Sarita's Yummy & Scrappy Blog

FYI- New Blog

2009-02-03T14:28:00.001-08:00

I have a new blog....

pitonesfamily.blogspot.com

I will be updating on that blog now. I'm not using this one because the log on is tied to my old email address that I don't use anymore.

Same kind of stuff but with Art mixed in there as well (hahaha get it? Mixed in there? DJ?... whatever).

So... follow me on there please. :D

Not very crafty...

2008-10-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't been very crafty lately... too busy with the wedding, work, etc. BUT I do have a couple things going on that I won't be able to mention on my blog! After the holidays, I'll be posting a lot more stuff.

Speaking of the holidays, I'm excited that I finally got permission to decorate the Christmas tree HOWEVER I want it... and I'm starting a star-shaped ornament collection. I was able to find quite a few at Oktoberfest (and an ornament with snowmen... the lady wrote our names on it and "Our First Christmas"). I'm still keeping an eye out for some cool stuff. Let me know if you see any place that has some good star ornaments.

Anywhoo... just felt like posting because its been almost a month and I haven't had anything good to show on here. I swear I will soon. I will post the favors for the wedding once they're done, and any other cakes/crafts that get finished.

:)

Pam's - - th Birthday Cake

2008-09-17T16:56:00.001-07:00

To protect the innocent, I did not include her age.

Pam at work has the same birthday as Art. I told her I wanted to make her a cake, and she got really excited. She said she liked strawberry cake, and I happened to have a box of it at home.

Cake Details:
Duncan Hines Strawberry Supreme cake mix
Frozen, unsweetened strawberries.
Vanilla Buttercream frosting.

I thawed the berries in water, then sliced them. I put a VERY thin layer of icing on the inside, and put all the berries on there. It was a thin layer, but just enough berry to get a pop of the flavor in your mouth.

I decorated it with violet-tinted thin-consistency icing, which wasn't my best work, but nobody would care because I made ROSES! I made 7 roses using a little bit of violet and lots of pink to make a nice deep pink color. I threw in a few light green leaves too.

:) She loved it. She said she had a cake that was almost exactly like it when she was 7 years old. The same color of purple and everything. That made it much more special, and I was glad I was able to make it for her because I knew it was appreciated. :)

Happy Birthday, Pame-lama-ding-dong!

Art's 33rd Birthday Cake

2008-09-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

We all know that Art likes pirates and anything buccaneers-ey. So for his birthday this year, his parents and my mom came over to the house and we all wore Bucs jerseys and watched the game with him. Mom made iced tea which was gone before the sun went down. For dinner we had a huge salad bar with ALL the toppings you could imagine, and chicken wings (tequila-lime and buffalo). For dessert, I made him a cake. Well, I decorated it. Mom bought the cake mix, his mom made the cake, and I decorated it.

And so, we all know I'm kind of a control freak. His mom made the cake as if she were pouring it into a bundt pan or something, so she totally over-beat it. The taste was really good, but the shape wasn't really uniform like I would have for decorating. It actually looked a little like a mushroom. So I just leveled the top, and decorated it as-is.

As you can see (by the fake gang sign showing he's 33... and yes, there are that many candles on the cake!), he liked his cake. It was yellow, no filling, with vanilla buttercream frosting. There was only a little bit leftover, so I gave it to Phil who tore it up by himself. :)

Happy Birthday babe!!!

Color IQ Test

2008-09-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Randomly, I stumbled upon this color IQ test at: http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

I thought I wasn't doing so well at first. You have to re-arrange these color tiles for the color spectrum to be completed, four different times. The rating scale is from 0 (perfect) to some really high number (you suck). Check this out:

Your score: 0
Gender: Female
Age range: 20-29
Best score for your gender and age range: 0
Highest score for your gender and age range: 1409

SO now we know, having an obsession with Crayola as a child can really be useful... because I have perfect color vision/IQ.

:) GO CHECK IT OUT! :)

Jesus Pitones' 67th Birthday Cake

2008-09-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

The future father-in-law's birthday was on August 14th. We went to La Jolla Shores with most of Art's family and extended family for his annual birthday picnic, and the next day Art bbqed some kabobs and I made his birthday cake and card.

This is the card I made for him. I used a Jolee's Boutique embellishment set and some curly letters I found on clearance at Michael's a few months back. I used an upside-down I for the exclamation points.
I made this cake because Art's dad is always working on something and building stuff. So obviously my inspiration was a tape measure...

Vanilla cake mix w/vanilla buttercream frosting.

Used golden yellow coloring for the base color, black for the black and grey parts, and brown for the handle of the hammer. Where the 12 and 1 are near each other, the spacing isn't so great but everywhere else it happened to look pretty even. I just eyeballed the spacing. I put small stars around the bottom.

Art's mom was VERY impressed with the cake as were his tias. They watched me make it to see how I leveled, torted, and iced the cake. They watched how I decorated it as well and I told them about the Michael's classes. Since they just got a Michael's in the valley, I told them they should take the class.

ANYWHOO.... that's that cake. :) The more I decorate cakes, the more I love doing it. :)

Update soon

2008-09-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry I'm lame and haven't posted anything in a while... I've been very busy lately with all kinds of things.

I will upload and post a picture or two of Art's dad's birthday cake (I was VERY proud of it, and his mom still talks about it to this day), the thank you cards I'm making for the wedding, and a couple other projects I'm working on.

I'm also just floating along here at work... some people are really frustrating me because I would rather not talk politics at work while the rest of them are all loud and annoying about it. It's hard for me to bite my tongue, because I, for some reason, don't feel the need to discuss politics at work or in friendly social situations because people always get hurt for some reason or another. I'll let them all rally together and do whatever they want to do.

I actually heard from a few people here at work that they think I'm an incredibly calm person. Weird how I act at work compared to at home or anywhere else! They said that I never seem stressed, always cool and collected. My bosses even said that in my evaluation! So I'm not going to prove otherwise, I'll just keep on keeping to myself here, because flying under the radar is actually giving me REALLY high praise. :)

OK so that's enough of that. I'll post the cake and whatnot later tonight.

"Marvelous Minis" by Country Quilts

2008-08-15T17:20:00.001-07:00

Here are the ornaments I made last weekend.

All eight ornaments completed.

They had a fall-ish theme to them: cat, jack-o-lantern, glove, pineapple (???), sheep w/crow, pear w/crow, watermelon w/crow, and pig.

I used some really cute plaid fabric my mom gave me and cut 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles from it. There were only 7 different plaids, so for one I used tea-stained muslin.

I cut out each shape from plain old cheap felt based on the pattern, and used a little bit of basting glue to hold the different parts onto the fabric instead of pinning them (I hate pins). Then I hand stitched each piece using a running stitch in a matching color of DMC floss.

Once the design was stitched onto the fabric, I took the two pieces and with a running stitch around the edges, sealed 3 sides. I popped some stuffing in there (not too much, didn't want them to look TOO much like pillows), and closed it up.

So I'm pretty proud of these since I've never done anything like this before. I'm definitely going to do some for each season. I'm planning on putting them on my wreath I keep hung in the living room throughout the year. I haven't decorated it since last Christmas, so I think this is a cute way to keep it up-to-date. I'm planning on finding some Christmas ones (and maybe putting those on the tree!), and then make some (drawing out my own patterns instead of buying them!) for Valentines (hearts), St Patty's (shamrocks, pots of gold, and rainbows -- which would just be a cream colored arch with rainbow colored stitching, i'm thinking), Easter eggs, for summer I'll have up some red, white, and blue stars for all the many patriotic holidays that season.

That's it. I'm going to start on Art's dad's cake now (french vanilla!). I hope he likes it!

Quicky Update

2008-08-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

So I'm updating because it's been a while since I "blogged".

I made my applique ornaments, and hopefully this weekend I'll have time to upload the pictures (it's so hard on our slow internet connection!).

Art was out of town for a week and a half, so I got busy with other things like cleaning and whatnot. Since he's been back I've been super busy at work so things have just been a mess.

After this weekend, things will be blogging back to normal with pictures of my craft project from last weekend (ornaments), Art's dad's birthday cake which I will be making this weekend, and the birthday card I will be making him as well.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

p.s. only 100 days until the wedding!

Eventually pictures, but now, more "blah"

2008-08-05T12:09:00.001-07:00

Art left for Santa Clara for 9 days yesterday morning. I was fine until evening came around... about the time I normally make dinner. But then we talked on the phone and everything was cool.

This weekend I will be making some little applique ornaments (fall-themed) with mom (who is crafting with me all weekend), I'll be sure to take pics and put them up on here. I also found a cool beach bag idea in my new Martha Stewart Living magazine. If I make that, I'll put it in here (or save it for another post).

I've decided to do a lot of crafting for the holidays because I know money will be tight after the wedding. We decided on a budget for each other for presents, and I know what I'm going to be making for people. I won't write it in here because someone might be reading :D:D:D

I'm also going to work some more on my large Christmas-scene cross stitch project this week. I did a little bit last night, but my eyes were getting tired because there wasn't enough light. I think I'm going to bring a small lamp to the side table in the living room so I have enough light to stay motivated to work on it this week.

That's all. I'm at my boss' desk this week because she's on vacation, and although I have a little pile of work to be done, I get super bored because it's so quiet in here!!!!

Wilton Cake Decorating, Class 4

2008-07-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight was our last cake decorating class for Course 1. We're probably not taking Course 2 unless we can find one that is on a Friday or Saturday night.

We did the Wilton Rose (tips 12 and 104) and learned leaves, a bow, and the sweet pea too.

Cake Details:
Spice Cake
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (3/4 tsp vanilla, 1/4 butter)
The middle layer had a thin layer of frosting, and some Pampered Chef Sweet Cinnamon Sprinkle
Shell border on bottom w/tip 21; dots with tip 3.

We finished the class finally! It was worth the practicing.... but the classes definitely moved too slow for us.Me and mom posing with our proof-of-skill :)

Camping

2008-07-27T10:15:00.001-07:00

We're going camping today until Tuesday morning. OJ and Nikki are coming with us.

We're going to Paso Picacho in the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, which is where we always go, and we're so excited :D Or at least, yesterday I was really excited, I wanted to go RIGHT THEN. Not so much anymore, but I know that once we get on the road, I'll be excited again. Usually when we get there, it's evening and the sun is going down. This time, we'll be there at check in... 2pm. That will be PERFECT because then we can really see what areas are best for the tents and put them up without needing flashlights and lanterns. I can get the "Kitchen" all set up too .

We got a new tent. It's an Ozark Trail tent... blue, two room, 13x10, 6 feet high. It sleeps 6... but yeah, we'd never use it for that many people, I don't think. BUT we can put Chompers' kennel in there and our stuff. Normally we have to keep all of our stuff in the car, and last time we brought Chompers, he had to stay in the car too at night. So now we have space for everything and don't have to bend over in the tent because it's so tall. It fits in a small bag, only a little bigger than our two person tent.

We also got a propane lantern. Problem is, nobody sells long matches anymore. Well, at least the Wal Mart in Lakeside doesn't. But the man I was asking about it said that he couldn't find them anywhere.

We decided not to bring the BBQ this time because we're not really cooking much food that requires it, since we're cooking hot dogs on our marshmallow sticks, and we're going to eat Pork Chops, which can easily be cooked on a pan on the stove.

Chompers LOVES camping too... he behaves so much more on the leash there. He loves running around, smelling things, and pooping in nature :D

OK so I'm going to go put away dishes now so Art won't complain anymore (hahaha:) ) and then get the cold foods together so that when OJ and Nikki get here in like an hour, we can just put everything in the cooler and head out! :D

Wilton Cake Decorating, Class 3

2008-07-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

For Class 3 we had to make a cake with yellow on the sides and white on top. We also learned step 2 of the Wilton rose (even though mom and I went on to practice the rest of it because we got bored of waiting for the lady to move on), shell borders, and dots.

I never follow color-related instructions. Why would I? So I made mine with blue on the sides and green on top. I had clowns that were teal. I wasn't going to do the clowns because I just thought they were stupid. BUT I did it anyways. Here is how it turned out:

(p.s. it took about 10 tries to get this stupid picture uploaded on here since I'm an internet pirate and steal wireless from my neighbors! lol)

CAKE DETAILS:
Strawberry Cake
Vanilla Buttercream Icing (3/4 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp butter flavoring)

I used Royal Blue coloring for the sides, and Kelly Green for the top (doesn't look too Kelly though, oh well).
The borders are teal, done with the leftover from the clowns.
Pink dots are same as the details on the clown.
The Clowns were done with tip 21, dots with tip 3.

I don't know how likely it is that I will use those clown head again, they're kind of creepy, but I'll hold on to them just in case someone wants a creepy clown cake again.

Mom's cake turned out cute... she put balloons on hers, with cute little clowns that reminded me of Julian and Gabi. One was green, the other Yellow.

I don't know if I will miss taking the class... I think mom and I are going to get together to learn Course 2 things so we can do it without having to pay or go on their schedule.

Quicky Update

2008-07-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will have pics up of the Creepy Clown Cake. I'm cleaning right now, and have been pretty sick all week, so I haven't had time to update much this week. I've had a fever for like two days, and today is the first day that I've felt OK.

Got the camping supplies tonight, so I'm excited and ready to go for Sunday! Just have to get through tomorrow somehow without getting too stir crazy because I'm so excited to go camping! :D

I'm a nerd. Whatever.

But we're packing everything up tomorrow so that it's all done. We should probably put gas in the car tomorrow too. Art's at his gig and I haven't really done anything on my little to do list yet... so I'm gonna get cracking.

Have a good night (to all of you out there who aren't reading this right now... LOL)

Today is Cake Day

2008-07-22T12:37:00.001-07:00

I have my third cake decorating class tonight.

I'm not too excited about it though, probably because I know I will get bored again (mom too... we're both fast learners), and that we'll have to finish our stupid clown cakes at home.

I'd rather not make a clown. Maybe if they had Godzilla heads to buy instead of clown heads, I'd be more excited to make a mini-city for a frosting Godzilla to be sitting on.

But no. It's Derby clowns. My cake is blue on the sides and green on top. The clowns will be teal. I will be disappointed. I hope I at least pick up the 2nd step of the Wilton rose easily. That's all I'm really excited for. The rest of the class is just dull to me now (mostly because I know it will be a mess and I'm just in a weird mood today).

SO.... tonight I will have completed my third cake, second for the Wilton class, and I will eat a huge slice of this one since I couldn't finish my slices from the last two I made.

GO DERBYCLOWNS!

p.s. Check out this clown someone made... I might have to go there tonight if I'm bored enough. Nothing better than a sexy creepy clown...

http://dianna.fourdee.com/blog_pictures/8/02_clown.jpg

Here are pics from Frisbee Golf

2008-07-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

OJ, Nikki, and Jeni in the van after golfing...

On the way back to the house

Happy losers

Full from dinner

Carisa & Nikki

Eli

Juj posing for Myspace at an early age

Jeni making some BOMB mojitos!

Grubbin' on some salad

Gabi grubbin' on cakey

Frisbee Golf

2008-07-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

I made another cake this weekend, just for fun, for family dinner's dessert. The theme of the cake was based on the Evite Jeni sent out.

We played frisbee golf (which, it turns out, makes your whole body throb in pain hours after you're finished losing, from your chest to your fingertips), and the winner's name was going to be written on the cake.

It was definitely fun, it was just tiring because we were walking SO much more than I thought we would. Art got hit in both ankles by frisbees too.

SO here's the cake before we played:So we played, and Carisa won (if you doubled her score, since we were playing teams and she was playing alone). OJ won singles.
So this is what happened:

Carisa said to put OJ on there too... after I wrote her name (it was kind of sloppy though, my arms were hurting from frisbee golfing). So I added OJ in there on the side.

I like making cakes even more now. :D

CAKE DETAILS:
Vanilla Cake
Vanilla buttercream frosting (3/4 tsp vanilla flavoring, 1/4 tsp butter flavoring)
Torted the cake, put a thin layer of the thin buttercream frosting on the middle, and a layer of thawed, sliced strawberries.

I used a #3 tip to freehand draw the flamingo in pink, then used my small star tip (I think it was #12) to fill it in with mini-stars. then I used #3 to draw the legs, beak, wing, and eye on the flamingo. The stars on the bottom were done with a larger star tip, and the dots with the same #3 grey.

When we cut into it, the cake was REALLY moist, and Art & Eli were saying it reminded them of tres leches cake (ew). I just thought it was moist and tasty. I might make a blueberry cake next. :D

Ayy Babe!!!

2008-07-18T15:30:00.001-07:00

Today was the big day... I got my personalized plates for the Murano!!!!Now all I need to do is get my USD Alumni plate frame and logo decal for the window. :D

Stolen from a random blogger on here...

2008-07-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

Outside My Window... the trees make me want to go camping already

I am thinking... of how long the lines must be at the DMV right now

I am thankful for... everything I have in my life :D

From the kitchen... I know it's already clean because Art did a good job on the dishes this week

I am wearing... a very comfy outfit that is turquoise and hot pink!

I am creating... this blog because I have nothing better to do!

I am going... home at 2pm today, so I can bring mom a Diet Coke, and finally pick up my personalized license plates!!!!! AYYBABE

I am reading... the back of my Tropical Skittles bag and remembering when they first came out and the bag was yellow! :D

I am hoping... that the line at the DMV will move fast for me since I didn't bring a book that I'm that into.

I am hearing... the airconditioning... it's actually really loud...

One of my favorite things... is scrapbooking, and I'm excited that I get to rearrange things so I can have a bigger scrapping area!

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Art's Disco party tonight at Gallagher's in OB, Cake tasting tomorrow w/Jeni & Art, watching some movies, doing some scrapbooking, and playing frisbee golf w/family!

This Weekend

2008-07-18T11:33:00.001-07:00

This weekend I will be making another cake... not sure what flavor or what it will look like. Jeni's hosting dinner on Sunday and we're all going to play frisbee golf. So maybe I'll make it green or something. The Evite she sent out had a flamingo on it, maybe I'll decorate it with a flamingo.

I'm pretty limited in what I can decorate because I've only had those two classes and actually practiced in one class. But I can work on my handwriting, and I can make magic with star-tips!

I'm also moving along well on my huge cross-stitching project. It's a Christmas scene, but I'd like for it to be done by the wedding in November because after that, I want to start decorating (by the time we're back from the honeymoon, it's Christmas decorating time!). So I really have to get on that. I should treat it like it's work or something. We're going camping next weekend, so I can always bring it along there as long as I make sure it doesn't get dirty.

Have a great weekend! Hopefully I'll have more images to post by Monday.

Baby Shower Diaper Cake

2008-07-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

Jeni taught me how to make diaper cakes for people for baby showers. I made one for a girl here at work who was having a baby boy and it was a hit. Today is a baby shower for another co-worker, so I had two other people pool money with me to make this cake.
I found a REALLY cute 10-pack of bibs at Wal-Mart that said cute things like "cupcake", "hottie", "spoil me", "girly girl", "girl power", "lil flirt", "sweet pea".... very cute. I also included two packs of wash cloths that are about 94 cents per 4-pack, three cute onesies, travel-sized baby toiletries, a rattle on top, and a couple of toys. Also a set of two pacifiers that seemed to me to be TOTALLY the mom's style. I was very proud of it. The base isn't as big as I would normally like it to be, but these diapers were smaller than I anticipated although they're size 1.

The plate it sits on is actually a pizza pan, which, to me, is a little gift to the mommy. :) I always love getting new stuff for the kitchen. I put the care instructions under the diaper tower.

I used mini rubber bands to hold the rolled items together. Then I tied each tier with curling ribbon to hold it together. I put pretty ribbon from my scrapbooking stash around each tier, covering the curling ribbon. Each level is tied a different way, which is a detail I think only I would notice, but that's fine.

Someone said I should sell these. I could, I guess, but it seems like a hassle to sell things when I have enough on my plate. I just love making stuff like this for people who I KNOW will appreciate it.

First Cake

2008-07-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

I finished my first cake last night. We made a rainbow cake, which was blue with a star patterned rainbow on top. It had a star border and ugly clouds.

We got to the class and used the demo table because the room was packed. So next week we're getting there early so we can claim that table again, it was perfect. I picked up the practice techniques quickly, which was great because I was worried that I wouldn't do so well on the writing and the stars (which is what we practiced).
We did a piping gel transfer of the rainbow pattern on the cake that we brought with us, pre-iced with thin consistency blue buttercream icing (nice and crusty). All we got around to was drawing out the lines of the rainbow with our tip #3. I was disappointed because I thought we'd have more time, but I think our instructor just moves slowly so that EVERYONE understands what they're doing. That's great, except that my mom and I are quick learners and want to get down to business!

I brought it home and finished it right away, which only took about 10 minutes. I accidentally made my star border too small, but that's ok because it still looks nice.

So, here's my first cake!So that is the cake. But then, I remembered that Art wanted the cake to be for him... so I went and used my thin icing which had some piping gel mixed in, and wrote a little message on the cake for him. I filled in the heart with leftover red from the rainbow.
I'm really proud of my happy little cake. It's actually not little at all:

CAKE DETAILS:
*yellow cake mix baked in a 3" deep, 8" pan. Baked it with some homemade even-bake strips around it so it came all the way to the top. Leveled it, then torted it. Filled with Almond cake filling (found a can of it at Albertsons, it was weird though because the flavors available were kind of grody).
*Buttercream icing was made with 1/2 tsp of almond flavoring, 1/4 tsp butter flavoring, 1/4 tsp vanilla flavoring. It was REALLY almondy. Mom hated the smell of it in class. Next time I think I'm going to make it more buttery flavored with a little vanilla.

Cutting into it tonight, hopefully it tastes great!

About the blog, I guesss

2008-07-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to put any creative cooking in this blog so I can keep track of how I progress with my culinary skills and everything. Ideally, I can rank how tasty the food is, but I know how much I fall off of updating stuff like this. I will try hard though to get things posted and have a steady hobby. Since I do all the cooking in our house, at least I know half the work will be done-- dinner will be cooked. It's just a matter of taking a picture and writing down the recipe as I go along. I think I can handle it.

PLUS, who knows if anyone will even READ this blog, but at least I have it up and maybe I will be motivated to try new recipes and whatnot.

BUT before I can start cooking anything delicious, I need to find out what I'm allergic to (since a couple of weeks ago I had a bad reaction to my tasty shrimp pasta, and the allergist still isn't confident that it was a shrimp allergy, but may instead be a garlic, parsley, or chili pepper allergy).

ALSO, I want to take pictures of my scrapbooking projects as I complete them. I tend to make a lot of cards and little mini books, so I want to keep track of them before I give them away. As I finish projects and pages, I will upload the pics on here. Hopefully I can get ideas from other people and try to create my own style.

I guess I could go back and take pictures of the pages I've done already, but I don't like the way they look anymore. I think I need to keep them the way they are though because I should be proud of how much I have learned. I just need to get back into it. My next BIG project will be my wedding album, but I need pictures first!

Eventually this will be something interesting. Right now it kind of sucks. :)

Wilton Cake Decorating, Class 2

2008-07-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight is my second cake decorating class at Michael's with my mom. We're making a rainbow cake, and I feel really limited creatively. I would rather not make a rainbow, but that's what the "teacher" says we have to make. We probably have to write something on there too, but I'm not sure what I want to write. I might just write "Eat Me" or "R2" or something on it.

Tonight I will take a picture of the final product so I can put it on here.