Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Mumble loves to show off!
A couple of weekends ago, Mandy and I took Mumble to a doggie event in Hollywood, where we helped to represent the Zoom Room. In addition to all of the booths, etc set up for this event, there was a mini agility park set up in the yard for guests to check out what the Zoom Room has to offer. Mumble was more than happy to show off his stuff running through the little course! Check out pictures and information on the Zoom Room's blog, and be sure to look for the pictures of Mumble in the agility park!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Agility Birthday Cake for Chopper
Happy Birthday Chopper!
Earlier this month, we celebrated Chopper's 4th Birthday with a small gathering at Zoom Room Culver City. It's hard to believe that it's been 3 years and 3 months since Mandy adopted Chopper at the Best Friends Animal Society adoption event.
Chopper's one of my favorite dogs ever, and I'm so happy to be part of his life!
Chopper's one of my favorite dogs ever, and I'm so happy to be part of his life!
About the cake:
Because Chopper absolutely LOVES agility, I wanted to make him a special agility birthday cake with both dog-friendly and people-friendly cakes. The cakes themselves are store-bought - I purchased a white cake with white frosting from the grocery store (very plain sheet cake) and a doggie cake from Three Dog Bakery (peanut butter flavored, size 7").
To set up the agility course, I placed the two cakes onto cardboard cake sheets I bought at Michael's. It took two big sheets to make the area the size I wanted.
The "people cake" was made to match the blue and orange agility equipment with blue sprinkles across the top and orange sprinkles around the sides.
The difficult part, obviously, was creating the miniature agility equipment. After searching online for small model agility equipment and finding none, I realized I had to make these from scratch. I found some other blogs or online posts where people had done this and took some ideas from there, but basically I was making it up as I went along! Thank goodness I grew up with a very crafty mom, so I'm pretty creative myself :)
For supplies, I bought the following from Michael's (well, actually, some of this I already had):
I glued two of the larger rectangle pieces of wood together at a 90 degree angle to make the A-Frame. Once the glue had dried and the frame was securely together, I painted it completely blue. I then cut two smaller stips of orange foam to make the "contact points" at the bottoms of each side (see picture above) and pieces of blue foam to fit over the remainder of the top of the wood piece, and glued these on.
For the weave poles -
These were the simplest to make. I took about 6 of the lollipop sticks and painted two tiny blue stipes around each one, close together and near one end of the stick. These were later put directly into the cake to make a line of weave poles.
For the jump -
I only made one jump, and it wasn't as easy as I had anticipated. Again, I used the lollipop sticks for this, two for the sides and one for the horizontal pole, although I found that the sticks were a little longer than I'd like for purposes of the horizontal one, so I cut one off by about an inch. For the two side poles, I painted one stripe around the pole, towards one end (this would be the top end when it is all together). I then glued the horizontal pole onto the two other poles to make the jump. The glue didn't really hold it, and I ended up using tape as well.
For the Dog Walk -
In my variety pack of wood scraps, there were strips of wood pieces about one inch across and varying in length. I used two pieces about 3-4 inches long, one longer piece (maybe about 5-6 inches) and four little pieces about 1.5-2 inches in length. First, I used the four little pieces to make two "V" shapes that would be used as a support at the bottoms of the Dog Walk. I just glued two of these pieces together at an angle to make this. I then glued the medium lengthed pieces onto one side of my "V;" turning the "V" upside down, I just lined up one end of the medium piece with the bottom of one side and glued it on. Then I glued the longer piece onto the other end of each medium piece, connecting the whole thing together (see picture above). Once it was all glued (and it fell apart and had to be reglued at least twice), I painted it all blue. Again, I used the orange foam to cut small pieces for the bottoms of the dog walk as the "contact points" and blue foam to cover the top of the rest of the piece.
For the Teeter -
The teeter was fairly simple. Again, I used two small rectangles from my wood scrap bag to glue together into a "V" shape as the base, and painted this blue. I then used a longer wood piece for the top, painting this blue and then applying the orange foam contact points and the blue foam over the rest. I simply set this on top of the base to balance there to form the teeter totter.
For the Tunnel -
I ended up making two tunnels, because the first one I made wasn't long enough once I put it with the rest. Although I initially rejected that first one, I ended up using both in the end (in the picture above, the small blue tunnel is on the top of the round dog cake, and the larger orange tunnel is on the cake base under the Dog Walk. To make the tunnels, I just cut a piece of foam about 6 inches wide and the desired length (about 5-6 inches for a longer tunnel, 3-4 for a small one). I then rolled it up, and used the foam glue to secure it together.
Missing from my cake - the Tire -
I tried to locate something that would be the right size for the Tire - some small round, donut-like thing that I could paint blue and orange, but I was ultimately unsuccessful and gave up on this :(
"Happy Birthday Chopper" -
Instead of having writing on the cakes themselves, which may have been difficult to arrange with everything else, I made a small square from white foam, on which I wrote with blue markers "Happy Birthday Chopper." I then glued the white foam square onto a slightly smaller blue foam square. On the top of the cake, I inserted two of the extra lollipop sticks for the Happy Birthday sign to prop against.
Because Chopper absolutely LOVES agility, I wanted to make him a special agility birthday cake with both dog-friendly and people-friendly cakes. The cakes themselves are store-bought - I purchased a white cake with white frosting from the grocery store (very plain sheet cake) and a doggie cake from Three Dog Bakery (peanut butter flavored, size 7").
To set up the agility course, I placed the two cakes onto cardboard cake sheets I bought at Michael's. It took two big sheets to make the area the size I wanted.
The "people cake" was made to match the blue and orange agility equipment with blue sprinkles across the top and orange sprinkles around the sides.
The difficult part, obviously, was creating the miniature agility equipment. After searching online for small model agility equipment and finding none, I realized I had to make these from scratch. I found some other blogs or online posts where people had done this and took some ideas from there, but basically I was making it up as I went along! Thank goodness I grew up with a very crafty mom, so I'm pretty creative myself :)
For supplies, I bought the following from Michael's (well, actually, some of this I already had):
- 1 package of white lollipop sticks (in the candy-making aisle)
- 2 variety packs of small wood pieces (I found these in the wood section where there are materials for wood painting projects - each package had pieces of various sizes from tiny little squares to rectangles about 5 or 6 inches by 3 inches in size)
- Orange and Blue paint
- Orange and Blue craft foam (the kind that comes in sheets - about 2 sheets of each color)
- 1 sheet of white craft foam
- Markers
- Wood glue
- Foam glue
I glued two of the larger rectangle pieces of wood together at a 90 degree angle to make the A-Frame. Once the glue had dried and the frame was securely together, I painted it completely blue. I then cut two smaller stips of orange foam to make the "contact points" at the bottoms of each side (see picture above) and pieces of blue foam to fit over the remainder of the top of the wood piece, and glued these on.
For the weave poles -
These were the simplest to make. I took about 6 of the lollipop sticks and painted two tiny blue stipes around each one, close together and near one end of the stick. These were later put directly into the cake to make a line of weave poles.
For the jump -
I only made one jump, and it wasn't as easy as I had anticipated. Again, I used the lollipop sticks for this, two for the sides and one for the horizontal pole, although I found that the sticks were a little longer than I'd like for purposes of the horizontal one, so I cut one off by about an inch. For the two side poles, I painted one stripe around the pole, towards one end (this would be the top end when it is all together). I then glued the horizontal pole onto the two other poles to make the jump. The glue didn't really hold it, and I ended up using tape as well.
For the Dog Walk -
In my variety pack of wood scraps, there were strips of wood pieces about one inch across and varying in length. I used two pieces about 3-4 inches long, one longer piece (maybe about 5-6 inches) and four little pieces about 1.5-2 inches in length. First, I used the four little pieces to make two "V" shapes that would be used as a support at the bottoms of the Dog Walk. I just glued two of these pieces together at an angle to make this. I then glued the medium lengthed pieces onto one side of my "V;" turning the "V" upside down, I just lined up one end of the medium piece with the bottom of one side and glued it on. Then I glued the longer piece onto the other end of each medium piece, connecting the whole thing together (see picture above). Once it was all glued (and it fell apart and had to be reglued at least twice), I painted it all blue. Again, I used the orange foam to cut small pieces for the bottoms of the dog walk as the "contact points" and blue foam to cover the top of the rest of the piece.
For the Teeter -
The teeter was fairly simple. Again, I used two small rectangles from my wood scrap bag to glue together into a "V" shape as the base, and painted this blue. I then used a longer wood piece for the top, painting this blue and then applying the orange foam contact points and the blue foam over the rest. I simply set this on top of the base to balance there to form the teeter totter.
For the Tunnel -
I ended up making two tunnels, because the first one I made wasn't long enough once I put it with the rest. Although I initially rejected that first one, I ended up using both in the end (in the picture above, the small blue tunnel is on the top of the round dog cake, and the larger orange tunnel is on the cake base under the Dog Walk. To make the tunnels, I just cut a piece of foam about 6 inches wide and the desired length (about 5-6 inches for a longer tunnel, 3-4 for a small one). I then rolled it up, and used the foam glue to secure it together.
Missing from my cake - the Tire -
I tried to locate something that would be the right size for the Tire - some small round, donut-like thing that I could paint blue and orange, but I was ultimately unsuccessful and gave up on this :(
"Happy Birthday Chopper" -
Instead of having writing on the cakes themselves, which may have been difficult to arrange with everything else, I made a small square from white foam, on which I wrote with blue markers "Happy Birthday Chopper." I then glued the white foam square onto a slightly smaller blue foam square. On the top of the cake, I inserted two of the extra lollipop sticks for the Happy Birthday sign to prop against.
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