Cupcake Stand Like You’ve Never Seen

What would you do with acrylic and access to a laser cutter?  Here is what my friend and I did.

Check out this amazing cupcake holder!  My friend and I are collaborating on some really cool cupcake holders!  We would love your feedback!

My friend has a laser cutter and so together we are brainstorming some innovative designs that we hope you have never seen somewhere else before.  Isn’t that flower shape fun?

Check out the details on this like the top of the flower curling outward.

The bottom is 1 inch high to support anything you want to fill it up with.  We used one small bag of Jelly Belly’s to fill this one up. 
If we had finished these sooner they would have been my teacher appreciation gifts!  They would also be fun to customize the color of the flower to the recipient’s favorite color, or to match the décor of a party!  Wouldn’t a yellow one look like a pretty tulip?
We would love your feedback about this.  We have a ton more designs that we are working on.  I am going to show you our prototypes and am asking for any and all feedback on them.  I would love to know what you think of them, how you would change them, what you like best, and any ideas you have for future design ideas. 

Thanks so much,
Rebecca

Linking up to Someday Crafts, and the fun at WhipperBerry.

, Get Your Craft On

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

I found this recipe a while ago and I LOVE it!  It is so cool, light and refreshing.  Just a few days ago I was out shopping and I saw an advertisement for McDonald’s Strawberry Lemonade Slush.  I thought it would be the perfect treat.  Not so much.  It was gloppy, and didn’t taste any good.   My Strawberry Lemonade Slush is sooo much better!  And it’s easy too.

You need water, ice, Country Time powdered Lemonade, and strawberries.   And I’m sure the top to my lemonade container is in the trash.  Lovely.

First off you need to put 1/3 cup of the Country Time Lemonade powder into a blender.

Next, add 1/2 cup of water.

The recipe calls for three cups of ice.  I eyeball it.  I add some in first so that my blender can handle it.  Blend until smooth.

Add in more ice and a cup of strawberries.  I chop off the green tops and then quarter the strawberries so my blender can handle it.  If you have a nicer blender like a Vita-mix, you could add all the ice at once and wouldn’t have to chop up the strawberries.  Lucky you. 

Blend until you reach the desired consistency.  It should be icy but not have any large chunks of ice in it.

Here’s the recipe I got this from.  They show such a deeper colored drink, mine NEVER looks like that!  And it still tastes amazing!

Garnish and enjoy.  It makes two servings.  The leftovers can be frozen and thawed for later use.  Like if you make some for your husband and he doesn’t want it.  More for me! 

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

1/3 cup Country Time powdered Lemonade

1/2 cup water

1 tray of ice (eyeball it)

1 cup of fresh strawberries

~Erika

Chocolate Chip Cookie Tip

I love to make cookies but I've often complained that mine never look as good as those in the stores.  This is purely a presentation tip, if your chocolate chip cookies don't turn out I'm no help.  And I'm still on the quest to find that "perfect" chocolate chip cookie recipe.  The ones I photographed were made with vanilla pudding as the secret ingredient.  

Now onto the tip.  When making your dough, don't add in all the chocolate chips, save some for adding to the top.  Once you've placed the dough balls on the cookie sheets, then add some of the extra chocolate chips to the top of the cookies, pressing lightly to secure in place.  Here are the dough balls before.

And after.  They already look better, right?

 And here's my cutie-pie helper.  He HAS to watch the cookies as they bake.

 The final product.  I did one pan with the extra chips and one without to convince you that the cookies look better this way.

Yum!

~Erika

An Easy Way to Cube a Watermelon

I was visiting a friend the other day and she served us cubed watermelon.  I was totally in awe of how she cut it and decided to show how it's done. 

 First you need to cut the watermelon in half.

 Then you want to cut it in half again.  (So we have a fourth of the watermelon).

 Next, you will make vertical cuts into the watermelon.  You won't just be able to slice straight up and down, you will have to take the tip of the knife and swipe down right along the rind.  Don't worry about accidentally slicing through the rind, it is much harder to cut through than the pink flesh.

 Next, turn the watermelon on it's side and make cuts parallel to the cuts you just made and parallel to the other cut side of the watermelon.

 Flip the watermelon to the other side and make cuts on the other side as well.

The picture below shows how you really have to cut.  You have to swipe the knife tip close to the rind at the back of the watermelon.  Again, it is really easy to tell when you are close to cutting the rind because it is much harder to cut through.

 Here's the finished watermelon.

 Once you have found a bowl big enough, put the watermelon inside and using a fork, pull out the pieces.

If you have cut it right it should actually just fall out of the rind.

This is what you will have afterwards.

The hardest part of this whole thing is cutting out the last pieces.  And even that isn't too difficult.  

I begin by slicing the leftover watermelon where I had cut the watermelon before, I just cut through the rind this time. 

Then I flip those pieces on their sides and cut the pink flesh out. Pretty easy.

 Ta-Da!  A big bowl of watermelon ready to eat.

~Erika

Orange and Lemon Cupcakes-When Life Hands You Lemons Part 2…

Arizona is full-on spring time!  The citrus trees’ produce is perfect for picking.  We keep going to my parents citrus orchard (really it’s just their backyard but they have plenty of trees!) and picking bags of citrus.  So I’ve been trying to make as many different citrus-y things as I can.  Did you see my orange and lemon rolls?

A fantastic recipe to bake inside of citrus is cake! I grew up doing this at camp. 

1. Cut off top of fruit.

2.  Take flesh out of fruit (then eat the flesh or juice it).

3.  Fill fruit shell halfway with cake batter.

4.  Put top/lid back on and put into muffin tin.

5.  Cook as directed for cupcakes.

6.  Either eat with a spoon, or peel the citrus skin away (kind of hard to do).

7.  Enjoy!

We used to make these at camp.  You make the batter and fill them while at home.  Then when they are filled with the cake batter you cover each fruit tightly with tin foil.  Keep these in the cooler until you are making dinner.  Throw these into the fire while cooking your dinner.  They take a little longer than cupcakes would.  I think they are best done this way.  Isn’t everything yummier when cooked by a fire?

This is a great project to do with your kids.  You cut the tops off and let your kids pull the flesh out.  We then ran all the flesh through the juicer and enjoyed our juice while the cupcakes were baking.

The cake totally takes on a citrus-y flavor that is awesome!  And they cook up super moist! 

 

We made these in oranges and lemons.  We also used chocolate and vanilla cake batter.  All 4 variations were delish!

 

Try this and let me know what you think!

 

I’m still searching for more recipes using citrus.  Please let me know and I will post a list!

 

Rebecca

Orange and Lemon Rolls-Or, When Life Hands You Lemons…

We just picked more than a bushel of oranges and lemons!  My parents have a backyard full of citrus trees.  The kids and I headed over and helped lighten the load of those poor trees’ branches.  They were gorgeously full!  I love how pretty trees are fully laden with their fruit! 

Such a great way to spend some time with my kids!  Outside, gathering fruit, helping each other….

So we’ve been busy making everything citrus that we can.  First up was lemon and orange juice.  As a crafter, I just could NOT throw all of that beautiful peel away.  So, as I juiced we cut the fruit in half and pulled the flesh out to save them as fruit cups.

Next, I added frozen dough to each one and let it rise.  I also made a citrus butter (just added lemon juice to melted butter, or orange juice for the orange rolls) to coat the tops with before I baked them up!  I just baked them like I would normal rolls.

Oh these smelled like heaven while they were baking!

 

My overall conclusion was that they were not as citrus-y tasting as I was hoping for.  Next time I will add way more lemon or orange juice to the butter!  They also needed extra cooking time because the bottoms (that were inside of the fruit cups) wanted to stay dough-y.  They were still all devoured in one day.  We love carbs in my house!

 

After we ate the rolls out of the fruit cups, I shredded the cups and added them to my compost.  So that made these oranges and lemons a 3-for-1!!  YAY!

 

I have a few more fun things that I have done with my citrus bounty.  I have many more lemons, orange, limes, and grapefruit.  I’d love to know what you have done with yours.  Do you have any great citrus recipes?

 

Rebecca

Happy Thanksgiving! Turkey Cookie

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Top Ten Thankful List:

1.  The most amazing children!

2.  Friends and family

3.  Home in a great neighborhood, in the United States (thank you military)!

4.  Great teachers for my children

5.  The opportunity to go back to school myself

6.  My van and the mechanic who keeps it running

7.  A kitty for my children that snuggles so well!

8.  Technology (computer, IPad, IPods, cell phones, the internet and blogs)

9.  Time to spend with those that I love

10.  Milky Way Bars (you have no clue…)

Bonus-The wonderful community that I have found on the internet through my blog!!  I love you guys!

 

I love making these thanksgiving turkey cookies.  I remember making them sooo long ago with my Mom and siblings.  My Grandma even had one in her curio cabinet that she left there for YEARS! 

I made a few modifications from how we used to make it.  We never had a full face, we used just the red hot for the waddle.  We also used gumdrops for the body!  But I had the pumpkins on hand.  Maybe I can talk my Mom into making some with me next year, using the original way we made them!

 

Either way, I think they are so cute and fun!

 

We boxed these cuties up in a cute tiny bag with fun metal thank you tags and fall colored ribbings and then gave them out to those we love and are thankful for (teachers, friends, and family).

 

Rebecca

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, drives safely, and enjoys family and friends.

Football Calzones

With all the great football action going on I figured many of you would be in need of some fun Football food.  Here are directions on how to make Football calzones.  We posted this, along with some football crafts to make, for superbowl 2 years ago!  Enjoy!
Rebecca

My Dream

Can I let you guys in on a little secret?

It’s a follow up to my amazing egg mold post!

I’m so Jonesing (again, yes, this is a real word…in my book!) for this egg mold!!

Holey Mother of Greatness!

You slice those bad boys up and people will think somehow there was a chicken that laid an egg with a shaped yolk!  Come on, you know that would blow people’s minds! 
I just gaze at that bad girl and dream…..

It might even get my kids to eat the yolk of the egg and not just throw it away! ;)

Rebecca

Amazingly Fun School Lunch Idea

My children LOVE hard boiled eggs.  Can you believe that is what these are?!
Aren’t they the cutest!?

What Mom doesn’t need help making foods more enticing to her kids?
To make those eggs I bought the above molds.  Just google Bento Egg Molds and you can find many places to order them online, they are super cheap.  It’s still shocking to me that you can mold hard boiled eggs.  There were a few other shapes to choose from as well!
  The Fantastic Fish
The Brilliant Bear
The Creative Car

The Bouncing Bunny

The instructions come with the molds…but they are in another language! HA!
Here’s how I make them:
1. Hard boil eggs.  While they are boiling, keep the eggs moving.  This will help the yolk to end up centered.  If it cooks up to one side, this will not work.
2. Take an egg out of the pan and break the egg shell.  For best results roll the egg lightly on your counter to break up the shell.  How is it that no one told me this tip before?  I had to lose a few eggs before I figured it out on my own! ;(
3. Quickly (because they need to be as hot as you can handle) and carefully peel the shell off.
4. Put hard boiled egg into your mold and close the clasp. I put mine in sideways. It’s pretty obvious which direction to put your egg in as the shapes tend to have a bigger and smaller end.  However, I have seen other people say to have the fat end of the egg down into the bottom of the mold and then clasp the top of the mold down over the egg sitting up.  This doesn’t seem logical to me, though. 
5. Put mold into cold water.
6. Let the eggs cool completely in the molds, in the water (about 10 minutes).
7. Open molds to reveal your shaped eggs.
I first made these with regular eggs.  I found them too small so the tips of the shapes did not fill in.  Then I bought Extra Large eggs and they worked perfectly!  YAY!  A little of the egg white does squish out on 2 of them, but you can trim that off.
Other options:
If you had the heart or star shapes you could make the cutest deviled eggs!
You can also dye these shaped eggs fun colors.  I think it would be best to do this using natural dyes like beet juice.
Shaped rice balls would be so cute using these molds.  I’m going to try that out next week!
I have read online that you can also buy premade hard boiled eggs at the grocery store for this.  You just heat them up in a pan of water and then follow the rest of the directions starting at #2.  However, I have not tried this myself.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with my kids’ school lunches /bentos.   Is this something that interests people? I’d love to know what everyone thinks about this.  Do you have these molds?  How do you make your kids’ lunches more enticing?
Rebecca

I'm joining the following fun parties; Under The Table and Dreaming,