Cow Pops and "Short" Cake

The Boy's office had a bake sale to raise money for a local food bank, so I decided to make more Cake Pops. And since he works at a dairy company, I decided to make Cow Cake Pops. When The Boy told the bake sale organizer, she said jokingly "Your wife is the kind of wife that makes other wives look bad." I say I just live too close to the crafting trifecta of Michaels, JoAnns and Hobby Lobby.

I was smarter this time and spread the work out over multiple days. I used a chocolate cake and vanilla icing base, since the coating and candy decorations are so sweet, they need something darker to balance them.

They turned out really well. I couldn't find any candy pens, so I used Wilton Chocolate Icing for the spots and Wilton Black Icing for the eyes, nostrils and mouths.

Everyone loved them! The Boy said they got a lot of compliments and every single one (I ended up sending in 36) sold for $2 each. I was very flattered.

I found a link to the Red Velvet Strawberry Shortcake cake through Pioneer Woman's food blog email. It's a dangerous email to get, as it will make you crave whatever it is she's blogging about and you're probably reading it in the morning before you've had breakfast.

The actual recipe, or "recipe" to be more precise, is from I Am Baker. It's insanely easy to make: a white cake from a mix, a red velvet cake from a mix, Cool Whip and choped strawberries. That's it.

Two things to know: this cake is absolutely delicious and it's huge. It's so tall, I couldn't fit the lid of my cake carrier over it. I had to drive to my friend's house, so I went, like, 20mph just to be sure it didn't topple over.

I just did the simple vertical lines for decorating, but I'd love to try to more "scalloped" version at some point.

More fun with Silhouette

The Bean is slmost done with this year of preschool and she has had a blast. Teacher Appreciation Day was a couple weeks ago, so I decided to make fun gift bags with (store-bought) cookies in them. I decided to go off a "growing" theme, and put some layered flowers on one side, with the words "Thanks for helping me grow" on the other side. And a robot, because the girls looooove robots.

I think they turned out really well. I used adhesive cardstock for the grass, stems and words and just glued on the flowers and robots. I got some flower and ladybug cookies at Whole Foods to put inside. They were a big hit.


The Belly is starting to be a big talker, but still can't pronounce some letters correctly yet. Our favorite is "nuggle" instead of "snuggle". You can hear our hearts melt when says "Nuggle you?" and wants to be picked up. After many requests for "Nuggle you", the Boy thought it would be cute if I made a college-style shirt, like "Nuggle U".

I downloaded an outlined collegiage font, then added "Est. 2009" (they year she was born), under the words. I printed it out onto heat-transfer paper and ironed it onto a plain white shirt. When the Boy came home and saw it on the table, he burst out laughing because it was perfect.

Girly Robot T-Shirts

I have extremely girly girls. They don't like wearing pants, only skirts or dresses, and they have inherited my "sparkly shoe fascination" gene. Yet, we haven't hit the "princess phase" yet. Instead, both girls love robots.


I think it mostly comes from Plex on Yo Gabba Gabba and Wall-E. I found the movie Robots on massive sale at Target and it's been The Bean's most requested thing to watch so far. (It doesn't make my ears or eyes bleed, so that's a bonus for me, too.)


Thanks to the crafty evil influence (and that actually is a compliment) of my friends S and V, I bought a Silhouette cutting machine. This thing is awesome--you can make iron-on transfers with your ink-jet printer, amazing cards and paper crafts, and even iron-on appliques. As if JoAnn and Michaels didn't get enough of my money already...


My first project was to make girly robot shirts for the girls. I got some hot pink heat transfer vinyl and a robot template from the Silhouette store and plain white shirts at Target. I sized the template to a good size, sent the heat transfer through the machine, took out the extra pieces and ironed the robot shape to the shirts.


I got massive "mom points" for a fairly easy and quick project.







This is The Belly smiling. I love the scrunchy eyes.

The Bean, giving me her best "I love this shirt" pose.