Sunday, December 23, 2012

Merry Macaroons | Christmas Baking

Hello everyone! Welcome to all my new followers :) Can't believe I hit the 200 mark, whoop, whoop! Thanks, everyone for your support!

Well with Christmas at our doorstep, I probably will not have any time for posts until the new year. So today I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Hope you all are enjoying this time of year :) 

So for my last post of the year, I wanted to share some macaroons that I just finished making to take to my parent's house for Christmas Eve. This was my first attempt at making them and I was surprised at how well they turned out for me (other than color.) I really wanted to make red macaroons and fill them with green icing (Christmas colors)... but since they turned out pink I just used a white filling. Not worried cause I'm sure they will taste just as yummy!

Here are a few pics of how they looked along the way...

Merry Macaroons | Christmas Baking

Merry Macaroons | Christmas Baking

Merry Macaroons | Christmas Baking

Don't they look yummy?!? They are! I know, cause I had to try... I think I will have to go on a diet after the holidays are over, lol! If you are interested in the recipe I used, click here. Ann walks you through every step of the way and even has troubleshooting tips and a video to help you. You will also love her accent!

Thanks again everyone for following me on my wildcrafting journey through life. See you all soon... until next year!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Cake Pop Christmas Tree and Treats for School

Christmas is just around the corner and I think I'm finally ready! Everything I wanted to get done is done.... thank goodness! Now all I have to do is wait for Santa! 

Later this week my hubby is having a Christmas potluck at work. He asked me if I could make a dessert. Initially, I had planned on making cupcakes, but since I had already planned on making cake pops for the kids at school I thought I would just make a few more. Well, 92 to be exact!

Cake Pop Christmas Tree and Treats for School

Since edible arrangements are so popular, I thought I'd take that idea and make my own and make a Christmas tree using all the cake pops. 

Cake Pop Christmas Tree and Treats for School

To make the tree I used a Styrofoam cone. First I covered it in a green tissue paper and then wrapped it with tinsel. Then just randomly stuck the cake pops all around the tree. Isn't it pretty??? and don't they just look sooooo yummy! Well, they are... I just had to try one, OK maybe two, LOL!!!


Cake Pop Christmas Tree and Treats for School

Remember those personalized clay ornaments I made a few weeks ago? Here they are again. I used them as tags on the cake pops, to give each student in my children's class. I think they are going to love this treat!

Cake Pop Christmas Tree and Treats for School

See, here is the second cake pop I ate... totally for photo purposes, hehe! Makes my mouth drool just looking at it! For tips on how I make my cake pops, click here. FYI, one cake box recipe made 92 cake pops using the Babycakes Cake Pop maker.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!
I hope your mouth didn't water too much! ;)

Sunday, December 16, 2012

DIY Duct Tape Credit Card Wallets


Can you believe Christmas is only one week away? Are you ready???? I sure don't feel like I am... 

If you are looking for a great little stocking stuffer you should definitely try making one of my credit card wallets. I absolutely LOVE mine! It's a great place for all my extra loyalty cards that I don't need in my everyday wallet. It has also been my most popular posts since I started this whole blogging journey!

DIY Duct Tape Credit Card Wallets

So easy to make and so useful too! Click here for directions on how to make your own! You won't regret it, and your overstuffed wallet will thank you :)

DIY Duct Tape Credit Card Wallets

Who knew Duct tape could look so cool! I have a thing for the zebra pattern, can you tell? I'm not kidding... in our last house, I painted our bathroom's ceiling in a zebra pattern, lol!

DIY Duct Tape Credit Card Wallets

And here is the wallet I made for myself back in June... It still looks and works great! I always get so many compliments when I pull it out of my purse and ladies see it... Every lady needs one especially if you love to shop and have way too many cards! 

DIY Duct Tape Credit Card Wallets

If you haven't made one yet, you should... a Christmas gift to yourself or for a friend. I promise you'll all love it!

Happy crafting :)



UPDATE
February 10, 2017
Check out VERSION 3 of the DIY Credit/Loyalty Card Duct Tape Wallet
or watch me make it on YouTube!




Wednesday, December 12, 2012

King Cake - Bolo Rei | Portuguese Traditional Christmas Cake


Christmas would not be the same for me if there wasn't a "Bolo Rei" in the house, which literally translated it means King Cake. My mom makes them every year and gives them to our friends and family. So this past weekend she asked if I could help. Well, my life kind of got in the way and by the time I made it over to her place she was pretty much done! She is so amazing, I really do look up to her... in a few hours she had whipped up 8 cakes all on her own! I'm so happy that her energy rubbed off on me a little, LOL!


King Cake - Bolo Rei | Portuguese Traditional Christmas Cake

For those of you that don't know I was born in Portugal and moved to Canada with my parents when I was two. So for many years of my sheltered life, all that I knew was very heavily influenced by my parent's culture and their upbringing.  And so, the King Cake at Christmas was always a must! I have to be honest though, the cake was never appealing to me mostly because of all the dried crystallized fruits. So, after many years of hearing everyone praise my mom and her cakes, a few years ago I tried it... Maybe it's an age thing! I actually didn't mind it too much, initially, I was picking out all the fruit and just leaving the nuts. Now I eat it all... great I must be getting old... my taste buds are changing, oh no!


King Cake - Bolo Rei | Portuguese Traditional Christmas Cake

Taken from Wikipedia Bolo rei is a traditional Portuguese cake that is usually eaten around Christmas, from December 25 until the Dia de Reis (literally Day of Kings, a reference to the three kings) on January 6. The cake itself is round with a large hole in the center, resembling a crown covered with crystallized and dried fruit. The bolo rei is baked from a soft, white dough, with raisins, various nuts, and crystallized fruit. Also included is the characteristic "fava", and tradition dictates that whoever finds the fava has to pay for the bolo rei next year. Initially, a small prize was also included within the cake, but now that can be hazardous!

King Cake - Bolo Rei | Portuguese Traditional Christmas Cake

For those of you that are interested in the recipe, click here. My mom said this link shows you pretty much how she made hers, even includes a video... The only thing it is in Portuguese, so you might have to use your translate options on your computer. 

King Cake - Bolo Rei | Portuguese Traditional Christmas Cake

Thanks for stopping by, hope you've enjoyed learning a little more about our holiday traditions!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Homemade Personalized Clay Ornaments using Stamps | Christmas Craft


Homemade Personalized Clay Ornaments using Stamps | Christmas Craft


A few weeks ago I saw the cutest ornaments on Pinterest! What caught my attention was the recipe. It wasn't a salt dough recipe like all the others I had seen. So I pinned it! I thought they would make great little gifts for the kids at school. Click here for the recipe and instructions!

Update: The link above no longer works sorry folks! I did find a similar recipe here so I will copy it out and include a link to it as well for the rest of the instructions! 

Recipe:
1 cup of corn starch 
2 cups baking soda 
1.25 cups cold water


Here are a few photos and tips on how I made mine...

Homemade Personalized Clay Ornaments using Stamps | Christmas Craft

I found that the dough was very pliable, so when I first started cutting out my shapes they were getting stretched and started losing their shape when I transferred them to the baking sheet. So I decided to roll them out directly on to the Silpat, which also keeps them from sticking during the baking process. I then just removed the excess dough. This way the shapes were perfect, they didn't even crack! 

Homemade Personalized Clay Ornaments using Stamps | Christmas Craft

To make the whole, I just used the end of a straw!

Homemade Personalized Clay Ornaments using Stamps | Christmas Craft

To personalize each one of them I used a black ink pad and these great little alphabet stamps I found a Micheal's in their Dollar bins!

Homemade Personalized Clay Ornaments using Stamps | Christmas Craft

Aren't they so cute?... The cookie cutters I used were very small which makes them the perfect size for gift tags too! I had so much fun making these with my daughter, she wants to make more... maybe colored ones next time!

Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, December 10, 2012

DIY Recycled Snowman Lanterns | Christmas Decorations


Good morning!
Today I wanted to share with you a really quick and fun project I made with my daughter this weekend! So fun and all done with supplies I had around the house...

Here's what you will need:
Glass jars
white glue or Modge Podge
paint or foam brush
coarse and fine salt
toothpick (for the nose)
felt or fabric
hot glue gun 
buttons

So here they are... aren't they adorable!?!

DIY Recycled Snowman Lanterns | Christmas Decorations

Here is a picture collage of how we did it...

DIY Recycled Snowman Lanterns | Christmas Decorations

The Nescafe jars were the perfect shape for these snowmen, but any shape would work.

DIY Recycled Snowman Lanterns | Christmas Decorations

Throw in a battery operated tea light and voila, it was that simple! Make one, make two or make a whole family! Just have fun :)

Happy crafting!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry


 I've been so crazy busy lately, I almost forgot about the SVG Cuts Christmas Facebook Challenge! I'm always up for the challenge and the prizes are amazing! So here is my entry... Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel! 

I absolutely love how it turned out and it makes such a great tabletop decoration. It approximately stands 16 inches high!

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Look at Rudolf with his nose so bright! Isn't he adorable ;)
 Click here to see where I got my inspiration! Thanks, Brigit!

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry

Here are some more close-up shots! To make the sled sturdy, I cut out 10 layers for each side and glued them back to back.

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry

Snowflake center... The Star button comes from Paper Play Studio! Those little flair buttons are so cute!

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry

The Ferris wheel baskets are the perfect fit for tea lights! On the front of the basket I took the image of the snowflake and cut it out of the center Shhhhh, don't tell anyone... I then used parchment paper instead of vellum, only because it was so late at night and I had no velum left. Hey, it did the trick didn't it?! The only thing is I had to use hot glue with it.... cause nothing sticks to the parchment paper as I found out, lol! 

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry

And isn't Santa so CUTE? Just want to squeeze his cheeks :)

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry

Here is the Flying Ferris Wheel at night. It looks awesome!!! The kids love it too, especially all lit up!

Santa's Flying Ferris Wheel | Interactive Christmas Decoration | SVGCuts Challenge Entry

The paper stack I used comes from Recollections Naughty or Nice Paper stack Collection. The files were all cut out using the Silhouette Cameo.

And here are the SVG Cuts kits I used:

Thanks, SVGCuts for such great files to work with!

Wish me luck.... again!
Happy Crafting :)




Angry Bird Fondant Cake for a 60 Year Old


Today is mom's best friend's birthday. Aida, who also happens to be my God Mother and is truly a very special lady! She helped raise us and I love her very much. I wish her a very special 60th Birthday today!

A few weeks ago her daughter told me she was secretly addicted to the Angry Birds Game... So she asked if I would make her an Angry Birds Themed Cake. Ooops, I guess she has now been outed, I hope she's not ANGRY! Hehehehe, Oink, snort!

So here it is... I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!!!

Angry Bird Fondant Cake for a 60 Year Old

Here are more pictures of the cake from different angles :)

Angry Bird Fondant Cake for a 60 Year Old

Angry Bird Fondant Cake for a 60 Year Old

For those of you that are curious about how I made it, here are a few pictures I took of the cake along the way. I'll just briefly explain them.
  • The first thing I started with was modeling chocolate. Click here for the recipe. Once the chocolate was ready I rolled out some different sized balls. At this point, I also made my wood logs. (Leave all your pieces to air dry overnight)
  • Once the chocolate had hardened, I covered the balls with different colors of fondant. (I didn't by all these different colors, I just started with white fondant and mixed it with icing colors until I achieved the color I wanted)   
  • Then all that is left are the details on the birds. (I referred to a picture I had printed to that I could look at) 
  • Bake, ice and cover your cake with a crumb coat.
  • Cover the cake with the fondant and have fun assembling!
That's pretty much it! These kinds of cakes can be time-consuming. This one took me about 6 hours to make, but it's so worth the end result! Hope she is going to like it!


I hope you like my take on the Angry Birds Cake!
Have a great weekend :)