Cupcake Recipes

Sadie's graduation from preschool was last week and I was so proud to watch her and her friends perform and collect their diplomas.  It was so cute!!  Of course, the graduation was bittersweet.  My baby is going to kindergarten next year!!!  As exciting as that is for her, it's a little scary for me.  Usually when I get emotional I bake.  It's a really good distraction.  :)  Not to mention, when your mouth is full of tasty good things it's hard to get choked up.  Easier to choke, harder to choke up.  So, here are the recipes that I thought turned out well.

Lemon Cream Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

These cupcakes are incredibly thick, almost like a pound cupcake.  But OMG, they are truly amazing.  The only tweaking to the recipe I did was more confectioners' sugar in the frosting, and the cupcakes themselves could of used more lemon peel.

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting
This recipe is also another amazing one.  The cupcakes come out with a brownie like consistency, but once again, very yummylicious.  The only tweaking I had made was maybe a few extra chips on top.  :)  The Peanut Butter Frosting was one of the easiest frostings I've ever made.  Buy vanilla and mix some peanut butter with it.  Be forewarned, the frosting is uber thick.  Best spread on the cupcake using a spatula or knife. The combination of the too was a perfect pair.

Rich Chocolate Frosting
Although I didn't care for the Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes either time I made them, I did fall in love with this Chocolate Frosting.  Beware though, it is extremely rich.

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes
Mmmmm....this one is one of my all time faves.  I actually try to keep them in the freezer.  Microwave for 20 seconds and top with some Cool Whip and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice.  I'm actually drooling while typing this.  It's also extremely easy.  1 box of spice cake mix, 1 can of pumpkin, and 1 cup of water. (no other ingredients!)   Mix and bake following the box's directions for cupcakes.

Rainbow Cupcakes
This one is another easy one.  Just buy a box of white cake mix.  I prefer Pillsbury, and I always add 1 cup of pudding to the mix.  It makes for an awesomely moist cupcake.  Separate the cake mix into however many colors you want....try and stick to less then 5.  Add food coloring.  (The gel is preferred.  I honestly couldn't tell you how the liquid would work.)  Then divvy up into the cupcake tins layering each color.  Bake following the box's directions.


So that's it for my yummy cupcakes.  Enjoy!!

Who?

Oh, my.  I'm not very good at this whole blogging stuff, am I?  :)  Well, I haven't disappeared.  Life has just been a little Hectic.  (okay, so it's more like I have been obsessed with crocheting instead of writing.  What can I say?)  Anyways, on to what I've been up to.  If you aren't a Doctor Who fan, or hang around me regularly, you probably won't recognize some the stuff I've made.  I'm a little crazy for the Doctor.  But only just a little.

Crocheted Tardis Keychain

Guess Who popped up on my driveway

The doll that I made was a wonderful pattern I used from http://pixelatedmushroom.blogspot.com/p/knittingcrochet-patterns.html  I imagine that you can rework it to make just about any doll you wanted to.  It was a really good beginner pattern and it was very satisfying to see all the individual pieces stuffed, fluffed and sewn together.  I'm excited to start work on another one.  The girls have already requested their own doll already, although they would prefer one of the girlie persuasion.  :)  I might have to do Captain Jack first, though.  Next up....cupcakes!

Eleventh Doctor

Did you think I disappeared?

I have discovered crochet!  This bag is the second thing I made and I'm totally addicted.  That's all tonight since I'm so tired.   :-)  I can't wait to explore this hobby a little more.

Holy Super Stew, Batman!

This recipe is the BOMB!!  Drag out your slow cookers and I promise, you won't regret it.

Sausage and Tortellini Stew
4 Sweet Italian turkey sausage links, casings removed
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano
1 package frozen cut green beans
1 large onion, chopped (I made mine without.)
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 package frozen cheese tortellini  (original recipe called for 9 ounces of refrigerated kind, but that's not enough for my family)

1.  Crumble sausages into a bowl and stir together with tomatoes, green beans, onion and Italian seasoning; place mixture in slow cooker.  Cover slow cooker and cook 3 hours HIGH or 6 hours LOW.

2.  When there is 20 minutes remaining, stir in tortellini and 1 cup of water; continue cooking.  Serve immediately.  ENJOY!

Tooth Fairy Teddy Bear

This morning my oldest baby girl started complaining that her tooth hurt while she was eating an apple.  So I took a look and, lo and behold, she has not one but two loose teeth!  Now for those of you who don't know my kiddos, she's only 4!  I am completely unprepared for my baby to have a loose tooth.  I wanted to make cool little bears for the tooth fairy and I thought I had at least another year.  Well one of those teeth aren't even going to make it through tomorrow.  Sigh.  Now being the super mommy that I'm occasionally able to be I quickly made two (because Heaven forbid my youngest doesn't have one too) little felt teddy bears.  Have I mentioned how much I love felt?

Easter Eggs

  Sew, the other day I had craft night and two of my friends were working on some pretty cool projects.  One was talking about a pattern she had found to make fabric eggs with a pocket (an environmentally friendlier idea then plastic eggs) and another was using felt to make a Dalek (Doctor Who reference).  I decided to combine the two ideas.  First, use a piece of paper and cut out the shape of an egg.  Next put two pieces of felt together with the pattern and cut.

Using strips of felt (I used leftoevers from all the eggs I cut out) sew them on one side with the strips going over the edges.  Then flip it over and trim off the excess.

Next, piece the two felt pieces together.  Start on the bottom interior.  Make sure your thread (I used cross stitch thread.....not sure what it's called.) is knotted.  Now pull it through to the backside.  When you make the next stitch place it through the top piece of your egg.  You'll notice that if you pull it straight through you get a regular stitch.  What you want to do is place your needle through that loop of thread from your last stitch.  I know that's confusing, but what you want is that line of thread on the top.  Give it a try a couple of times, you'll get it.  :)

 Finally, sew all the around leaving the bottom open, sew that you have an opening to put Easter goodies into!  After this project I am all excited about felt.  These were fun and super easy to make.

*  Thanks to Kim, I know the stitch I was trying to describe is called a blanket stitch.  Here's a link to help out.  http://sewing.about.com/od/beginner1/ss/blanketstitch.htm

Mod Podge!

So the other night I cleaned out my cabinets and ended up with two large oat containers.  I'm not really big on throwing stuff away so I decided to Mod Podge them.  It's super easy.  First find some paper you like.  Cut it to the size of the container you are going to cover.  (I actually ended up using two sheets.)  Then paint the paper on the backside with the Mod Podge and adhere it to your container.  It's best to use a thicker paper, however you can use thinner paper.  Just make sure you thoroughly saturate the paper otherwise you will get some bubbling.

Once it's dry add any kind of paper embellishments you want. 

Now coat the entire container with the Mod Podge in order to protect it.  Finally add some ribbon around the container and maybe a pretty button or two. 

 

Tada!!  Now you have a pretty container to store whatever you want.

Note to self

Lesson learned.  Don't use Picasa if you want to coordinate music with your pictures.  Very frustrating.  Grrr....

So many pictures!

Okay, so I love to scrapbook.  But I haven't in a looooooong time.  I have so many pictures and have become so overwhelmed with what to do.  I've toyed around with making a book on snapfish or walmart or one of those sites, but I have over 400 photos just for 2009.  The book would cost about $250 to print out and that's just one copy.  I don't know about you, but I don't have $250 laying around.   And what about all the little videos I've taken with the camera?  Just 30 second blips of life in our house.  I was beginning to dread looking at any of my pictures.  Figuring out what to do with them was just one more thing on my to do list, and it felt more like a chore then a fun craft/project.

Then today it dawned on me.  Why can't I make a video?  I could make a simple video using as many pictures I want, and add in the short clips of video we took too.  I'm so excited to be working on this project now!  I've even gotten started already.  I've broken it down into months, so I won't get too overwhelmed working on it.  I'm using Picasa, although I'm sure there are better programs out there, Picasa is free.  I like free.  And it's fairly easy.  I really like easy.

So, if you have a ton of pictures and you are dreading printing them out, shoving them into albums, or making a scrapbook, why not make a video? 

Jumping on the Blog Bandwagon

Slowly but surely this blog is coming together, which is how I pretty much move on everything nowadays.  Most of you who read this will know that I took a bad fall down the stairs resulting in my current medical problem.  And I say current because anyone who knows me, knows me for the klutz that I am. 

I'm also a mighty crafty person, but to be honest, incredibly flaky with sticking with one craft.  Let's say I find a necklace that I like on Etsy.  Typically I think "Oh, I can do that."  I research how to make one, buy the supplies and then obsessively make a ton.  Truth be told, learning something new is actually what I love the most, although creating is a close second.  Then I get bored.  And move on to the next project.  Thank goodness I am married to Mark, who has a never ending supply of patience when it comes to me. 

Okay, so that in itself is not a very good reason to create a blog, however, I like to share how I've done something.  I have an ingrained urge to teach.  So, you, my friends and family, are stuck with learning how to make stuff.  Or at least reading about it. 

That is, until I get bored again.   ;)