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.

Easter Goodies

As I've said before, I should not be allowed online. I can get into too much trouble.


My latest craft craziness? Cake Pops and Cake Bites.

We host an Easter Egg hunt the Saturday before Easter, and I thought the Bunny Pops and Chick Cake Bites would be a fun dessert for the kids (and the adults, too). Because, you know, there's never enough sugar at an Easter Egg hunt...

It's a fairly time-intensive process, but can be done over a few days. I made the cakes one day, shaped them the next day, then dipped and decorated over the next couple days. The Bunny Pops took the longest time, because of the ears, eyes, nose and mouth. The Wilton edible pen I bought didn't work very well on the candy coating, so I ended up drawing with black gel frosting and a toothpick. Next time, I'll try to find the Americolor edible ink pen at the cake decorating store. For the Chicks, I used the colored chips for both the eyes and beak, giving some of them brown eyes and some blue.

Everyone loved looking at, and eating, the bunnies and chicks. It was definitely worth all the effort to see the kids' faces when we brought them out.

Key Lime Mousse Pie and Homemade Samoas

Ohhhh, yaaaaaa'lllll. I was at the gym and one of the TVs was set to Food Network, which is either brilliant or completely insane. I usually just watch with my eyes glazed over, but this time Paula Deen made me want to run home and make this right away.

It's a Key Lime Mousse Pie, and, being Paula Deen, is crazy rich. I tried to make it less fattening with low-fat cream cheese and low-fat whipped topping. I also cheated by using bottled key lime juice, but, really, we don't get them a lot here in Colorado. Judging by the moans of delight from my friends, no one minded a bit.

I'd originally planned to bring Homemade Samoa bars, at least until Paula derailed me. I think I like the Samoas just a bit more than Thin Mints, although it's a close race. So, I was thrilled when I found a recipe to make them at home. I was ecstatic when I found the bars variation.

Because I'm lazy, I melted the chocolate on the shortbread base, which was a suggestion from one of the comments on another site. I just put some chips on the cookie base, right out of the oven and used the residual heat to melt them. Worked awesome.

Next time, I'll only make two changes: use a larger pan so the shortbread is a bit thinner and make my own caramel so I can have a higher caramel-to-cocnut ratio for the topping.

Oh yes, there will be another time. For both these recipes.

HotPatterns Weekender Sunshine Top and Dress

I just got back from a family trip to Cabo, Mexico. It was wonderful, although it did have some stressful moments, as you do with small kids. In preparation, I made a couple of HotPatterns Weekender Sunshine Tops, and also made a dress version.

It's very easy and fun to make. And by easy, I mean I could probably cut out, interface and sew one of them during a decent naptime. How awesome is that? It did take me a couple tries to get it right.

The first time, I used an interlock knit, which was definitely not flowy enough to really work. Then, I had to figure out which neckline size to use so my other "girls" wouldn't be on display. I ended up using the size 10 neckline (and top of sleeve), a size 16 around the bust and for the back, and tapered the waist to a 14 just on the front, to take away some of the excess volume.

I'd watched the YouTube videos and saw that Trudi had made a dress as one of the variations and, knowing I'd want a comfortable, pretty dress for Mexico, decided to try it. I found a really cool black and white sequin trim at JoAnn's and went with a black poly knit for the fabric. It turned out really well.

I put in an elastic waistband to give me a bit of definition. I tried just using a zig-zag stitch to attach the elastic directly to the fabric, but it was a massive fail. So, I did a bit of a cheat and used a 1/2" bias trim as a casing for a 1/4" elastic. I cheated again, sewing the top of the casing, fitting the elastic closely to the top stitching, stitching the bottom of the casing, leaving a couple inches open, tightened and secured the elastic, then closing the casing all the way.

It's a really cute, comfortable, casually elegant dress. With some cute gladiator flat sandals (from Target), it was the perfect outfit for the trip.

The Dress that Wouldn't Dye

I have this pretty cute faux-wrap dress from Target that I've had for ages, but hadn't worn in a while because it was black and I had some other black dresses that I was wearing more often. It had been hanging in my closet, talking my winter sweaters on the shelf above, when I decided to try my hand at fabric dyeing.

I'd read an article in Lucky magazine*, about the "$2 Trick that will change your wardrobe".. It looked pretty easy, there's a JoAnns nearby, I had a dress I'd like to update. How hard could it be?

The answer? Much, much harder than I thought. My main issue is that the dress is 100% polyester, which is notoriously (thanks, Google!) hard to dye. The first time, I used RIT dye, which didn't work (no fault to the product). I did a bit of research and found out I needed a dye specially for polyester, which I found at JoAnns. I also found color remover, and decided to use that first, since the dress is black.

Well, long story short, the color remover didn't really work, so they dye wasn't able to show up on the black fabric. The tag, which was cream, is now a beautiful shade of purple. However, wearing the dress inside out was not what I had in mind. I don't know what I'll do next. I figure, for the materials cost, time and effort, I could sew something similar, rather than try to change the color of this dress. For now, the dress will go back in the closet, all ready to chat up that chunky, gray cardigan.



*Two things: I don't really like the direction the new editor is going, but I'm hesitant to cancel my subscription, because I like some of the skincare/makeup stuff and having a vague idea of what's fashionable and I don't think I'm ready for More yet.

Second, have you seen the Lucky Kids special ediiton? I am soooo not the target demographic because I don't know where to buy quail's eggs for my girls' bento box lunches (for that matter, they don't have bento boxes) and they're definitely not getting anything from Burberry or Michale Kors until they can pay for the drycleaning themselves.