Japanese Family Crest.

On this journey to rediscover my ancestry, my husband found through one of his Japanese books, that each Japanese family has a symbol to represent them, called Kamon.
So all those pretty pictures of symbols I used to see, that I thought it was just for decoration, have in fact a meaning, and a family behind.
With a quick research on the Internet, he found the Kobayashi family crest.
I found so inspiring, I had to paint it somewhere.
We are using the symbol for our Taiko uniforms.
A very cool way to teach the kids about their ancestry, and incorporate to our family activity.

National Cheeseburger Day

My son came from school and told me today was National Cheeseburger Day.
I have been trying to make this giant burger for days, have the ingredients but never had the time or motivation. Since the kids heard about this, I got some extra energy to make it.
I grabbed my bread machine, and made a basic hamburger bun dough. When it was time to bake, I just made one giant bun.
For the burger, I also made to fit the size of the bun.
Then I just placed the regular toppings.
Eating is part of the fun.
And we just share between the family.
Happy Cheeseburger Day.

Owls for ALS

Every year my friend John organizes fund raises for ALS, a disease that took his wife a few years ago.
This year he will be having the Fourth Zumbathon for ALS, and having an auction right after the event. I am attending the zumbathon with my family, and I thought maybe I could bring something for the auction.
I couldn't think of anything dance related, so I decided to make something simple, colorful and happy.
That is why I made this owl, with a welcome sign.
It gave me a chance to go back to the garage and use my scroll saw.
And use my new sander.
After the messy job, the painting could be done inside.
And finally connecting the sign to the owls.
Hopefully people will like it, and have a chance to contribute to John's cause.

Smock for School.

Today is the last day of Summer vacation for the kids, and I just realized there were a couple of items missing for school tomorrow.
My son needs a smock for art class. Today is a holiday and everything is closed.
So the solution was to find material at home to make one.

Thanks to some bags, one from Subway (with a kid's meal) and the other one came probably from a birthday party, I had enough material to make a small smock.
I opened the bags and cut the parts needed.
They were sewn together, then the straps from the bag were cut and sewn to make the neck attachment and the belt.
And this item is now checked from the list.
Now I have to worry about the other things...

School BusCake.

My friend Leslie called all her friends for a end of Summer, back to school pool party.
Since my son had asked me to make this cake during vacation, I thought this would be a good time to make it.
I had two loaves of Entermann's butter cake, and this is the way I stacked them.
Then placing several layers of frosting, white for windows and yellow for the bus.
I placed the cake on top of a cardboard, and the cardboard on top of a glass container (with a good layer of frosting to serve as a glue). This way the wheels made of cookies could be properly placed.
Besides the wheels, the heads, the stop sign and the license plate where made of store bought sugar cookies.
The little eyeballs were sugar eyeballs from the craft store. And black frosting in a piping bag to draw the other details. The yellow frosting in a piping bag also helped outline the edges of the bus, and make the windows.
And I also used food markers on the cookies, to draw the details.
I was happy how it came out, but the next challenge would be to drive the cake to the party. Besides the bumps, my car air conditioner broke, so I was afraid the cookies would melt off and fall, together with the whole cake.
So I placed the cake in the freezer for one hour, then drove straight to the party.
The cake got there intact, one wheel fell when I was cutting, but overall it looked fine, and the kids were happy.
And the party was fun.
Thank you, Leslie and Mikey!