It's Showtime!

It's here, it's here, it's finally here!

The weekend I have been waiting for is finally here...the weekend of the That Takes the Cake Sugar Arts Show!  Thanks to general forgetfulness, mommy stuff, crazy stuff at work, and Sybilla's birthday I completely missed the show last year and was kicking myself over it.  Next year, I swore, next year I will make it.  And not only will I be attending, but I will be competing as well!  My first competition!  Ok, technically second, but this is the real deal, y'all.

I decided to enter in the Adult Beginner level based on the qualifications for that division.  I'm not quite an intermediate, and honestly, there are a lot of good contenders in the Adult Beginner division anyway.  A gal at the bake shop was telling me that it's the biggest division, so it's hard to get noticed.  Well, I hope I at least get noticed for this little gem:

Profile view

Side view

Full on head shot

The theme for this year's competition is Science Fiction and Fantasy and anyone who knows me knows I was freaking out over that.  I LOVE sci-fi and fantasy.  Love, love, LOVE it.  But for something I loved so much, I was seriously stumped at what to do for the competition.  I started making a list of everything that said "sci-fi/fantasy" to me and one of the things I came up with was mythology.  And from there I started thinking dryads, naiads, and nymphs.  That made me think of the green man, which if you're not familiar with him, in a nutshell he is a pagan entity that is a nature spirit typically signifying spring and/or fertility.  You can find carvings of him in churches all across England and Ireland and he is typically seen as a face that is made up of leaves, sticks, and vines.

My piece therefore, is inspired by this beautiful piece of work:

 

This picture is NOT the picture I was using to model my design after, but I couldn't find the one I used on my computer and a new Google search turned this up.  [sigh]  Essentially same thing, though just not in color!  Also, this piece is apparently mass produced by some garden art company called Neo Mfg.

I have no idea what the weekend will bring, but I am stoked about the event.  I am also going to take a class on Sunday that has Mike McCarey as one of the instructors.  It is my goal to get my picture taken with him.  My good friend Brianna from college is coming into town for this event as well and I am so excited about seeing her in such a long time.  I also get to meet her darling daughter Emily for the first time and my husband will have a chance to catch up with her husband too.

Good things are coming.  Good things!

Stay tuned, because I will post more about the show and what I see there!

Happy Baking,
Kelly