Wreaths

My bestest friend is a 4th grade teacher and I made it my mission this year to make her the COOLEST teacher in the school. I have created wreaths for her door for a handful of the big holidays.....

The Back to School Wreath (contents: crayons, sharpener, rulers, erasers, fake flowers)

The Halloween Wreath (contents: lots and lots of google eyes, and a sign)
(Ack, tracking missing picture.....)

The Thanksgiving Wreath (contents: lots and lots of tulle, and a sign)

The Valentine Wreath (contents: old red T Shirt, Felt hearts, heart ribbon)

The Spring Wreath (contents: old jeans, felt flowers, felt banner, twine, ladybug ribbon)

Next year I plan to create:
* a Winter one (ran out of time this year but I had the stuff to make a white yarn pom pom snowman on a cute snowflake fabric)
* a USA one
* St Patty's Day one

Ewoks

So, I had my very first order for Cake Pops. A friend asked if I could make Ewoks for her 5 yo son's birthday party. I was up to the challenge...I looked for images and found one that looked doable. But it has no instructions. I used it as a starting point and went from there...

I used a basic Chocolate cake mix and a Funfetti cake mix and used my handy dandy Cake Pop maker. I LOVE this thing. 

Once they were made - I froze them. After a day in the freezer I stuck them with a lollipop stick and put them back in the freezer for an hour or so. 

Next comes the fun part!

I got some Candy Corns and cut the tips off. Using a lil melted chcolate and attached them to the top of the head and let those dry. 

Next dip the whole thing in chocolate...

These could be great base shapes for anything with ears (cats, bears..the list is endless)

By this time it was approaching 10pm so the pictures get a lil sparse...

I dipped the back of the head in a darker chocolate and then using a toothpick drew it around the head in the shape of a hoodie. Then with the dark brown I put a dot for eyes and a slash for a nose.

The final touch was fur. To do that I put lil lines of chocolate (two different colors) around the hoodie line and when the were a lil dry I used a toothpick to make them messy.  With a dry toothpick I just went through the line of chocolate . make sense?

And a closeup....

The final box was a painted Amazon box with a styrofoam block painted and covered with grass.  The background picture is an actual print of the Ewok forest, tree huts and all.

I hear the lil guy loved it!

Goodies

I have been away and have found a new love. CAKE POPS and Chocolate Lollipops. Oh FUN!

I have made pots of gold for St Patty's day, bunnies for Easter and now Ewoks for a lil boy's birthday party. Oh they are addicting...

So let's start with the Pots of gold.  I am thinking they can be turned into lots of things (seeing as I am sharing this late....)
1. First follow the standard Cake Pop Rules (roll or bake, stick and dip) BUT for this one don't shake off the extra chocolate. Turn it upside down on a sheet of wax paper. This will make it pool at the bottom and make the rim of the pot.

2. Once they set, pick up your perfectly shaped pot!

3. Now with a little bit of melted chocolate make a circle on the top of the pot, I used a little baby spoon to scoop it out and smear it on.

4. Sprinkle your gold sprinkles or sugar and you have a Pot of Gold

(you can see the many other colors I created in the background...I was aiming at all the colors of the rainbow)

The final product...

 Next up Bunnies....

Bunnies take 2

So last Easter I made Bunny Truffles...you can tell it was my first attempt at candy coating...so blotchy...almost like the lil guys had some disease!

So take two was a little different but my year of experience paid off!

I made three different versions...

The first: Bunny nose mold for the Teachers.

Don't have step by step pictures for this...just melted pink melts, white melts and then combined some brown and white. Piped in some pink for the nose, let that dry.
Piped in some brown for the forehead, let that dry
Dumped white over them all and put a stick in it!

The second: The Oreo Bunny
I had a box of White Chocolate Oreos calling out to me...so I made them for my Munchkins Spring Party.
First, cut ears out of Marshmallow stackers
Melt pink candy to attach the jelly bean nose
Melt white candy to attach mini chips for eyes
Melt white chocolate candy to attach the ears
Draw ear centers with Red Food Coloring (wish that it was not so RED)
and Tada!

The third: The  Bunny Lollipop
I had an aha moment that the White Fudge covered Oreos given to me by my SIL would be perfect! But I only had 3. After searching 3 stores and coming up empty I knew I could have to have a second item for Lil Man's class.  In a moment of pure genius I remembered the blank lollipop mold I bought for my Sisters party (more on that later). I could make a bunny out of that!!
 First step, pour white chocolate into mold and stick it.
Once set pull out.
Melt pink candy to attach jelly bean nose.
Melt white  candy to attach mini chips for eyes
Then I was stumped...ears...The marshmallows would not work...too big..
The great Bakerella used Pipe Cleaners for ears...but I did not have white.
Then another aha....I needed to bag them, why not make those into ears. So poke the stick through the bottom of the bag and gather the bag around the bunny. Using the pipe cleaners wrap it around the top.
Cut down the middle of the excess to minic ears and use the pipe cleaners to separate it.

A bunny was born!

Thanksgiving Table

It was the first time I was hosting the whole family at my house for Thanksgiving so I went a little overboard...

I wanted to share my table setting for posterity :)

I used my Cricut to cut cute Thanksgiving themed vinyl shapes and adhered them to the bottom of my acrylic plates for a little fun.

I cut felt boats and filled them with Candy Corn for the center of the table.

I created a Tossing Turkey for my 4 year old's share toy at school so it sat in the center of the table with a cornucopia of pumpkins.

And just for a splash of color I had a orange and yellow felt runner down the center of the table.

Super simple but makes a great statement!

See you Next Holiday :)