Toy Story 3 cake

I made this cake for my sons third birthday. He loves toy story so I tried to incorporate his favorite characters:)

Hooded Towels

I've been working on Christmas presents and my gifts to my neices and nephews are hooded towels.  They are super cute and very easy to put together.

I tried to get my son to model his cousin's towel, but he wouldn't stand up... I guess he's used to the routine of when you're wrapped in a towel its time to lay down so we can put on the diaper. :)

What you'll need:

1 bath towel

1 hand towel

sewing machine

pins

 

I got my towels off of Walmart.com.  They had packs of two towels, two hand towels, and two washclothes for $10.  Later I also found some towels off of Kohls.com when they were having a sale and got 2 towels for $2.50 each.  Then I just added 1 matching hand towel to my order.  (FYI: Towels will be $1.97 each at Walmart on Black Friday!)

What to do:

First you are going to take your hand towel and cut it in half.  (One hand towel will make two hoods.)

I have a fancy embroidery machine, so I added some stabilizer where I was going to embroider the name of the child I was making the towel for.  If you don't have an embroidery machine, you could always get some no-pill felt or some other sort of fabric and make a design on it (IE: Flower, Rubber Ducky, etc.)

Then I stitched out the name.

Once you are done adding a name or decal, turn the hand towel wrong side out and pin the raw edges together.

Then sew the raw edges together.

Next stitch a curved line to make more of a hood shape or else, as my husband said, your towel will look like a klu klux klan hood.

Then cut the excess fabric above the curved stitch.

Turn your hood right side out and you've got your hood!

Next center your hood to the bath towel and pin.

Stitch the hood to the towel.  I used a zig sag stitch.

And you have your hooded towel!

I packaged these in gift baskets along with the washcloths, some bath toys, and bubble bath soaps!

Halloween bags

I was walking through Michaels awhile ago and saw these cute tote bags hanging up for $2 each. I thought they would make a great trick or treat bag and let my kids pick out the colors they wanted. I then let them decide what they would like me to put on the bag. For my oldest I drew a pumpkin face, my middle child a ghost and my baby a spider. I had a hard time picking out my babies tote. I was debating between a mummy, frankenstein, the words boo with ghosts, a spider and a skull. I eventually chose the spider. I made these out of freezer paper and fabric paint. I did something similarhere and you can use the same directions from there to do these as well.

Gnome and Mushrooms

Need a last minute Halloween costume?  This is what we did last year and it was very easy to put together!

For the Gnome Hat, just get a piece of white construction paper and cut a circle.  Then cut a piece of red felt into the same size circle and with a hot glue gun, glue the felt to the construction paper.  Cut a triangle out of the circle so it looks like this:

Then form the piece into a cone and glue the seams together.  Your gnome hat will look like this:

Then to complete the costume get a white beard and stuff a pillow under a Gnome looking shirt.  Add a belt and some boots and your costume is complete!

For the Mushroom hat cut another circle out of construction paper and of red felt.  Glue the felt to the construction paper, then cut a smaller triangle out of the circle so it looks like this:

Cut out white felt circles and hot glue them to the hat.  Then hot glue the seams together.  Your hat will now look like this:

Then get a headband and hot glue it to the bottom of the hat.

For the mushroom cap, just make or buy a red beanie and hot glue white felt circles to it.  To complete the outfit, wear a white shirt and pants for the stem.

Star Wars Cake

I made this cake recently for a combined birthday party for my husband and a friend. They use to watch it as kids and our friend still loves Star Wars. It is red velvet cake with a cream cheese filling, covered in buttercream with fondant accents.

Pumpkin Jars

I love making crafts with my kids. Last year we did the wood pumpkins foundhere and this years I decided to make pumpkins out of glass jars. I found this idea in the latest Taste of Home magazine and knew my kids would love them. It is a very easy craft to do. First cut your tissue paper into strips. Next paint mod podge (or some other kind of glue) over a glass jar and place the strips vertical before the mod podge drys. Continue to do this until the jar is covered. Once it is dry cut out different face shapes for the pumpkins out of black construction paper and glue to place the pieces on the jars. Decorate with ribbon. My kids loved doing this and I thought they did a great job. My middle child who is 2 needed a little help but my oldest who is 4 could do almost all of it alone.

Camping cake

I recently made this cake for my husbands co-worker's birthday. He loves to go hiking and camping and after looking at some pictures from cakecentral.com for inspiration I made the cake. It is a yellow cake with strawberry filling and covered in fondant.

Wedding cake

Here is my first wedding cake. I made this as a gift for my brother. I forgot my camera at home, so these are from my phone but will post some better photos in the future. The entire cake is yellow cake and on the bottom layer it is filled with homemade strawberry jam and the top two layers are filled with chocolate ganache. It is then covered in fondant and the gerber daises are also made of fondant.

Homemade jam and canned peaches

My in-laws recently brought me a lot of peaches, so I had to think of different things to do with them. For the first batch of peaches they brought me I made baby food and a peach pie for my mother in-laws birthday. I got the recipe from here. Whenever I make fruit pies I love to look for recipes with almond extract in it and I loved how this pie turned out.

















For the second batch of peaches I decided to make homemade jam for my very first time. I have been wanting to do it for quite sometime and just decided to go for it. It was easier than I thought. I just followed the directions in the sur-gel box. Since the first time I made jam was relatively easy I decided to make some strawberry jam for the filling of my brothers wedding cake.

With the last batch of peaches they brought me I decided to can the peaches. I followed the directions from this blog here.

(there should have been more jam but I gave away quite a few jars before I took the picture)

















I love figuring out things to make with different produce. A few months ago when my in-laws brought me bags of cherries I made a pie, a cobbler and a crisp and stil had some too spare! The next thing I hope to attempt to make is to can pizza sauce!

Cupcakes and Fruit Bouquet

Recently a friend of mine through my future sister in-law a bridal shower. I thought I would help out by making some of the food. I made cupcakes, cheesecake brownies (on the lower right hand side) and a fruit bouquet. My friend did a wonderful job throwing the shower. It was so much fun and the table she set up looked great! The cupcakes were funfetti and chocolate with cream cheese frosting (some of the cupcakes had chocolate buttercream frosting mixed in). I got the idea for the fruit bouquet from a Taste of Home class I went to with a friend awhile ago. I have been wanting to try it for quite some time and finally found an opportunity. It is suprisingly easy!

Bithday cakes.

Recently it was my daughters fourth birthday and we threw her two parties. The first cake was for her princess paty and this was the first time I have ever done a cd figure out of fondant. The second cake was for her flower themed party.

Valentines

Every year I help the kids make their own valentines. Last year we mainly did butterflies with heart wings and a sucker for the center. This year we decided to make flowers with heart shaped petals and then decorate them with stickers. So, here is the bouquet of flowers we made: