May Week Three: Embossing

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are doing well at whatever you are doing well. I checked and today is "National May Ray Day." Huh? Are there that many people named, "Ray?" No, it's quite poetic actually. It means, "to celebrate the bright sunshine and warmer weather with just a slight breeze to cool your skin."

It's also National Devil's Food Cake Day, so have a slice of that while the breeze is cooling you off! And it's the third Monday of May at the Playhouse, so today we are celebrating embossing. In this case, folders.

Onefer

A month ago you may remember that I played with this 3D embossing folder from Altenew, called "Daisy Bed." This time I did a simple ink swipe on the debossed side before running it through my Gemini. It was too pretty to cover, so I simply added a circle sediment from Memory Box.

Twofer

Recently my friend Julia posted a very amusing piglet card and I mentioned how much I love pigs (having grown up in Iowa) and how much I especially loved the snarky sediments that came with the pig stamp set she used. ("Piggies Crushed It" from Whimsy Stamps.) After wards, she kindly stamped off oodles of piggies and sediments and mailed them to me. Thank you, Julia!

Hammy and Stanley will be disappointed that you can't see the schparkle. Hammy winked the balloon and gave the pig job to Stan. There were lots of tears at first because the winker Stanley used had gone a bit silver-looking. Not his fault, of course, and I reassured him that it was okay because it made the little pig look dirty. I mean, what kind of pig are you, if you don't wear a bit of dirt?!

Threefer

From the silly to the sublime, I next inked up a NBUS 3D folder from Open Studio called "Gracious Leaves" using Brilliance Elegant Gold. The ribbon is from SU and the sediment is from Memory Box.

I'm not sure it's meant to be a Christmas e/f, but the little berries made me think it was. The color and sheen are very pretty in real life, but if I'm Frank, when it was finished I thought to myself that it would have been easier to just spray the card with gold mist.

~~~

Speaking of Devil's Food cake, I was curious how this cake recipe got its name. To figure that out, I had to go back to the very origin of store-bought cake mix. It turns out that in 1933, John Duff of P. Duff and Sons, a Pittsburgh PA molasses company, patented the first cake mix after blending dehydrated molasses with dehydrated flour, sugar, eggs, and other ingredients. The mix required only water and baking to yield gingerbread. 

Duff later realized that home cooks preferred to add their own eggs. After that, they expanded their mixes to include flavors like fruit cake, spice cake, and devil's food. 

In the 1930s, Americans were mostly church-going folk, so naming a cake "devil's food," might be a huge turn-off from a marketing standpoint. To quell that concern, this explanation was printed on the back of the box:

Customers have asked how this cake mix was given such an unusual name. One of our recipe tasters named Elizabeth Novick baked this unnamed cake mix for her family. As they were finishing, Betty, the youngest daughter, age 7, picked up her plate and began to lick the crumbs. "Betty!" cried Elizabeth, shooting the youngster a stern look. "But, Mom," said Betty, "this food would make even the devil sit up and say, 'Amen!'"

~~~

Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! BTW, I made up that part about naming the cake, but you prolly figured that out for yourself.😆

*Life is too short!

Challenges

Onefer: Can You Handle the Pressure (A/G w/ option of flowers)

Twofer: Double D (polka dots); SSS Wednesday (patterned paper)

Threefer: Allsorts (A/G ~ Happy 15th Birthday!)