Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloweenie

Rather than buying another bag of candy corn to be festive (yes, a second bag) I decided to festify my fingernails. Lots of fun!


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

CUPCAKES!

Ok so I'm not a big fan of cupcakes or even cake in general, but I LOVE decorating them! I took a cupcake decorating class at Make It Sweet (formerly All In One Bakeshop) where we created Halloween/fall themed cupcakes. The instructor, Jennifer, was wonderful! I learned lots of fun techniques and bought cool decorating tools so I can keep it up at home. Check out my beautiful cupcakes!

Bewitching

While looking for Halloween decorations on Pinterest, I discovered this fabulous decoration. The original had the family name in the center of it. Since I'm still a "Miss", I decided to write "Happy Halloween" so I can hang onto this decoration in the future when/if my last name changes :)

I may do variations on this depending on the holiday. The website that had the original also did this with an elf theme. I'm excited to try more!

My Kind of Gardening

In April, I entered my school's Cake Decorating Contest. I searched FamilyFun again for inspiration for a cake and saw their cute garden cake. We had just begun our grade level garden, so I put my own spin on the garden cake.

The cake itself is four 8x8 chocolate cakes, frosted with chocolate icing. The "fence" is made of graham crackers. I crumbled up some Oreos for the dirt look. The grass was edible Easter grass that I found at Target (thankfully all their spring goodies were on the shelves).

The carrots were lots of fun to make. I took Circus Peanut candy and smashed it down, then took a knife and cut them into carrot shapes. I added a little edible Easter grass to the tops.

The onions were made from Laffy Taffy sticks. I bought sticks that are a lot like sucker sticks but thicker. Those are the things in the middle of the Laffy Taffy. 
 The marigolds were made from gum drops. I smashed them down as well and stuck them together with toothpicks. 
The cherry tomato plant was made from cinnamon balls (not real sure what they're actually called...I bought the generic brand). I can't remember what the candy the leaves were made from was called, but I know it has the same kind of feeling/texture as Sour Punch Sticks, just wider. These are also held together with toothpicks.
Finally, the labels are sticks of gum. I used food coloring pens to write on them :)

This cake was so much fun to make AND was the winner of the "Teacher Favorite" category! I've got my work cut out for me for the next contest!



Gobble Gobble

This is a very fun cake that I made one Thanksgiving. I found the recipe and instructions on the Family Fun Website. The cake was a huge hit!

All For Fun

My new fascination with Pinterest has led me to creating this blog. I've tried all kinds of crafts, baked goods, and nail polish tricks and I want to share them with the world (the 2 or 3 people who may look at this). Hooray!!