Super Mario Bros Cakes

We have had joint birthday parties for my kids the last couple of years.  My husband's entire family lives out of state and its easier for them to come to just one party.  Plus, its much less stressful on us to just do one party and get it over with.  And they are still young enough to enjoy each other's company - most of the time.

Little man licking the cake LOL

I have never ever ever made a cake with fondant before but wanted to try it out this time.  HOWEVER, I never got around to doing a practice cake.  Please, please, please keep in mind that I am not - nor have I ever claimed to be - an expert cake decorator.

I ended up just using dyed frosting to decorate cakes and was super psyched with the results.  They were incredibly super easy to make and had I not been rushed (like the cakes made it to the party 15 minutes late kind of rushed) they could have been even better.

For both cakes, we used store bought boxed cake mixes.  The 1up cake was dark chocolate with cream cheese frosting and the question mark box cake was lemon supreme cake with lemon supreme frosting.

For the 1up Mushroom Cake:

• Mix up your batter and pour it into a round cake pan that I first sprayed with Pam for Baking.  I used one of my silicone cake pans that I absolutely adore (thanks Mom).  
• After the cake cooled, I removed it from the pan and trimmed off two little triangles (I did curve the edges a little, but if you've got a picture of a mushroom, this should be pretty easy peasy.

But just in case you aren't sure what I mean - here is a crudely drawn example.

• I then used some plain frosting to seal the side edges - let it sit for a bit to dry a little.
• And because I'm a nut about running out of the perfectly mixed color of frosting - I always tend to have more frosting than necessary.  I used about half a container of cream cheese frosting tinted with just a little bit of red and yellow gel food coloring to get a light peachy color for the bottom (face) of the mushroom.  I used a small spatula to frost this part of the cake.  When mixing food coloring into frosting, you want the gel.  If you use the liquid, it will make your frosting way too runny.
• Use the other half of uncolored cream cheese frosting in the can to make the circle/oval shapes on the top of the mushroom.   I use plain plastic bags and snip the corner off to pipe it onto the cake.  This can be a large opening because it doesn't have to be super precise.
• Open your other can of cream cheese frosting and use pretty much the entire tube of green gel food coloring. It took a lot to get the right shade.  Mix it well and the use another plastic bag with a large hole to cover the parts that need to be green.
• I used some black decorating icing with a fine tip to put the eyes on the cake and that's it!

For the Question Mark Box Cake:

• Start off with a square cake pan (or a rectangle and trim it down).
• While waiting for the cake to cool, I mixed in basically an entire tube of yellow gel coloring into Lemon Supreme frosting (it wasn't bright enough as is).
• Once the cake was cool, I popped it out and frosted the entire thing with the bright lemony frosting.
• I used the rest of my white cream cheese frosting (in the bag with the snipped corner) to make the "?" and rivets.

Now have fun and be creative!  Below is the video to the cake that I was originally inspired by.

DIY: Lightbulb Terrarium

This project will show you how to make a sealed terrarium using some supplies around the house.

Don't worry, It won't be sitting in a tiny bowl forever.

This is still a work in progress.  The terrarium itself is complete, but we haven't embellished it yet.  This is the start to our very first steampunk terrarium.  So far we haven't spent a dime on this project because we found all of the objects around the house.  If you don't have them, it should still be a pretty inexpensive project.

Materials:
A lightbulb - we used an old burnt out one (it does not have to be clear, you can easily clean off the white coating)
A towel or small blanket
Screwdriver (any kind as long as it has a handle)
Salt
Small gravel
Potting soil
Small plants and moss
Some sort of water-tight sealant (we used J-B Weld)
Tweezers
Long, thin stick (or chopstick, etc.)
Water

Start out with a burnt out lightbulb.  You will want to be careful here so you don't get cut.  Hold the bulb with a towel or small blanket.  With the other hand, gently tap on the end (where it screws into the light socket) with the handle of a screwdriver.  Okay, you will have to tap a little bit more than "gently" but be careful.  Because this black part is glass, you may want to wear safety glasses when doing this to protect your eyes from little bits of glass that chip off.

You will want to continue gently tapping until this part falls inside the bulb.  The flip the bulb upside down and gently shake out the contents of the lightbulb.

If you didn't start out with a clear bulb, this is where you get to make it clear.  Pour in a little bit of salt into the bulb and put your thumb over the opening.  Swish, swirl and shake until it starts to turn clear - then do it some more.  Once you think you've got it all off, dump out your salt and rinse with water.

I was taking these with my phone because the camera was dead.  Don't judge me.

Very carefully, slide some small gravel into the bulb.  You don't want a lot of gravel in there, just a thin layer on the bottom.  

Mmmm... soil

Top the layer of gravel with some potting soil - we just stole a little from a potted plant on the porch.  Then carefully slide a little bit more gravel in.

We found some moss growing in the backyard at the base of some trees.  We carefully peeled off a little bit of bark with the moss on it

We also carefully uprooted this little clover-y thing that we've got all throughout our lawn.

Now its time to carefully plant.  Gently push whatever small plant you have into the lightbulb and use a long, thin stick (or chopstick, etc.) to press the roots into the soil.  Drop in some of the bark with moss on it.  You can use the stick to rearrange and get things just how you want them.

This would have been much easier with a medicine dropper...

Now its time to water.  If you've got a medicine dropper, that would work fabulously.  Having children, we always have a ton of these taking up space in the drawer - except when I need one.  We used a medicine spoon instead.  It worked okay.  You want to add water VERY slowly so as not to add too much.  You just want the soil to be moist, not saturated.

Tada!  Check out the inside!

The last step is to use your waterproof sealant to seal it all in there.  We used J-B Weld.  Just be sure to cover the entire opening.  You don't want any water getting out.

Sit back and enjoy!  You shouldn't have to do anything else from now on.  It will water itself since its all contained.

Stay tuned to see us finish the Steampunk decorations.

The Steampunk Journey Begins

We never really got into the whole Steampunk thing until, well... yesterday.

We attended a Steampunk event and became enthralled with the entire culture.

This blog's intent is to chronicle our Steampunk journey.  We will include projects and more (we're already working on an upcycled lightbulb turned terrarium - plus I've got an idea for a kickass nightstand for the husband).  

This blog will also deal in other sorts of "geekery" we as a couple enjoy.  We are two entirely different sorts of nerds, but sometimes we overlap - like Doctor Who and Super Mario Bros.  Don't hesitate to let us know if there is ever anything you'd like to see on here!

Can't wait to finish up our first project and post it!

Here we are enjoying each others' smooches.  We call it "Nerd Love" whenever our glasses clink together when we kiss ;)