Alternative for a Heating Rod or a Flower Nail for baking deep cake

Supplies:

metal whisk

Tools:

wire cutters

Step 1: Take your metal whisk and cut the rounded top off of your whisk. Leave the top of the whisk handle attached as this will make removing it much easier later. Wash your whisk after cutting it.

Step 2: Bend out the metal rods till it is shaped like an umbrella.

 

Step 3: Insert the rods into the cake, making sure that one rod goes into the center of the cake.

Step 4: Bake with the lower temp and longer time needed for your cake. I had to remove a wire rake for it to fit in the oven.

Step 5: When the cake is done pull out the rods with a pot holder, it will be hot, and let the cake cool.

 

Baked all the way through. I still don't know the right frosting technique yet. I tried royal icing at flood consistency, white chocolate ganache, and white chocolate glaze, all of them failed badly.

My husband got this really neat cake mold in the shape of a dragon curled around its eggs. It is really detailed and quit deep. I have tried baking this cake many times in the years we have had the mold and the middle always sinks and doesn’t bake all the way through. I have baked it a lot longer, sometimes it bakes all the way through but then its dry, and who likes dry cake. Sometimes the outside even tasted slightly burnt and the middle is still mushy.  It has been really frustrating.

My Sweetie asked me to try to make the dragon cake again for Father’s Day. I said I would try and I was determined for this time to be different. I started researching online to see is someone had the answer to this problem.  I finally found a professional baker Chef Allen who had a YouTube channel called Global Sugar Art  the video is called Baking Cake in Deep Pans | Two Minute Tips & Tricks | Global Sugar Art. Chef Allen said to use a heating rod in the middle, drop the temperature, and bake it for a longer time.

Strike one; no local stores had heating rods. I found someone online who said you could use a flower nail like a heat rod. I was excited; I could use this work around. Strike two; there were no local stores that had any flower nails. They didn’t even sell them. That left ordering it online as my only option and I didn’t have time for it to get here in time for Father’s Day. I talked with my husband and we had a number of ideas we could try as alternatives.

Later that day my husband came home with an amazing solution, a whisk. We cut the top rounded part off and used it like a bunch of small heat rods. The whisk is already food safe, which was a problem with the alternative ideas we came up with.  A whisk is cheap and easy to get at the dollar tree, grocery store, or department store.

It took 1 hour and 22 minutes at 325 degrees F. The cake was baked all the way through without being dry, burnt or mushy in the middle. Thank you Chef Allen for teaching me how to bake a deep cake and thanks my Sweetie for the solution. So if you are in a pinch and can’t get a heat rod or don’t have time to order a heat rod or flower nails this hack will do the trick.

How to Re-Fluff a Pillow

Tools needed

• sewing pins
• scissors
• hand sewing needles
• thread
• pet hair brush
• seam ripper

Directions

1.  Seam rip open the top of the pillow and dump the fluff into a bin or trash sack. Clean the pillow casing.

2. Grab a hand full of fluff and brush the stuffing on the pet hair brush till it is no longer compacted. Repeat until all the stuffing is re-fluffed.



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3. Put the stuffing back into the pillow and pin closed. 

 4. Hand sew closed the top of the pillow.

Cottage Cheese pillows

Our pillows looked like cottage cheese and were no longer nice to lay our heads on anymore. I wanted to find out if I could re-fluff a pillow instead of having to buy a new one and it worked. I have heard the argument that it isn't really worth the time to re-fluff a pillow when a new one doesn't cost that much. My response is sometimes a person has time and no money. Or the argument  "its only a few dollars" but those few dollars add up really fast. 

Left side-Re-Fluffed            Right side NOT fluffed

I re-fluffed when I was listening to audio books with my kids and timed it. It took me 9 hours 39 minutes and 46 seconds to re-fluff a king size pillow. So you could probably re-fluff a throw pillow in about 3 hours and a twin size pillow in 4  and 30 minutes. If you need a new pillow re-fluff it instead. Put on a movie or listen to an audio-book and make your pillows nice and fluffy again and save some money. Now the question I am asking myself is, how many times can I re-fluff my pillow? 

DIY School Supplies Organizers

Polka Dot School Supplies Organizers from conditioner bottle

  

1. Cut the top off the bottle, clean and remove labels.
   

   
2. Cut down to the desired height.
   

   
3. Trace with a bottle cap (I used chapstick) half of the circle onto the bottle with a dry erase marker or washable marker and cut out with scissors or an exacto knife. Clean off the marker after.
4. Sand down edge to soften the sharpness of the edge with sandpaper or a nail file.
   
   
   
   
5. Punch out holes with a hole punch in the center of the scallops.
   

   

   
   
6. Punch out holes to glue onto the bottle and glue on with a glue stick. When all the dots are in the desired locations Mod Podge over the top of them.
   

   
7. Hot glue on a ribbon below the scallops and glue the bow in place.
   

   

Polka Dot School Supplies Organizers from sour cream tub

1. Clean an empty sour cream tub and then put a layer of Mod Podge on the outside and press the paper onto it. It will have wrinkles but these wrinkles do not bother me since I like the texture. If having an almost organic texture to it will bother you then I wouldn't use a sour cream tub as it is difficult to get a flat surface and I don't like the look of painting it. I added three layers of paper.
   

   
2. Punch out holes with a hole punch and glue the dots with a glue stick. After you’ve glued on all the desired dots, Mod Podge over the top.
   

   
3. Hot glue on a ribbon below the rim and glue the bow in place.
   

   

Bride Pencil holder from conditioner bottle

1. Cut the top off and clean the bottle.
2. Cut down to the desired height.
3. Draw the top of the dress with a dry erase marker or a washable marker. 
   

   
4. Cut the top of the dress detail with scissors or an exacto knife.
5. Sand down the edge to soften the sharpness with sandpaper or a nail file.
   

   
6. Hot glue accents onto the container. You can put on whatever you want: lace, ribbon, polka dots, stripes, flowers or buttons etc. I used hot glue on the waist bow, then glued the faux hem ribbon on. Finally, I punched out holes to imitate buttons for the back of the dress and hot glued them on. I spread Mod Podge over the "buttons" to preserve.
   

   

Groom Pencil holder from shampoo bottle

1. Cut the top off a bottle and clean it.
2. Cut it down to desired height.
3. Sand down the edge to soften the sharpness of the edge with sandpaper or a nail file.
4. Sketch out the tux design on paper and cut out the template so you can check the proportions on the bottle. If it's wrong try again until you get the scale to look right. Then cut out around the design loosely so that you can fold it in half and cut it evenly (similar to cutting a paper heart). Trace the template on your plastic or paper and cut around the outside edge.
   

   
5. Fold over the edges of the lapels and trace the outline. Cut along the lapel line, giving you three pieces.
   

   
6. Hot Glue the shirt and lapels leaving a small gap in between them to create the look of a jacket.
   

   
7. With a permanent marker, draw the bow tie and any other details you want to add. Mod podge over the top of all the suit pieces and let dry.
   

   

   

   
   

The genesis of this project comes from us needing a way to organize our office supplies. I tried the bottles for a number of months, in different heights, first with just tops cut off and cleaned. They didn't break and did a fair job containing our stationery so I mulled around in my mind if I could improve them. It occured to me that they were too tall to see their contents  without dumping things out. Plus they were boring to look at. I experimented further with different heights and ways to attach decorations. The directions above are the best way I could find for waterproofing and preserving the decorations. Waterproofing is necessary if you have kids even if there is no way liquids"should" be anywhere near the pencils. I even tried it in our bathroom and they’re still just as I made them.

Printable Medical Mask Pattern

PDF Printable Medical Mask Pattern

Printable Medical Mask Pattern in Microsoft Word

Printable Medical Mask Pattern in Microsoft Publisher

Printable Medical Mask Pattern with Fabric ties that do not require cutting on the fold PDF

Printable medical Mask that does not require cutting on the fold in Excel

The left mask was exactly following the pattern, the right is eyeballed

I was NOT going to do a post about medical masks. There are so many skilled seamstresses that have posted YouTube videos on how to make them that I felt the need was met. However, when our family was preparing to sew some to donate I found that there was no printable pattern. Now some might argue that it is not necessary as measuring a 9" x 6" rectangle isn't that hard so a pattern is hardly necessary (especially if you know cutting techniques used when cutting out fabric for quilts).


We have varying levels of sewing skills in our house and I wanted everyone to be able to participate in some way. For example, some of my kids are more suited to pinning a paper pattern to fabric than using a ruler multiple times and cutting with precision or using a rotary cutter, which is dangerous for even some adults.:) Others are more suited to cutting rather than sewing as they have a lead foot with the pedal. This is something every seamstress eventually overcomes as we have learned how to sew but that takes time. Additionally the seam allowance in the directions for our local hospital is a 1/4" seam allowance which again is not a big deal but it might be hard for someone new to sewing.

Then you have my wonderful husband who's a perfectionist and I knew he would want to know exactly where and how much to fold. All the videos say pinch about this much and I knew he would not be comfortable with such vague measurements like I would. He can sew a straight line and turn corners but folds or tucks as everyone is calling them or pleats if you were sewing something else is a brand new concept, compounded with the small amount of fabric that is being folded or pleated made me concerned for my families ability to help without getting overwhelmed or easily frustrated.

I ended up creating  a printable pattern in several different formats to share in case someone else was wanting to help with the need for masks but needed something exact to print out and follow. I generated different formats to attempt to make the pattern usable for most computer setups. I've heard so many arguments about which programs make the best patterns and print more accurately. I don't want to get into those arguments, so I posted several formats and hopefully one of them will help and you can find a program that suits your personal preference.

I feel there are so many good video tutorials to follow so I didn't make my own but created the pattern for something to cut and follow. Search YouTube for a medical mask tutorial and find one that fits your speed if you need a little walk through. Make sure you check with your hospital of choice for factors like preferred elastic width if you have elastic on hand or are able to get your hands on any.