I had an idea on how to get a rainbow cake with just four pans. If I colored two portions of cake batter for each pan I could have eight colors. I separated the batter evenly between eight bowls and colored each bowl with drops of gel color. Since the convention is to name seven of the rainbow colors, I made the eighth color pink (although it was tempting to make it greenish purple like octarine as a nod to Terry Pratchett). I put one color in each pan, then dolloped the second color on top before spreading it out to get a slightly marbled effect. The cake came out more like a spectrum! Hurray!
I was just sharing in an online chicken group that my hens act like I’m trying to poison them whenever presented with a new treat. I had some seeded grapes that were deemed not worth the effort by my children, so I took them out to the coop for the chickens, video camera ready. They loved them. Went straight after them. Were not suspicious or cautious at all. So here is a still taken from the video, since the video itself was humdrum!
I promised my kids we could make buttercream flowers. I knew I could make the frosting, but I went to look for tips and nails and didn’t have any! Where did they go? (It is entirely possible they were lost in the fire six years ago, I still look for things I used to have, even though we’ve moved.) I was able to obtain some frosting tips with a quick trip local, but no nails. Nails are helpful because they allow 360 degree access to the construction of the flower. If you watch someone making a frosting rose, most likely they are using a flower nail.
Hot glue to the rescue. I cut 1.5” circles from a cardboard box, cut down bamboo skewers, and hot glued the stick to the circle, with an extra circle of glue around the bamboo for good measure.
Flower nails made of cardboard, bamboo, and hot glue
To use them, we put a dot of frosting on the head of the nail, then applied a square of parchment paper. (Paper cutters are great for making lots of small squares.) The flowers were constructed on the paper so they could be easily slid off and popped in the freezer.
Frosting flower experiments in the freezer drawer
Oh my goodness did the kids have fun making these. We filled up the whole freezer drawer! I did order some washable metal flowers nails, since this is very much a repeatable activity, which we repeated the following week.
Two color rose on a flower nail (purchased)
The second time around we experimented with color. We split the buttercream into four parts, and colored some red, blue, and yellow, and left the fourth portion uncolored. Each frosting bag we loaded with multiple colors. The favorite bag had all three primary colors dolloped on the sides, with white down the middle. This makes great unicorn poop (above the blue star in the picture below). As we reached the ends of the bags, the blue and yellow had combined to green, and the pink and yellow had combined to orange, but these two made adorable little blooming cacti (far right middle in the photo below). Happy discovery!
I was struck by the dark body and bold striping on the grasshopper perched on a fading hibiscus flower. It was also a good opportunity to take a picture of one to compare antenna size relative to a katydid’s. The grasshopper’s feelers are not longer than its body, unlike the epicness of the Meadow Katydid’s antenna.
Grasshopper on a hibiscus flower
The grasshoppers are still gorging on my hibiscus, but they don’t take the entirety of each leaf, which leaves the plant at least some photosynthesizing capabilities. I shoo them off, but it doesn’t make much impact.
Next color experiment with my three colors of alpaca fiber is blending them all together with a little silk. (The silk makes it so strong I can’t break the singles by hand. I’m undecided how I feel about that.) I aimed for equal portions of each color, but I didn’t get out the scale, so I knew there would be variations in the rolags I produced from carding. (Honestly, there will be variation even if I weighed, but the subtle change in color can be quite pleasant.)
Blended alpaca silk rolags in my arm bag ready for spinningCable plied (4 ply: spun, plied, plied again) alpaca silk blend
I think I like the subtlety of this yarn, but I want to make it up into something to be sure. Yarns can look very different in the ball or skein than they do in a finished piece!
Critters and Craft 