Handprints on History

This evening, the girls and I went back to the Soulard Art Market to see how Rich Brooks is doing with his cake. This cake is going to the Youthbridge Foundation on Olive, and it has a "child" theme. When we walked in, he said, "Here are two girls who want to add their handprints to the cake!" He let Holly and Chloe choose what colors they'd like for their handprints. Holly said right away that she would like pink and Chloe's favorite color is blue. Both girls were surprised when he mixed the paint using his finger!

Holly volunteered to go first.

There are just a few handprints on the cake at this point. I think Rich is planning to put handprints on three sides of the base.

Then it was Chloe's turn:

After Chloe and Holly's handprints were finished, Rich started working on outlining his children. Holly told him very frankly that she thought Rapunzel is a better painter, because she stays in the lines better. (You'll remember that Rapunzel painted the walls of her tower, and at Disney World, she also painted the bathrooms that are near her tower. Holly admired her work a lot while we were there.) Rich wasn't phased a bit. He told Holly that sometimes it's better not to stay in the lines!

Chloe was fascinated watching him work. I think she could have stayed all night. If Holly hadn't been getting too wound up, and we hadn't been planning to stop by Jefferson Barracks to see the deer, we might have been able to stay longer. Of course, I'm not sure how much painting Rich would have been able to get finished. He's trying to complete the cake by Sunday, so that it can be placed next Tuesday!

We'll know just where to look (on the back side of the cake at the bottom) for Chloe and Holly's handprints!

Rich told us that the fiberglass cakes each weigh only about 45 pounds. When they are finished, 200 pounds of sandbags are put inside the opening at the bottom, and a cover is screwed on. So the finished cakes weight about 245 pounds, and can't be moved (or blown over) easily.

The Soulard Art Market is only about 25 minutes from our house. So it's lucky that we were able to go back easily, and that the girls were able to get their handprints on the cake! How special is that?!?

We went to Jefferson Barracks on the way home, specifically to the Civil War Museum cake. I wanted to see if there would be deer around it, so we could retake the picture with deer in the background. I saw another picture done that way, and it was awesome! At 7:50, there weren't many deer out, so I decided to circle around the park. Right around 8:00, a bunch of them started coming out of the woods! We saw about 10 different deer. But alas, none of them were close enough to the cake to be in a picture with it, so we didn't get out of the car. We still had fun looking at the deer, though. And I may try this again. 

 

The park is really pretty at dusk; there were lots of people riding bikes and walking along the trail. Holly saw people walking a big brown dog, and she said, "MOM! Those people are walking a DEER!" I said, "No, Holly, that's their DOG. It's just the same color as a deer." "OH," she said. The deer are pretty tame; not afraid of people hardly at all...but they're not that tame.