I did it! A cake designed in my kitchen

I guess I have to take back everything I've ever said about not being crafty or creative. Because this weekend, I did this:
Since Austin is big into Mickey Mouse right now, for his third birthday party, I baked and designed a Mickey Mouse cake for him.

I've been flip flopping on whether to do this for weeks. I wanted to but was afraid I wouldn't be able to. Finally, on Friday afternoon, I decided to go for it. I figured, the worst that could happen is that it turned into a disaster, I scrapped it and baked cupcakes.

So, I packed the kids in the car and headed to Bulk Barn to rent a Mickey Mouse-shaped pan. And it's at this point, I discovered it came with paint-by-number instructions on the back. Suddenly, I thought, this might not be so hard afterall.

The icing project started Saturday afternoon around 1:30. First task on the list was to dye the icing. Something that really isn't that hard, but being a newby at this, I used WAY TOO MUCH black dye. This isn't really a problem in the 'how it looks' department -- in fact it made the black look great. But it is a problem in the 'staining everything in sight' department...including the teeth, mouth and face of those eating it.

Aside from the black dye incident, the rest of the colours worked out ok. And so I began painting by number. And painting and painting and painting.

It was 8:30 p.m. by the time I finished (stopping for a bit, mind you, to eat dinner and do a couple of other things). As the hours ticked by, Austin kept hopping up on his stool to 'check on my work'. So, I guess he was pretty excited by the Mickey cake.

In the end, I think it looked great. I was exhausted and didn't couldn't fathom the idea of looking at anymore icing. But the rest of the evening, and the next morning before the party, I kept peeking in the fridge to look at it. I couldn't help it because I couldn't believe I DID IT!

And I'm already thinking about what to do next time.