ADVENTURES WITH BIRTHDAY CUPCAKES!

Our family loves cupcakes! I love the fact that I can make them at home, and have a cheap alternative to expensive store bought Birthday cakes.  I can't make or decorate a cake to save my life! I can make cupcakes though, and recently I have been attempting to decorate said cupcakes to match our Birthday themes.

My first attempt was with Monkey's 10th Birthday.  We opted out of a party and instead went to a local pumpkin patch (October Birthday) with all the kids and Monkey's best friend.  So I decided to try and make monkey cupcakes for my Monkey!  ***NOTE: When Monkey was a baby he was huge..8lbs 11oz and 22 3/4 inch long..and he only got chubbier as he got older so I called him Chunky Monkey. Then he thinned out when he started walking so I dropped the chunky and have called him Monkey since***

My attempt at a monkey cupcake.

I simply made a box cake mix batch of cupcakes. I used chocolate icing for the face.  I cut the mini Nilla wafers using a standard steak knife for the ears, and standard size  Nilla wafers for the mouth.  The eyes were made with Reece's peanut butter chips and the nose and mouth were gel like cake icing.

This was the inspiration picture I found on Pinterest, unfortunately it doesn't link to any site.

In hindsight I should have placed my monkey ears more to the side then the top, but hey we ate every one of them and Monkey thought they were great!

Baby Boogie's 2nd Birthday was just this past Monday so we threw her party Sunday evening.  It was just family, and the kids in our family.  We had an Whooo is turning two theme, so it was centered around Owl's.  I had found some great owl themed pink/purple party decor at Wal-Mart for really cheap $1.00 each. 

My attempt at an owl cupcake.

Using a box cake mix (funfetti) I made the cupcakes, and used chocolate icing for the face. I separated Oreo's to get the eyes...Oreo's don't like to separate cleanly so I just used a butter knife to scrape all the missing filling from the non used side of the Oreo and tried to smooth it on the side I was using. I used gel icing for the pupils of the eyes and almond slices for the beaks.  I was planning on using the almond slices for ears but Jerm ate them before I could! Oh well, he didn't know. Don't worry about wasted plain Oreo sides..we ate them!

Here was my inspiration, another broken link on Pinterest!

Jerm's Birthday is today and he said he wanted a marble cake. I reminded him I don't do cakes, but I could attempt marble cupcakes.  

Marble cupcakes.

I simply bought a box mix of Yellow cake and one of Devils food cake.  I put a large spoonful of the yellow into the cupcake liners, then a small spoonful of the chocolate. 

( I don't measure things...I just go with it)

I used a butter knife (for lack of a better word) to fold the two mixes together.  I didn't want to swirl them too much because I was afraid the Yellow cake would just mix right into the Devil's Food cake.  I was going to attempt a marble affect with cream cheese and chocolate icing but yeah that wasn't too pretty! :)

I never practice these before hand, and I didn't have any real directions but the kiddos and the hubby seemed pleased with the results so I was happy!

CHRISTMAS CRAFTING...PINTEREST PROCRASTINATOR

Christmas crafts,  a great way to decorate your house for the holidays without spending gigantic amounts of money! You can make lasting memories with your children by involving them in some crafting time...child made crafts may not be as pretty but they have so much more meaning.

BUT...

If you are like me and pin adorable Christmas craft ideas as early as October onto Pinterest and then procrastinate about them until December! Well, you can forget about having those adorable hand made and memorable decorations!

BUT...

You do get to make fun of yourself thanks to Mama Kat's Writers Workshop and 

4.) Share your top 8 favorite Christmas crafts you’ve seen on the internet that you might actually try if you had the time and the tools.

   

#1:    Christmas Wreath

 I fully intended to make a beautiful wreath to hang on the door...intended!

#2:Gift Tags

Homemade gift tags for the family...a lot better than store made ones right? Not this year!

#3: Homemade Ornaments

These I actually did make...unfortunately before they could be hung on the tree, baby Boogie spilled a cup of juice on them!

#4:Sock Snowmen

I have an obsession with knee socks, I had all the material for this one...except the rice filling! I kept forgetting to buy the RICE!

#5 Yard Decor

These would have looked so cute outside right! Not in 70 degree weather, I live in KY for goodness sakes where is the SNOW?!?!

#6:A whole season of Elfness

We do have and Elf On the Shelf...He/She did some fun things:

as you can see here

but...recently he has gotten kinda lazy...I had so many plans!

#7:Star Decor

Make a star with tree branches, wrap it in lights, beautiful right?  Yeah if you actually do it!

#8:Christmas Card Holder

A wonderful way to show off those Christmas cards, and have a decoration for the house, well I made some but not as detailed...I worked with what I had on hand...

I do have card holders..just no cards

Ok ok ok I kinda failed at the Christmas crafting this year, but to make myself feel better and to show that I wasn't 100% lazy I did get a few things done!

Christmas Candy Dishes!

 A nativity scene made by and with the kiddos!

Love the green wise man...Bubby!

Christmas shirts for all the little girls in the family...with matching bows!

See I wasn't that lazy!

       

 

CHRISTMAS TREE SHIRTS AND HAIR BOWS!!

Our family really doesn't dress up for Christmas.  Normally I just buy the kiddos funny saying shirts that I can find at Wal-Mart, pair them with a pair of jeans and we are done!  I used to buy the kids new PJ's and let them wear those but with the family dynamic changing over the years and different traditions that stopped working so well.

This year I decided to make the girls cute little shirts that I found on Pinterest. 

There are so many people who have them, it would be a nightmare to link them, plus I didn't follow anyone's directions so I don't feel too bad about it!

All you need is a shirt, some ribbon, fabric glue, hot glue and something to represent the star on the tree.

1. I measured the width of the bottom of the shirt, the subtracted 2 inches to get the bottom row.
2. Then I cut each piece of ribbon 1 inch shorter than the one before that.
3. I measured the width of the space between the arms of the shirt, using that spot as the "star" placement.
4. You can hot glue the "star" on, or sew it on. Depends on how sturdy you want it.  My girls are just wearing it on Christmas, so I hot glued mine.
5. Leave a little space between the "star" and the first row of ribbon and then use the fabric glue to glue it down.
6. Keep spacing and gluing all the ribbon pieces down.
7. I cut a little bit of brown ribbon and made it the base, see simple!

*Helpful Hint: Make sure to burn the edges of the ribbon so it doesn't fray!

I made a lot of these today for most of the little girls in my family!

Babydoll has a red version!

Her little sister on her moms side has a pink one!

My nieces who are sisters have matching black ones!

 

Baby Boogie has a white one, I had more time to spend on this one, plus is seemed too simple with just the green tree (the other ribbon had white backgrounds and didn't show too well) So I added buttons as ornaments! Again, you can sew these on, or like me take the easy route and hot glue them down!

Each little girl got a bow to go with her shirt, except the youngest niece because she wont wear them!

First measure about six inches of ribbon. Cut four of these!

Fold one side three inches in and glue it down, then repeat with the other side!

Make two of these then glue them down in the shape of a little t!

Then simply take your two t's and glue them together. Cris crossing them.

 You can add buttons or gems to the middle, you can also sew these instead of gluing them.

Then I just glued the bow's to an alligator clip and there you go...Christmas hair bows!

In a previous post I added a link and talk about covering the ugly shiny metal of an alligator clip you can go HERE for that.


Shared this at:

ANTICS OF OUR ELF! WEEK:1

Our Elf On The Shelf or should I say elves (Toby/Twinkles) have been having some fun! Instead of posting everyday, I decided a weekly update would be more fun. I am new at this so most of my ideas have been inspired by others but hey my kiddos don't know that!

Day 1:

Toby brought Christmas ornaments and appeared on our tree!

Day 2:

Toby got a little tired on the flight so he had a little help from Bubby's helicopter!

Day 3:

Toby likes extreme sports, no repelling in the house!

Day 4:

The kiddos were behaving really well so Toby brought some fun Christmas coloring sheets and new markers!

Day 5:

Twinkles decided she wanted a turn (for the story of our cross dressing elf click HERE)

The other toys threw a parade for Twinkles!

Day 6:

A lesson in snow angels and some powdered doughnuts for breakfast!

So that was week one for us.  Like I said you have more than likely seen these ideas already but everyday the kids were super excited to see what our elves had been up to! The little letters from Santa have really helped the kids reflect on bad choices they may have made, and receive praise for the good and great choices they make each day!