Spring and some of my favorite things....

Finally it's Spring!

Yay!

Warm weather

Sunshine

Baseball

Green Grass

FLOWERS!!

Flip flops

My backyard is Springy beautiful. I have put out most of my Spring decorations back there. What I really wanted my backyard to look like is this

The Pottery Barn backyard. Ahh..

Well mine does not look like that but I tried my best to get it sort of close. I have a big wrought iron shelved plant stand thingy that I thought I could maybe make look like the Pottery Barn one. So I dragged my very heavy plant shelf thing across the backyard one day and attempted to set mine up like theirs.

I said I tried! I know it is not nearly as nice as the Pottery Barn set up but I like it. Here is an overall picture.

Ignore the brown patchy grass. It hasn't all come in yet. That is my garage. Here is the back door area.

Close up of the back door wreath

Here is just a few pictures of some flowers blooming around the backyard

And now here are just some of my favorite things around the yard and house.

And my front door for Spring.

Enjoy your Spring,

Stacy



Easter Decorations Mystery.....

Upon awakening this morning I found this:

Location: Living Room Floor

Prior Location: Perched on a branch set in a vase

Proof of prior location. Nestled in the branches for my Easter decorations.



Let's take a closer look at the victim:



Who did this to my little fake bird?

Suspect List:

Suspect #1

Name: Happy

Age: 4 years old

Occupation: Watch Dog

Hobbies: Eating



Why she could be the bird chewer:  She dislikes suspect #2 and has motive to frame suspect 2.

Why she probably is not the culprit: Look at this face:

Besides it would take WAY too much effort to pull that off. She prefers to "nap"

Suspect #2

Name: Izzy

Age: 6 months

Occupation: Puppy

Hobbies: Chewing, Taking our things and hiding them outside, Annoying Happy, Jumping, Biting Happy, Generally Annoying to all.

Why she could be the chewer: Listed as a hobby.

Why she may not be the chewer: Oh, she probably is.

My poor little Easter decoration. If you would like to see all my Easter decorations before they are destroyed one by one check out my post here.

My Easter Mantel here.

And my Spring Porch here.

Hopefully my decorations will survive until it is time for Summer Decorating!



Stacy

A Scentsy Cake

Invited to a Scentsy party recently? Know what Scentsy is? Want to bake a cake today? Let's bake a Scentsy cake!

Okay but first for all you that have no clue what the heck a Scentsy is let me explain. Scentsy is amazing smelly stuff. They have full size, mid size and plug in warmers that only use a light bulb to melt their special wax. The wax does not get very hot so it is safe around kids and pets. It smells amazing! My friend is a Scentsy rep and here is her website so you can browse and figure out what on earth I am talking about :)

https://brittonylandis.scentsy.us/Home

Alright..let's bake a Scentsy cake today (now that we all know what a Scentsy is).

Step one. You all know my step one's by now right? Step one.

Bake a cake.

When I am baking a cake to shape I always think, what can I use to bake it in that will help me with my shape later. You can bake a cake in anything that can go in the oven. Think outside the cake box ;-)

Meatloaf dish- yup

Round pot- yup

Bread loaf dish- yes

Cassoroll dish- you got it

Coffee cup- sure

As long as the dish is marked heat safe for oven use you can use it. Think shapes of the cakes and find something you have that you can bake with. I used two bowls to make the warmer that will sit on top of the cake. So I baked a cake with my Wilton 8 inch cake pan

This was for the base cake. Then I used two bowls about 5 inches wide and 3 inches tall for the warmer cake that will sit on top of the base cake.

After the cakes were all baked and cooled in the refrigerator or the freezer, I stacked my two small cakes, icing them in between and carved my shape.

Here is a nice close up of how I shaped the cake to look like a warmer. Oh what warmer am I using as inspiration you ask? What shape do we need our cake to be?

There it is. Our warmer inspiration.

Next I cut the top off my warmer cake so i could make the top part where the wax melts.

I then carved out the area where you would put the actual wax.

Set that part aside. I then iced the whole body of the warmer cake to hold the fondant. I used homemade marshmallow fondant. I had never made it before or used it before. I usually buy premade fondant. If I were to make this cake again, I would buy the fondant because the marshmallow fondant did not do as well as I hoped. It was hard to put on and it did not smooth out nicely. I had many imperfections. Probably only that I can see but still they are there!

Now remember that base cake we made from our Wilton 8 inch cake pan? Take that cake and set it on your presentation plate and ice the cake. Then use whatever color fondant you would like to cover that cake with. I used purple because Scentsy's colors are actually purple and green.

Then fondant your warmer cake. Assemble the warmer cake onto the base cake. I poked through two skewers to make it all sturdy.

I added a green ribbon fondant to the base of the warmer cake for a finished look. I also added balled up purple fondant to the bottom of my base cake for a border.

See the imperfections I was talking about. I am just not in love with the marshmallow fondant.

Now wrap the topper piece seperatly and add it to the top of your warmer cake.

I used ribbon fondant along the topper to hide the seems. I also added cut out flowers to the base of the cake. One really fun touch is to make the wax bars out of white fondant. I just rolled the fondant and shaped it into squares to add to the top.

I added alot of detail to the warmer to make it look like a real warmer. The colors look better in person. I have a terrible camera.

Thanks for checking out my Scentsy warmer cake. Now next time you are invited to a Scentsy party bring this cake! Fun :)

Stacy