Not Your Average Cheese and Crackers...

I know it is a tad bit late, but this idea can easily be adapted for any occasion! This fun cheese and cracker tray is super cheap and completely adorable. I took it to a Valentine's party in an elementary classroom. The kids went crazy over the cheese on sticks. 

I got the fun tray at my favorite store for these types of projects, The Dollar Tree. 

I made the heart sticks by cutting out a bunch of small hearts using, you guessed it, my Cricut. The Circut has a great function called "fill page". When selected, the machine automatically duplicates the image across the entire page. No copying and pasting required and your shapes are all exactly the same size. I found packages of 12x12 Valentine's Day paper in the dollar section at Target, such a great deal.

Using my hot-glue gun i glued the sticks between two hearts. When I was at the store, they were out of tooth picks, my original plan. Instead I used coffee straws and cut them to the size a wanted. They worked great. 

For the center piece in the middle i cut out a large hearts and decorated them with writing and glitter. These were also glued to a drink straw. Because the tray is plastic, I hot-glued the stick to the tray. The glue comes off easily, while still holding up To hide this and make it a little more fancy, I cut pieces of ribbon and filled the center compartment. 

Get creative! You can take this idea and adapt it for any holiday or theme party of your own.

Dessert Family Tree

I found this idea in a cupcake book and decided to put my own spin on it! A cupcake family tree, an easy (and tasty) DIY project to have your entire family talking at your next family event.

I used a canvas and made my own acrylic painting of a tree.  I added a heart carving with my grandparents names to add a special touch.

The book I originally got the idea from used fondant for the skin, facial features, and hair. I think that fondant can be difficult to work with and doesn't actually taste that great. I decided to make it more taste bud friendly.

1. I used a box mix cake. Use foil liners to prevent any oils from the cupcake to ruin the painting.

2. I frosted the cupcakes with canned vanilla frosting and food coloring. I used Wilton peach colored food coloring.

3. The nose and yes were made from molding gum paste. You can buy bags of it at Walmart in the Wilton section.

4. The hair was the trickiest part. I melted chocolate melting wafers and uses a Ziploc bag to pipe the hair. I bought the wafers in various colors, and even mixed the peanut butter and chocolate to get varying shade of brown. On the back of the wax paper i drew circles about the size of a cupcake to use a guide line.  If the chocolate in the piping bag is slightly cooled, making it less runny, you can add detail and textures more easily. I also piped accessories like hats and glasses.

5. Assemble.  You will want to wait to frost the cupcake until all of your pieces are made. If the frosting sets up too much the pieces will not stick.  I frosted each cupcake as I decorated it.

Cupcakes = Love!

This summer I was blessed with the opportunity to combine two of the things I love most in life, my family and cupcakes! My grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. To help celebrate the occasion I spent months testing cupcakes. The hard work paid off, they were perfect!

The cupcake stand was custom made by my grandfather.  I simply hot glued ribbon around each layer and had a gorgeous flower arrangement made for the top. The Stand held around 100 cupcakes.

My biggest challenge with this project was the frosting! I needed the perfect recipe. After much trial and error i found the Perfect Vanilla Frosting Recipe.  When you read the directions at this link you may think it seems strange, but trust me. It is amazing.  I gave this recipe an extra blast of flavor by adding vanilla bean to my sugar. Yummy!

I made the edible hearts myself simply, saving money on expensive cake toppers.  I melted white chocolate and used a Ziploc bag to pipe hearts onto a cookie sheet covered with wax paper.

"Hooked on You" Valentine's Card

Like a lot of college kids, I look for any excuse to procrastinate on homework. Lately, my excuse has been my Cricut. Here is another Valentine's card. This one is not so mushy and girly like a a lot of Valentine's cards. It would be perfect for the men in your life: grandpas, dads, husbands, sons...

I used the Cricut cartridge Simply Charmed to create the fish and fishing pole.  I even strung fishing line in the pole! Simply charmed is an adorable cartridge. Follow the link to see a book of all of the fun  cuts you can make with it.

Fruit Fun!

One of my favorite mediums for crafting is FOOD! My love to food that is as fun to look at as it is to eat began with my Mom.  She always said, "Presentation is everything!"  I have always lived by that and have taken that to the extreme on numerous occasions.  One of my favorites was this past summer! A wonderful watermelon creation for my two-year-old nephews bug themed birthday party in the park.

I made this in my pre-blogging days, so i do not have a step-by-step picture tutorial.  It is pretty simple though, and a huge hit with all ages! Follow these instructions and you will have everyone at your next picnic talking.
Supplies:

• Watermelon
• Cantaloupe
• Red & green grapes
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Melting chocolate (wafers or bars)
• Tooth picks, wooden skewers
• White frosting
• Ziploc bags for piping. 
• Melon baller
• Cookie cutters

1. Select a watermelon that has a flatter side.  This prevents rocking and tipping. Cut the watermelon in half the long way, leaving the flat side down.

2.  Use a melon baller on the rest of the watermelon. Cut part of the cantaloupe into several sheets (about the thickness of a cookie cutter).  Use the melon baller on the rest. Put the melon balls on skewers .  Use the sheets of melon and cookie cutters to spell out names or cut our bugs.  I made cantaloupe butterflies and spelled out Eli.  Arrange them on skewers with melon balls to your liking.

3. Wash and skewer grapes. You can do same color together, patterns, or a mix of both. Set aside.

4. Melt chocolate to instruction. Dip end for the ladybug head.

5. Arrange and place skewers in watermelon. Place the strawberries. Some can be put on top of one or two melon balls to create a height variety. Use tooth picks to make grape worms and blueberry ants "crawl" up the sides of the melon, example below.

6. Use the rest of the chocolate for piping on lady bug dots.  Place the chocolate in the Ziploc bag, seal tight and clip the corner leaving a very small whole. Do the same with white frosting. Ziplocs are great alternatives to piping bags and are a disposable. No need to clean bags or tip for such a small. Pipe white dots for eyes with small chocolate centers.  Also use the chocolate to pipe blueberry ant legs. The chocolate can set up fast.  If this happens, you can place the Ziploc in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it back up.

*Transportation can be a little tricky! I rode with someone and carried it on my lap. Once at the park, i used a large food net to cover it up from pesky bees and flies.

Love Bugs for the Love Bug in your life!

With Valentine's Day sneaking up on us, I thought that a few cards to mail out for the occasion would be the perfect excuse to play with my new Cricut Expression 2 (a must for any dedicated crafter, you will not regret this purchase!)

For the "Love Bug" card I used the Simply Charmed cartridge. The bug is very simple. I highly recommend using the Cricut Craft Room.  Laying out a design is MUCH simpler. The Craft Room is free and can be downloaded at http://www.cricut.com/home/craftroom.  This allows you to set up your design on your computer, multiple layers at a time. You can click and drag, rotate, and re-size with ease.  When ready to cut, you simply connect it to your machine, load the mat, and cut as usual.  It even allows you to SAVE your project for future use. I used the Craft Room Essentials to cut out the squares behind the bugs. As a college student, I am on a budget, as most of my fellow crafters are. I purchased packets of 8x12 Valentine's themed paper in the dollar section at Target. I also decided to add ribbon, buttons, and jewels to spice up my cards. Get creative with the odds and ends laying around in your craft room. 

*Cricut Tip* Layout multiple, smaller pieces of paper on the mat to cut out a variety of bug colors at once.  This save you a lot of time.  Simply line up the paper with the grid on the screen to the mat.