Cakes & Cupcakes!

Yummy! Who doesn't like cake or cupcakes? For my kids birthdays, I always make an attempt at trying to make them a special cake or cupcake. I attempted a pirate ship which I did NOT  leave myself enough time to do and had to substitute the cake with a store bought (ack!) pound cake carved quickly into a ship shape which was not my best moment.

So below are my two favorite most recent creations - the first is my FIRST attempt at using marshmallow fondant. It's the ever so lovable Perry the Platypus from Phineas & Ferb. I decided to make my own as I have read horror stories of plain fondant and store bought as well. I didnt think the marshmallow was THAT bad, but it was a bit "different". Yea, that's it. Different. The second photo was the buckets of popcorn cupcakes which were made for a carnival themed birthday party. Can I just say that when you add marshmallows on top of frosted cupcakes it makes for one very, very sweet, amazingly delicious piece of YUM! These were very time consuming because I am a crazy, psychotic perfectionist when it comes to many things, but they were oh-so-worth it!

My Perry the Platypus cake and cupcakes- I had extra colored fondant so I chose to make some mini Perry's with the cupcakes. 

The infamous YUM cupcakes I was telling you about - made to look like buckets of popcorn. 

Rock a bye baby

I love it when a friend or family member of mine is having a baby. Especially when it means I get to get crafty with my gift! I used to love to do plastic canvas gifts years and years ago. I would still probably love to do some of that if I truly had a lot of extra time on my hands, but between raising two kids, working a full time job, and my on again off again love/hate relationship of carpal tunnel, I think I will pass for now. So I moved on to bigger, better, and more useful gifts of the ever popular diaper cakes! These are some of my favorites that I have made.

If I ever get to make another one, I plan to attempt to make them in a completely different design as I've seen in some really awesome photos lately.

Goodbye 2011......Hello 2012

Wow that year went fast! I have been SO behind on posting any blogs lately. But I promise 2012 will bring lots more blogs with a lot more goodies. For now, I am going to post photos of some of my masterpiece creations so I can get them on here for you all to see and also get them on Pinterest! If you ever see a picture of any of my items and I don't post a recipe or instructions, you can always ask me, I'm more than happy to share this info.

Attached are some of my favorite holiday goodies to make. Enjoy!

Santa Cupcakes

Graveyard & Skeleton cupcakes

Easter basket cupcakes

Easter Bunny cupcakes

Just some cake pops

M&M cupcakes

Christmas Cake pops 

Christmas trees, Snowman, & Reindeer

Snowman cake pop close up

Snowman & Christmas Tree cake pops

Pumpkin cake pops

Snowmen & Santa cupcakes

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!