Mickey's Christmas

My donation for the Festival of Trees. Obviously I chose a Mickey themed house. I made the pattern out of cardboard first. Baked the gingerbread (leave out the baking powder/soda so it keeps its shape). Made the windows out of isomalt sugar. Assembled the house and began to decorate. The black Mickey shapes are made of royal frosting. All of the white snow, piping, green tree are made with royal frosting. The tree base and chimney are made with rice krispies. All of the red and green decor on the house are M&M's of different sizes. No, I did not make the characters out front :) I purchased them as part of my donations from Toys'R'us.

Brown Paper Packages

I was able to help throw a party for the ladies at our church. We ended up having a "Favorite Things" party, which ended up being SO fun! Of course we had to have some 'brown paper packages tied up with string' at the party. So I went to the dollar store, naturally. I found a roll of brown paper, different sized snowflakes, multiple size bells, and some silk flower bouquets. I bought the white string and cinnamon scented pinecones at Micheals. I already had the tea light candles from a previous party (purchased at Hobby Lobby), the mason jars, and the epsom salt (snow in the jars) in my cupboards. This ended up being very inexpensive and classy decor.

For our theme we had each lady bring one of their favorite things to give away; socks, treats, candles,  dishes, gloves, scarves - anything under or around $5. When they arrived they wrote their name on a piece of paper and placed it in a bowl. After we finished our dinner we had one person start the game by sharing what they brought. When they finished they drew a name out of the bowl and that person received their gift. Everyone came with something and everyone left with something. Everyone had a wonderful time!

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

 Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla, ivory colored frosting, and mauve fondant hearts.

I was asked to make monogrammed cupcakes. I thought about making royal frosting hearts and piping the initials in it and having it look very "christmas cookie-ish". I even thought about making fondant hearts with royal frosting letters for a 3-D effect, but didn't have a lot of time that weekend for piping really good looking letters. So, I found some stamps that I had in my craft supplies. I cleaned them thoroughly!!! I cut out one heart then took a smaller heart and made the indented outline. Then I pressed the stamps (each letter individually) very carefully so they were even into the fondant and let harden. It really did not take very long and they turned out looking so clean and classy. Congrats Daniel & Jane!

Christmas for Graham

Each year since moving to Utah, I've wanted to do a gingerbread house for the Festival of Trees. This year I decided to stop putting it off and just do it! If you don't know about the Festival of Trees all things made and donated are then auctioned off and all money is donated to Primary Children's Hospital. 

Thank you Centaurus Financial for purchasing my gingerbread house!

Our cousins were blessed with a sweet little baby boy, Graham Jacob. He was only able to be here on Earth with them for about six months. His life was spent in Primary Children's Hospital having surgeries, recovering and trying to 'Be Brave' and strong. 

He was a smiley, sparkly blue-eyed, boy that brought lots of love and joy to his family. 

Graham, this one's for you!

 H & J

 Graham and Claire building a snowman, having a snowball fight, and playing in their 'snow fort'.

At the Festival of Trees.

Batman

I am seriously behind on blogging. I was reminded of this when my Bro-in-law reminded me I had not blogged his cake. He loves classic marvel comic heroes like most men do. His sweet wife asked me to make him this cake. The cake is vanilla with vanilla buttercream. 

I used a technique of printing out a logo on a cookie sheet, laying wax/parchment paper over the top and tracing it with frosting. Once it was traced, I filled it in. The carefully placed it in the freezer. Once it was totally hard/frozen I gently laid it on my frosted cake and peeled the paper off. 

Ta-da! It worked well and I loved the finished look. 

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!

4th of July in Lyman

We spent the 4th with my sister and her husbands family.  They smoked some delicious food!
We went to the parade in Ft. Bridger and watched the fireworks show in Mountain View, it was awesome :)

Thanks for having us up Emily & Lee! I love this hutch... and the awesome wooden high chair!

I made red velvet & vanilla cupcakes with buttercream and cream cheese frosting, topped off with a fondant star. I made these cupcake covers out of scrapbook paper. For the printable pattern go here. I traced it onto  cardstock and made it a little bit bigger (not necessary) and used the cardstock as a pattern that I traced onto regular paper.  I used scalloped edge scissors for the top edge. They were a hit!

Satin Flower

Saw a cute little girl wearing one of these the other day, thought I would try to make one and it was way easy.
step 1: Cut out graduating circles of satin.... as big or small as you want.
step 2: With a lighter, lightly melt edges of circles. They curl automatically.
step 3: Glue circles with fabric/craft glue to make the flower
step 4: Glue rhinestone/button etc. in center of flower
step 5: Glue feather and then cotton circle on back
step 5: Hot glue aligator clip on back

Roses are Red

I was asked to make a bouquet for bridal pics because the florist was unavailable the day of the photo shoot, it was pretty fun. The bride requested the jewels in the bouquet, I thought they were pretty cute in it :)

Diaper cake

The first time I heard about a diaper cake, I thought it was a real cake... I was then corrected that it really was diapers shaped into a cake. I thought I would try my hand at making one for my cousins baby shower, and it turned out cute! Since I don't have any pictures on my camera here's the link to her blog with a picture of it.

Chocolate Dessert Cups

I was playing on the internet and discovered this fun way to make

elegant chocolate dessert cups and thought I would share.

You need:

small to medium sized balloons (not water balloons, they pop in the chocolate :)

favorite brand/flavor of chocolate for melting, I used Guittard extra dark chocolate here

Cookie sheet covered in wax paper/parchment paper

scissors

1) blow up balloons to the size of an orange

2)melt chocolate & remove from heat

3)Dip balloon in chocolate, roll on 3 sides for tulip effect

4)lift from chocolate and let drip then place on paper to cool

Place in refridgerator to harden for about 10 minutes.

Then set out for a few minutes after hardened.

Snip the top of the balloon, let it deflate then pull out of shell.

These are great for icecream, fruit, sorbet, mousse...
pretty much anything cold you can think of.
(Vanilla icecream and strawberry pictured here.)


Enjoy!

Purple, purple, green

My neighbor wanted to re-decorate her daughter's room to make it a little more teenager-ish, and they picked out green & purple. Here are a few projects they did to make the room. She asked me to make pillows & curtains to match.

Here are the pillows(the purple ones with the buttons),

the curtains are missing a few finishing touches so I'll post them later.

Fashion Forward

My pillow cases

Curtains to match (sorry it's dark)

A close up of the material, I love the print!

So I recently went back to school this semester... it's been fun but challenging! I thought I would go and get an Associates of Business so that I could further my cake decorating business. I changed my mind, though I will still do cakes - it will be more of a hobby and maybe later a small business.

I changed my degree to a certificate of Fashion Design. I am so excited, I can't wait to start the classes. I like to think of it as becoming a master seemstress. I have already sewn many projects. My blog will now consist of my sewing/design projects as well as my cakes & desserts. Here is a picture of a small one I did a while ago in my bedroom. Since it is ridiculously expensive to buy a bedding set and have your room match, I thought I'd do it myself little by little.