The reason I am so tired

and have not been able to do my knitting like what I did want, is that I have been trying to cook insects and make marzipan bugs in anticipation of the bosses leaving do this evening. I have failed horribly in everything- it serves me right for being so lazy at the weekend and not making a start on the bugs then, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Anyway, Phase 1 of the plan involved making a great deal of mess as you can see from the picture. I had much fun colouring up lots and lots of marzipan.

So here's a picture of all my equipment ready to go and all my little balls of marzipan which look just wonderful. I think I started getting a bit carried away towards the end as I started making up colours like orange that I had no reason to need but thought might be fun. As it was I didn't need 90% of the marzipan that I coloured up or well over half the tools. D'oh. Phase 2 complete however.


And here's the result of nearly three and a half hours of hard work. I was trying to bake crickets and mealworms and deal with an overly tired husband who had to have coca-cola confiscated from him and hyperactive kittens who kept trying to eat things at the same time in all fairness. It was also a lot more fiddly than anticipated. But I am reasonably pleased with the semi-finished result it has to be said. Half of them still need their wings adding which is going to stress me out later today (I just know it) and there's still the chance that they will look utterly crap once they are placed on the cake. But hey, so what? I did only have four days notice to get this done which left no time for PLANS which are essential for the perfect execution of genius.
I did try baking insects as well. I had every intention of making chocolate dipped crickets but I baked the crickets, ran out of time and then found Fenway with his head in the bowl chomping down on them so that was completely out of the window by that point anyway.
And I burnt the mealworms :(
Stupid receipe had no idea what it was talking about but then I should have known better and checked on them a bit more. They smelt really nice when they where baking- like popcorn. But the crickets made the air all greasy and horrible so I'm not allowed to cook insects in the house anymore. And mealworm and choc chip cookies could have been so nice....