Cousin Camp - Part 2: Let Them Eat Cake!

Baby, it's hot outside! We are under some sort of heat advisory here. It's so hot my mom called me and threatened to ground me if I went anywhere today. Not really. She did use her best "mean momma" voice and told me I had no business going out today in this heat. I didn't argue too much. The heat is pretty hard on my temperamental "ticker." It's always something.

Meanwhile, I am still crafting away in preparation for Cousin Camp next week. I am making some extra-special mementos for the kiddos to take with them. And I am attempting to do it with materials I already have. I don't have as much as I used to, that's for sure. I am going to finish a few things up when we head to my parent's farm this weekend. My mom has more crafting notions and supplies than I could ever know what to do with. But you can bet I am gonna try :<). You can read more about what I did yesterday here. This seems to be my "thing" this week.

Today I decided to redo a small book I was doing to go along with another Poem  Mom had written for one of her therapeutic art classes. This one is called The Midnight Cake and has a chocolate cake recipe to go along with it. It is also longer than the Lemonade Poem I made the book for yesterday. My first attempt at The Midnight Cake book I created on the computer. It was pretty cute, but it was complicated to print. So I decided to make a small paper bag book. I absolutely love doing paper bag albums. Not only are they economical, but they have a lot of charm. I have made lots of them....one of these days I'll dig some of them out and take some pictures to share.  In fact, we made a version of the paper bag album for the ladies at church on Mother's Day for a gift to take home.

My mom and I spent a Saturday around her kitchen table doing these...and we had a ball. This is the one I brought home to keep and it was actually decorated by Mom.  This is made from a little bit larger white lunch sack. We bought some gift books all about tea and tucked them inside.

We created a pocket for a tea bag to go along with the little tea books. You can see I haven't used my tea bag. I probably won't. Unless I get really hard up for tea. If it had been chocolate it wouldn't still be there.

I bought the tea bags at Tuesday Mornings...which by the way has some darling scrapbook supplies, as well. Everytime we go in there Josiah thinks he needs to buy orange slices.

So what to do about The Midnight Cake Book? Since this was going to be for the kids, I knew that I wanted something a little whimsical. So I traced out a cake. Don't laugh. It is unbecoming. It was intended to be a little 'wonky.'



Then I folded my paper bag in a few different formations until I came up with a size I liked. It also needed to fit into my recipe card holder I am giving to the kids. Then I took a big gulp of Iced Tea. Isn't this play by play fun?

After that I cut out my cake pieces. Hey, I feel like some sort of sports commentator! Only I'm not paid as well. And they have better hair. So I decided to use a different scrapbook paper for every piece. It will give it a lot more interest and add to the 'whimsy' effect.

Then looked through my paper and chose what I wanted to use. My first impulse was to use very feminine "girly" prints, but I had to keep in mind that I was also making these for boys. So I made a few unusual selections. I wanted brown for the chocolate cake, but not a solid brown. I love the Sock Monkey Paper.

And after a lot of cutting and guzzling of iced tea I came up with my finished product. I am not really happy with my background. I should have picked something a little less bright, but I used Elmer's so I'm stuck with it. And I am not doing making these crazy books over again!



Somebody noticed I had the camera out and stuck his hand in front of the shot. Goofy kid.
He makes me laugh.

I put the title of the book on the inside flap.

Somebody then grabbed the camera and took a self-portrait. He's still goofy. He also makes himself laugh.

Back to the book. I am going to put the poem on the inside of this book. I have it all ready to print.

Not too bad for using scraps of this and that.

Makes me hungry for some chocolate cake.