"I Scream Soda"

Every year at work in October we celebrate Customer Service Week and this past October each team was challenged with making a sweet treat for another department. I remembered this "soda" my Grandmother made for my mom one year out of butterscotch candies and I was set on my mission. I went to the Dollar Tree and found the pilsner glass and filled it with the Autumn mix candy corn then covered the glass with plastic wrap. I then pushed a styrofome ball on the top and cut off the excess plastic wrap. I then started attaching the taffeys to the ball with pipe cleaners till I had the desired look I wanted. I cut the skeleton straw down and stuck it into the ball and then wrapped some curly ribbon with pipe cleaner and stuck it into the ball then stuck a cherry (red) Tootsie Pop in the center on the top (not pictured) to look like a cherry. I made the tag and attatched it to the outside of the clear wrap. I was present when management was doing the judging and I actually saw them pick it up and look for a price tag bec they swore it was purchased! After the winner was chosen (ME) they left and a co worked was walking down the line of treats and got to mine and said, "They bought this one." I turned to her and said, "No they didnt, I made it." After she stopped arguing with me over whether or not I was being honest, she finally said, "You could sell these for like $10!" Yeah, more like $20ea because I had blisters on my fingers from wrapping each candy with the pipe cleaner....ENJOY!

Winter Cupcakes

I found "edible snowflakes" at Joann's and decided they were a must! So I instantly knew I was going to make cupcakes with them for our family Christmas dinner at my Mother in laws house. Below is the picture. I didn't really do anything special, I literally did these "semi-homemade" sytle! Box cake mix, purchased the blue cupcake papers at Target and a canned frosting. What I DID do was sift powdered sugar and add some vanilla, almond extract and some butter to the canned frosting so it would have more of a smooth, homemade flavor. (I cheated!) After the cupcakes were baked and cooled I put the frosting into my handy dandy Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator and went to town! My five year old helped me by putting the snowflakes on and then I dusted with the baby blue disco dust...these were a hit!

Brownie Pops

Recently a family member asked me for a Dr. Seuss inspired favor for a babyshower, this is what I came up with:

(I've posted before about these)
I made these a little bit bigger than I have before because I've recently discovered that if you dip the stick in the chocolate then insert into the brownie, I can cover the entire thing in chocolate. The biggest challenge with these was to make them NOT look like they were for a 4th of July party but rather a baby shower for a boy. Needless to say the Hostesses were delighted with them!

I had some extra supplies left over so I decided to finish off what I had left and came up with these:

(Cookies n Cream, Rainbow Sprinkles and Baby Blue Disco dust)
I did these for our Super Bowl party last year....TOUCH DOWN!

Chalkboard painted wine glasses

I have seen this all over the internet and with Hubby's birthday coming I hit the dollar store! Each glass literally cost me $1 because my Mom already had the paint. Here is the out come!

Simple 2oz Dollar store wine glass

Tape the stem with painters tape

Wrap the glass with newspaper and spray the base of the glass

Finished glass, ready for writing

So I have been home from work for the past two weeks and have taken full advantage of daytime TV! As I was watching Rachel Ray she had two women display things on a budget from the Dollar Store..one of the crafts was THIS! I never thought I would be able to use it so soon but Hubby surprised me with the theme he chose for his 40th birthday. Here are the fruits of my labor...

Start with flowers, whiffle ball, glue gun and ribbon

Tie ribbon to ball

Pull flowers from stems

Glue around bottom of flower

Attach flower to ball

Repeat till all holes are filled

Finished product

Baby Blanket Cupcakes 2

I love making these things... We have another baby shower this weekend so this is what I came up with..

Baby Blanket Cupcakes

So a co worker is having a baby shower this Saturday and I wanted to make something inexpensive and yet CUTE! I wanted to find a cleaver way to give a simple gift so I scowered the internet to find ideas. I thought of diaper cakes and wreaths and then found washcloth suckers and suckers made of blankets but the thing I loved the most were the blanket cupcakes. I found a few blogs that had different instructions and in the end I had to adapt the folding a bit to get the effect and size that I wanted.

I started by purchasing a 4pk of blankets, coffee filters, ribbon, a cake box with a window and the red filler for the bottom of the box as well as stickers to decorate the outside of the box.

I dont know how but I ended up with an "all star all american boy" kinda theme but anyone who knows me knows Im crazy for the "red white and blue!"

So it took me SEVERAL tries to figure out how to fold the blankets. I finally ended up folding the blankets into big triangles and then just kept folding in half till I reached a size of aprox 2.5 inches...then I rolled. I LOVED the way the pattern came out on the blanket once in the filter. I secured with a rubber band then tied the ribbon around and put in the box. Once I figured out how I wanted the blankets folded, this entire project tooke me 15 mins. I love the way it turned out. I would love to do one for a girl!

Here are the pictures of the final product!