Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Spring Cleaning and Leftover Cake. How Do I Recycle THESE?

THIS is still sitting in our spare room, on top of the sewing cabinet and some really important puzzle pieces.   What the heck?
Spring cleaning is upon us.  Or, rather, the idea of spring cleaning, for me.  Which means that I read the current Martha Stewart Living and am inspired to take q-tips to my windowsills and pull out the refrigerator and see what's actually back there in the deepest cracks of doom where toast crumbs and milk lids go to languish.  I might even dust the chandeliers.  I know...pretty crazy.

Not that I will do those things, but I did sweep today, and I considered putting the screens back on our windows, but...they never got pulled off last fall, because we like to open our windows all winter due to the fact that we have a wood stove, which means it can easily be 80-82 degrees in the living room, but if you open the windows without the screens on them, the cats will totally get out and be eaten by coyotes.

Louis is super worried about coyotes...

So is Sam...Relax, little buddies.  I left the screens ON.
So, it's like I paid it forward by skipping that chore last fall.   Win.

I'm also totally procrastinating getting outSIDE right now, where I have more work in the garden than a whole team of men named Renato could accomplish, waiting for me.  It's not like one less day will matter...and I'll be happy with anything I accomplish out there this year, because at this point anything will be an improvement.  Our front yard effortlessly gives off the casual appearance of:    "Someone Might Live Here..."
Yes.  This USED to be a nice perennial bed.  With edging. 
What I MEANT to show you, though, was the cake dummies I keep running into when I clean or wander the house thinking about the things that I should be cleaning:  There are four leftover display cakes that we brought home from the cake bakery when we closed it.  They are my last finished displays from the shop.  Two were actually created after we closed the shop, because I got an A+ in Denial.

The grey one was custom-designed for a vignette I put together with some awesome wedding vendors at a bridal event.  The blue one went in a national cake magazine edition that was published the month after I closed the doors, which was surreal. The poppies were my first attempt at hand-painting a cake.  And, the white and gold one at the beginning of this post, which I created for a Valentine's photo shoot at a local venue...I can't BEAR to throw away those flowers that I made!!
The last three survivors, sitting in the middle of our living room upstairs on an air hockey table while I painted the whole room around them.  Now...where to PUT them???

I threw out the rest of the cakes on display when we closed the shop, and Lord help me, that was HARD, you guys.  You can't believe the cake art that went in the dumpster.  But these.  I can't seem to toss them.
Five of these went in the trash, including the one I made for Gordon Ramsey...

What do you think?  Bite my lip and put them in the dumpster?  Disassemble them and use them for dummies later--in case I ever get inspired to want to decorate again or need something to do?  Give them to a wedding planner to rent out?  Keep dusting AROUND them?

I know I should toss them, but *sigh*.  All that work...
See what I mean?  I can't throw these away.

Maybe I could pull them out and put them in a vase...
Or start an Etsy shop! Yeah... no.
I seriously did consider making these flowers for custom orders, but they take so long to make and are so delicate that I wouldn't want to ship them anywhere, and plus, then I'd be back, dealing with more vendor/customer service stuff, which I already have enough of.

I'm leaning toward putting the flowers in a vase and tossing the rest in the trash, but why is it so HARD?




Ever find yourself hanging onto stuff that has no place in your life (or your house), but is too awesome to throw away?

17 comments:

  1. Those cakes are so beautiful! I never knew there were such amazing cakes until I saw yours a while back. It would be hard to toss them out. I'm hanging onto a few VHS cassettes of programs I worked on when I worked for a video production company, but they take up a lot less space! In fact, I saw one of the videos I don't own when I was at the home of my daughter's violin teacher. I was tempted to ask if I could have it, since it looked like it was in a give away box, but I didn't. Maybe I will next time I'm there -- ha! it is an exercise video, after all. . . .
    Photography is a great thing, though. People like me would never see the cakes that were in your house or shop, but I've seen lots of your incredible cakes in pictures. They are amazingly impressive!

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    1. Thanks, Ruth...I loved the artist part of decorating. So many styles and challenges, and every one custom and different. It's hard to throw them in the TRASH now, even though they're useless.

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  2. What a talent...Of course it would be hard...I would have a hard time throwing them out...of course this is coming from someone who has beer bottle caps in the silverware drawer (not my fault).

    Those pictures are A M A Z I N G. I really want to say..let it go, move on..clean up..throw them out..but I can't. I'd have a hard time to. You're going to have to come up with a creative way to re-purpose them.

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  3. hahahaha....that above comment was from me..I forgot to comment as myself instead of my gmail account name...(big bad tongue) which is NOT NASTY...it's me making fun of my sister because her tongue is too big and it makes her snore.

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    1. Oh, funny! I'm cleaning the upstairs living room today, and those three cakes are here, & I thought I'm just going to throw them out. But I can't quite do it yet. Soon, though...

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  4. My daughter is a wedding cake designer/decorator, so I know how hard you must have worked on those babies and how impossible it is to throw them out. Could it be that you worry you might someday decide to go back into the business and, as these are the creations you love the most, you want them on hand...just in case? If not, I imagine you have a portfolio of all of the cakes you ever made -- so maybe you could just take some kick-ass pictures of the dummies and display them in a place of honor...and burn the dummies in a bonfire -- kind of like a Viking funeral. It just occurred to me that the fumes from the Styrofoam may be toxic - but you know what I mean.

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    1. Mm I like the idea of a Viking bonfire, but they will probably just go in the dumpster one of these weeks. Maybe next week. I have really great pictures of all of them because two were in photo shoots and one was in a magazine, which I have a copy of, which is pretty spiffy! I don't need them, and I really know I won't be doing cakes again in the future, so its more just the fact that it's difficult to throw out something I spent so many hours working on. I almost threw them out this morning though, so their time is almost up. I do have most of them on Pinterest, & I have albums full of great pictures, so there is proof of all the work I did. I just don't feel like I need them hanging around the house anymore.

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  5. Oh, I don't like the idea of those cakes in the dumpster! They're too pretty! Surely someone might have need of them if you're tired of dusting around them??? AND! I'm totally getting (mentally) afflicted with the spring cleaning bug. I keep having trouble sleeping because I think of how dirty my house is. True story.

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    1. It seems easier to toss these when I zoom in on the bakery photo and look at the Margaret Braun and Colette Peters cake replicas that I put in trash bags a year ago...ouch.

      I know--I totally should start cleaning too. But, there are too many hilarious BLOGS to read! ;)

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    2. PS. Maybe I could start a rental dummy cake program. I'd be like the Netflix of cake. Lol

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  6. Is there a vendor you know who rents space fir weddings who could use them as props? Or a photographer who needs props?
    As for the poppies, you could get some glass paint and paint them on a vase, you'll have the artwork to keep without the dummy cake.
    It's good, though, that you are proud of your accomplishments and are having a hard time letting go. I'm the opposite, I've thrown away so much of old artwork that now I wish I had kept.

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    1. I know all the wedding planners in the area, but a couple of these have already been published and used in photo shoots, so I'm thinking...trash. Except the sugar peonies. I can NOT throw those away--they took forever to make and paint.

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  7. Dude. I did not know that you are supposed to take window screens off during the winter. I guess it's a good thing none of my windows have screens.

    Those cakes are gorgeous! I probably wouldn't be able to throw them away either. Maybe you could store them, like they do with wedding dresses, all airtight and such.

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    1. I think the screen thing is a throwback from my younger days, whwn Martha Stewart was the Final Authority on all things.

      I feel like such a rebel... leaving them on. Lol

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    2. I thought screens only came off if you replaced them with storm windows for winter and vice versa. So I looked it up . . . here is the authority on the matter.

      http://www.thompsoncreek.com/blog/entryid/555/it-s-almost-winter-do-i-leave-the-screens-in-my-windows

      Sounds like you should leave them in unless you like to clean your screens and sills and don't get enough heat from your wood stove.

      I'm still hoping to get to a cleaning of the finger prints off the inside! It's been a few years!

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    3. LOL. I always used to take them off and store them in the garage, then clean them and put them back, but this is much easier...

      I seem to get lazier, the older I get. I don't know how Martha DOES it.

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    4. She has a very large staff.

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