Say Cheese!

As promised I am uploading some photos of finished products. These are the completed place cards that were served at Thanksgiving, as well as the napkin holders. The place cards had a turkey cake pop for each guest as well. Hope you like them as much as I had fun making them! 

Next blog: Christmas goodies!!! 

Cake Pops 

Turkey place cards & Pilgrim girl napkin holders

Up close pic of turkey place card & matching cake pop

Pilgrim hat place cards & Pilgrim boy napkin holders

We even made little Indian girls and boys for the kids - here's one of the girls. 

Thanksgiving craft ideas

Last week my oldest son came home from school with an awesome craft that he made in art class. It got us thinking, how cool would it be to make something like this for our guests on Thanksgiving?! So we went shopping for some supplies and off we went! I will try and post as many crafts and goodies as I can during this holiday season.

Supplies:

Mini clay pots
Paint (brown, black and white)
Feathers - you can either use real feathers, or be creative and make your own!
Turkey printables - small enough to fit on clay pot
Glue (Elmers or hot glue work), Crayons, Construction Paper, Scissors
Black poster board

For our "place cards" we decided to make turkey's for the girls and pilgrim hats for the boys. I spray painted the turkey pots brown and the pilgrim hats black. Once the black ones were dried, I painted the top brim of the pot white. Once all pots are dried, you are ready for your decorating. Color your turkey's - I cut just the body out, no feet and no feathers. My youngest son was honored that I had asked him to color all the turkeys for me. And he did a great job! My oldest son made the feathers. I cut all items out and glued them to the pots. I also wrote each guests name on the turkey so it officially made it their "place card." For the boys pilgrim hats, I cut out a yellow buckle and colored a black square in the middle instead of cutting out a smaller square due to the size of the buckle. Each boys name was written on the buckle and glued to the hat. I made the brim of the hat out of the black poster board because I felt the construction paper was a little dull for the hats. This was a lot of fun for my family. I will update the photo to include the brim at another time. I took this photo Saturday night after we were all done and did not have the poster board until Sunday for the brim. But you get the idea. On Thanksgiving, each of these place cards will hold another little crafty gift for our guests. Will post pics when I get those done too!

Owl S'mores

If you need another quick, easy and fun baking craft for home or school try these awesome looking Owl S'mores. No need for a fire pit to make these delicious snacks either. Just a microwave and a few ingredients are required. 

You will need graham crackers (try to find the new packages of individual crackers so you don't have to waste time breaking them into squares) marshmallows, yellow candy melts (Wilton's are actually good to use for this one even though I am not a fan of Wilton's - they aren't being melted completely here so they'll work just fine) chocolate morsels and the infamous Halloween candy corn. 

Cut your marshmallow in half - place stick side down on the top of the graham cracker. Then place your yellow candy melts on top of the marshmallows- forming the eyes. Place that in the microwave for about 8 seconds  - you don't want them to melt completely, but just enough to stick to each other, if you need a few seconds more or less (all microwaves vary) just adjust your time. When done - place your chocolate morsels on top in the center of the yellow candy melts and your candy corn stick in the middle of the two marshmallows. That's it! Make sure you place these in an airtight container for storage but best to be eaten within a few hours in my personal opinion. 

SpOoKy!!

With Halloween just around the corner, it's time for some fun, SpOoKy Halloween desserts!

First up- the most fun and easiest of all. Eyeball cupcakes! These were a huge hit in my oldest son's class at the end of the third grade. His teacher did a ton of fun things for the last 2 weeks of school and that included having parents come in and teach the class how to do something, make something, whatever they wanted to teach in a 30 minute time frame. So of course he wanted me to teach them how to draw sharks (he loves sharks) and I said there was not enough time in the day to teach 18 children how to draw a shark! So instead we put our heads together and thought this would be a quick, easy and fun thing to do, and it left everyone with a special treat to enjoy and remember this experience.

All you need for these cupcakes are a box of your favorite flavored cake mix, or if you make your own, even better. You need white frosting - any store bought is great, or you make your own again. Then you will want to buy yourself a bag of gummy lifesavers, mini m&m's and red decorating gel (all items you can get at any grocery store.) Once you make your cupcakes (try to make sure you fill your cups enough so that they come just above the top when they rise to give the round top effect), frost them and then get prepared to decorate. First you take your red gel and make squiggly lines from the center of the cupcake to the end just like you see in the photo. Take your mini m&m and stick it in the middle of your lifesaver and place the lifesaver right in the middle of the cupcake. Ta-da! You're all done.

As I said above, you can use whatever flavor cake mix you like. I used red velvet cupcakes when I made these for DJ's class to give it the "bloody" effect when they were eating them. This went over really well with the kids and he still gets compliments on these cupcakes to this day from his friends. You can even put a yummy filling on the inside of your cupcakes. Whatever you like to do with your cupcakes. If you don't know how to put filling in here's an easy tip. Spoon whatever filling you want into a small zip lock baggie. Cut the tip of your baggie and before frosting your cupcakes, carefully place the tip you just cut open into the center of your cupcake poking through just a little and squeeze a little bit out. You will know when you have too much - it will start coming up to the top of the cupcake. Very easy and will make if you color your leftover frosting red and use that, it will look even more bloody!

Did someone say Oreos?

You know what I'm talking about. Those delicious cookies with the creme filling inside. YUM! Now imagine them as a cake pop. Kinda hard to imagine right? Well I'm about to show you how these delicious and dangerous desserts can be made. Super easy instructions and the taste is incredibly addicting.

The following are the only ingredients you need: 1 package of oreos, 8oz package of cream cheese (will need to be softened), a package of your favorite chocolate melts, lollipop sticks. What you want to do is chop your oreos to the point where they look like sand. Yes, creme filling and all will go in your food processor. Depending on the size of your food processor- 7 cookies per mix should be good- and break them in half like you do when you're eating them!

Once all the cookies are chopped - place them all in a large mixing bowl. Spoon in your softened cream cheese and mix together. I've been told to use the back of a large spoon but have found mixing with my hands is a bit messy but works much better. You will roll this into a large ball. Once done, roll into 1" balls for your truffles. After this is done- freeze them for about 30 minutes to hold together. Melt your chocolate and you're ready to go. You can dip your truffles with or without the lollipop stick- I prefer with. Once all dipping is done, refrigerate until chilled and you are done. You can decorate with whatever sprinkles, etc. you like.

First up.......cake pops!

Now who doesn't love cake?! Add in your favorite icing, smash it all together, put it on a stick and voila! You have a cake pop! Okay, okay, so there's a little more than that involved. But still, doesn't it sound yummy? If not, check your pulse because something must be wrong!! My kids absolutely LOVE these things. The best part about it? You don't have to be some professional baker like Buddy from Cake Boss to make these. 

See my cake pops? Not perfect. I'll admit it. Far from it as a matter of fact. It's a work in progress to get them to look like the pro's do, but they still taste yummy. So what if you gain a few pounds while working on your art work? You could probably afford to gain a few pounds. Me? Not so much, but hey- who's complaining? Just follow my instructions below and you can make your family and friends a fun dessert everyone is sure to enjoy. 

Ingredients/Supplies:
Cake Mix (choose whatever flavor you like)

Frosting (store bought or homemade - any type and flavor will do)

Lollipop sticks

Chocolate melts

Any decorations you want to put on i.e. sprinkles, nothing too heavy though!

So what you want to do is make your cake like you normally would - just bake a regular 9x13 cake. When it's done, you need to make sure you completely cool the cake off, preferably overnight if you do it later in the day. Once cooled, cut the cake into big chunks and place in a large mixing bowl, slowly add in your frosting. It's messy, so beware! Once you have a nice consistency of mix to frosting, you're going to start rolling your mix into their shape. Balls!!  (Done laughing yet?) About 1-1 1/4" in diameter is a good size, you don't want them to big because they will not hold up on your lollipop stick. Place them on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. When you're all done, place in the refrigerator or freezer. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. If you choose to freeze- only leave them in for about 10 minutes. 

Next, prepare to melt your chocolates. Let me warn you- if you want good cake pops- do NOT use Wilton's chocolate melts. Sorry Wilton's, but your chocolate melts do not melt very nicely for me, or anyone else I've encountered during this process! I even bought a tiny crock pot for melting cheese/dips to see if I could get them to melt nicely, but they just don't work well. I have to add shortening to it to give it a good consistency. If you can find Merckens chocolate melts in your local cake supply store- buy the bag and run! They are the best chocolates to use. If not, use what you can. Last weekend I was in a rush and used Bakers chocolate dipping containers- you pop it in the microwave for 30 second intervals and the chocolate melted perfectly. Only problem was the containers were pretty small so I needed 2 of them. But they worked well and turned out nicer than any of the Wilton's chocolates ever did. 

So when your cake pops have cooled down and you're chocolates are melted you are ready to go! Take your lollipop sticks and dip the ends in the chocolate just about 1/4" then stick it in your ball. (Okay seriously, stop laughing) Do this for all cake pops. Once all have the sticks in them- freeze for 5 minutes to make sure the stick stays in. Keep an eye on your chocolate, stir if needed to keep your consistency. When pops are done- now you're going to start dipping.  Pick up each cake pop, holding by the stick obviously, and dip in your chocolate. when pop is completely covered, take out of the chocolate - place on a spoon and tap off any excess chocolate a couple of times. Be gentle as you don't want to damage your cake pop. Once your done, place back on the wax paper covered cookie sheet. When all cake pops are done- you can place in the refrigerator and you are done. Unless of course you want to add your own special treats like sprinkles or sugar crystals or any other cute decoration. 

It can get very messy with the chocolates - and especially when decorating so make sure you  have a good working space. I know this sounds like a lot of work but trust me- this is one of the easiest things you can make. and they are SO yummy. Kids and adults of all ages love these. On a side note - if you want to buy a styrofoam  board to stick the cake pops in instead of placing back on the cookie sheet once you've dipped in the chocolate- feel free! Or if you want to not use the lollipop sticks - that's fine too- just use a spoon to dip them into the chocolate and call them cake truffles! 

Oh wait!!!! The most important thing of all. HAVE FUN doing this! Enjoy!

Welcome to my new blog!

Let me first start off by saying, I am not a blogger. I don't like to write stuff, but I LOVE to create stuff. So please be patient with me as I get used to this blogging stuff and figure out how to do everything. My hope is that I can get to share many of my awesome creative ideas for parties (mostly kids, but hey - I could do weddings too!) my baked goodies which are my pride and joy, as well as the adorable diaper cakes I love to make for friends and family members. 

Maybe some day, I will get to actually start a business where I could sell some of my stuff, or be an actual party planner (my dream!) but for now, I will just be sharing this stuff with whoever happens to come across my blog on this little thing called the internet.