Books

Middle-Grade

Cinderskella (Book 1 in the Scarily Ever Laughter series)



Little Dead Riding Hood (Book 2 in the Scarily Ever Laughter series)



Snow Fright (Book 3 in the Scarily Ever Laughter series)




Anthologies

Checkin' It Twice and other Heartwarming Holiday Tales




Preview




Popular posts from this blog

Spiral Staircase Cake

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So I was super busy this past week creating a spiral staircase cake for a church youth activity.

Here's my creation:


Carving a spiral cake is pretty easy, I did it once before with a piano cake I made. Here's a photo of it:


Anyway, a spiral staircase was a bit trickier...Not only did I have to carve the spiral, but I had to do it in steps, instead of one smooth cut.

First I start by layering my cake, in this case two 10 inch rounds. Then I mark off, with toothpicks, where I want to make my cuts, like this:














Next, I carefully carve each layer. Like this:














Once that's complete, I give the cake a crumb coat. Then I carve the next layer (in this case two 12 inch rounds) and finally, the layers are stacked. Like this:



Then I covered the cake in one large piece of fondant. Im this photo, I had started the cobblestone path using an embossing tool courtesy of DUFF.


Then I assembled the rest of the cake, including my princesses made from rice krispies treats, covered in fondant/gum p…
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Welcome Lehua Parker, author of One Boy, No Water! (and yeah, there's a Giveaway, too!)

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Lehua is the author of a fun middle-grade read, One Boy, No Water which released on September 28th.  Her launch party was a huge success, with crowds of people waiting in line for a signed copy of her book!  She has graciously agreed to write a guest post today about her writing life.  I hope you'll put on your fuzzy slippers, warm up your drink and stay a bit!




Once a publisher makes the sign of the cross over your work, blessing it and pronouncing it fit for public consumption, a lot of people want to know about your writing process. It’s kinda like being the fat kid who suddenly loses a lot of weight; everybody wants to know how you did it, especially if all you ate were Cheetos and watermelon seeds and your cardio program consisted of dancing naked in the moonlight to a Johnny Cash soundtrack.

Wow. Think I just gave myself a nightmare!

Plotters want to read about how you outlined every nuance; pansters want to hear how the story grew organically into tightly woven plot. Everybo…
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How Do You Deal With Snippy People?

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It seems I've had to deal with snippy people quite a bit lately. I'm not really sure if it's the summer heat, personality conflict or just stress, but boy! Some people are cranky beyond measure.

I try to give them the benefit of the doubt - try to remember that they might be personally struggling with something that I'm unaware of. We truly don't know what someone is going through in their personal lives. Although I'm not perfect, I've tried really hard to apply this thinking when someone becomes rude and snippy with me. Even if they're not going through some traumatic life event, at least it has given me an opportunity to practice patience, kindness and charity.

Now, I know I have no control over it, but I certainly wish the same kindness were reciprocated. I'm not saying that trials give me an excuse to be rude or cranky, but perhaps if others took a moment to consider my personal life events, maybe they'd be more gentle when interacting with…
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