Spring Cupcakes

It has been a ridiculously long time since my last post.  But life has been crazy busy and my blog is always the first thing to be put on the back burner for me.  I find it hard to do regularly but will continue when I have time/remember to do it.

In April I was asked to make some cupcakes for a small bridal shower.  They had asked for 30 cupcakes but 3 different flavors.  Up until this point I had usually just used store bought box cake mixes.  But those make 24 for each box, and I needed 10 of each flavor. So I started looking up scratch cake recipes.  And found a few and combined a few others. In the end I had 10 Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling, 10 French Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla pudding filling and 10 Lemon cupcakes all of them had cream cheese frosting and a fondant flower on them.  I think they turned out really well and from what I've heard they were a hit at the party!

I have some fun baking and crafting things I've done lately, but we'll see how long those take to get on here...

Simple Solutions

 The house we are currently renting is an older home and as with any older home there is uneven floors and walls.  Our bedroom door as well as baby girls room door have two "setting" either shut tight or wide open.

And so my husbands dress shoes were recruited as door stops. Which was good for a while, but when your are trying to make a quick getaway from a grumpy, half sleeping child, having to quickly position said shoe dose not help.

So here is my Simple Solution to this problem.  I will apologize in advance, I have no measurements for this project at all.  I tend not to measure things...oops!

 1. Cut a rectangular piece or fabric.  I used fleece because it would slide quietly on our hard floors.
2. Sew the short sides together to create a tube.
3. Sew to lines down the length of the tube.  The middle space should be the width of the door it will go under.
4. Sew up one end creating three pockets. I realized my was too big so I cut it in half, which worked out well because I wanted to make two anyways.

5. I don't have a funnel that works well with rice so I just stapled a piece of paper together and it worked really well.
6. I found to fill it on your own with little mess it was best to insert funnel into the pocket and then hold it up on the table.
7. Then pour your rice into the funnel or whatever other weight you want to use. I used about a cup.
8. Then lift the funnel and fabric up together and it all slides right in! Pin the top closed when its full.

9. Leave the middle pocket empty. Fill the last pocket with cotton batting or fabric scraps.  The first one I made I had rice in both sides but when I tried to close the door the rice was to heavy to make it over the metal runner under the door.
10. Pin the final pocket closed
11. Sew it all together.
12. Not the prettiest little thing but its Finished!

 Have the pocket with the rice on the inside of the room to catch the weight of the door and the batting stuffed pocket will keep it snug on the door so it stays with the door sliding both ways.

I am still new to the blogging world and even newer to creating tutorials.  So I really hope it all makes sense. I have been working on a few things lately and hope to get them up on here soon.

Have a wonderful day!

Crazy busyness!

Sorry I have not had any posts in a while.  Life has been rather fast paced lately. But I have been working on some fun projects that I hope to finish up and have out soon.  I haven't done this much sewing in a long time! Its been really fun, but hard to find the time and space for it.  One day I will have a craft room again... I hope! But until I can get things together here are some pics of our beautiful snow on our yard.

This is the view I get from my kitchen window while doing dishes after the little ones are sleeping.  I'm not that good a photographer but the sunsets coming through our trees are very pretty.

 

 This was after our first really big dump of snow.  Baby girl was very interested in what had happened to our yard.  

It feels like it has been a long winter this year, and more of it to come.  It is starting to warm up, but with all the trees on our yard I think the snow will stay a little longer here. At least the kiddos like it!

Repurposed Pompoms

I love being able to use things for more then one purpose.  So when I made these tissue paper pompoms for Baby Girl's 1st birthday I really wanted to use them to decorate her room too.

At first I had wanted to rehang them in her room above her crib or change table.  But then realized that the ceiling her her room is flat not the popcorn stuff like in the living room.  So if we wanted to take them down later there would be holes in the ceiling.  There was a empty section of wall next to her change table so I shortened the fishing line that hung them on the ceiling and arranged them in a cluster on the wall.  I love how it turned out.

And yes now there are holes in the wall instead of the ceiling but at least that is easy to cover up with something else!

Pancakes Please!!!

On night's when my husband stays at work for supper (youth nights), supper tends to be kids choice. Tonight N asked for pancakes.  They hadn't eaten really well so far today so I said we would have some fun with it and they would get colored pancakes and pick their colors.  For the kids it's a fun supper, and for me I kind of hoped that they would want to eat one of every color therefore eating a bit more for supper. 

Normal "just add water" pancake mix I divided and added food coloring to.

 

 We made green, blue and pink pancakes

and some with chocolate chips...of course!!

I made myself a leftovers pancake, and swirled!

Looks Yummy!!

N is a just syrup kinda kid

Whereas J needs to have a bit of everything on the table!

Crosscut of my pancake. Looks kinda cool I think. 

The kids loved it and thought it was fun.  N has requested that this be our lunch in "two sleeps", why that long I'm not really sure.  My theory worked out! N had 4 pancakes! J had 2 and even baby girl ate a whole one! I would say that supper was a big success!!!

Snow Scribbling!

The boys have been bugging me to go play out side for a few days and today it was finally nice enough for it.  As much as they like playing out side they get bored in the winter really fast.  Baby girl was sleeping so I wanted them to stay out for a bit longer, so I found some ketchup and mustard containers from summer and filled them with water. I let the boys pick food coloring, shake it up and your good to go! When the bottles were empty they got to pick a new color. Quick and easy and gave me about 20 more minutes to clean the kitchen!!

 

 

 I think next time we might try some spray bottles too!

Fundraiser Fun

My husband is a Youth Pastor and tomorrow we are having a dessert auction for their missions trip coming up.  So I offered to make some entries.  I had lots of fun with it and got to try some new techniques.

Chocolate dipped pretzel rods

Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling, cream cheese icing, and fondant rose. It was really fun learning how to make the roses!

 Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling, cream cheese icing, and "metallic" sprinkles.  The sprinkles had been in my stocking this Christmas and I was waiting to use them for something.  I also tried a pipping technique to make it look somewhat like a rose.

Cherry Chip cupcakes with a vanilla pudding filling, Smarties and butter cream icing. I found a picture years ago in a  magazine of "Pie Cupcakes" and thought they looked really fun! 

 

Chocolate Cupcake Pops

 

Chocolate Cake Pop Flowers with white chocolate coating

 

This was my attempt at "gourmet" Cake Pops. The center is chocolate cake like the others but the toppings are crushed pistachios, crushed peanuts, S'more, and just plain chocolate

I think the Dessert Auction will go well tomorrow.  There are a lot of other entries.  I am excited to see what else will be on the tables tomorrow!!

Chore Boards

So our kids have been getting really out of hand lately so I thought that maybe having a chore board and a reward system might help get things back on track. it has been a week and it is working amazingly well! Both me and my husband feel as though the boys have done a full mood change, and are even playing better together!  Our system is that for every 10 magnets they get they can either pick a movie or play video games for a time. ( N mostly picks the games and J picks the movies!)  If they are really good it can work out to a reward every second day, and right now it seems to be alternating so that has been nice! So here's what I did.

I found the spray paint ($2.50each) and cookie sheets ($6 for 2) on clearance. The magnet rolls, magnetic dry erase board and foam sheets are from the dollar store ($6 total) I had thought of using the foam sheets and magnet rolls for making my own achievement magnets but on my husbands suggestion I figured something else out that was a lot simpler and faster! I used some of the roll, but the foam will go into the craft bin for something later.

1. Before you spray paint, scuff up the surface a bit. I didn't have any sandpaper but I found a metal brush in my painting bin so I used that instead. 

2. Even though I scuffed the surface it still didn't get an even coating the first time. (that and it probably didn't help that it was only 1 degree C out!)

3. By the third coat it was all covered and good to go!

4. I also found some white acrylic paint in the paint bin, so no cost on that one this time! The shade of blue is a lot darker with indoor light, but I still like it.

5. Tape out a grid pattern and painted the lines. Two coats was enough. I thought I had taken a picture of the other lines but I guess I didn't. Oh well, you get the gist.

6. This is the grid in the end.  Far left side for the chore list and then seven columns for the days of the week and one at the far right to house unused magnets.

7. I printed out the days of the week on a thick card stock paper in the colors of the rainbow. I thought that maybe one day we could use that for J to learn his colors. I used the magnet roll to cut little pieces of magnet to place these on the board.

 

8. So my husband's thought for the achievement magnets was to just buy some ($1 per pack), which is a lot easier then what I had originally planned! But I discovered that in our big bag of stickers there were some round ones that fit on the magnets, which makes them look SO much cooler! (or at least I think so)

J's finished chore board. I took the magnetic dry erase board and cut it up to fit in the chore slots.  This way as they get older you can change the chores as needed.

And N's finished board!

So far I only have one up on the wall.  I wasn't sure how I was going to get them up, but it seems that the 3M wall adhesive works well.  The ones that are meant to hang pictures and look like Velcro. Now I just need to buy some more. I also had originally tried to do one with the green spray paint in the first picture, but that brand of paint didn't seem to want to adhere properly.  It took about 5 coats to get it looking good and then it all just peeled off! A little frustrating but I had lots of the blue paint left so they'll just have to look the same. I also printed their names out on the card stock that I did the days of the week, and have that at the top of the chore list. I just left that out of the pictures.

You can have a lot of fun with colors and magnets and make it totally custom for your child!

Have Fun!!!

 

‘My entry into Fingerprints on the Fridge’s Feature Yourself Friday, sponsored by Appliances Online and Bosch Washing Machines’ (add a link to your party too!)

Little Lady is one year old!

We recently celebrated daughters first birthday.  This was my first time getting to do a girly birthday, and it was a lot of fun! I made some tissue pompoms, hung some streamers, made some fun snacks, and cute cupcakes!

Every little girl needs a tutu skirt!

Living and dinning rooms decorated for party!

Tissue pompoms

Snack Table

Chocolate covered pretzel rods...Very yummy!

In keeping with first birthday tradition, cupcakes!

The candies and pretzels on the snack table went with my pink, purple and white theme.  So I decided to make the cupcakes go with the color theme as well.  They are strawberry cake, with french vanilla butter cream icing, and a cute little fondant flower.  Very simple but very cute!

The party was just family, but even that is 14 people!!! It was a great day and lots of fun with family!