Heather Von St. James

Heather contacted me and asked if I would be willing to share her story about how she survived cancer so that she can raise awareness of it. I love to help in a good cause so here is her Blog about Mesothelioma cancer. It's an amazing story, share it with someone you know! The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog

Alien Cookies

Here are the alien cookies! It was so much fun to make these. They are actually cookie cutters that I already had, but flipped upside down to make the look more "alien" like. I made them for the staff and volunteers at the DSC, I think they enjoyed them.

The cookie cutter for these ones are a party hat

This one is a gingerbread man

This one is a  bell

I made this actually on accident, it's a alligator!

How the Space Center came to be at Stone Gate

Well, I'm back again. A lot has been going on in my world in the last month! We have some exciting news.....we are building a space center. Some of you may be familiar with the Christa McAliffe space center. Well, it closed last year. A lot of people were so upset by it. I have never had the opportunity to go there, but my husband went in high school a couple of times and loved it. We had a close friend who had worked for the district and he told us about the space center closing. My husband Ryan being the person he is asked "what can I do to help"? Our friend replied "Well, unless you can make space simulators I don't know if you can help".
For those of you who know my husband know that he would do anything for a friend. He went to work (Stone Gate) and told the board of directors what was going on and what they thought about maybe looking into building another space center at our facility. Over the month of December they decided to go for it. Here is the website for you to check out: Discovery Space Center. We really wanted to carry on the legacy of the space center that it's creator Victor Williamson has made. And also be able to give kids an awesome out of this world experience! We are so excited to be working with him and former space center staff in building this new space center. It has been overwhelming at times the amount of people who are so willing to come and help with design of the ships, painting, construction and much much more. They are really great people! So, in a nutshell that's how the space center came to Stone Gate. It has been a whirlwind and very busy but hey, it's better than being bored! It also gave me a great excuse to start creating alien cookies, I will post about them later.

Christmas Cake Pops

I have learned to love a challenge. I know that sounds strange! But when it comes to baking/decorating it's actually fun to try and figure out how to make something I've never done before. Now, I have made cake pops before but never in front of an audience. I'm LDS (just in case you didn't know) My visiting teachers came over to share the monthly message with me. One of them is in charge of a monthly relief society meeting where we get together as women and do service projects, have a speaker or learn how to do something new. She asked me if I would be willing to make cake pops and teach the sisters how to do that. I said yes but I was nervous. I had only taught a decorating class for kids the oldest was 13. So teaching adults was a little intimidating to say the least. The good thing was is that I love all the women in my ward relief society, so I knew that I would be among friends. I just wanted to do a good job. Whenever I get a request like this one, I go to the craft store for inspiration. I found all sorts of fun Christmas stuff I wish I could have bought it all! But, I do have a budget so I only bought a few things. It was really fun playing around with how I was going to decorate them. Here is what I came up with:

These ones have holly leaves, candy canes and white sugar sprinkles. The sticks are actually straws, they are the sturdy paper kind. I found them at a party store. They have so many colors, I think I will use them instead of the plain white sticks. I think they make them much more cute!

I decided to make some of them more fancy with the white chocolate swirl. I really like the mini candy canes

Teaching how to do these went well. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. I had a great time! and I think the sisters who came did too. And again I didn't get a picture of them on the pretty platter that they were on. I need to get better at remembering that. All in all I was really grateful for that opportunity to share my talent with people that I love!

Baby Girl Shower Onesie Cookies

My sister in-law is due in a few weeks with her first baby. She is having a girl and we are so excited to have another girl in the family. We are dominated by boys here! For her baby shower I was in charge of the dessert so I made these onesie cookies for her shower. I should have gotten a better picture of them on the pretty platters that they were on but, I was too busy having fun watching my sister in-law open all of her fun pink themed presents!

I outlined the diaper part first then I used a thin glaze icing for the diaper

I just played around with some of the designs, I used a butter cream for the clothing part

These were so fun to make and they were a hit at the shower. But most of all my sister in-law loved them so that made it all worth it!

Baby Onesie Cookies

So my friend Megan had a baby boy and I wanted to bring her and her family something. So, I had a baby onesie cookie cutter and this is what I came up with. I had so much fun decorating these!

3 Tier Wedding Cake

Here is the 3 tier wedding cake that I made back in November. The bottom 2 layers are actually styrofoam. My husband has a friend that owns a business that makes things out of styrofoam and he had cake rounds made for me. It makes it nice because some people don't want a whole cake. So, I have this one already made we just put a top cake on it and it looks just like a real cake.