Noah’s Ark

Emily received 2 Noah’s ark for her birthday, one her birthday cake and the other a wall hanging.  I cannot find one camera in this house and so I haven’t taken any photos of the wall hanging yet, that will come in the next post.  This is the photo of the cake I made.

I read this blog for ideas on creating the shape.  I ended up baking 2 slab cakes.  One a red velvet cake for the ark and the other a blue/green banana cake for the water/grass.  I coloured it green in case I ran out of icing or time to ice it and then it was already coloured.  Next time I think I will use WAY less colouring.  I coloured it blue first and then Emily said she wanted green so ahem a bit too much colouring went in which coloured everything for the next few days.

I put them both in the freezer on Friday after they cooled enough (wrapping them in glad wrap).

Saturday morning I pulled the red velvet cake out and cut it into sort of 3rds.  I say sort of because the last 3rd that was left over was not quite as large as the first two but that was the plan.

I used tofutti to make a “cream cheese” icing to put them together and then started cutting.

I tried for a slightly rounded diamond with blunt ends.

Emily is watching and “helping”, telling us how to make it.

From the last bit of cake I hadn’t used I cut a square to be the cabin on top.  I made brown tofutti icing (I used 2 tubs of tofutti, 120g of dairy free butter (nuttalex) and 2 cups of icing sugar – I split it into 2 bowls and turned one brown and the other blue) and covered the ark.  I then passed it over to my friend who with direction from Emily placed the animals.  I decided not to make the animals but bought the icing sugar animals in the supermarket.  Much easier and quicker.

While that was being down I turned my attention to icing the bottom layer, I decided to make it the water and added colouring but tried not to mix too much so I ended up with the white and different shades of blue.

Then the hard part!  Transferring the ark to the water.  I then used the blue icing to lap around the bottom of the ark.

We then used flake to make logs around the ark, we just used a little to give a wooden feeling.  Then onto writing Happy Birthday on the cake board.

Now we are finished!

Now candles – Emily wanted to help place them – that’s her arm with the “bling” she got for her birthday!

Then lighting (the 3 fell over because the icing was getting quite soft by this stage)

Blowing out the candles

And now we are done!

Y is for yellow

I don’t have any photos of Emily creating this masterpiece because I was using the time to just let her colour while I did a little tidy. In two more weeks Emily will be going to pre school on Wednesdays but the mornings are still free at the moment after dropping her brother off at pre school. I want to get her to recognise the letters of her name and her name so we were up to the last letter today – y. Last year we did y for yellow and y for yak and yoyo so she is pretty good at recognising y. Today she asked for a banana so I talked to her about what colour bananas are in the car ride home.
When I got home I traced around the banana to make a lowercase y and pulled out every yellow pencil and crayon we have and told Em to colour in. Because the last few letters we have been doing she traced the letter she didn’t want to colour in but trace as well which was fine. I then dug out yellow bits and pieces and she/we glued them on.
I am sure if I had got the paint out she would have coloured it in but I wanted a simple not very messy craft today.

On a different background it stands out more.
I realised during this craft that I had to teach Emily how to actively rip paper when I told her to rip the paper smaller to glue on and she tried to tug and pull it apart.

Happy crafting.

More l craft

Today we were going to have an outdoor play time at the park but the weather turned and is cold grey and miserable. So a quick dash to the shops to but aspro clear and baby oil. Why? For today’s craft. Home made lava lamps.  See at the bottom of the post for the links for today’s activities.
Anyway the recipe said 2/3 oil and 1/3 water. The first bottle I think I put too much water in guesstimating. I also let Emily add the blue colouring and a lot got squeezed in. It also called for alka seltzer but not finding any I bought aspro clear.
Emily loved watching the colours bubble up but also lived shaking the bottles as well and peering down the openings.
She kept wanting to add more and more.

To distract her I tried to do some colouring but she wasn’t in the mood so I finished off her lanterns for her.

The next big favourite craft was making a ladder because it involves glue. I cut out a lowercase l and while she traced the shape with her crayons I cut out little pieces of card to make the rungs and she enjoyed sticking them on.

Very helpful links

Make a Lantern for Chinese New Year

Letter L Crafts from No Time For FlashCards

Lava Lamps from Hands On as We Grow