New crafts, new city

Welcome to my blog! I recently moved to Columbus, Ohio from Toronto and find myself with quite a lot of free time on my hands as I wait for my work papers to come through. To keep boredom at bay, I'm putting together this blog to share my crafty projects with other crafters out there, and to expose my obsessive craftiness to friends back home who may be curious to know how I am spending my time these days.

This move has given me time for a bunch of things I've been wanting to try: cake decorating, upholstery, and piano lessons. Starting with cakes, I went and bought myself a ton of decorating supplies last week in a fit of excitement. Since one cannot eat endless cakes and buttercream on their own, I found a volunteer gig baking birthday cakes for hospice patients. Yesterday I made my first cake, a banana layer cake with vanilla buttercream frosting, and dropped it off for the birthday girl - hopefully she enjoyed it.

It was originally a two-layer 9" round cake, but I bought the wrong size cake board and box and had to trim it down to an 8" square. The hardest (and most time consuming) part was covering the cake - I have a newfound respect for real bakers who can decorate cakes super speedily. I kept seeing crumbs unearthing in the buttercream and had to slather it with more buttercrema to patch it up. The roses weren't too difficult to make (with practice) but because my icing had a slightly grainy consistency, all my piping looked a tad raggedy - see on the borders and rose petals? Next time I'll whip it longer and add a little more liquid to see if it helps. I'm happy with this cake, even though it looks a little cheesy. But it's definitely tasty and getting a cake on your birthday is always nice!