Friday, March 30th - creativity prevailed once again

It's an overcast, chilly -2' this morning but we should reach 3' with a mix of sun and cloud today so that's not so bad. We may also experience a few flurries overnight but since March came in like a lamb I expected it to be much more lion-like in it's leaving. Perhaps Mother Nature got her days mixed up and thought Tuesday was the end of the month.

Last night I almost had my first bonfire of the year but not intentionally. When I got home from work I decided to clean some of the ashes out of the stove. I filled my bucket and took it out and poured it on top of the firepit, which is heaped with dead branches and dried grass from last year. A little while later I noticed a plume of smoke out the kitchen window. Sure enough some of the dead stuff had caught and was smoldering. Fortunately it wasn't a windy evening so it didn't go anywhere and didn't really amount to much. I was surprised it even did that as it would still be wet from the snow earlier in the week.

So, I have this project I've undertaken. A fellow I work with is getting married in July. He actually got married last summer in China but they want to have a reception her for his friends and family. I was talking with his wife, Willow, one Saturday at work and by the end of the conversation I said I would do their cake as a wedding gift. I've been thinking over ideas and one thing I wanted to do was have some chinese symbols on the sides. I was trying to figure out how to do this neatly. I decided I'd like to print them on. How do you do that you ask? Well, you can actually buy printer cartridges filled with food colouring and if you have a dedicated printer just for that you can use it. You can also buy sheets of
'paper' made from sugar with a paper backing that you print on. That's how you sometimes see cakes with photographs on them. But the issue I had was trying to find a model of printer compatible with the cartridges available. They are all older models and not easily found. So I dispatched Lloyd to try to find one with his vast array of resources but he wasn't successful either. He could have done some more digging but I figured out an alternative.

Yesterday I remembered I have a light box that I use for scrapbooking sometimes. (They don't call me the gadget queen for nothing!). Last night when I got home I located a Chinese symbol and printed it onto regular paper. Then I rolled out some pieces of fondant - a white one and a blue one - as a test. Sure enough, you can see through with the light box. I 'painted' on one piece of fondant with  a couple of different colours of paste food coloring and the other piece I cut out with the tip of a knife. I'm not sure where I'm going with this idea but it will work. I've been tossing around a few thoughts in my head and I'm meeting with Willow and Mike tomorrow. I wanted to have some possibilities to share with them and to get some ideas of what they are looking for.  I also need Willow to verify what the appropriate symbols look like and what they mean.I'd hate to put something offensive on her cake because I didn't know what it said.
I still have some more research to do but this is one option. Another option is markers filled with food colouring that are available.

I'm going to go now and look for those and send Lloyd the details so he can pick them up for me before he arrives next week. (It is a little handy sometimes having someone coming from Ontario once in a while)