Animal Crossing Birthday

My youngest child turned 15 this spring and asked for an Animal Crossing themed birthday party. For those of you without kids, Animal Crossing is a video game. Players take on the role of a human who lives on an island inhabited by different anthropomorphic animals. Players create and build a village, interact with villagers, collect fossils, fish, and generally live out their happy lives in the village. Interestingly, Animal Crossing simulates the passage of time and players move through the different seasons in real time, or so my kids tell me.

For me the best part of this birthday was copying the cake from the game. (If you play AC on your birthday, the villagers throw a party for you - complete with a cake.) The only issue was - my kiddo is not a strawberry fan, so using real fruit on the top was not going to make them happy. Once again, my 3D printer came to the rescue.

I found a strawberry on Thingiverse, edited it in Tinkercad (changing it from solid shape into a cavity within a solid shape which I then cut in half) and printed out a strawberry mold. From there I just dyed some marzipan red and and made my own non-fruit strawberries. It sounds like a whole lot more work than it actually was.

At first glance, they look amazingly real. In the end all that mattered was the newly-turned 15 year-old was happy with it. Sadly, Grandma and Grandpa didn't get to have any because Grandma tested positive for Covid a few days before and had to quarantine! Thankfully, she'd been vaccinated and her only symptom was a runny nose.

Happy birthday K.

I hope you know how much we love you

and how proud we are of you.