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!

Gourmet Strawberries

With tomorrow being Mother's Day I wanted to have a brunch for a few special women, my Mom, Mother in law, my Hubby's Grandmother and my Sister in law....well, do to circumstances beyond my control, things changed.

Hubby and I surprised our 4 year old Thursday with a trip to Legoland and as we drove to our destination I saw a strawberry stand and told Hubby that if they were still open when we left we would HAVE to get strawberries there....and we did. I scored big time! Three baskets for $9.50 and they are big and dark red and juicy!

Last night I went for it turned out these!!! I think they turned out great and only hope they taste as good as they look...

On the left is chocolate covered in mini chocolate chips, to the right of that is chocolate sprinkled in coconut, to the right of that is chocolate drizzled with white chocolate, next to that is white chocolate coconut and then last is white chocolate drizzled with milk chocolate.