I am obsessed with soliciting donations to the fun fair silent auction. See the local businesses that are donating items here. The thing is that I am not even on the committee. Oh well, I have been getting such a great response. Now I can’t stop. I’ve been contacting local Etsy crafters and artists. They have been awesome!

Each of these guys have agreed to donate something. Go to the links. Let’s make them see it’s worth it. Who wouldn’t want some of this stuff???

Brenda Abdullah Designs
make No Small Plans
Darren Thompson fine art
Love Felt Creations
Nerfect
Rebecca Plotnick Photography
Form Work(Irving Mom)
Uniquely Crafty
Aliz Mikesell Designs (oddly enough I went to high school with Alix)
Fresh and Modern Quilts
Berwyn Betty’s Bath Shop
Baking Cake
Me Wear A whopping $100 gift certificate!! (she went to Irving!!!!)
Nancy and Burt
Pinwheel Anna
Sew Collision
Crafty Chicks
Polda Pop Designs She’s trying to draw hits to her new blog! poldapop.blogspot.com.
Pigs in Scarves
The White Iris Boutique
Sunshine Corner
The Littlest Owl
Dream Attic
Mindsimedia (another Irving alumnus)

Now I’m losing money. I just had to buy this from the shop. Soooo cute!

Where would we be without local businesses donations to our silent auction.  You can see some of the smaller more “artsy” places here.    We are so proud to have these contributions:

Second city tickets
Bodhi Thai
Hemmingway’s Bistro
Paper Source
Turano’s Bakery
Fit golf performance center
Pork Shoppe
Bead in Hand
Majamas
Frame Warehouse
Musikgarten
Eastgate Cafe
Poor Phils
A Matter of Style salon
Ragamala Dance Performance (Moraine Valley Community College)
Cathie Ryan Concert (Moraine Valley Community College)
Chicago Sportszone – Little Kickers
Al’s Grill
Wonderworks
P.O.S.H
Il Vicolo Trattoria
Oberweis Ice Cream
Midtown Fitness
Yoga Trek
Wave Restaurant at the W
Mary Kay Products
Dyson Vacuum

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Just thought I’d share that I started another blog today, with the help a my friend Afton who did the artwork.  If you are in the Oak Park area and want cake, let me know.

Baking Cake www.bakingcake.wordpress.com

I know this is true, but did you?  My experiences this week have reminded me of this fact.  Today I ate the best meal I have ever had in Indiana.   I’ve had family in Bloomington for years and we love to go out to eat.  This afternoon my father and I decided to try something different from our normal fare and went to Farm.

Both of us agree, this was the best food we’ve had in Bloomington, period.  Chef/Owner Daniel Orr uses local and organic products and produce to make a mean breakfast.  My dad ordered a grape, walnut and goat cheese omlette (I thought it sounded insane) and I ordered the Hoosier biscuits and gravy made with sausage and sweet peppers.  We ate everything on our plates and had to order another biscuit which was incredible.

I commented that I wished we could turn back the clock to when we first entered the restaurant so that I could order and eat the same thing again.   We had reservations at another restaurant tonight, but we’ll be returning to Farm.  T

racey Walker, the Regional Events manager was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable.  If you are in the Bloomington area, you MUST eat here.

This week I visited my parent’s in Southern Indiana for perhaps the most busy few days of the year.  Typically when I visit, we do a lot of lounging around the house, watching movies and playing video games.  This time it was a whirlwind of activities…enough for it’s own blog entry.  We stopped by local artist, Rosey Bolte of The Uncommon Gourd, who makes folk-painted gourds.

She told us that volunteers from the Indiana Raptor Center would shortly arrive  to release 3 young falcons back into the wild.  We decided to stick around for the show.  Here is a 4 minute video that captures the experience and features my father getting his finger bitten and me repeating the word “wow” over and over.  This rendition of saving a falcon was much more successful than my previous attempt.

So the sister’s wedding cake was difficult to make, but this one was a close second. While the idea of a W to place little marzipan animals on in a normal world would not have been difficult this is how I went wrong.
1. I waited too long to ice the cake,
2. I made the crumb coat too thick and thus used too much of the frosting, leaving me short handed on the frosting front, which I was deliberately trying NOT to do.
3. I dropped 1/2 of the W. It wasn’t a complete disaster because I had the W on a piece of cardboard I cut out to fit the cake perfectly, but it did sort of implode a bit.
4. I reviewed the “W” image on my iphone and it looked just like the cake I made, but the one from the real Webkinz page was not the same.
5. I barely had enough frosting to cover the cake. I had to scrape bits of frosting from the bowls to re do and touch up the frosted bits. I didn’t finish till 1:00. a.m.

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The party itself was a huge success. We had a webkinz word search for the kids to do, kinzcash for the kids with our 7 year old girl and our dog’s face, we had an old fashioned scavenger hunt around the neighborhood with plenty of parent volunteers to help out. It was a great day. I was in bed by 9:00 pm.
The girl had an amazing party. It was super fun.