daena got a tattoo on her calf

My friend Daena has been getting tattoos for a while. She's a tiny girl, and she's having her back covered! It's still work in progress on her back, but she recently had Jake at Cathedral (next to our shop) give her a tattoo on her calf, and I thought I'd take a couple pictures of the little event and share with my dad, who has been pretty interested in knowing more about our tattoo shop neighbor.


Jake (the tattoo-er) put the stencil on Daena, and made sure she liked where he had placed it.


Tattoo in progress.


Jake was so focused... it was awesome to watch him work.

And yes Daena's tattoo turned out great!

mario

I know I may be a bit too old for this, but I got a 25th anniversary Super Mario special edition Nintendo DSi XL for my birthday (from a nice someone, and the name shall remain a secret) and I've been enjoying playing games on it.



I'm not a super serious gamer, and the games I enjoy are kinda silly to most, but boy, I'm loving the DSi, and of course, Mario, and all his buddies.

77777

This was on the sealer machine at the caffe this morning! This also meant we had made about 77,777 cold drinks so far!

ganny in a skeleton custume

Ganny visiting the shop with Stan and Lisa.

The only "person" I saw at the shop who dressed up for Halloween was Ganny the pit bull!

I like seeing Ganny at the shop. He's always so nice and cuddly! a-gui met Ganny once, and he really liked him, too! :D

the toyota rav4

As of October 30th...



Goodbye Rav4.



Hmmm.



Hello Rav4!

Yay!

halloween ghost cookies

I made some ghost cookies for my friends this year.


These are simple sugar cookies with royal icing.


I even made some vegan ones for my vegan friends this year!

OK I sort of cheated when I was making the vegan ones... my friend Andrew got me a vegan sugar cookie mix and vegan butter, so I made it according to the box. I didn't have regular soy milk around the house, so I used the peanut rice milk drink we had in the fridge. The cookies turned our really well! I found a vegan royal icing recipe online, which was pretty much powdered sugar, corn syrup, and water and vanilla all stirred together. The finished icing worked very well, too.

Hope everyone is having a safe and happy Halloween!

tall bike joe

I've seen guys on tall bikes around the city, and always wondered how exactly they do it.

The other day Joergen came into the shop, and right before that I noticed he was locking up his ride that day... a tall bike!

After he had his siphon coffee and we chatted, I asked how he got onto his tall bike, and how he stops at lights and such, and he said he'd show me. Of course I had to grab my camera and catch him in action!




Don't think I'll ever try to ride on a tall bike myself, but Joe looks super cool when he does it.

a small little fondant cake

For the last "Fondant and Gum Paste" class I made a small little cake for the class project.

This past week had been slightly hectic, so I wasn't able to dedicate some time to making flowers for my cake. I only had the flowers made during class time, which weren't many.

As I was about to bake a cake for the class, I thought, maybe I should just bake a small one, so I don't have to use too many flowers to decorate it.




The cake was just over 4 inches in diameter, and about 1.5 inches tall.

I covered it with green fondant, and cut out circles of brown fondant, along with rolled green, brown, and white fondant balls to decorate the side and bottom of the cake.

I tried to place ALL of my flowers on the cake, but it just didn't look right, so I only used a pink rose and a small leaf I made in class last week.




I really like how this cake turned out. Now that all three cake decorating courses are finished, I am ready to utilize what I've learned and hopefully make cute cakes all the time! :D

goodbye, the tiny little love of mine.

We said goodbye to Ginger, our tiny little Siamese mix last Monday the 18th.


Ginger was really small as a kitten.

How small was she?


Really small!


She was really small as a full-grown cat, too.

I will miss her dearly, but I was glad she was not in pain when we let her go.


I will miss having her sitting by me when I surf online late at night.


I will think back at the time when she liked the bread I made.


She really liked the bread I made.


I will also remember how, the day before she said goodbye to us, she came out in the front room and enjoyed the bright sun coming through the window.

gift box cake

For the second "Gum Paste and Fondant" class the instructor had us bring a squared cake. She was going to teach us how to cover it with fondant.

We had made a bow the week before with a gum paste and fondant mixture. Since I had a white bow, I figured I'd just make my gift box white, too.



I didn't have enough fondant to make ribbons or decorations for the four sides of the gift box, but I thought the cake turned out pretty cute anyhow. :D


At least Yama thought so.


Details on the bow.


Yay for fondant-covered gift box cake!