Good Morning!!

Good Morning Everyone!!

I have lots to post today but alas, it's 5:40 in the morning and we have kids to get ready for school, I have grocery shopping to do, a field trip to help chaperone with my son's class - it's gearing up to be a pretty busy morning but when I return home this afternoon, I hope to sit down here at my computer and post away!!

One thing first though that cannot be delayed because I am so excited about it - I got an award!!! My very FIRST award, from Rue over at Rue's Peanut Butter and Jelly Life!! Thank you, Rue! I'm doing a little happy dance, can you hear me singing with delight??

Thank you !!

I am to pass this award on to 10 others and I was tagged for a meme too so I will definitely do that when I return this afternoon! Everything will be included in a post this afternoon.

Oooohhh, and I have some new goodies for my shop that I will be adding, so stay tuned...I'll see you this afternoon!

Have a lovely morning!!

xo, Erin

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

I hope everyone had a beautiful Saturday. The weather here was gorgeous with bright sunny skies and temps in the 50's! Hubby and I got to enjoy a nice dinner out together. It's been soooo long since we've been able to do that.

Anyway, I have that frosting recipe that I promised earlier this morning. Rue, your comment cracked me up! I still giggle when I read it! So here it is:

1 cup(2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but not melted

6-8 cups confectioners sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy; about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled. Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

This recipe makes enough for one 2-layer cake or 2 dozen cupcakes.

I must give credit where credit is due...I got this recipe from Magnolia Bakery while doing a recipe search for Vanilla Buttercream Icing.

It's delicious!!!

Cupcake Decorating

Hello!

I had a lot of people email me and a few who left comments with some questions about how I did the cupcake decorating on this post here. Thank you so much for your interest and kind comments and emails!

So...I thought I'd do a post about how I did it. Most of the questions were about the colors used and which tips I used. I wanted pastel colors so I used gel food coloring that you can buy at the grocery store. I used Betty Crocker gel food colors and it comes in a box of 4 tubes. The colors included are red, yellow, blue and green. With this type of food coloring, you generally don't get the bright colors that are pictured on the box. They're usually always a softer version of the bright hues. The less you use, the softer, more pastel the shade is. This is exactly what I wanted so I just used a small squirt of the gel to achieve the desired pastel color. I used each color as it was in the tube. You could definitely experiment and mix colors if you wanted to.

(Just a note, if you're looking for brighter, bolder colors for your icing, I have found the Wilton concentrated gels work well for that. You can find those at most craft stores in the cake decorating aisle and some Walmart stores carry them too in the craft section.)

Anyway, I have a really YUMMY vanilla buttercream frosting recipe that I use. Just stir in the food coloring and be sure to mix really well. You don't want any white streaks through your frosting. Okay, now for the fun part. As soon as I finished making the icing, I divided the plain white icing into four separate bowls and made up four different colors. Then, to decorate I just used plastic ziploc baggies for piping bags. They're much cheaper than cake decorating bags and you get the exact same results. Snip a tiny piece of the corner off of each bag with some scissors. Place your cake decorating tip inside the bag where you just cut the small opening. Now, you can fill your bag with the desired icing color and decorate to your hearts content! I used 3 Wilton tips - #12, #21 and #2. #12 is a wide circular opening, I used it for the smooth swirls. #21 is a star shaped point that I used for the more textured swirls and #2 is a tiny circular opening that I used for the polka dots. Everything that I used is pictured above for easy reference. I hope this helps and answers all of your questions! I was going to include the vanilla buttercream frosting recipe in this post too but I hear the baby waking so I will have to put it in another post. Hopefully I will get it posted today! Have a wonderful day and happy baking!!

xo, Erin

Baby Shoes

My baby has outgrown all of the super cute little baby shoes that you can buy in the stores. I have a pair of Carters baby slippers that are shaped like the most adorable little puppy dogs - complete with little fuzzy ears but as I went to put them on him today I was so sad to see that he has outgrown them! So, I decided to make my own!

I made two pairs - one is a soft blue chenille and the other is a sweet little baseball theme. I love them!! They were such fun to make I just know I'll be making many more!

I found a cute little pattern here. They are very quick and easy to make and she has a wonderful tutorial as well as a printable pattern! They are for size 6-9 months but you can do what I did and just cut them slightly larger if you need them bigger.

Have fun and enjoy!!

xo, Erin

Projects!!

I know, second post in one day, I can hardly believe it myself!! I was so excited though about checking off a few more projects on my list as I finished them and I wanted to share them with you!! First, remember those chairs I posted about back in January? To paint or not to paint? Well, I decided to go ahead and paint them and boy am I glad that I did!! I like them soooo much better now! For those of you who didn't see the before photos back in January, here they are.

I also finished up a button frame that I've been meaning to do for awhile now. It was fun and very easy!
Here's how I did it:

First, go to the dollar store and buy yourself a cheap $1 frame like the one above. Then, get out all of your buttons and sort through and set aside the ones you want to use. I used all white ones.

The next thing you want to do is give your frame a coat of spray paint. I used white to match my buttons but you can use whatever color you want to coordinate with your buttons. Then, get out your glue gun, let it heat up and start gluing on your buttons. I think the whole project only took about a half hour!

I then mounted the picture on a page from an old book.

Great fun and here is the finished project!

Last but not least, I have this altered book/scrapbook. I found a children's board book at the dollar store - you gotta love that dollar store! I made a template for the page (you only need one template because all of the pages are exactly the same) and then I cut out pretty scrapbook paper for each page of the book. I then placed pictures inside and embellished it. So cute!

Have fun creating!!

xo, Erin

Cupcakes!!

So, are you wanting a cupcake now?? I love cupcakes! I love to make cupcakes! It was one of the things I had been craving so I made a whole mess of em' for my Easter dessert buffet! Now you can get an image induced sugar high at 10:15 in the morning! Anyway, I hope everyone had a very blessed Easter. I know we did. We had a houseful - 20 total, I think, maybe a few more! We had a great time and ate lots of great food. The kiddies all had a fabulous Easter egg hunt in the backyard - the weather was perfect for it!

and now I'll leave you with some little papier mache bunnies I made a couple of years ago

Have a lovely day!!

Some Pretties for Easter

I ran out yesterday to do my weekly grocery shopping and to pick up a few last minute things for the kids' classroom Easter parties. While out, I stopped in at Michaels craft store and the Dollar Store.

Boy, am I ever glad I did! I went in for scrapbook papers and would you just look at what I found?? I saw this pretty box at Michaels several weeks ago but I didn't want to pay what they were asking for it. It just so happens though, that it was marked down - YIPPEE!! So I decided to go ahead and get it. And then, as I turned the corner, I saw this beautiful clock and little wall hook and scrolly white frame! Oh my gosh, everything was marked down 40% and I had a Michael's gift card!! So, needless to say, I came home yesterday with wonderful treasures that will go perfectly in my new kitchen!!

Then, I wandered into the Dollar Store for some gift bags as well as a few goodies to fill them with for my kids' classroom Easter parties. While in there I found these adorable little marshmallow bunnies and chicks. I got a couple of bags for my candy/dessert buffet that I'm going to do for Easter. You see, hubby and I gave up all sweets/candy/desserts etc... for the Lenten Season. That means nothing sweet for me until Easter Sunday. I have been craving something sweet for so long!! I thought it would be fun to go all out on Easter Sunday with sweet little candies, cupcakes, and other pretty desserts on a buffet for everyone to enjoy.

Have a blessed day everyone!!

xo Erin