This morning on the news (NPR to be precise) they mentioned a guy at an airport with a cupcake in a jar. I thought the idea was to put the cupcake into a tall jar and then fill the rest of the jar with icing. That way you’d get like 3 times more icing than even a mile-high frosted cupcake.  (I personally would prefer whipped cream instead of icing though.) But then I Googled it, and I found something way more fun:

A new trend called Cupcake in a Jar!

In case you can’t tell, you’re basically making a two-layer cake out of cupcakes and using a jar so it stays all together. And the possibilities sound fun to me! Can you imagine it with cream cheese, or raspberry jam, or a cupcake-sized lush cake?

What are some of your ideas? What other things can we stack in a jar for a tasty, individual-sized treat?

I look at making my own 3D printer and say “I CAN do that, and just you watch me!!!”

My cousins recently moved into a house with a living room with a massively tall 18′ wall. Since they’re both engineers all they could come up with was an un-color-coordinated periodic table, so they begged for ideas. They also miss their old Alaskan home (they’re now in Louisiana), so they wanted something to bring the cool and beauty to their new home.

At first I was thinking a massive 4′x6′ picture of a mountain, but man would that be expensive! Then it hit me: A montage.

Simply create a montage of small, medium, and large pictures that together would create the effect of a mountain. For example, start with a picture of a mountain road, add a snow capped peak, pictures of trees and animals, and you could even include pictures of clouds and a sun above.

Get the kids involved (and save some dough) by having them draw some of the things they enjoyed and miss from their old home. You can even tie in their new home by asking them to include things they like about the new location.

So, what are you doing to celebrate?

Then my sister told me what some neighbors of hers did: A case of hundreds of glowsticks! Talk about awesome! They were having all sorts of fun with them, shaking them around like sparklers, wearing them like they had found the lost city of gold, and they even taped them all over the Dad’s truck! Now that sounds like fun to me!

And if you miss the fireworks, you can set up a mechanical show with glowsticks flying through the air, others spinning on a wheel, some taped to a board in fancy designs, … and when the show’s over the “fireworks” are still there for several hours! You can even get the kids involved with planning and creating this lovely show – another thing you can’t do with fireworks. Yeah, I like this idea. Can you tell?

I have several projects going on right now (no surprise there). I have a freelancing job right now working to add a WordPress section to a client’s website. They’ll be using the blogging features to list classes, plus I’ll be adding a shopping cart. It’s turning out far more complicated than I thought, and problems with the server aren’t helping.

Next, I have about a billion different crafting projects in the works. Right now I’m working on creating a drawing for a friend’s birthday. She likes ducks, so I thought I’d draw her sitting next to a pond and feeding ducks (either that or I bought some reusable buttons – the pin-on kind – and I’m doing a duck twist on the Frog Prince).

Finally, I’m trying to get into the swing of things working on a couple of my books. I started going to a writer’s group (finally found one in my area), so I’m working on getting one manuscript ready to submit to them. Plus I’m trying to push another book forward with the illustrations. I’m trying to get it done before my oldest nephew can read. I have a few years before then, but I still need to push it.

Anyway, gotta go. Still busy as all get out.

Feel free to tell me what you come up with.

I just listened to a podcast about DIY economy that looks at non-traditional economies including alternative ways to save money (outside of a bank), alternatives to money (like using time as a currency), and even has some ways to stimulate your own personal economy (by saving money through clothing swaps and other options). There’s also a podcast on the economy of kids and the child barter system.

Of course, the podcast doesn’t just talk about money and the economy. There are podcasts about creating our own traditions and DIY writing.