Jane's Folly Posts

Writing Hurdles “For writers, a block is not a block is not a block.  Blocks come in all shapes and sizes.” – Rachel Ballon. I’m reading the “Writer’s Portable Therapist”…

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Writer’s Resources One of the first things the members of my writer’s group, Carpe Libris, did when I joined was make sure I had the right tools for selling my…

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Getting your act together Your crafting or writing time is precious.  It helps to be organized so that you’re not wasting that time looking for patterns, figuring out what the…

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Writing a pitch, tagline or back cover blurb “In a world..”  I bet you can hear the announcer’s voice, describing the latest movie coming out.  It answers the question, “what’s…

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Adventures If you are stuck in a rut, the best thing to do is take a step sideways.  If you are sitting staring at a blank page and nothing seems…

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If you want the right answers, ask the right questions. My husband and I have this great routine where he questions why I did some thoughtless, lazy or ridiculous thing,…

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Divarat is my guest blogger- she’s taking classes in cake decorating in anticipation of making a cake for her friend’s wedding.  She promises pictures are forthcoming. – Jane

Do not inhale the frosting…

Last night i made the cake. Today I will make both buttercream frosting for the cake and royal icing for the flowers. I’m starting with royal icing as the slightest hint of oil in your bowl when working with meringue can ruin the process. Royal icing is, essentially, a form of meringue, made from nothing but powdered sugar, powdered egg whites and water in this ratio:

3 level tbsp meringue powder
1lb confectioners sugar
5-6 tbsp water

The key, again, is the grease free bowl. to be sure you’re working on a grease free surface, wet a paper towel with distilled white vinegar and white out your bowl and then

Cake

Everyone was a newbie once.

The coolest, most talented, innovative and put-together people in the world didn’t start that way.  When starting out on a new creative endeavor, the natural tendency is to pick someone’s perfect piece to compare it to.  You want to learn rock carving, so you hammer away at your first slab of rock and then despair because it doesn’t look like Michaelangelo’s David.  Was that the first thing he ever made?  I don’t think so! But no one wants to be a noob.

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writing

Upgrading my blog I have transferred my blog from wordpress.com to my own domain name, hosting and using wordpress.org.  I also fiddled around with a new theme and I’m learning…

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