Rainbow Pony Party

My little girl turned one last week so I thought I'd share some pictures from her party.

I think everyone needs a hutch :) I decorated it with balloons and a tulle tutu she can wear around the house for dress up. The framed number 1 is made out of buttons and a repurposed frame.

Heart banners cut from felt and sewn together. This is the next day so they were a little floppy, but even then, they're pretty cute. I am reusing them for Valentine's day too :)

Easy centerpiece with jelly bellies and tissue paper in rainbow colors

The Spread. The framed ribbon cake was fun to make. I painted a frame and mat ivory, then covered the mat in glitter. Then I just used scrapbook paper, buttons and scrap ribbon to make the cake. I think I am going to sew a cute backdrop and tablecloth for my next party so it brings out the decorations more.

Carrying the pony theme, I called the drink station the Trough

Pulled Pork, AKA Three Little Pig Sandwiches (anything pony related would be disastrous)

Spinach salad with grape tomatoes, grated carrots, hard boiled eggs, peas, purple onions, and white cucumbers. I just couldn't think of anything that was blue that would be good in a salad to complete the rainbow theme. Maybe bleu cheese?

Every good pony needs these.

The fruit was supposed to be on skewers. I didn't get that far.

Neapolitan ice cream scooped into a muffin tin, topped with hot fudge, a cherry and whipped cream. I loved not having to scoop ice cream during the party.

Taste the Rainbow {cake}

Jane's little smash cupcake (with rainbow layers too)

I really had no budget for the party, so I had to get creative and make the decorations from things I had on hand. It was a fun challenge. Thanks for letting me share!

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Today was our annual Chili Cook-Off Fundraiser for the United Way Campaign at the office. I was planning on making some yummy white bean chili, but due to some recent car trouble ( And by "trouble", I mean, my car is no longer with us. So, yea. We all knew this day would come.) there was no way I was going to lug a giant crockpot to and from the office. So, I decided I was going to make some corn bread.

But then, I never went  to the store. My bad.

So, I bring you, Plan C:

I originally saw the recipe on Pinterest dubbed "The best pumpkin cookies ever." That sounded fairly promising, and I had all the ingredients, so it was a go!

The cookie recipe I used can be found on the House of Hepworth's blog. Click  here for the direct link to the recipe (scroll down to the bottom for the short printable version. Or read through her hilarious instructions. Either way, you win!)

She ices hers with cream cheese frosting. That sounds absolutely divine, but I didn't have ANY of those ingredients on hand. So I used this recipe for Marshmallow Icing (All you need is eggs, sugar and vanilla).

The icing followed the same basic principle as Meringue  topping, so I decided to toast it. Pipe the fluff on, then cook it at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes. The tips will turn a delicious toasty brown. So cute!

Cream Puffs for Dummies

Yesterday I plunged into the world of French pastries with this surprisingly easy cream puff recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 eggs

Filling Ideas:
Instant pudding
Whipped Topping
Yogurt
Anything creamy, sweet, and delicious

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• In  a medium sauce pan heat water and butter until butter is melted. 
• Mix flour, salt and sugar into water/butter mixture. Should form a doughy ball.
• Let cool (it shouldn't be steaming at this point) and mix in eggs.
• Mixture should form a sticky, paste-like consistency. 
• If you have parchment paper, line your cookie sheet with it. If not, leave the cookie sheet ungreased.
• Drop spoonfuls onto sheet, bake for 20-25 minutes. 

After baking, your dollops should be cute little puffs. Do NOT, under any circumstances, poke warm puffs with a toothpick. If you see someone suggest this on a web forum for cream puff making, do not heed their counsel. I can only assume they want your puffs to deflate and be ruined, so they can keep the title "Best Cream Puff Maker" to themselves. They are NOT your friend.

The puffs should look like this out of the oven:

To fill, you can cut a small slice in one side, and squeeze in your chosen filling. I put vanilla pudding in a gallon sized bag, cut of a corner, and squeezed a little bit of love into each and every one of them. Piping bags filled with pudding, or canned cool whip would also work.

This recipe yields about 24 yummy little puffs.

Good luck, and let us know if you try it!

Christmas Confections

This year, I decided to make caramel candy for our neighborhood Christmas gifts. I found an awesome recipe online here and got to work. This recipe is definitely going to be my go-to caramel recipe. Her tip about checking your thermometer with boiling water saved my caramel too--my candy thermometer was off by 6 degrees! After cutting and wrapping 80 pieces, I decided my lovely neighbors could cut their own. The blocks of caramel were way easier to prepare and looked super cute (though I truly adore the skinny wrapped caramel look).

If I do say so myself, I think it turned out pretty great. I just need to get it out of the house before I eat it all.

I just love the old fashioned look of these wrapped candiesThese are 4X4 inch squares topped with melted Ghirardelli chocolate

Here's the finished product. Each square is wrapped in wax paper, topped with a custom Christmas label, and tied together with a ribbon. There's nothing like homemade caramel!

<*>

Jackie

Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

Mario Themed Birthday

If you know me, you probably know that I'm a sucker for a themed party. Cory's 23rd birthday was last week, and I had so much fun planning a Mario themed bash with my sister-in-law Tanya (who is basically an expert on all things Mario, and anything else awesome for that matter).

We decided to go with some low key cupcakes over one big cake. Red and green icing, with a few touches of white chocolate chips made the perfect little Mario 'shrooms:

I searched all over for gold chocolate coins (apparently they're seasonal items) but finally lucked out at Walmart. We used a star shaped cookie cutter on some lemon bars to make the little stars from the game. Chocolate sprinkles were the perfect eyes on these bad boys.

Princess Peach Lemonade was our drink of the evening. I just mixed a packet of Peach flavored Crystal Light, a packet of Lemonade flavored Crystal Light, and the appropriate amount of water. Easy Peasy. My brother made the little crown for the drink dispenser. Construction paper and tape, people. It's magical.

Speaking of construction paper and tape, thats exactly what Tanya used to make the pennant "Raceway" banner. And speaking of Tanya, behold her masterpiece:

 Two pounds of cheese, a few well placed crackers, and the aforementioned construction paper brings you a scene straight from the game. (I forget which level, world, and game...forgive me Tanya?)

And, what's the point of a Mario party, if not to exploit the mustache trend while it's still here? Black felt cutouts were super easy to make, and we just stuck them on with tiny adhesive scrapbooking glue dots. It worked for our very temporary needs.

We ate, modeled our 'staches, and played almost every Mario game invented. It was awesome, and worked out just perfectly for my big 23 year-old  kid at heart. I also see this working out great for any actual children's parties you might be planning, so feel free to use our ideas. We'd love to see your take on the idea!

Lindy




Don't forget to check out the "Party Central" tab to see what parties we love linking up to every week!

Easy Peasy Pumpkin Muffins

So, the seasons are changing. In honor of this, and the fact that the giant can of pumpkin puree in my pantry expires next month, I decided to make some muffins.

A few years ago I had a boss who brought in some pumpkin muffins to share. She said that she made them by mixing a can of pumpkin, a cake mix, and a cup of water. They were super de duper moist, and sounded easy enough. I pulled from this vague memory to bring you:

Ingredients:

1 yellow cake mix

1 can pumpkin puree (about 2 cups)

1 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup water

3 dashes cinamon

3 dashes pumpkin pie spices

Mix together thouroughly, fill greased/lined tins up to the brim, and bake for about 20 minutes on 350 degrees. Makes 12 billowing muffins. You could probably make 24 muffins, if you only fill the tins up halfway. But then their not as cute. Just sayin'.

The oatmeal added more texture to the muffins, and I found less water to be more appealing. You could also substitute spice cake mix, or any cake mix for that matter. My options were yellow and funfetti. I opted for yellow. But really, the sky is the limit here. They make your whole house smell delicious and autumn-y.

I made these two days ago, and just barely managed to snap this picture today of the last lonely little muffin. Between two people, thats pretty impressive. They are THAT good.

Try it, you won't be disappointed.

Lindy

I'm going to link up to the CSI project. It's a new blog I just discovered--they schedule themed challenges so everyone brings their A game.  This week is the holiday baking challenge....does it count as baking if the majority of the ingredients are included with the words "Yellow Cake Mix"? Sure...

<a href="http://thecsiproject.com" target="_blank"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://thecsiproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/thecsiproject.com-logo-150.png" alt="Visit thecsiproject.com" ></a>

As always, check out the Party Central tab to see what weekly parties we love to link up to!

DIY Cake Decorating

I think a custom cake is definitely the ah... frosting on the cake when it comes to putting a party over the top. However, if budget is an issue (when is it not?), buying a completly custom cake might not be a feasible option for you. No worries, with a little practice and a totally inexpensive marshmallow fondant (MMF) recipe, you can create designer cakes for as little as $5. Cheaper than a grocery store bakery and a little more meaningful as well!

Marshmallow Fondant

Ingredients
1 16 oz bag of Jet Puff marshmallows
6+ TBS water
1 tsp flavoring if desired
2 lb bag of C&H powdered sugar
1 cup shortening

Hint: don't use off-brand or old ingredients for this one. Normally I am all about store brands, but this is the one of the few times it actually matters or else you will end up with a grainy product.

Instructions
Put marshmallows in a microwavable bowl with 2 TBS water and desired flavoring. Heat in microwave for 30 second intervals until melted, stirring each time. Add 1.5 lbs of the powdered sugar to the bowl and stir until it is a sticky, gooey mess. Generously grease your hands and workspace with shortening and then put your sticky glob of sugar in the middle.

While kneading the mixture, add a little bit sugar at a time until you get a bread dough like consistency. I usually only ending up using 1.75 lbs of powdered sugar or less. Keep greasing your workspace and your fingers as the mixture begins to stick. If your mixture is too dry or not very elastic (you should be able to easily stretch it without tearing), add a tablespoon of water at a time and keep kneading. It should take about 8 minutes of kneading to dissolve all the bits of powdered sugar and to get a firm, elastic ball of fondant. You can use this recipe right away, but it's best if left to rest overnight.

To store the fondant, coat it in crisco, double wrap it in plastic wrap, and put it in a ziploc baggie with as much as the air squeezed out as possible. It stores quite nicely in the refridgerator for a couple of weeks. To color the fondant, just roll in a couple drops of food coloring (I use the gel kind with no problems). Have fun decorating your cakes! Remember, it's just like playdoh, but way better tasting. If something doesn't look right, just roll it up and try again. Patience and practice is the key.

p.s. If you would like to cover a cake in fondant but are not sure how, youtube has awesome tutorials! Check them out!

Pile o' Cake!

We're back! Well, somewhat.

Cory and I got married on July 2nd, 2010. My whole family came down to the Florida (minus Elder Sambo--he's currently away for two years on business in Brazil) and had a whole lot of fun going crazy together! I love them. A lot o f the aspects of the wedding were DIY, and it really made every detail more meaningful to us to see all the love everyone put in to make it work.

I was going to wait for Jackie to put this one up, but it seems she is preoccupied with raising Jefferson, running a household, redecorating, hand crafting baby girl bedding, and generally getting ready for little Jane to arrive in November (some people are just sooo busy)...so here it is:

Jackie flew down here to Florida a week early so she could get started on this little beauty. I'm not a huge fondant fan, but this home made marshmallow stuff actually isn't bad at all. I would even go so far to say that it is...really good! Which feels wrong to me, a staunch fondant hater. But hey--these hips don't lie.

 I'm sure Jackie would love to post her recipe! Right, Jackie??

{Insert your recipe HERE...}

I'll be posting a few more projects from the wedding, and a few things we've been working on as we set up shop in our first little apartment together!

On a side note, now that all of us sisters are married, we now have different last names! A friend suggested the tagline: "The sisters formerly known as Hansen". Ha!

Until next time,

Lindy

Cake decorating

To get you excited about my upcoming post on cake decorating, here are a few pictures of cakes I've done in the past.


Marshmallow fondant, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on top tier, peanut butter rice crispies on bottom

Spice cake with cream cheese frosting, marshmallow fondant decoration
Vanilla cake with Jam and buttercream filling, royal frosting and buttercream decorations
Chocolate cake with chocolate fudge pudding filling, chocolate cream cheese icing and royal icing flowers.
Chocolate cake with buttercream icing, marshmellow fondant decorations