Fondant Rose Coloured Glasses (and hands!)

Do you have something that you do when you're feeling anxious and stressed? Some way of relaxing yourself when you're tense? I wish I knew my 'thing' that I need to do to be calm when I get that way. You would think after so many years of anxiety and depression I would have developed some kind of coping mechanism...sometimes small things work for a while but then I find the effect wears thin and I need to find something else. I guess that means I haven't found anything truly effective yet! When all else fails, a hot shower and a warm drink usually does the trick, I have even found crochet to be very relaxing for me!

 One thing I do enjoy to settle down a little and calm my nerves is try something new! It gives me something to focus on, and oddly enough instead of frustrating me when I get it wrong the first time round (and that happens more often than not!), I just seem to keep at it then all of a sudden it comes together and I feel so much better! Gives me a sense of accomplishment when everything else seems sort of hopeless.

 So tonight when I found myself feeling particularly stressed and hormonal and awful and just plain tense (no reason...sometimes I just get this way, the hubby is also out thisevening so I don't have my normal comfort cuddles to go to!) I thought I'd have a dig through the pantry in search of some fondant. It's my little sisters' 19th birthday this coming Sunday and hubby and I are making a trip to the coast to see my family. I thought how nice it would be to make some mini rainbow layer cakes with fondant roses with us as a gift! I haven't really made roses before, I tried once with a soft icing sugar mixture but found that wasn't very effective so last shop I made sure I bought some white icing. So I popped a Disney movie on (A Bug's Life, one of my favourites) set about making a right royal mess!

everything is all set up and ready to go!

Im in my element around mess!

Making the petals

Here are my roses in the making! Not too bad for a first attempt!

An awfully grainy self portrait of my somewhat slightly less stressed self!

My lovely pink food dye stained hands!

12 lovely little pink roses!

The excess icing sugar I can dust off later when they've set

I won't make the cupcakes until tomorrow, I don't think my patience would hold out that far tonight! I'm not sure how I'm going to make them yet, or what the end result will be but tomorrow is another day and I'm sure after a good nights' sleep I'll be more willing to tackle the things I need to! Now I'm off for a nice hot shower which will hopefully ease the rest of the nerves that are niggling at me and then it'll be time to settle down under a blanket with some wool and a crochet hook. Dear oh dear my brain (and my hands now!) can be a mess sometimes!! BUT I have learnt a new nifty little skill, it could do with some perfecting but it still feels great to have given it a try :o)




p.s after I finished the roses and was about to go to bed, I decided I wasn't tired and made these too