Make It Do

I know, I know. I promised apricots. I will get to those, but first I want to talk about cake. Because we’ve been having a lot of cake around here lately. Birthday cake to be more specific. My mom was the queen of special cakes. I remember very distinctly some of the cakes she made + decorated: Beehives, Carebears + Barbies [the 3D kind], flashlight, spaceship, guitar, Mickey Mouse… etc. For the past 9 years I’ve been trying to be a cake queen as well. I just don’t have the patience for it. Admittedly my technique has greatly improved over the years and I feel like I could accomplish the task if I could only 1. Stop procrastinating and 2. Enjoy the process for longer than 5 minutes. This year I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s just not me. Hallelujah!

Last week for the girls birthday I attempted multi-tasking the birthday cake. The end of the month came very quickly [again] and I needed projects to turn in + it was a last minute/throw together sort of party. Hence the birthday banner. Hence the store bought cake. It was the obvious solution. Surprisingly, I found myself actually enjoying the party. I haven’t really enjoyed a birthday party for… oh, I’d say nine years or so. Hmm.

[This number painting I did was 100% inspired by Katie Daisy]

This week we had another birthday. He’s nine. He’s indecisive. He’s 100% my child. Yesterday he said he wanted a Star Wars cake and I said, “Little late for that. How about I pick up a cake at the store and paint a fancy paper “9” to put on top of it?” Project approved. Nice.

Make it do. That’s what this is all about. I have these dreams of pretty. I have this need to put my hands in things. I was failing miserably. I was not enjoying. Today I have officially adopted two new habits/traditions:

1. Buy a cake at the store. My time is worth $15. My sanity is worth $15. Enjoying my child’s birthday? I can’t put a price on that. I wish I had realized this sooner. If you are a maker and feel like you have to put your hands in things, make something to put on it.

2. Have a pre-party photo shoot. I never would have thought of this on my own. It happened quite by accident. Last week I did it to get photos for the gallery. This week I did it for good light. This week I realized that it’s brilliance. I sat him down + forced him to sit through a photoshoot. He was goofy and sometimes infuriating, but we took lots of photos and got some really cute and fun ones. I was able to move things around. I was able to say, “how about you look at me instead of the floor?” We lit his candles + he blew them out just for me. I was able to get up in his face. I loved it. I took more photos at the party. They are fun, but my favorites are when I was teasing him about looking at the camera and he was making obnoxious faces at me. The cake looks pretty. The lighting is perfect. I wasn’t worried about the flow of the party. And I was able to do this because I wasn’t near tears in the kitchen trying to throw together a Star Wars cake. Happy Birthday indeed.