The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah

I baked a two-layer cake yesterday for the annual dinner and a murder event that my husband holds for 7 lucky students every year about this time. He offers it as part of the charity auction that the law school holds in the spring and it is always popular. I think the first year we did it here it got the highest bid of all the items! This year's murder mystery has something to do with the Old West, so we had to run down a cowboy costume for my husband. The students are always so creative with their costumes, I'll be curious to see who shows up at the door on Sunday night!


But about that cake. It actually turned out very well--I don't always have good luck with layer cakes, but each layer came out of the pan nicely--BHG cookbook had a great tip for that; put greased wax paper in the bottom first--and the frosting turned out well. I let everything cool for a few hours, put seedless black raspberry jam in the middle and frosted the cake, popped it in the fridge so that the frosting would solidify a bit and cleaned up. I'm generally a crazy-clean Dutchy from way back and am good about wiping all counters, the stove top, backsplash, sink, etc. every time I use the kitchen, and I thought I'd done a good clean up job, but this morning we found quite a parade of teeny tiny ants in the area where I'd been frosting the cake. Oops. Out came the Pantry Powder--this is great stuff; just cloves and flour, but it keeps the ants away and is safe for food prep areas and inquisitive toddlers--and the cleanser. So now I have a nice sifting of brownish powder all along my backsplash and window sill, but at least the ants have dissipated a bit. 'Tis the season. It seems we spend every spring and summer trying to keep the ants outside where they belong.

Now that I've put you completely off your breakfast, how about a card? I CASEd this card from Jennifer Weide on Stampin' Connection (kind of like Facebook for Stampin' Up! demonstrators--join my stampin' team and you can get on it too!). I just changed the sentiment and omitted a few embellishments.

Supplies:
Old Olive, So Saffron, Whisper White cs, Animal Stories dsp
Old Olive, So saffron inks
Short and Sweet, Fox and Friends stamps
Flower brad (so saffron)
old olive satin ribbon