things that make you go hmmmmmmm

i have a bunch of random pictures that i snapped with the intent of blogging, but they wouldn't really create a full post of their own.  and so you know what that means...random photo dump time!

i forgot to show you how i kicked off mother's day weekend a couple of weeks ago...with a mega-mosa at brunch that kind of took me out for the rest of that day.  champagne turns me into such a lightweight, heh.  but look at this thing -it's as big as my face!

so one of my cookie requests was for a birthday party where succulents were going to be prominently featured as a decor element.  i did a little googling to see if i could come up with some ideas, but since i'm not a real artist nor did i want to do any major piping to create 3D designs, i ended up borrowing an idea from a tutorial i found using a mold for roses using fondant.  amazon came to my rescue with some of the items, with my local baking supply shop covering the rest:

making the flowers was easy enough.  and although they're roses and not actually succulents, using the green fondant actually worked really well.  popping the chunks of fondant in, pressing them into the mold and carefully pulling them out to dry was a fairly simple process.  and then i took a fluffy brush, dipped it into some matte finish edible dust, and they started looking even better.

and to finish it off, i used red and purple edible markers on the edges of the petals and here's how they came out:

i used my edible printer to make a background for some of the cookies that would match the invitation, and when all was said and done here's how they all looked:

speaking of birthdays, we celebrated my grandmother's 93rd birthday this weekend.  with the old lady present for once, i was pretty happy to finally get a complete "4 generations" photo.

my mom asked me to do cookies in the shape of dresses for the party, to honor my grandmother and her everlasting status of rockstar seamstress.  it was extra fun for me to do these, considering my own love for sewing started with her.

the bean has been enjoying the start of her lazy summer days - with summer day camp not starting till the last week of june, she has a full month to just relax and hang out.  of course, that means slime:

and look at this home version of skee ball we found at target!  we busted it out this weekend.

last week while the bean was at one of those final half days of school, i was excited to finally get a chance to do a morning hike with one of my favorite moms from school.  we'd been trying to pull it together for weeks to do this, and we squeezed it in just before the kids were home for the summer.

during a trip to home goods, i found this super cute ferris wheel that the hub actually let me take home.  i love it so much:

and lastly, i leave you with this gem taken from a local church that's known for posting amusing and interesting things on their marquee.  i didn't take this picture, but i had to borrow it to share: