NYE Cakepops

My Sister-In-Law has been wanting to learn to make cakepops for a long time so we {my Mom, my SIL and myself} finally found a time for us to get together but it was after Christmas so we decided to make New Years Eve cakepops! We just used up a bunch of leftover candies and sprinkles I already had. I love it when I don't have to go buy anything!!!

They weren't anything too fancy but it was fun to spend some time together...and it is always fun to teach people to make cakepops!!

Homemade hot cocoa & Bath Salts ~ After Thanksgiving Craft

This is the 3rd year of our "new" tradition of making a craft after Thanksgiving dinner...though this year my husband didn't have to help with decorations - becuase he had to go back to work :( For a flash back go here and take a look at the last 2 years of creativity!

This year we stepped it up and we did two projects. I really like doing these projects for the following reasons...

- Spending time with my Mom
- Being creative
- Getting a few gifts out of the way

It is nice to have a few gifts laying around the house. Some of these I already have people in mind for...some I don't. I also want to figure out about how much per gift we spent...because I bet it really wasn't much...more on that in a different post!
This year my Mom gather the ingredients for one project and I the other.

Bath Soaking Salts - Mom's Craft

There are SO many options for bath salts out there. All of the recipies are pretty similar. We decided to go for a bath soak which is a dry bath salt. You can also make bath scrub which is the 'wet' kind...I still might try some of those!!

We made two varieties: tea tree and ginger. For the tea tree we used essential oil and for the ginger we (to my surprise) used actual ginger that we smashed and took the oil out!

For the base mixture we mixed together 4 cups of Ebsom Salt, 1 cup of Sea Salt, 1/4 cup baking soda to make one batch. We then added about 5 drops of tea tree oil to one batch and about 1/2 a stock worth of ginger oil to the other batch. We then packaged them in glass containers my Mom got at the Dollar Store, tied them with some tulle, and added a cute little card that was actually made from cutting out pictures from Christmas cards my parents got last year...yeah for recycling (and free)!

Mom cutting the ginger...

Making labels/tags out of old Christmas Cards!

COST ANALYSIS of 1 gift. Total - less than $5 out of pocket

Glass container - $1 @ Dollar Store

Epsom Salt - $4 - we used 2 3lb bags

Baking Soda & Salt - already on hand

Essential Oil - about $10 per container. We used 5 drops...

Tulle - already on hand

Tags - made out of recycled Christmas cards

Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix - Annie's Craft

I found a recipe that seemed really good - many different ingredients - here. We followed the directions for making the powder but we put our own little spin on another indgredient! As an after thought I realized that I hadn't even tasted this before we made it...I confirmed today it was delicious!!

Ingredients you will need the below ingredients for 1 batch.

• 2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup powdered nondairy creamer
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

The above recipe made about 4 baggies, measured 1 Cup each. We added a hanfull or two of mini peppermint marshmellows...yummy!! We tied wth some rickrak and cute gift tag I made.

Diaper Cake for baby Oren

One of my very favorite "family members" Stacy is having her second baby, a little boy named Oren, this coming January. She and I lived 2 houses away from each other growing up. Our families sometimes do Thanksgiving together. She really is like my little sister and I love her...okay, enough mushy stuff...on to cute baby stuff!!!

Since Stacy already has an adorable little girl, Crissy, she really wanted some practical baby stuff...mainly breast pads and diapers. My Mom got her the pads - I covered the diapers. But let's face it, wrapping diapers isn't usually that entertaining so I decided to take it up a notch. I've made a few diaper cakes though this one I made in record time - about 10 minutes {thanks for the help Mom}. It was a lovely celebration with family and friends.

What's a cake without a little decoration {in the form of travel size baby related items :)}

Stacy and myself.

And here are a few other pictures from the {cute} day!!

Delicious food

Adorable cake

Cute cupcakes from Battle Ground Bakery.

The beautiful Mom to be!!!

She was seriously excited about the diaper cake!!

Lots of cute boy clothes!!

post thanksgiving dinner craft...

Oh, that's right. It's what we do in my family. My Mom started this tradition last year and I love it! Last year we made cookie mix in a jar, pictured below.



This tradition is for the girls. The boys...they have their own tradition. Helping my Dad get ALL the Christmas Decorations out of the attic! I think girls win.

So this year my Mom had another craft set up for us to do. By the way, the 'us' I keep referring too it my Mom, myself, and my brother's fiance.

This craft is directly from the December 2010 edition of Martha Stewart Living. I have been searching for 2 days on their website for a link to include but for the life of me cannot find it. It's on page 94 of that edition for those who care to look!

the first three.

the second three.

Gift wrapped candy bars. At least that is what I'm calling them :) The steps are easy!

1. Buy full size candy bars from the store. My Mom had bought some fancy Lindt ones, some Cadbury ones, and some various other kinds, all tempting!

2. Buy gift wrap (any kind will do just fine), ribbon, rick rack (the wavy red ribbon), and felt. Also any other crafty things you'd need. She bought this ribbon that looked like Christmas tree lights and pom-poms. The nice thing about gift wrap like these pictured are they are somewhat solid backgrounds, as in they don't already have characters on them, so it made it easier I think. Just something to think about.

3. Get friends and family together!

4. Wrap present then decorate! We each made some similar and some different. Kellie made a wreath, my Mom made smaller mittens and a hat. That was some of the fun of it was coming up with ideas. I am a hot chocolate fanatic (I don't drink coffee) and so I had to incorporate that somehow!

5. Give them away! Or sneak one for yourself ;-)

My plan is to include them in these little treat bags I"m making for people at Jason's work for Christmas. So I'll need to make 6 more but that will be easy! I just need to follow a few simple steps!

pumpkin cake...

We headed up to my parents house last weekend for a family dinner with addition of some second cousin's of mine who were in town from Seattle. My parents always put on a good meal and do all the cooking, including desserts most of the time. I offered to make the dessert and my Mom knew she wanted to do something "fall-y". I thought about doing a cheesecake but apparently those are laborious and I was overwhelmed with the fact that I wouldn't be able to finish it in the time I had available.

So I called up my Mom and she gave me a recipe for a pumpkin dessert roll. My version turned into a mini-stacked cake since for some reason when I rolled it, it crumbled, but it was good none-the-less!!

All the ingredients. I had everything on hand already...which was a big bonus!

Pour the batter into a 10 X 12 jelly roll sheet lined with parchment paper and greased (I used PAM).

Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees.

Then, Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.

This is where you were supposed to 'roll' it. I tried and failed, so I stacked it!

Since it was 12 inches long I divided it into 4 sections that were 3 inches wide.

Frost with cream cheese frosting. I wanted it to look "messy/drippy" so I didn't have to be too careful :) Another bonus!!

Ready to serve. I did stick 3 lollipop sticks into the cake, one in the middle and two towards the ends, to support it (ie. make it stay standing) for the drive to my parents!!

Here is the whole recipe. It was less than an hour from start to finish!!!

Mom’s Pumpkin Roll

Cake.

3          eggs

2/3 C   Pumpkin Puree

1 tsp     lemon juice

¾ C     flour

1 tsp     baking powder

2 tsp     cinnamon

1 tsp     ginger

½ tsp    nutmeg

½ tsp    salt

Frosting/filling.

8 oz      Cream cheese

4 TB    Butter

1 C      Powdered Sugar

½ tsp    vailla

Combine dry ingredients for the cake and set aside. Beat eggs and sugar. Add wet ingredients (pumpkin, lemon juice) and mix. Add dry mixture. Spread into 10X12X1 pan that is lined with parchment and greased.

Bake 375 degrees for 15 minutes, or until done.

Cool 10 minutes in the pan.

Take a clean, thin (not fuzzy) dish towel and flip cake onto towel. From the short end (10) roll cake into a log shape. Cool in this position for 10 minutes. During this time making the frosting.

Unroll, spread frosting on cake.

Re-roll into log shape. Serve and enjoy!

cakepops for Halloween...

My Mom called me the other day and asked me to help her with something...which I was totally thrilled and happy. She wanted to make cakepops for someone at her work as part of their BOO! game. You know, the one where you leave a secret/surprise present for someone else then they return the favor to another person... Well, a batch of cakepops yields about 40 - 48 depending on size & accident and tasting rate :) We met at JoAnn's at 1:30 on a Saturday (we won't make that mistake again) and she bought all the necessary supplies. Then she came over tonight and we got to work. She had made the cake mixture the night before and headed over. All in all it took us 2 hours from shaping, dipping, decorating and wrapping. Not TOO shabby if you ask me. By myself it would have taken me at least 3!

I also got to try out a few new things that I had bought on my trip to the The Decorette Shop last month. One was these Paramount Crystals (essentially edible paraffin) to help loosen the consistency of the chocolate. Melted chocolate isn't an easy substance to work with, it is rather temperamental. We did use Wilton but with the Paramount Crystals it was tolerable. We made a variety of orange/black/purple colored and decorated cakepops. Some pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, sprinkled and dipped ones were in the mix! We had about 22 each when all was said and done. We had about 5 accidents here and my Dad ate some of the cake before my Mom could stop him ;-) Though he was put in charge of crumbling it up... We wrapped these with little cellophane treats bags and tied with ribbon. We did this because they will be delivered in a few days and the sprinkles were a bit restless (ie. messy). I like the wrapped look when they have to be transported or the event is a few days away but I really liked the kitty ones I did a few weeks ago how they looked set up without wrapping. To each their own and to each event a different situation!

I also have recently bought two new varieties of melting chips...so expect some cakepops in the future. We have treats next Friday at school...so maybe then :-)

My Mom and I. Hard at work!

Jack-O-Lantern cakepops!!!

Divided up.

Wrapped up.

Fancied up.

PS. Some will go to my work and some to Jason's work. But don't worry...I'll be making more soon!

two mini cakes...

...for two mini kids.

Jason has a lot of family. Like, his Mom was one of 8 and they all have kids and most of their kids have kids! It certainly makes get-togethers on his side of the family interesting. We are closer to some of his family than others, which I suppose is natural. The best man in our wedding was Jason's cousin Kenny. Kenny married Shana and they have two kids, Linkin who is 3 and Adeline (Addy) who is 1. We call then out "niece and nephew" even though they are technically second cousins. But hey, they're babies and it seems more appropriate.

Well Link and Addy are born just a bit over two years apart in the month of October. Thankfully their parents decided to do one joint birthday part for the family and friends because this enabled us to no have to choose which kiddo's party to attend this year! We were happy for that. A while back Shana had asked me to make Addy's 'smash cake' that she would eat and I had asked if she wanted one for Link too so he wouldn't feel excluded. We decided to go ahead and do that. Shana ordered a 9X13 cake from somewhere up there...see, they live in Auburn which is over 200 miles away and I didn't want to be in charge of the only cake with a driving distance that great.

So I made two 6inch cakes about 3 layers high. Nothing too fancy since I knew the store bought cake (Spongebob to be exact) would be colorful. I did the standard boy and girl colors...because well, it made sense. The cakes themselves are pretty simple but they were intended to be destroyed by children and drive in the car for 3+ hours...so I figured that best.

The cakes!

happy first birthday Addy!

happy third birthday Linkin!

one.

three! look at his toes :)

digging in!

crissy's first birthday (baking extravaganza)...

One of my dearest friends Stacy had a baby girl about a year ago and this weekend we celebrated her first birthday! Stacy and I grew up two houses down from each other and I consider her more family than friend. I was honored to be invited to the celebration and even more honored to bake for it! Actually, Stacy baked and made the frosting for the cat cake and I did the rest!

The cat cake was chocolate with chocolate covered in vanilla fondant. The cupcakes were vanilla with Swiss meringue butter creme. The cakepops were vanilla/vanilla pop dipped in white chocolate.

This was my first real trial at cakepops. I had tried a few before cupcake camp because I knew that at camp I'd be meeting and learning from Bakerella - who 'invented' these little things, but they'd all been flubs! While at camp I learned about the real difference between melting chips, which is the coating on the outside of the cakepop. Then on Friday I visited my friend Megan who I made this farm cake for a few months ago, and she happens to live a few blocks from The Decorette Shop in Portland! There I bought too many just enough new supplies to make me happy :)

On to the pictures!!

Crissy's kitty cake!

The set up. Stacy did a wonderful job making it all look pretty!

Setting up the cakepop station! Please mind the mess.

Patting and Patting the cakepop!

Look at them!!

My favorite. Mrs. Purple cat cakepop.

My second favorite!

Pretty pretty cakepops.

Cupcakes! I always forget I have this stand :-)

Happy First Birthday Christine Elizabeth!!!

lylasttdid. take two...

On Bree's last weekend home we decided to get together again to sew! I had a project in mind!!! See, I have this fondant rolling pin and mat that I keep in a tube that I bought at the UPS Store, a cardboard shipping tube. It is not pretty. My solution...make it pretty!

I headed to JoAnn's a few weeks ago looking for fabric to make curtains for my classroom (more on that later) and found the perfect fabric for a fondant rolling pin cover!! Brown background, pink cupcake decorations! Love at first sight. I bought just 1/3 of a yard and it was enough to make not only what I had in mind, but two other things!

I brought the fabric and ideas to Sewing Day and set to work, with my Mom's help. We pinned and plotted and really, came up with the perfect solution!! A tube cover with a strap! Because this tube is long, awkward, and it rolls...not always the best combination when moving it around or traveling with it.  Once I had made that, I had some left over fabric and decided to make a pot holder and a fondant tool pencil case. I really like sewing days with Bree, my Mom, and Kathy - Bree's Mom. I hope this is a tradition we start...especially since Bree says she's moving home next spring!!!

Mom and I in the planning stages.

All done. Pot holder. Fondant cover and carrier. Fondant tool pouch.

This makes me happy!!!

The cover.

Closed.

Top of the container.

A peak inside :) Secure, clean, and decorated!

The original plan. Came out just like I wanted it too!