Pin-Up Girl

I. Love. Pinterest. Love! Love! Love! I'm a creative person, and I have always tried to do fun and unique projects for basically every holiday or even things you create a holiday out of in order to have an excuse to do something fun. I have always done this and having a child has only accelerated it. It is so much fun preparing baked goodies and making gifts to send to Harper's class or soccer team. The kids get so excited, and that makes it worth all of the extra time that you spend. The problem can be that I am Type A. This means that when I do a project it takes me about 3x the amount of time it takes someone else only, because I usually have to do things several times before I deem it good enough for others to see. And even then, I usually don't think it looks good enough, but it is late (sometimes 1 am or later!) and I'm too tired. The sad part is that I'm so obsessive, that when Harper wants to help me with them, I cringe. Immediately I think to myself how it isn't going to look right if I let her help me. That is very unfair to her. At Christmas this year we were making a gingerbread house. One of my friends was over with her little girl. I put the house together, and set up the candy to let them decorate it. I looked at my friend and said, "you know this is going to drive me crazy, right?!" She laughed. But, I had decided that it didn't matter what the house looked like. It was just important that the girls had fun. I felt so good when it was all said and done. They had a blast, and I honestly didn't care about it not being perfect. No, really..I didn't! I was proud of myself. lol Proud for acting like an adult, I guess. Ha!! But it really goes deeper to that Type A in me. I'm very slowly learning that perfect is not always the best way. But let's not mention the fact that the gingerbread house wasn't going to school or somewhere as a reflection of me. I guess I can work on that one later. Hey! At least I'm headed in the right direction.

So, I thought I would share some of the ideas I have gotten from Pinterest and tried out. I'll also give a few tips of things that didn't work quite as they had said and what you could learn from my mistakes.

I made these last summer (2012). It's only fresh raspberries stuffed with chocolate chips. There are too easy and so yummy!

 

 

These were for our church's 4th of July 2011 celebration. We got all the way there when I realized I had left them at home! Ha! I wasn't thrilled with how they turned out. Strawberries dipped in melted white chocolate and then sprinkles. The chocolate dried too fast and wasn't a smooth texture. I just melted almond bark in the microwave and dipped them in. I think actually using the double boiler on the stove would work the way it was supposed to.

 

 

 

I took these two for Thanksgiving 2011 appetizers. The first are large grapes dipped in hot caramel and rolled in honey roasted almonds. Pinterest had them on these lolly sticks (you can get at Michael's), which I thought made them too cute! The Second is a goat cheese log rolled in dried cranberries (Craisins) and chopped pistachios.

 

 

 

Lucky Charms cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day 2012

The recipe called for you to put some of the cereal into the cake batter. That did not work at all! The cereal just sank to the bottom and burned. I will leave that part out next time.

 

 

'Bears on the Beach' Summer 2012

Ingredients: Blue jello, instant vanilla pudding, crushed graham crackers, & gummy bears

 

 

 

Ghost cookies Halloween 2011

It called for Nutter Butter cookies, but since I was sending them to Harper's school, I had to use Milano cookies due to the peanut allergy. The Nutter Butter cookies are more of the right shape.

 

School Bake Sale Halloween 2011

 

 

 

 

Graveyard Cake - School Fall Fest Cake Walk - 2012

Ingredients - devil's food cake mix, chocolate whipped icing, Milano cookies, black icing, candy pumpkins, crushed chocolate graham crackers

I spent forever trying to get decent 'x's on the tombstones. I finally had to go with these (which I still wasn't happy with), because I had messed up the entire bag minus these. lol

 

 

Mummy Juice Boxes - Harper's Soccer Team 2012

I also made these for her class Halloween party. They are just small-sized juice boxes wrapped in torn strips of white duct tape that I bought at Target.

 

 

Grinch Crinkle Cookies - Pancakes and Pajamas Kid's Christmas Party 2012

 

 

Ice Cream Cones Christmas Trees 2012

Ingredients: Waffle ice cream cones, white whipped icing, green food coloring (to color the icing green), candies of choice for decorating the trees

 

 

 

 

Reindeer Cupcakes for Harper's class 2012

Ingredients: Cake mix of choice, cupcake liners, chocolate whipped icing, candy eyes (Michael's), small sized pretzels, mini vanilla wafers, white squeeze icing, red M&Ms

 

Doing these I discovered a new cupcake liner product that I LOVE! They are by Wilton, and they are double lined. That way, even after you bake them, the liners are clean and still show the design! Others always bake into the cake. I found mine at Target in the Christmas section but since have seen them at Michael's. They have all designs.

 

 

 

These are the ones I found photos of pretty quickly. I have done several more. I have done a ton of them for Harper's birthday parties. (I LOVE planning and throwing a party!!) I'll post those another time on a different blog entry. Hope these gave you some fun things to look at and ideas for later use. :)

 

~Nattie B