Doge

I've been meaning to draw Jackie something ever since she (along with Sunny and JJ) got me a massive set of colored pencils (200+!). I did start a picture of Penny awhile ago, but I didn't like where it was going so I stopped. Now for her 26th birthday, I decided to make another attempt to draw her furbabies for her :)

Searching through Jackie's instagram (@pennyandkeebz), I found two pictures I liked:

But the one of them sitting and looking up was too cute to pass up. Look at how attentive they are!

I started with a rough sketch to get an idea of the proportions. Looks promising....

Then I went in and outlined some of the details.

I started with Kiba first, mostly because I'm right-handed and didn't want to smudge Penny when she was all colored in. Also, Kiba has more color and details and looked more fun to draw first.

Kiba done :) Penny was a little more difficult, because her coat is a lot lighter and was less defined.

While I was working on it, I thought of also making a shiba doge meme birthday card, to go with the drawing, but then I just decided to combine the two ideas.

I was aiming to have this done by her birthday (2/3), but it turned out to be a little too ambitious for that since I started late in January. So I said, I'll just mail it for Valentine's day! But life happened.

I finished the drawing the weekend we celebrated Lunar new year, so I was able to give Jackie her gift in person.

Happy birthday, Jackie! Ruv you <3

Single Life is Sweet

On Valentine's day, as a treat for myself, I really wanted to make a chocolate lava cake. However, all the recipes I searched for made more than one serving. Could I really eat that many lava cakes? Actually, it's more like, "should I?" Because I definitely can. And you know what? I'm not really watching my weight, so I will. The recipe I ended up choosing was from Taste of Home, and it yielded 4 servings. I cut the recipe in half to make 2 servings which I guess meant 1 serving for Christine ;)

This was my first time making a lava cake, so I didn't know what to expect with the process.

I was so excited to use the skills I learned from playing Cooking Mama in separating the egg yolk from the egg white. Cooking Mama would be proud.

I LOVE my heart ramekins.

There's a little tumor looking bit in one cake, because I poked it while it was baking.

I turned it out onto a plate

And dusted with powdered sugar and the leftover chocolate from what I used in the cake.

And oh my goodness, it was good. I am so glad I made two.

Happy Valentine's day!

October & November birthdays

Happy new year! It's been awhile! Here are some of cakes and things I've made in the past few months.

10/1/14: For Jaime's birthday I knew I wanted to make something penguin related. I liked some of penguin stickers he used on Line, so I picked one that I felt was appropriate for the occasion. Look how happy he is!

 I made chocolate cupcakes and hand decorated one with frosting. I originally wanted to make it an Iron Penguin, but I didn't have time to make the little arc light, so I left it out.

Happy birthday, Jaime!

10/27/14: For my mom's birthday I made shortbread cookies from a packaged mix, because she kept telling me to make them for the past year (whoops). (The doc bear cookie is not for my mom. I was just having some fun.)

I decided to incorporate the cookies with a cake. I made a yellow cake from a mix, and decorated it with homemade mascarpone cream frosting. I made the frosting a little pink since my mom likes pink, and piped little rosettes on top.

I piped a birthday message with melted chocolate onto a shortbread cookie, and placed it on top of the cake.

I also picked up some pretty flowers for her birthday.

Happy birthday, mom!

11/9/14: For Kevin's early surprise birthday party I went down the Joe Ledbetter route again. I had fun making last year's JLed inspired cupcakes, so I asked Audrey what I should make for Kevin this year. My favorite of her suggestions was Fire-Catzilla.

She also suggested to make either funfetti or snickerdoodle cupcakes. I chose to make funfetti since I had a bunch of random colorful sprinkles.

The green ones bled a little when I mixed the batter so it tinted the batter green, but it didn't matter too much since Fire-Catzilla is also green.

That bright green frosting took awhile to achieve.

Few hours later.....

To make his hair, I broke up some spaghetti and colored it with a food safe marker.

To make his ears and speech piece, I colored some fondant with gel food coloring and cut them to shape with a knife.

I also outlined the pieces using my black food safe marker. I added the teeth by using frosting.

I changed the Japanese message to a birthday message for Kevin.

Happy birthday, Kevin!

Since I have Instagram now, I tend to post more over on my account: @bittersweetchristine. I posted this guy on my account and managed to grab the attention of Mr. Joe Ledbetter himself!

He ended up reposting my picture on his own account too! What a cool guy :) I was just so happy he made a shoutout to Kevin since Kevin loves his work!