Thursday, September 16, 2010

Exciting!

Ok, so i am super excited! I recieved a message today from Melinda at All Things Crafty and Delicious about a request I had made of her. You see, Melinda designed my favorite box to cut out and give, the now famous cupcake box. So, I asked to see if she could possibly design a similar box for mini-cupcakes. YEAH! and guess what, she has said she had a similar idea and will start working on the design soon. Double YEAH! So, as soon as I get the details, you know I will be posting and maybe one of you will be the recipient of a very special box of miniature cupcakes!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Stealing Away with Gummie Sticks

While reading the fabulous Hostest with the Mostest blog this weekend, I saw the most wonderful, easy and inexpensive idea. Simple gummy candies on a stick- perfect for the first day of school.
There is a tutorial on the website. The tutorial calls for using wooden skewers. I opted for lollipop sticks instead since my kids would be eating them and I really didn't want our first visit to the ER to be because of a special "First Day of School" snack.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Cupcakes, Ballerinas and Cookies

Let me just start this off by saying I am a "first-time" ballet mom. I don't know how things work in the states, but here in EC a ballet receital involves much more than little girls dancing. They moms wanted to give each girl a gift at the end, but considering where we live, no one had too much money so.... we decided on simple cupcakes and I added the decorated sugar cookies as a little bonus.
This amazing cupcake box is thanks to Melinda Ford's brilliance over at All Things Crafty and Delicious. I have to thank Melinda for my first thing ever published in the crafting world. Back in October she asked if anyone would have time to cut the files she so craftily (is that a word?) makes and I jumped at the chance. Along with the million other things she was doing at the time, she hadn't gotten a chance to actually cut out many of her files. Melinda was kind enough to like the box I made and posted it on her blog- it only took me a few more months to get up the courage to post other creations.... and now you can't get me to shut up about them (oh, sorry, bad word around here!- good thing my daughter can't read yet).

So anyway, this is one of my favorite things to cut out and here is the fast ballerina version for my daughters first dance recital.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Take Your Pick

This past week we were having some friends over for dinner and I was bored with just about everything I thought of making for dessert, until..... I decided to make several different types of cupcakes and let everyone enjoy the selection. So, I used this very simple cake recipe from my "Woman's Day Cooking Assistant" app:
2 2/3 cup flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

Then I scooped out enough for 1 dozen of each of 7 flavors, added the necessary flavors, and voila, a diverse dessert selection. For the icing, I did a basic buttercream and then divided it up and added, vanilla or almond or mora extract and/or cocoa powder, and coconut. The hardest part of the whole thing was keeping track of what was what (I had a cheat sheet for dinner that night).
This was so super easy, only took one cake mix and is something I will definetly be doing again. Now, I just need to find a SVG file for a mini cupcake box that holds about 6-8 cupcakes.