Chocolate Moose

More fun with cupcakes! I've been continuing to play with my fun cupcake books and have had the pleasure of fooling people with.....Chocolate Moose!

Jon had a pot-luck day at work, so he told one of his co-workers to mark him down for chocolate moose. Since it sounds the same as mousse, that's what he wrote down.  And so Jon had the fun of bringing in a dozen chocolate moose cupcakes into work that day. They were, obviously, a big hit. Adorable and delicious. The snout of the moose is a Twinkie. That's the only secret you'll get out of me. The rest you can get out of the book, What's New, Cupcake.

Moose packed in, ready to go on their final journey....

"Duck"-orating and Other Cupcake Stories

Just a quick interlude about the cupcakes! I never was able to get pictures from my friend, but I did take a few on Jon's crap-tastic camera.

For the baby shower: Ducks

My favorites are the duckie butts.  Since I don't have the completed pics, I can't show you the faces.  But they were adorable.  These are from the What's New, Cupcake book by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. The feet and duck bills are made from Starburst. Duck tails are marshmallows cut along the diagonal. And how do I get them so sleek? Melting the icing! So easy!

For the Superbowl party we went to, I made football cupcakes....

Yes, some of them are not decorated. That's because Jon decided he didn't want to eat the choclate candies used to make the footballs. All they are is the Milky Way mini's with Tootsie Rolls shaped into the football tips.  Again, dipped in the melted icing.  Because some of the candies were Snickers, I had to ice them with more "astro-turf", since I am allergic to peanuts. 

Both times, these cupcakes were a HIT!! Everybody loved them. And I loved making them.  There will be many more cupcakes in the future, I can guarantee you!

Adventures in Decorating

Today, I decorated the cutest cupcakes in the world. Bought the book, "Hello, Cupcake" and it has the best ideas ever.  Now I desperately need the companion book, "What's New, Cupcake"!!! Check out the adorable Snow Family and trees.....

Aren't they just precious???  I love that she uses every day candies and such to decorate her creations.  Starburst, however are NOT as easy as she makes it out to roll out, but once I got the hang of nuking them for 5 seconds to soften 'em up a bit, it wasn't so bad.  I will say that in the future, I will be buying appropriate decorating tips and bags, because the zippie bags she suggests just didn't work out the way I expected them to. It's difficult to cut the accurate shaped tips to create the leaves.  I will NOT do that again. 

But I do like her recipe for making a firmer cake that doesn't fall apart, I LOVE it!  She adds 1 cup of buttermilk in place of whatever amount of water the box calls for.  Then you use the required amount of oil, and use 4 eggs.  The cake has a much firmer, yet still light texture that was a breeze to decorate.  Which would have been marvelous to have when I made Stephanie's baby shower cake, and I had to glue it together with icing all over to make it the correct shape.  It all worked out in the end, the finished cake was beautiful and she loved it, but I had to keep shoving the cake into the freezer to get it to firm up a bit before trying again!

Exhibit A: Messy cake

Exhibit B: Beautiful cake

Messy exhibit will NEVER happen again, now!!  I can't wait to try new ideas with cakes and cupcakes!

Chalkboard Wall

As promised, the pics from this week are here!

Today, I went up to the house to put up the first of two layers of chalkboard paint on the kitchen wall. Measured the wall, sketched it out on graph paper, then began the tedious process of marking out my measurements on the wall. Then the even more slow process of drawing LEVEL lines on the wall where indicated. After marking those lines with painter's masking tape, I stepped back to see if I liked the placement of the board. Which I thought I took a picture of, but apparently didn't. By the way, stirring chalkboard paint is tough, it gets all clumpy at the bottom of the can. But once applied, I got really excited about the way it looked. I wanted to make the paint dry super fast, so that i could apply the second coat, make it dry super fast, so I could began adding the special details that will make it Mine! But alas, 6 hours dry time required between coats, so I will just have to wait until tomorrow.

On the subject of the new house, I have pics of the craft room! Now, keep in mind, this booger is not completely decorated, and is also not completely set up. But it has such potential, and look at all the great storage space!

I love the built in shelves around the window, I'm just not sure yet how I plan to utilize them. I hate the board under the window, and am looking at removing it, since then I can place my work table at the window, which gives me a wall back. And that closet is HUGE! Storage for gift wrapping supplies, WIPs and UFOs, and yes, it's a cedar lined closet, so NO Moths!


Now, the plan is, if I can get rid of that window ledge, the work table (on the right) will move to the window, the ironing board will take it's place, and my cedar chest with UFO supplies will live on the newly empty wall. Above the chest, I will be making a quilting layout board out of felt. For other display in the room, I'm thinking about hanging some of my baby quilts and blankets up where I hope to put the ironing board. **Happy dance!!** I have a craft room!! ** Happy dance!**

And for the baker's rack, it should be pretty self-explanatory. Plain Jane boring baker's rack on the left. Several hours later, on one of the windiest days yet this year, a beautiful focus piece for the kitchen! I may still need to do some touch-ups in one or two places, but it's gorgeous and you so can't tell it came from the flea market!

Moving Part 1

It's official, we are moving early. U-haul reserved for next Saturday morning, keys in hand, almost half of the boxes packed. And just last night, we took the first car load of boxes up to the new house! I made sure that they were all for the craft room, and since I'm going back up tonight with another car load, I will probably go ahead and unpack and organize the craft room! That way, once we have "moved" and are living in the new house, I can unpack slowly, but still be able to work on projects! (Can you tell that I am excited about having an actual room to put my supplies in a work in?) I explained to Jon that he should not expect perfection in cleaning out of that room. Even when it's clean, it may "look" disorganized! But as any crafter knows, disorganization is probably exactly the way it needs to be so we can find the things we need!

And, just 10 minutes ago, I had a great idea for how to decorate one of the walls in the kitchen: a chalkboard wall. Chalkboard paint down to about chair rail height, decorated 1/2 for the weekly menu, and the other 1/2 with out projected schedule! Then as small children arrive, the chalkboard paint can be extended down to the bottom half as a drawing wall! OOooh, the ideas are flowing. And I saw an idea in an HGTV commercial about painting tone-on-tone stencils on the wall to be "cheap" wllpaper. Which would be perfect for the dining room! Yay! My own house, to decorate the way I choose!