running it because the session was role play heavy. I will admit I had a grand time running it. The 3 hour session was my favorite session I’ve ever DM’ed. We went so long though that we had to do the second sessions the following day. I think some folks in the group were a bit less than thrilled, we’ll have to rethink this next year!

If you’re curious the background of the sessions were, for Will, that they had to free a trapped pegasus (which included a puzzle). For me they had to locate where a unicorn had gone and free it – this involved finding the location of the villain’s hide out by role playing city interactions. Both teams were employed by a group called HEMA (Heroes for the Ethical treatment of Magical Animals). I had a single sheet of paper (which included Will’s scenario) as the background for my story and winged the rest. I did manage to keep the important parts consistent though with that sheet of paper. It was interesting to see how different the two parties acted.

Sunday

After finishing up our D&D games, we all went straight to a game of Zoovadis which is a negotiation game. Everyone was mad at each other by the end and we vowed never to speak of the game again. This was followed by a giant game of Freelancers which is another RPG type game. (I know, you’d think they’d be done with RPGs for a while, but most folks weren’t!) We’ve played the pirate version by the same company and it was just as good. Dinner that night was pizza, generously sponsored by the Coltons!! (Everyone joked it is our first real sponsor.)

Posted in Parties | 1 Comment

Moving On

Posted on August 28, 2024 by lexicolton

Well I’m late again posting. I fear this is becoming a habit. This was the last week of summer for Julius before he started school again. Last week he had “space” summer camp but it only went to 1pm. That meant we got to hang out doing silly things together. We biked to the orchard and picked peaches, blueberries and grapes. Then yesterday for the last day of summer we biked to the library and playground. He is doing really great biking! One of our friends saw us biking on one of the main streets in Lancaster (which happens to be a really big hill). Julius made it up without much grumbling!

As much as it will be nice to have an actual kid free day of sabbatical to myself I will miss my little buddy! He was a bit nervous for his first day of school but I’m sure he’ll do great! A few weekends back amidst our traveling I made a little kit for my BFFITWWW’s son for his birthday. (Amy I know you said no presents but you also got me a birthday gift so fair is fair. ) Alex loves matchbox cars so this little case is one you can both color and use for cars. Hopefully to much entertainment on road trips. At Alex’s birthday Patricia stole it an colored in in for hours so I knew I had to make one for her and Julius as well… So here it is. Note – if you don’t have a sublimation printer don’t fear! I discovered that cricut has sublimation markers! You draw on sublimation paper with them and then you can sublimate the marker ink onto your polyester surface. Oh! And I forgot to mention the best part! Since these are 100% polyester if you use washable markers you can wash the markers right out after playing!

Washable Coloring Car Play Mat

What you’ll need:

100% polyester fabric (mine is leftover woven polyester fabric from the towels I made for everyone for xmas)
a candle (recommended to prevent fraying edges)
1/4″ elastic (2 pieces, cut to 7″ each)
Sublimation printer and ink – or cricut sublimation markers and paper (see comment above)
My designs for the castle set here and the road set here
Ultra-Washable Crayola Markers (for playing)

1. The first step is to cut your fabric into a rectangle (that will leave about 1/2″ for seam allowance).

2. Use the candle to melt the unfinished polyester edges. I do this by moving the fabric close to the flame and watching it carefully as it melts together. This is a bit fiddly but I really think it helps keep the polyester intact. The other option is to make your fabric slightly wider and doing a rolled hem.

3. Fold under 1/2″ on each side of the fabric then press.

4. Pin the hem of the fabric, and at the top of your design, 2″ from each side insert the elastic (fold in half, then insert both unfinished sides into the hem.

5. Stitch entire seam.

6. Flip elastic up and then stitch again to hold in place (so loop protrudes above the top of the fabric, not inside.)

7. Press your fabric with a heat press at 375F for 30 seconds to steam out any moisture.

8. Apply the sublimation design with your heat press. I used my head press set to 375F for 60 seconds and covered the sublimation paper & design with a sheet of parchment paper.

9. If desired, apply a second design below the road/castle scene. (I did my child’s names.)

10. Fold the bottom edge under 4″ to form a pocket. Stitch along both edges to finish the pocket.

11. Place markers and car inside the pouch then let them play!

Note: It’s best to wash it within a day or two after coloring to prevent lingering stains. I used just water and mild soap then hung it to dry.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 1 Comment

I’m All Ears

Posted on August 21, 2024 by lexicolton

Well that concludes our two week whirlwind vacations of Block Island and Disney World. We had a great time but we all didn’t sleep nearly as much as we should. I am exhausted and plan to sleep for the next week. Thank goodness I’m still on sabbatical! Now I have to think about what I’m going to do with my spare time (unfortunately there isn’t a ton because we have so much planned). I’m thinking mainly baking bread and updating my resume (sadly).

The kids seemed to enjoy Disney but they probably would have been equally happy just playing in the pool all day. They were doing a really great job swimming around (even Patricia without a life vest). Oh and I forgot to mention that Julius moved up to the next swim level right before we left! They’re doing a great job. Patricia loves to jump in the pool. We witnessed this pump up speech before her first couple jumps:

Patricia (to herself): you can do this!

It was pretty adorable. The kids also got signatures in their autograph books from lots of characters! Including the famed Mickey himself and everyone’s favorite Disney princess (well with the exception of Princess Leia and Princess Vanellope Von Schweetz which somehow are not counted). Unfortunately the lack of sleep and eating of sugar lead to some cranky episodes for both Patricia and Julius. We were not the only ones seeing this. When Patricia witnessed one such meltdown from the outside she said:

Patricia (commenting on some other child’s meltdown after her own near meltdown): It’s tough to be a kid. She’s just a cranky kid.

Honestly Disney was even a bit stressful for me! I couldn’t handle Patricia’s meltdowns when I was myself hot and sweaty. The stress must have gotten to me because I slept walked on the 3rd night there and somehow ended up bleeding on the floor. I had a gash down my lips that I went to ER for (spoilers they didn’t do anything so it wasn’t actually that bad). I’m still not exactly sure what happened. I probably have to do something about that.

Despite the crankiness and sleep walking we had a great time! Patricia claimed her favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean (my favorite) despite the fact that the first time we went on it she was terrified and hiding the gem on her princess costume so the pirates wouldn’t steal it. Julius’ favorite was Space Mountain. Which is Will’s favorite. He got to go on it twice (once with Will, and once with me later for rider swap). Will and my favorite was Guardians of the Galaxy – I think it may have even replaced the Rockin’ Rollercoaster for me in terms of favorites! Patricia asked me the second day why they kept calling her “princess” since she wasn’t a real princess. I told her everyone is a princess in Disney World, but that didn’t placate her. Everytime someone would call her princess she’d look at me like, “see? Another one!”

Well now that we’re done with Disney I can show you the ears I made! I didn’t have time to make a pair for myself but I might later anyway (because I had an awesome idea!) The pattern for the ears and headband is the same, I just did some slightly different things for each. Julius wanted Disgust (from Inside Out) ears. There was no Disgust character in the parks but he did get a picture with Joy. She thought Disgust would not have been disgusted with the ears haha. That is a serious compliment!

Patricia loves Ariel so she wanted Ariel themed ears. For both sets of ears I didn’t buy anything and used scrap fabric I had on hand. The mermaid sequins were slightly off in color from what Ariel’s tail is… but they coincidentally matched the Ariel outfit Patricia chose from Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique. Talk about fortuitous!

Basic Mickey Mouse Ears

What you’ll need:

1 headband (I used these)
scrap fabric for ears and headband
scrap peltex 220
fiberfill
chopsticks to add stuffing
pattern here

1. Cut out fabric for your headband (2 pieces).

2. Cut out fabric for each ear (should have 4 pieces in total)

3. Cut out 2 pieces of peltex ears with no seam allowance.

4. Stitch headband fabric together, leaving openings where indicated in the pattern.

5. Trim close to seam allowance and clip curves then turn right side out.

6. Insert headband into the opening on the end and then stuff the outside portion of the headband lightly with stuffing using the chopsticks through the other openings.

7. Using a ladder stitch, stitch the openings closed.

8. Place two ear pieces together then stitch, stopping where indicated.

9. Trim ear seams and clip curves. Turn right side out.

10. Insert Peltex 220 into ear then stuff on both sides. Stuff rather firmly.

11. Using a ladderstitch, attach the ear to the headband.

12. Repeat steps 8 thru 11 for the other ear.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Starstruck

Posted on August 12, 2024 by lexicolton

We are on week 2 of my sabbatical/whirlwind vacation. This week we’re going to “see the princesses” aka Disney. The kids’ babysitter told them a while back that Disney World is where all the princesses live so they’ve been talking about going to see the princesses. We have been using this as an excuse to work on our manners for the last several months. The phrase “we cannot eat with the princesses if we eat with with our hands” has been uttered dozens of times. I do think there has been some improvement to their table manners. Hopefully there is because we are eating with the princesses tomorrow in the castle!

Despite our best efforts (and worst efforts such as cajoling about princess behavior) Patricia still has a very quick temper. The other day this gem of an insult came out of her mouth when we were trying to get her to put on pants…

Patricia (scathingly): You are all black rainbows with a little bit of purple!

Harsh.

Julius has his moments too. I love that Julius and Patricia play so well together. Just listening to their conversations together is alone worth having two kiddos. This is the one we overheard yesterday:

Julius (proudly, to Patricia): I’m a good looker. I have big eyes.

Speaking of good lookers, I made a couple little things for the kids for Disney including autograph books and custom Mickey ears! The autograph books took very little time and I used recycled wrapping paper for the covers. I love making books and this was a great excuse to make them.

Autograph Books

What you’ll need (for each book):

scrap heavyweight cardboard (mine was from a frame back that is no longer used)
a sheet of wrapping paper (mine was reused from some birthday packaging)
White copy paper (13 8.5″x11″ sheets – I made 2 at once and used 25 sheets)
separate paper for the book plates if desired
needle and embroidery thread
White glue and foam brush
sharpie (I got the click top sharpie so we don’t lose the covers)

1. Cut the copy paper in half to form 25 8.5″x5.5″ sheets.

2. Separate into 5 pages in a bundle then fold the sheets in half to form 10 pages that are 4.25″x5.5″

3. Using a ruler on the inside fold of one of the folded bundles poke holes using your needle at the 1.5″,2.75″ and 4″ marks.

4. Using a needle threaded with embroidery thread facing the spine of the folded paper go down thru the center hole, up thru the left hole, back down through the center hole and back up through the right hole then tie off with the tail of the string.

5. Repeat steps 2 thru 4 for the other booklets.

6. Tie all 5 bundles together on the left and right sides by tying all 5 strings on each side together.

7. Cut the cover for your book from cardboard by cutting two rectangles 5″x6″ and another rectangle for the spine .5″x6″ with an xacto knife.

8. Place the rectangles on your cover paper as shown below. Cut paper so it is has 1″ border for folding.

9. If necessary (like in the case of using recycled wrapping paper) iron your paper on cotton setting, moving constantly so it will not burn until it is flat. Note you can only do this with paper that is all natural fiber. If it has any shiny coating don’t risk this.

10. Coat the back of each piece of cardboard in a light even layer of glue by using the foam brush.

11. Press cardboard onto the cover paper and smooth out the paper. Repeat for spine and other side of cover.

12. Fold over the overhanging edges of the book cover.

13. Put a thin layer of glue on the cardboard edges (1″ wide) on the top and bottom of the book cover. Press top and bottom folds in place.

14. Fold the corner of the remaining overhang paper so it forms a triangle.

15. Put another thin layer of glue on the left and right edges of the cardboard and fold over the edges (each should look like a trapezoid when folded over). Let dry.

16. Cut 2 pieces of paper for the book plates if desired (should be 8.5″x5.5″). Fold each in half. If not using separate paper for the book plate skip to 19.

17. Apply a thin layer of glue to the outside of one of book plates. Glue to the stack of book pages you created, aligning the pages. Repeat for second book plate and other side of the stack of pages. Let dry.

18. Apply glue to the spine of the book and place the stack of pages, folded ends down onto the spine.

19. Place a thin layer of glue on the inside of the book cover, align the pages with the cover and then press down the book plate (or first page of the stack if not using book plate paper).

20. I used some permanent foil vinyl in gold to add some details to the autograph books!

21. Go get some autographs!

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Summer Lovin’

Posted on August 6, 2024 by lexicolton

Well friends, I’m pretty pumped. I’m on an 8 week sabbatical! Intel is (really sadly) getting rid of those in a few months, which is rather depressing. But I won’t be depressed on (my last 8 week) sabbatical! For the start of sabbatical we’re on Block Island. I know you’ve heard me talk about how quaint and beautiful it is, so I won’t wax poetic about it again today. It’s going to rain quite a bit this week so we tried to frontload the week with all the usual outdoorsy things we do when it’s not raining. Then we’ll get in some more Disney movie watching before our trip to Disney next week! Yes that’s right we’re front loading sabbatical with lots o’ stuff. I’ll tell you all about that next week though.

I’m going to be honest here. I love Block Island, I always have since I was a kid. But I REALLY LOVE the place we stay on Block Island because it’s this teeny little loft house that still has everything we need. More importantly though… it has an outdoor shower. Is there anything that is better than an outdoor shower? I declare there is not. The sunshine overhead with the wind caressing your naked body… nope, nothing better. I told Will he needs to build me an outdoor shower.

You know what Patricia loves? Sock puppets. She has made several more sock puppets since the Earth Day Celebration. They haven’t really used the theater a ton since that week though… but I’ll convince them. The theater was so fun to build. I was debating on making it out of wood, but I figured I might as well use cardboard… since… it was for the Earth Day party. Here’s how I did it…

How to Make a Cardboard Puppet Theater

What you’ll need:

A large (2ftx2ftx1ft) box
Additional scrap cardboard for supports & decorations
Wood glue
Acrylic paint and chalkboard paint (optional)
a canary box cutter
scrap fabric for curtains
pushpins

Start by making sure your box is completely sealed and then cut it in half (on the line between the box flaps).
On the face of one of the box-halves (where the flaps are) cut out a square (or rectangle depending on box size) leaving a 2″ border all around, except on the bottom (where one of the flaps would fold down – see picture).

Glue the remaining flaps so the border becomes secure.

Fold down the flap from cutting out the stage. Glue the top of the box (from step 2&3) to the bottom box, so the whole thing will form a tall theater (should be 4’x2’x6″ when complete).

Glue supports with the excess cardboard on the bottom of the theater so it isn’t wobbly.
Paint the entire theater in the color of your choice (I chose red). Again I used a roller brush to paint the whole thing.
Cut a rectangle from excess cardboard that is slightly smaller than the bottom half (this will be used for a sign). Then paint with chalkboard paint.

Cut out a pattern of your choice to use as a decoration above the puppet stage. Paint in contrasting color (I chose yellow)

When everything is dry, glue on the decoration above the stage and the chalkboard sign.

Cut your scrap fabric into two pieces that are a couple inches wider and longer than half the width of the stage opening.
Using the pushpins, pin the fabric to the back of the stage. If the pushpins go all the way thru the cardboard, glue a strip of cardboard just above the stage opening.
Perform away!

Okay and since you got this far here are some gems from J&P this week:

Julius stares at the table contemplatively after we’re all done.

Will: What is it Julius? Are you still hungry?

Julius: (pointing to full water cup) Was this supposed to be my water cup?

Will: Yes.

Julius: (Eyes wide) I drank from Patricia’s!

Patricia (about letting me have the last tomato): Daddy had 3, Julius had 3 and I had a hundred so I’ll let Mommy have that one.

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Grass is Always Greener

Posted on July 29, 2024 by lexicolton

Well it’s a bit of a miracle I’m still up right now. I tested positive for covid yesterday and I’ve been feeling pretty bad. I slept most of the day today while the kids were at camp/daycare which I think is the reason I’m feeling quite a bit better. It’s rather inconvenient timing to get sick because I had to cancel a 3 way retirement party at my house Wednesday, I have a friend from Costa Rica visiting Friday and we are supposed to travel again on Saturday.

Hopefully we’re better soon! I’ve been working on some little crafts for our trip to Disney that I’ll show you shortly! But since I’m sick I’m going to keep this one short. One of my friends was asking if I ever went thru with the clover lawn… and I did. Last June I bought a ton of Dutch white clover seed (44lbs of seed – enough to cover 1/2 an acre) from this great store called Nature’s Seed. Our entire plot is 1.49 acres, and most of that is grass, but the plan was to intersperse the clover seeds with the grass. Total cost for 44lbs of seed was $227. I borrowed our neighbor’s spreader to spread it out… but I didn’t realize the clover seed was SO TINY. We’re talking like grains of sand tiny. It slipped right thru the hopper so I eventually gave up and just threw it around by hand… which was wildly inaccurate.

Luckily though it sprouted in a few weeks and has been making our yard look lush, green, and, periodically, like a meadow. (Prep for when the bees come back.) We haven’t had trouble with the robotic lawnmower mowing it, or, this year while Moe’s been under repair, with the regular deck mowers mowing it. Clover is drought tolerant, so we went way longer than usual before starting to water the lawn, turning on the sprinklers on June 29th this year. (This was mostly an accident.) I have some pictures below of the yard at various points so you can tell what it looks like! Oh and check out this little surprise I found while waiting with Julius for his bus in June!

This is August 2023 after I sewed the seeds!

This is September 2023 after a fresh mowing

This is the end of May 2024 before they had mowed!

You can tell the clover is a bit patchy in places which I want to fix (I bought some more seed). This is June 2024

Here’s more obvious view of the patchiness. The grass hasn’t been watered yet so the color difference is a bit drastic

This is right before we first started watering in June 2023. You can see the meadow-ness!

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New and Improved ladybeekeeper

Posted on July 15, 2024 by lexicolton

I’m still not keeping bees but Will has given my ladybeekeeper blog a re-vamp. He made several changes that should allow pictures to load faster, and hopefully the site will have less downtime. Most importantly though it is accessible via https. Hopefully you won’t notice any differences on your end, but if you do please let me know (for better or worse)!

Since I’m just testing out the new wordpress version I’ll keep this one short. I want to show you some of the silly puppets I made and the puppet show I put together (thanks Amy for recording it). I really deliberated with what to do for the puppet show. Since Native Americans are such wonderful stewards of the Earth from which we can learn so much, I wanted to share an Earth related tale from one of America’s native peoples. I ended up taking out a a storybook from the library called Keepers of the Earth which was a collection of many different Earth related stories from different Nations and some ways you could tie these stories to a science curriculum. Julius and I read thru the entire book and really enjoyed the stories and teachings. His favorite was a tale from the Abenaki peoples called “Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle”. Gluscabi is a bit of a trickster and his antics cracked Julius up. The tale contains just three characters; Gluscabi, Grandmother Woodchuck, and Wuchowsen the Wind Eagle. I thought it would be perfect for a puppet show so I made some puppets and performed it (I will be honest, there was a lot more stressing out than this including worrying about the socks I was using and searching extensively for how to sing the canoe song in the story, which was thankfully documented by a folk singer). The kids seemed to like it and I really hope that I did the story some small measure of justice even though I’m sure it cannot compare to any version told by the Abenaki. If you want to see my humble interpretation Amy recorded it! Thanks Amy!

I also thought you’d like to see the close up of Gluscabi (a silly looking sock fellow, with removable vest and hair held on by velcro), Grandmother Woodchuck (who I decided to paint brown since I only had white socks) and Wuchowsen my interpretation of a wind Eagle.

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I think I can… I think I can

Posted on July 8, 2024 by lexicolton

Well this past week was a double birthday celebration. We celebrated with some yummy dinners and way too many sweets. (Seriously, I am done with sweets, I always feel so bad afterwards both mentally and physically. Well after this cupcake tutorial maybe.) Thank goodness it was a short week after our vacation because it was a struggle to get back to the real world. We didn’t buy the internet package on the boat because it was so expensive, and all I can say is that I loved the forced disconnect. I think I’m going to start a “vacation” program where I just turn off somebody’s internet for them. (It’s hard to pull that plug yourself.) What a relief to not have the temptation of internet garbage. Not only that but being out of contact with the rest of the world was also somehow relaxing and liberating. (Plus the onboard spa pampering helped.) Seriously though, it felt like the first time I have been able to disconnect in ages. It was amazing.

Oh and I witnessed this while Julius and Patricia were playing quietly in the hotel room before we said we would get up on the day of the cruise:

Julius: I’m so excited today.

Patricia: Me too, but why?

Julius: We’re going on the cruise today.

Patricia: TO DAY?!

Now that we’re back to the real world, Julius has been doing summer camps and Patricia is back at her daycare (with summer water play!) They both have been having a great time. I can’t believe how quickly they are growing. We’ve been desperately trying to improve their eating manners (usually they start with their food on the plate and the food ends up on the napkin, then on the table. They use any surface in front of them as an eating area. And don’t get me started with utensils. Remember how Julius was so excited and proud of himself for using utensils as a baby? Well he gave up on all that and prefers to only eat with his hands. Where did I go wrong? The only thing helping right now is our reminder that “the princesses” (the ones who live in Disney World) will be disappointed if their manners are not up to par. Patricia has started remarking when they (or others) are not meeting the Princesses standards.

Well these cupcakes may not be princess material but they sure are cute. I found these adorable locomotive cupcakes on pinterest. They don’t tell what brands they used to make them, but I would know those dipped wafer rolls anywhere! My grandma always used to have them on hand. Unfortunately for me, they are German (just like my grandma) and very difficult to find in the US. For those who plan ahead, they are called Bahlsen Waffeletten and they are delicious! I went to the usual stores with imported items, but no luck, I couldn’t find them anywhere and I didn’t have time to special order them. So instead I went to my backup plan. I made the trains a bit smaller and used Pirouline wafers for the engine. This meant I had to cut down the vanilla wafer cookies as well. I don’t know a single child (and not many adults under 89) who like black licorice candies so I also sized down the wheels a bit and used mini york peppermint patties and mini brown m&ms instead.

Cupcake Train

What you’ll need:

Cupcakes (mine were these super easy and delicious chocolate ones)
buttercream frosting (I’ve been using this one!)
Pirouline rolled wafer sticks
vanilla wafer cookies (like these)
m&ms minis
mini York Peppermint Patties
chocolate pocky
Green food coloring

Divide out about 2/3 of the frosting and dye it green.
Using 234 piping tip, pipe “grass” blades all over the top of the cupcakes
Using white frosting and a moderately sized line tip, pipe a line of train tracks (or you can dye the rest brown, but I didn’t have brown food coloring)

For each locomotive:

Cut a vanilla wafer lengthwise so it is only slightly wider than a Pirouline.
Cut the wafer down to about 1.5″ long. Cut a Pirouline down to match.
Cut the chocolate part of the pocky stick so it it 1/2″ long.
Finally cut a square of vanilla wafer for the top of the engine.
Set aside 5 brown m&m minis and 2 mini york peppermint patties.
Assemble the train. Use the cut down vanilla wafer as the base, then draw a line of frosting on top. Place the pirouline on top of this.
Not the width of the wafers has been cut down, as has the length and small squares have been made to match the new width. Here I am adding the pirouline on top of the base wafer with frosting.
Place a blob of frosting on one side of the square vanilla wafer, then place on top of the Pirouline on one side for the cabin.
Here I’ve placed the square cabin top of the locomotive and in one the smokestack.
On the opposite side, place a little dab of frosting on top of the Pirouline. Place the cut pocky stick into this dab of frosting to stand upright for a chimney.
Place a bit of frosting on the back of a brown m&m mini and gently press it onto the pocky stick chimney.
Place a bit of frosting on the back of a mini York peppermint patty. Press it onto the bottom wafer on the side with the cabin.
Place a bit of frosting on the back of 2 more brown m&m minis and stick them to the bottom vanilla wafer base in front of the mini York Peppermint patty as wheels.
Repeat steps 10 and 11 on the other side of the train. Let dry.
Check out the finished locomotives in the right of this picture.
When dry, press onto a cupcake on top of the train tracks.

To make the train cars

Cut down 2 wafers lengthwise like you did for the locomotive.
Cut the 2 wafers into two pieces 1/3 of the way down the wafer.
Set aside 4 brown m&m minis for wheels.
Assemble the car by putting some frosting on either end of the 1/3 pieces of wafer. Lay one of the long wafers down then press a shorter wafer at each end. Place another long wafer on top. Lay flat it should look like a basket.
Assembled coal cars plus one with partial wheels.
Put some frosting on the back of the m&m minis and affix two to the bottom of a long wafer on either end. Repeat for second side. Let dry.
When dry, place on top of the railroad track on a cupcake then fill with m&m minis.
In the back of the photo are the cars filled with m&ms the one in the foreground has the layer of icing to allow the m&ms to overflow slightly.
Put a small amount of white frosting just outside the hole for the m&ms. Scatter more m&ms on top.
Up close of the finished locomotives and train cars.

Posted in Culinary Delights | Leave a comment

Mermaid Tales

Posted on July 2, 2024 by lexicolton

Note I wrote this before the cruise but forgot to autopost it!

We are going on a cruise!! The last one we went on was to Alaska about 8 years ago! That one was super fun but it was pre kids. So we’ll let everyone know how it works with kids. Hopefully it’s great!

The last couple weeks at work have been pretty dark. They offered my entire organization voluntary severance. And I just found out a couple of friends took it. I did not. I still maintain this is the best team I’ve been on in my career and I am just not ready to let that go. They are threatening to make us return to the office 3 days a week but as one coworker said “they can’t put the genie back in that bottle”. I don’t know why executives care. It just seems like a power play especially when they deliver these remarks from their own home offices.

But enough work for the next week it’s all about fun! I won’t even be able to work even if I wanted to (I don’t) because we decided not to pay for wifi on the ship (it is really expensive). So I’m off grid (mostly)! Well I thought I’d show you how I made Patricia’s mermaid cupcakes since we’re about to embark on our own sea voyage. Oh wait before that… Patricia had her last day of preschool Friday!! Here’s her first and last day pictures!

My big girl! Done with preschool! On to PreK (1)

Mermaid Cupcakes

What you’ll need:

Mermaid tail candy mold
Candy melts (mine were pink and teal)
Edible luster dust
American buttercream recipe
Food coloring
Cute sprinkles
Cupcakes (I used this recipe, though it is not my favorite) and I dyed the batter orange, pink and purple then put a spoonful of each color batter into the muffin cup so they looked sort of tie dyed.

Melt your chocolate/candy melts according to package directions.
Place silicone mold on a baking sheet.
Spoon melted chocolate into the mermaid tail molds. Use a toothpick to make sure the chocolate reaches into all the crevices and then shake the mold a bit. Using an offset spatula remove the excess chocolate from the top of the mold.
Let cool then add another thick layer of chocolate where the tail and fins meet. Let cool.
When mermaid fins are cool and hard gently remove them from the molds. It is really hard to do this without breaking them (even with our extra precaution) so don’t worry if they split between the tail and fins.
If they split, dip the tip of tails into a teensy bit of melted chocolate (or use a toothpick to place a tiny bit of chocolate on the broken part) then place the fin on top gluing it back together.
When tails are whole and dry dust with lustre dust.
After making sure your cupcakes are sufficiently cool, make your buttercream, split it in half then dye one half pink and teal.
Insert a large frosting tip (2D) into piping bag then fill with teal frosting.
Starting at the center pipe a disc of frosting in teal.
Sprinkle sprinkles lightly over the outside area of the teal buttercream.
Repeat 10&11 for all cupcakes.
I’m between steps here!
Clean and replace frosting tip (2D) in a new piping bag. Fill with pink frosting.
Pipe a single star in the center of each cupcake on top of the teal frosting.
Place a mermaid tail into the top of the star to look like a mermaid is diving into the water.
Finally before presenting I placed a second cupcake wrapper on the outside of the first so it looked prettier.
Patricia is showing off the inner wrapper and the tie dye cupcake

Posted in Culinary Delights | 2 Comments

Sharktastic

Posted on June 17, 2024 by lexicolton

Well Julius is officially done with Kindergarten! I will admit I cried when I was taking things out of his backpack. How is the year already over? It’s gone by too quickly! I feel the need to do one of the before and after photos that everyone does with the chalkboard I made this summer!

First and last day of Kindergarten

Julius’ summer camps don’t start yet so he’s home this week doing Legos and vegging out. Hopefully tomorrow he’ll be cleaning his room. He also had his dance recital this weekend! It was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen (well tied with watching Patricia do gymnastics). I’m sad he’s not interested for next year because that 30 seconds of performance was totally worth it (I’m not being sarcastic it was so darn adorable).

Speaking of darn adorable, I can’t believe I haven’t posted Julius’ shark costume tutorial. This is basically a shark snuggie. It’s a bit hard to see in while walking, but that didn’t stop Julius from wearing it as a Halloween costume. Fun fact, this is the picture we originally took for our Christmas cards, but our photographer told us it looked like we were missing a person from the photo! This pattern is a bit looser than some of the others I’ve done because I used Julius as a pattern. Use my photos as a guide, and let me know if you have questions.

Shark Snuggie

What you’ll need:

about 2.5 yards of blue fleece material
about 1.5 yards of white fleece material (I used just white sweatshirt material I had)
about 1/4 yard or scrap of off white fleece material
Scrap black and white felt fabric

Using your child(or an adult) as a model, cut two pieces of blue fleece in the shape of a shark (seen from the side) complete with fins with the arms fall, tail where the feet are and a hood at the top. Cut a large dorsal fin (x2) and smaller secondary dorsal fin (x2) proportional to the rest of the shark from blue fleece. Make everything quite a bit larger than your child to account for comfyness and seam allowance.
Serge or stitch 2 large dorsal fin pieces together, leaving a gap at the bottom. Repeat for smaller dorsal fin.
Turn dorsal fins right side out and place them inside the shark body with the unfinished edges along the back seam. Stitch from hood to bottom.
Open the back piece up and cut front tail piece in 1 solid piece. Cut pieces for front of arms in blue fleece to where the arms stop protruding from the body.
Cut white belly from where the bottom tail piece comes up to the base of the hood. Cut a halfmoon piece for the top of the hood from white for the upper mouth.
Sketched on where the belly should be and the mouth (the white parts. The fins and tail should all attach here.
Serge/stitch the tail to the belly and the arms to the belly.
Where tail attaches to belly.
Serge/stitch the upper mouth to the hood.
Inside view of where mouth attaches to hood.
Stitch a row of shark teeth the width of the hood by stitching a triangle pattern in the off white fleece.
Turn teeth right side out. Serge/stitch teeth white mouth on the hood, then serge rest of teeth onto the bottom of mouth (the white belly).
Stitch teeth onto mouth.

Stitching onto belly.
Stitch a an elastic loop on the top mouth center behind the teeth.
Stitch a button on the back of the middle center tooth.
Finally cut out two black circles from felt. Cut two smaller circles from white felt. Stitch white circles to black eyes.
Stitch eyes on either side of the hood.