Tag Archives: University of Washington

3-D Husky tailgating cake

Posted in DIY, Food by

I kept a lot of you in the loop via Facebook and Instagram but for those of you who only follow me here, I wanted to show off this year’s tailgating feat: My husky cake!

Woof! Here's my University of Washington Huskies cake

Woof! Here’s my University of Washington Huskies cake

It didn’t turn out quite as well as I had hoped, but I was pretty pleased with the final product. (This cake was for the University of Washington football game against UCLA. Unfortunately the rare November Seattle sun turned the purple cake Bruin blue. Totally not cool. 100 percent Wilton food coloring fail!)

And now it's a Bruin cake!

And now it’s a Bruin cake!

This was the goal cake and I followed the instructions very closely. Unfortunately I didn’t have a large enough plate, so I had to freehand the shape, hence the squatty pup.

The original inspiration

The original inspiration

Here are some photos of the progress of the cake. Please excuse the poor lighting:

Baked cakes!

Baked cakes!

Frosting, I mean glue, I mean frosting!

Frosting, I mean glue, I mean frosting!

Cake progress!

Cake progress!

Huskies cake: assembled but not frosted!

Huskies cake: assembled but not frosted!  It’s 3-D!

Might I suggest you try making this cake for the Cactus Bowl on January 2? Gooooo Huskies!

Woof! Here's my University of Washington Huskies cake

Woof! Here’s my University of Washington Huskies cake

My new AstroTurf “W” wreath

Posted in Around the house, Crafts, DIY, Homemade by
One of my most favorite crafts to date: An AstroTurf W!

One of my most favorite crafts to date: An AstroTurf W!

My dear old glue gun made it halfway through this very special project. I wanted to finish it so badly that after the literal glue gun explosion, we rushed to Lowe’s to pick up a new one.

I started with this “W” letter from JoAnn’s. It runs $2.99 and stands 9.5″ tall. Perfect. And, you can use this technique for just about any letter or number combination.

You’ll also need that giant roll of AstroTurf that I convinced you to buy a couple of months ago.

I flipped the AstroTurf over and traced my letter, leaving about an inch of overhang. From there, cut it out and get that glue gun ready.

Flip and glue. And glue and glue and glue

Flip and glue. And glue and glue and glue

What I didn’t do on my first go-around and will do in the future– and you SHOULD do your first time, add a wire or a tie of some sort toward the middle of your “wreath” before you glue on the facing layer of AstroTurf.

Start gluing. It’s important to go from one side to the other of the facing of the letter and to go with quick speed, since hot glue dries pretty quickly. Specifically, I glued in three main sections (left, right, middle), one section at a time. First, the fully covered “front” side, then I wrapped the overhang around the back, being very careful not to burn myself. On the backside, I pulled the turf tight and added cuts with the X-acto knife as needed.

Two sides done, just one to go

Two sides done, just one to go

I added some felt flowers to give the wreath that extra Husky feel, using leftover felt from a new coaster project I’ve got up my sleeve. (I tried a variety of designs for the flowers with this technique, for the most part.)

Felt flowers made out of extra AstroTurf coaster fabric

Felt flowers made out of extra AstroTurf coaster fabric

The project didn’t take too long and I think the finished product was well worth the time. I’m going to wager that this wreath and its presence at our game watching parties are the reason the Huskies are winning! (I hope I didn’t just jinx them!)

Anyway, happy Purple Friday and GO HUSKIES!

(YES! There is still time for you to grab the project pieces and make one of these to celebrate UW Homecoming on Oct. 25! You know I’m going to make a couple more!!)

 

What a weekend!

Posted in Adventures, Exploring Seattle, Food by

Did you enjoy this past weekend as much as we did?! Brandon finished finals, which meant the end to a long, long quarter. So what’d we do? Celebrate!

We checked out Crumble & Flake, a new-to-us bakery in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

Crumble and flake

Crumble & Flake has received rave reviews, so we thought we’d check it out.  I got the cheddar cheese and smoked paprika croissant and Brandon got the pistachio twice baked. My croissant was delicious and very interesting. In addition to being spread inside like a filling, the batter/dough was orange, as though the cheese and paprika were infused in it. There isn’t any seating at the bakery so we took our croissants to the University of Washington to eat them among the cherry blossoms.

Crumble and Flake at the UW Quad C#UWCherryBlossoms

Since we were so close, we opted for lunch in the University Village at Din Tai Fung. It’s a favorite of ours and we enjoyed our usuals: pork soup dumplings, garlic green beans and shrimp fried rice, along with something new: pork and vegetable steamed buns. Not unexpectedly, we loved them.

So full and ready for naps, we headed back to Megan’s Island where we powered through the sleepiness and got to work on spring cleaning the yard. We spent several hours pulling ivy, sweeping, leaf blowing, raking and packing many yard waste bags. Let me tell you… it looks good here. We’re absolutely ready for spring and for more sunshine.

I’ve got some great plans for both the yard and parties with the spring and summer. So looking forward to the longer days and warmer weather!

Now… onto this week. It’s going to be a doozy.

Me & B enjoying another year of cherry blossoms at UW

Me & B enjoying another year of cherry blossoms at UW