Did You Doubt Me?

So on Monday I set the goal of completing a layout a week.  I am sure you all shook your head and thought, "Ya, right!" Well guess what!?  I did it this week; and I still have the weekend ahead of me so I might even do two, but I won't get ahead of myself!

It isn't anything fancy, but it is done!  And since that little guy in the pictures is now 12, it is about time that I got it done.
The journaling: "I'm not sure if it was the best idea to let a 4 year old carve pumpkins by himself, but you took your job very seriously and your pumpkin turned out great.  October 2004

Christmas Craft Day - Part 2

Yesterday I mentioned two other crafts we did at Craft Day, one of them was the beadboard candy cane.  Well here it is:

These aren't the best pictures because I can't seem to get the one I want to post to rotate and I gave up.  I got the idea from this blog. I don't know what I am going to do with the candy canes, I was going to hang one on the door but then I went and bought a very mis-shapen wreath at Costco.  Tomorrow if you are lucky I will share the glitter ornaments if Nalani and I get our bows tied on them.

Card Swap

I participate in a card swap every once in awhile.  It is a great way to get some really nice homemade cards and not have to come up with a bunch of creative ideas.  I made 13 of the same card, 12 other people are also making 13 cards; I will get back one of mine and one of each of theirs.  13 different cards and only one idea!  The theme of this swap was all occasion cards.  I was going to keep mine a secret until we all got the cards back but since Jenny posted hers I thought I might as well show mine too!  I will post all of the cards that I get from the swap soon!

Graduation Cards

Here are a couple of graduation cards I made for my niece's and a family friend.  They are pretty much the same as the Coaches cards, just flipped over and made a little more "girlie".  But essentially the same card design, I figured that there was no need to re-create the wheel!

This was supposed to be yesterdays post but I couldn't upload pictures (not that it is a very good picture)!  Stay tuned for the The Tuesday Ten......which may change to the The Tuesday Two if I can't think of anything to say!

Brownie Pops

Nalani got to take treats to school today to celebrate her birthday with her classmates.  She told me she didn't want to take cupcakes, "everyone" takes cupcakes she told me, she wanted something unique.  I surfed the internet and asked my Facebook friends what I should make.  Nalani shot down the idea of cake pops when I told her how they were made, "That is GROSS to smoosh up cake with frosting mom!" plus it was made of the same thing as cupcakes!  So it was back to the drawing board.  Finally we settled on brownie pops, as long as it didn't require I smoosh brownies up with frosting!  I had made the same thing for her birthday party last year but I had cut the brownies much larger and they were WAY too big to eat without feeling ill!

I baked a batch of box mix brownies in a 7"x11" pan so they were a little thicker.  Cut them in squares, probably a little larger than 1" I think I got 28 out of the pan.  I put the brownies in the freezer for a little while because the internet tutorials I read told me too. I melted a bag of chocolate chips in the microwave with a little vegetable oil (not sure what the oil does...makes it a little runnier, shiny??  I don't know but again, the internet told me to!)  I then stuck lollipop sticks from Walmart into the brownie squares and dipped them in the chocolate and added a few sprinkles to make them festive.  I then put the dipped brownies back in to the freezer to cool the chocolate.  They turned out pretty cute, anything on a stick and dipped in chocolate has to be better then any old cupcake!  AND they were voted best birthday treat of the year by her class!

Let Them Eat Cake

I love to decorate cakes.  They aren't fancy and I don't get involved with fondant or icing flowers but I have made some cute things for birthday parties and baby showers.  This weekend I made a batch of baseball cupcakes for Nalani's team party.  They aren't my best work but all of the kids knew they were baseballs so I thought that was half of the battle!

These were very simple, just frosting and Red Vines licorice cut in strips

Here are a few others I have done:

This was a basketball cake for Jaren's 7th birthday, I can't get the picture to rotate so it is going the wrong direction but the cake looks the same from any angle. 

This was just frosting dyed orange and then black shoelace licorice.  I used my fancy schmancy Betty Crocker domed baking pan so it actually looked like half of a ball on a plate.

I think these two are my favorites by far!  I did them for my sister's baby shower.  They look EXACTLY like the lion & monkey on the plates, napkins etc.

These were both made using a teddy bear face cake pan from Michael's.  For the monkey I cut the ears off and moved them lower on the head since that is where the monkeys ears were on the paper goods.  The lion's mane was an apricot fruit roll-up cut in triangles (his nose too).  Eyes on both are chocolate chips (pointy side down), monkey nose is a large chocolate disk, mouths are licorice shoelaces

This is also a favorite of mine.  Jaren's 8th birthday was at a slotcar racing place so the figure 8 race track was perfect! 

This was two 9" round cakes, frosted in chocolate frosting, crushed chocolate wafer cookies for the racetrack, white Good N' Plenty candies for the dotted white line and I piped red frosting around the edges.  The cars are little cars that he had, smaller and flatter than Hot Wheels.

I am pretty fond of these too!  These were for my nephew's 1st birthday.  Cookie Monster's cookie cupcakes were his "smash" cake.

These all started out as 9" round cakes.  Elmo and Cookie Monster were trimmed so their head shape were correct.  Their eyes are both cupcakes with Junior Mints for their pupils.  Mouths are crushed chocolate wafer cookies.  Elmo's nose is just an orange circle cut from paper because I couldn't find anything edible to use.  Cookie cupcakes are just frosted in a light tan color and chocolate chips are....chocolate chips!  Big Bird's beak is a sugar cone frosted with yellow frosting, eyes are marshmallows, pupils are chocolate chips and I found the perfect sour candy belts in the bulk candy section for his pink & blue eye lids, his top knot feathers are feathers from the craft store.

These aren't anything special but I thought I would go ahead and show you a little "snowscape" I did for a class winter party.

Snowmen are a jumbo cupcake, regular cupcake and a mini.  Scarves are sour candy belts, arms are brown pipe cleaners, buttons and eyes are chocolate chips, noses are cut up orange slices candy, the mouths are little chocolate jimmies/sprinkles painstakingly lined up.  Snowflakes were just candy cake decorations

Hopefully I have inspired you to make a cake of your own!

Coach Thank You Cards

I had to wait until after Nalani's team party to post these, just in case Coach Todd stalks my blog I didn't want to give away the surprise! I made a few thank you cards for my daughter's baseball coaches for the end of the season.  I got the idea here, then I just grabbed some scraps and used what I had on hand.  I think they turned out pretty cute!  I am sure the men were really impressed!!