Be Mine

I always get excited to do Holiday-themed craft and baking projects with Kylie.

Valentine's Day is no exception.

I took her to the store to pick out valentines to give to her classmates.  We settled on puppy and kitty ones that come with temporary tattoos, as she decided she could not give her first choice of Princess valentines to the boys. (And I wasn't about to buy 2 different packs of 32!)

She addressed about 6 of the "To: and From:" all by herself from her class name list before she got bored.  We will try and finish the rest on Tues and Wed or next weekend :)

Next on our list will be heart shaped cookies next weekend, and making homemade valentines to give to relatives and to hang on the windows as decoration.

But THESE, I am dying to try! My parents got me the coolest calendar for Christmas:

http://www.calendars.com/Hello-Cupcake-2011-Wall-Calendar

Each month has photos of ridiculously awesome cupcakes, AND then it tells you how to make all the decorations with candy and other things. EXCITED. Who wants a rubber ducky cupcake?!

But for February, it has cupcakes with huge conversation hearts on top!

The cool thing about all these recipes is the decorations look so complex, and you wouldn't think of trying to duplicate them. But, then you see the explanations of each, and they are actually so simple!

These are just a heart cut from a thick piece of pound cake, dipped in frosting, and plopped on top of a cupcake. Then decorated with red frosting. I like this!

Stay tuned for all our Valentine projects!! So there.

Our Christmas party!

We had the best time at our Christmas Party we threw for our family and friends!
We had a white elephant gift exchange, and an ugly sweater contest!
I made Kylie and myself some pretty awesome "ugly" outfits! And Joe wore a Grinch t-shirt that he let me add a bit of glitter puff paint to!

 My sweatshirt!

Kylie's shirt I made from a plain red shirt....this was pre-bedazzling: we added about 50 glitter pom poms and jingle bells to this later!

I also made lots of fun party snacks!
We had pigs in a blanket, stuffed mushrooms, deviled eggs, spinach artichoke dip with bread rounds, ranch dip with veggies, my sister's amazing guacamole and chips, olives, cheese, crackers, brownies, mini-cupcakes, and cookies!!

And warm apple cider with optional (amazing) spiced rum to add! YUM.

Recipe for Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients (I multiplied this recipe by three for the party, making 36, and they were gone in minutes!)

12 whole fresh mushrooms - white button are what I used, and some mini-portobello
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (or olive oil)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (plus, I added more over the top before baking)
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper - i skipped this and added mixed Italian Seasoning instead - basil, etc.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel.
Carefully break off stems. Chop stems extremely fine, discarding tough end of stems.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
Add garlic and chopped mushroom stems to the skillet.
Fry until any moisture has disappeared, taking care not to burn garlic. Set aside to cool.
When garlic and mushroom mixture is no longer hot, stir in cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, black pepper, onion powder and cayenne pepper.
Mixture should be very thick. Using a little spoon, fill each mushroom cap with a generous amount of stuffing.
(Then, I sprinkled the remaining Parmesan cheese over the tops to form a crust)
Arrange the mushroom caps on prepared cookie sheet. (So much easier to place one mushroom each in my mini-muffin tins - then they don't roll around)
Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the mushrooms are piping hot and liquid starts to form under caps.
Party. check! so there.

...by the chimney with care

I made us three some adorable stockings!
I bought 3 plain stockings at Big Lots for $2 each, with cute little curled up ends at the...toes?, and each in a different color.
Then, I cut our names out in bubble letters (Thanks Momma, this is how she made our family stockings years ago!!) from white felt.
I used spray adhesive to attach the letters to seasonal fabric.  (No sew!) I picked out a different one for each of us: a (manly, ha ha) red and green plaid (with glitter) for Joe, a forest green polka dot for me, and a striped snowflake fabric for Kylie. She was upset hers had less glitter than Daddy's, so I outlined her letters with silver glitter puff paint!
Then, I cut out a bigger version of the bubble letters in that fabric around the white letters already glued on, and attached each of these to the stockings.

AND stockings I made for the kitties!!

Ta da! Stockings!! So there.

Oh, Christmas Tree....!

We got our tree! A real, live, six foot tall tree! Hooray!
Last year I had a real one, but it was about 2.5 feet tall...now we finally have a place big enough, with a little rearranging!, for a full size tree.
I love it!
I got some amazing bird ornaments with feathers and glitter, and made a bow from ribbon for the tree topper we lacked.

 First ornament!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

I am getting pretty excited for the Holidays…namely Christmas!!!

I bought some new decorations to be put up soon; got Kylie a mini fake tree with pink ornaments that we helped her decorate last night; and I made a wreath!

Kylie was so excited to get her own tree and to decorate it herself.

So fun!

…cats already attacked it once, spraying ornaments across the room. I hope this tree makes it until Christmas…or at least the weekend!  Test run for how they’ll act when we get our real tree. Two cats = double trouble for sure.

This wreath was so easy to make! Thanks to my friend Lauren and her crafty idea I copied!

I got some pretty ribbon and accessories at Michael's, along with this wreath base made of branches.

I tied the ribbon around to start, then just wrapped it around the whole wreath – hot gluing it at the end. The bow is a separate piece I also glued on. Then, added the little bird and leaves with a bit more glue.

I used one of those Command hooks (aka a hook that doesn’t leave a hole in your front door) to hang on the front door and voila! Festivity!

...and you better believe I am already listening to Christmas music non-stop. YES!!!

It's Halloweeeeen Tiiiiime!

I made some pretty delicious cupcakes for our office Halloween Party. Did I MENTION I am on the Fun Team at work?!
The cupcakes are a yellow cake, with cream cheese vanilla icing, drizzled with pumpkin butter, and topped with a candy corn!
We'll call this one.....Semi-Homemade. Thanks Sandra Lee!

So to make said amazing cupcakes, first you'll need a mini cupcake baking pan.
Reason #2 you will want a couple of these? They are adorable!!!!

Reason #1 - besides baking the perfect bite-size cupcake to bring to a party (where everyone is too embarrassed to publicly try to neatly devour an entire regular cupcake, while engaging in semi-awkward co-worker conversation...), they also work great for (MINI- everything!!!!) mini quiche, individual omelets for a breakfast buffet - aka quiche with no crust; mini tarts, brownie bites, and more.
So!, you ask. "Where can I find such a wonderful baking pan?!?!"
Anywhere.
Mine are from Target: 24-cup Muffin Pan
It should make 24 cupcakes, whereas the regular size pans make 12.

This one with handles would actually be better ;) Muffin Pan

OK, so once you have the little cupcake pan, (get 2, one box of cake mix makes a lot of cupcakes) you will also need (adorable!!) little paper liners.
Occasionally found hiding in the baking/cake decorating section of the grocery store (I have had pretty good luck with this).

Also found in more varieties than white at your local Party store or Craft store.
See: Party City - search results: Mini Baking Cup = AWESOMENESS!

And now for the recipe. If you can even call it that...

Cupcakes:


1 box yellow cake mix (+ eggs, oil, water as directed by box)
1 jar cream cheese frosting.
1 jar vanilla frosting (I mixed the 2 two to mellow out the cream cheese flavor, but you can use either/or)
1 jar pumpkin butter (From Trader Joe's in the jam section. think: apple butter. Also amazing on toast.)
1 bag candy corn
(That's it!)


Directions:


Mix cake batter in large mixing bowl as directed.
Line pan with baking cups.
Fill each baking cup 3/4 full with batter.
Bake ABOUT HALF THE TIME OR LESS OF THE TIME DIRECTED FOR REGULAR SIZE CUPCAKES. Make sure to not over cook! Test by sticking a toothpick into them every couple minutes after they start to look about done.


Remove from oven and let cool completely.


Mix 2 frostings together (or make your own...HA oops.)
Use fancy new frosting piping bag you bought (woohoo, finally!), or a plastic bag with a corner cut off, or just a knife to frost the cupcakes with prepared frosting.


To Decorate:


Pumpkin Butter: Once frosted, use another frosting piping bag, or drizzle with a small spoon (less pretty, same taste!), fill with pumpkin butter, and drizzle over the top of all the cupcakes.


Candy Corn: Umm.....top with a couple Candy Corn.

And....voila!

We had such a fun Halloween season with a couple trips to the Pumpkin Patch, carving pumpkins, dressing up, and baking cookies, too!