Gingerbread 2012

T & M's house.
Love the double doors of gum & the peppermint fence! 

C & B's house.
Had to mark his territory with the "T".

 (C &B) Love the HO, HO, HO!

S & J's house.
Can't beat a pebble sidewalk & of course shutters.

By my 4 & 7 year olds.
They had soooo much fun! They were quite proud of the garden hose (the dark green coil of a twizzler). 

My 4 year old was quite proud of her fenced in area for the dog (pretzel balls).


Everyone should have a gingerbread night with their family.  It so much fun, you can't beat the memories :)

My Gingerbread House 2012

Homemade Gingerbread Houses

The front porch.

The back patio.

The outside lounging place.

And my absolute favorite part.... the outhouse!

 We had the family over tonight to for dinner and decorating. We had a blast making houses and stuffing our faces with candy! There were some pretty clever ideas, I'll post these soon!

I'm starting to plan my house for next year already :)

Little baby Hilton

                           

 

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting & fondant duck circles. 

The baby's nursery colors are black, white & gold.

Congrats to my friend Megan on her soon to be baby boy!

Enjoy your little sweetheart :)

Mint Choco Chip Sandwiches

I made these for family night last week and they were delicious!

Cake mix cookies, (recipe here) and mint chocolate chip mousse.

Basic mousse:

1 8oz pkg cream cheese softened

1 8oz container cool whip

1 Cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

approximately 1 cup melted chips (any flavor) cooled slightly- too hot will cook the cheese!

* I prefer Guittard or Ghiradelli

Mix cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar until smooth.

Then fold in cool whip.

Slowly poor in some of the melted chips and fold in.

Poor in remaining chips and fold until incorporated.

The mix with blender until smooth.

This will be thick!

For this cookie, I used mint chips for the mousse and then chopped up regular chocolate chips and mixed in after mousse was made. 

The mousse should be refrigerated or can be frozen if not using right away.

You can use this with cakes, cookies, cupcakes, brownies, fruit, etc...

Quilted Black Tie

White fondant, black dots, hand-sculpted pink gum-paste roses.

Beautiful outdoor wedding in American Fork.

Bottom Layer: marbled cake with almond frosting
Middle Layer: chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream filling, vanilla frosting
Top Layer: vanilla cake, chocolate filling with vanilla frosting

Adelaide

Vanilla Cake with Vanilla frosting & filling. For a sweet little ballerina on her birthday!

I hope it was a great day Adelaide!

Halloween Crafts 2012

To make you need: a shadow box, 2 pieces of cardstock, candy corn, jewels optional. We found some silhouettes online, printed & cut, glued to back ground, set in box and add candy corn in bottom.

Directions: you need 18" wire wreath form, 3 yards material of choice, pinking shears, ribbon & accessories ( I used a spider web from dollar store, & wooden letters I painted and 'blinged' out with rhinestones.) Cut strips of fabric with shears approx. 7" x 1 1/2" tie close together on wreath until full, add bow & accessories.

  

Our big project: "The Witch Stand"- wooden boots we made the pattern for ourselves & our sweet uncle cut them out finished the edges and attached them to dowels.  We painted them with black satin finish spray paint, added bows & rhinestone buttons.

Our hats- I love seeing the witch hats that are full of fun Halloween stuff!
You need: A boa, ribbon, feathers and anything else you want to add (spiders, skulls, rats, bats, etc.)  I found the skull & spider web at the dollar store and yes, the eyes light up! Feathers, ribbon, and flower (Christmas pick) at the craft store. I was given the boa, but you can find them in bulk really cheap at haloheaven.com.

The dowels are striped with colored duct tape!

  

There is a skirt hanging from the foam atop the legs.  The skirt is cotton black material with strips of  tule.

My mantel. I found the rat, crow, and skull with candlestick at the dollar store- I had to paint the skull and glue it to the candlestick, and add the rhinestone eyes. I sewed the witches boot out of cotton and filled it with poly-fil.  I have three boots and used to hang them like stocking on my fire place... at my old home. The second silhouette you see is simple cut out material in a dollar frame! The silver candle holders were a great clearance find last year.... I love clearance sales!!

Designed by my 7 year old.

Designed by my 4 year old.

I always get crafty in the Fall.......... Happy Crafting!

Owl Cakes

Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and fondant decorations.

For a sweet little 1 year old boys birthday :)

These were again, chocolate on chocolate.  Decorated with fondant, buttercream frosting and chocolate clay.

Lacey

                   

3 fake cakes and 1 real layer (top). Chocolate Cake with Mint-choco-chip filling, vanilla buttercream, covered in fondant and ruffled in fondant. Real flowers.

One of the most beautiful receptions! Everything was vintage and colorful, absolutely amazing. 

This is one of my favorite cakes I've made. The suitcase was such a fun accessory.

 For the vintage wedding decor rental click here. 

Thanks Lacey, I hope your day was fabulous!

Becca

Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, decorations & filling.

A simple wedding cake for a beautiful bride, Congrats Becca!

Minnie Mouse Party

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, topped with dark chocolate Minnies. 

 Of course after our trip to Disneyland Savannah wanted Minnie Mouse everything for her birthday! So on her birthday we took these with us to soccer practice to share and then had them at our family party. 

Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting,covered in fondant  with a hand sculpted gumpaste Minnie Mouse head.

 

This cake was for her friend party on the weekend.

Ladies Night

Bite sized desserts are easy and you don't get caught with your mouth full as easy :)

Recipes from- Hershey's Best Brownies, Pampered Chef's Chocolate Silk Mousse, Costco Raspberries....mmm.

Mini Cheese cakes: FIlling-1 pkg cream cheese, 1 egg, 2/3 c sugar
Crust- 3/4 pkg crushed graham crackers, 4 T butter melted
1 can cherry pie filling (or fruit of choice)

Strawberries to go along with the colors.

I had some girl friends from my hometown over one night to catch up, 

the food was great, the company was great, it was a blast!

Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler

An old favorite! We went camping and made some dutch oven dinner, then dessert.  

The last 2 pictures do not do it justice to how good it was. 

Recipe:

2 cans peaches (diced)

1 yellow cake mix

1 bar of butter

Butter dutch oven. Pour in peaches. Sprinkle cake mix on top. 

Cut butter into small squares and place over cake mix. Bake in dutch oven about 45 min. 

We used a 10 inch oven- 13 briquettes on bottom and 7 on top. MmmmMmmm good!