The Perfect Baby Handbook » Crafts

The seven ugliest birthday cakes in America

dale — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:54:35 +0000

While no few parents are perfect, most try their best, especially in areas such as birthday-cake baking where public failure is particularly awkward.

BAKE-OFF: Nothing says lovin' like something terrifying.

Just ask Guinever, a mommy blogger who inadvertently created this object (right) for her son’s fourth birthday. Allegedly a dinosaur, it looks more like a piece of half-digested asparagus. As she explains, she was the victim of internet fraud:

I followed some instructions online and it just didn’t turn out like the picture. If I recall, it was a line drawing, so maybe the person didn’t actually ever make it themselves. That would explain a lot.

Fortunately, four-year-olds on a sugar high can be remarkably generous when it comes to overlooking cake flaws. Guinever, however, was shaken. In the aftermath, she begged her blog’s readers to post their own cake catastrophes to put hers in perspective. None did.

And so, in the interest of restoring Guinever’s self-esteem, I have collected six other contenders for the title of “America’s ugliest birthday cake.” Which do you think achieves the highest standard of repulsiveness?

1. The Admittedly Ambiguous Grimace Cake

Note the array of question marks. The birthday child would be forgiven for wondering if this were, indeed, a cake, a frosted hatbox, or large quantity of poison. One of my consultants thinks this was an attempt to depict Batman's arch enemy, the Riddler.

2. The Depressed Mouse Cake

This mouse seems so dispirited by the prospect of turning three that she can't even drag herself across the cake to blow out the stupid candle. It is as if she were saying, "Oh, what's the point? Sooner or later, I'm going to find myself trapped in a dead-end job at some mouse-only accounting firm in Denver. If only this pink frosting were quicksand!"

3. The “Oh God, Who Gives a Shit” Cake

The cake gives off an air of neglect. The icing appears to have wilted and died, while those perky alphabet letters are in a state of complete denial. No child should be exposed to this neurotic cake.

4. The Cake with the Lazy Eye

This cake is creepy because you can't tell whether it's looking at you or not. It also has unusually prominent ears for a dessert.

5. The Ill-Advisedly Festive Spider Cake

While there's a certain artistry about the way the baker has used industrial power cords to simulate licorice, this arachnid seems to have eaten too much candy—egged on by his frat-boy spider friends—and then regurgitated it.

6. The Chunk of Prehistoric Tar Cake

At least this cake comes with narrative intrigue: How, exactly, was Dad to blame? By coating it with shoe polish? By gnawing off a corner? By running over it repeatedly with his SUV to drive the evil prehistoric spirits from it? We'll never know.

Perfect toy of the week: The wall of fabric dolls

dale — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:15:55 +0000

The current obsession with over-achieving parenting has yielded at least one good thing: some beautifully overachieving toys. Rarely before have children’s products been so well-designed. My favorite current example: The reusable fabric wall stickers created by the Australians behind Mae—especially this completely cool update on paper dolls.

READY TO WEAR: The building blocks of wall-based style

Ingenious: The persistent problem with paper dolls, of course, is their terrible posture—a consequence of having a 2-ply spine. Playing with the floppier versions is like playing with an alcoholic. Mae’s variation lets your kid stick the doll forms to a wall, and then fluidly shift bits of hair and fashion on and off them like Tom Cruise manipulating his spooky touchscreen in Minority Report.

TOMNIPOTENCE: Cruise plays with his wall of dolls in Minority Report.

And look at some of the cool ladies that can be compiled. Though, admittedly, not cheaply ($115, plus shipping.)

DRESS FOR SUCCESS: Teach your child the value of bunny ears.

Hot craft trend: Diaper wreaths!

dale — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:42:48 +0000

WITH THIS RING: Another fine example of all-American craftsmanship.

You are likely asking: What is this thing and why has the Perfect Baby Blog thrust it in my face? This thing, as you squeamishly put it, is a “diaper wreath,” a newly popular shower-gift. As you can see, it radically reinterprets the traditional fragrant evergreen wreath using not-yet-fragrant disposable diapers and festive plastic products.

What possible function could a diaper wreathe serve? Donna Pilato of About.com, who offers a quick, relentless how-to, has a few ideas:

Add a personalized touch to the next baby shower you host, or gift you give to a new mother, with an easy-to-make diaper wreath. A diaper wreath can be used as a table centerpiece or hung on the wall behind the gift table at a baby shower. Or you can present it to the mother when you visit the new baby in her home. She can hang it on her front door as an announcement of her little bundle of joy…

…and then burn it the second you’ve returned to your craft shack. She might feel differently had you purchased one of the professional models from DiaperWreathBoutique.com. The $95 Lion-Safari-Themed Premium Double Wreath, for example, is a tour-de-force that picks up on the relevance of diapers to wild game safaris.

The boyish wreath shown above was custom-made by “Echoes of Elegance,” a Pennsylvania-based craft business that also produces the popular “Daddy’s Tour-of-Duty” apron, “stocked with all of Daddy’s necessary tools to complete a midnight run to the nursery for Mommy.” Both products forcibly echo with elegance.

Perfect Remnants, March 2-6

dale — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:11:51 +0000

Some bits and pieces to wrap up the first week of the Perfect Baby Blog‘s fragile existence:

• Why scholarly but slovenly moms are doomed to raise illiterate kids: A new study, of which there are never quite enough, has reached amusingly dire conclusions. If you’re trying to inculcate a love of reading in your kid, it’s no good to simply set a good example by reading constantly yourself, you must also tidy constantly. “Results suggest that the degree of household order is significantly and positively associated with the expressive vocabulary, Woodcock Reading Mastery, and phonological awareness skills of children whose mothers are above-average readers.” For tips on how to become magically tidy with help from a robotic robin, consult this instructional Mary Poppins video .

Help for not-quite-cool-enough dads in the 11215 area code: “Brooklyn,” the new cologne from Bond No. 9, which comes in a conspicuously attitudinal bottle printed with graffiti scribbles, is the perfect present for that Park Slope Dadster—or as New York magazine’s Adam Sternbergh memorably christened him, Grup—in your life. Its mix of woody, spicy-filled oriental notes mingled with cardamom, geranium, diaper, and bits of “I’m sleep-deprived but still revising my novel” eye-crud bring, as the press-relesse puts it “a tender, beckoning touch.”

• An ingenious way to turn St. Patrick’s Day into Easter: ManicMother, one of the TwitterMoms who’s bravely decided to follow the Perfect Baby Blog stunned me with this craft project she found in Family Fun magazine and ably executed: The Saint Patrick’s Day Treasure Box. If the supporting”legend” Family Fun provides is to be believed, leprechauns—envious of the Easter Bunny’s more successful kid-focused branding—decided they better hide something tempting every year, too.