No Place Like Home picture frame

http://www.infarrantlycreative.net/2010/10/no-place-like-home-frame.html

No Place Like Home Frame

I love traveling. There is something exhilarating about visiting another part of the country.  We have lived all over (Illinois, Delaware, Georgia, Virginia, California, Washington, and now Indiana).  Each part of the country has its unique charm and appeal. 

As much as I enjoy traveling, I believe in a few clichés. 

1. Home is where your heart is…(and for a number of years I believed…home is where your mom is :-)

AND…

2. There is no place like home. 

Nothing thrills my heart more than arriving home after a little time away.  I take a lot of pride in my home and creating a place where my family, as Dorothy, can say, “there is no place like home.”

Do you want to know how I made it?

Supplies:

Plastic High Heeled Shoes from Dollar Tree

Mod Podge or any White Glue

Fine Red Glitter

8 x 10 picture frame

Red Paint

Small Paint brush

Hot Glue Gun

Triple Thick Glaze or other glossy sealant (optional)

I saw these darling high heeled plastic shoes in the wedding section while I was visiting my local Dollar Tree last week.I had no idea what I wanted to do with them, but I threw them in my cart anyway.  I pondered and pondered and thought the shoes looked a lot like Dorothy’s ruby red slippers in one of my all-time favorite childhood movies, “The Wizard of Oz.”

I decided to use these shoes to make some ruby red slippers.  I had some Krylon Cherry Red spray paint in my garage so I sprayed the shoes with that.  However, you can use any red craft paint you might have and just brush it on.Use a thick-ish coat of Mod Podge and spread it on your red shoe.  I didn’t put any on the inside of the shoe because I didn’t want glitter in it.Then sprinkle some fine glitter on the Mod Podge.Let it dry and then shake off the excess glitter.

If you have some sort of sealant or clear nail polish it wouldn’t hurt to coat it in that.  That will avoid red glitter from shedding everywhere down the road.  I coated mine with Krylon’s Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze.

Grab an 8 x 10 frame from the Dollar Tree if you don’t have one on hand.  I had an old one already that I spray painted Krylon’s Black spray paint. Then using your hot glue gun glue the shoes in place.  You can use another glue if you would like but I think the hot glue works just fine.And you are done.  Now to fill your frame the possibilities are endless.

I simply printed out “There’s No Place Like Home.” in a Fineliner Script from dafont.com on a piece of white cardstock.  Then I used double sided stick tape to mount some patterned cardstock with our picture on top of that. I know that picture is ancient…we are getting professional family ones done this Friday.

Gourmet Caramel Apples

http://www.alittletipsy.com/2009/09/make-your-own-gourmet-caramel-apples.html


Make Your Own Gourmet Caramel Apples

Every time we go to Park City we stop in The Village Candy Shoppe on Main Street to pick up a delicious caramel apple. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory sells them too. Want to know how to make your own? Here we go! I mean what is fall without a delicious caramel apple?

I taught my YW how to make Gourmet Caramel Apples for an activity. I wanted to make things super simple so they could remember how to do it and make them for their families, but you could definitely amp up the recipe with homemade caramel as long as it is a recipe that will stiffen over time.

Caramel Apple Basic Ingredients:
10 medium green apples (edit: Gma G suggests having them cold so the caramel sets up faster)
2 bags caramel bits (Love these! I bought them thinking they were regular caramels, but then opened them to find I did not have to unwrap them all. They are smaller balls so they melt easier too.)
Water
1 bag milk chocolate chips
1 bag white chips
Crisco

Optional ingredients: (these will be used for an additional coating depending on what flavor you want)
Cinnamon Sugar (used with white chocolate to make the apple pie flavor, my fav!)
Oreos
Butterfinger
Reese's Pieces
Heath Bar
Chopped peanuts
anything else that you might like to try!

1. Begin by washing the cold apples and removing the stem. Then insert the stick where the stem was. (The sticks come with the caramels.)
2. Spread a good amount of wax paper on the counter and spray it with cooking spray so the apples won't stick.
3. Melt the caramel according to package instructions. I believe ours said something like add 2 T. of water and microwave for 90 seconds, stir and then melt until smooth. You want it pretty runny.
4. Dip your apples in the caramel by tipping the bowl, holding the stick, and spinning the apple in it. (sorry forgot to take pics of all this) Cover all but about a 1 1/2 inch circle on the top. Continue turning the apple while the caramel drips off so that you have an even coat all around. Let it drip for quite a while, until it looks like a thin layer, otherwise you will have a huge puddle under your apple. Reheat caramel for additional apples as necessary to keep it runny.
5. Place the apples on the sprayed wax paper and put in the fridge for about 20 minutes until the caramel is solid (I had them on a cookie sheet to make it easy to move them all at once).
6. Get out two medium bowls and put each flavor of chocolate chips in each bowl. Add a Tablespoon of Crisco to each bowl. This will make the chocolate more viscous. Microwave until smooth, stirring at least once per minute.
7. Repeat dipping step 4, but with the chocolate. Sprinkle with your Optional ingredient (oreos, butterfinger, etc.) so they stick to the chocolate.
8. Place on sprayed wax paper and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
9. If you want to get really fancy, put the leftover chocolate in a ziploc, cut a tiny hole in the corner and drizzle over the apples

River Rock Boot Trays

http://www.vivelyonline.com/2010/10/river-rock-boot-trays.html

River Rock Boot Trays

Some time ago, I came across a most brilliant idea on marthastewart.com.

Her idea was to fill a boot tray with pebbles so that ice and snow will melt and drain through the rocks to the bottom of the tray.This way, your boots won't stand in a puddle. We've been having a wet,wet,wet fall and being Ottawa, you just know that we will have slush through quite a bit of the winter.

I have an entrance mat, and a door mat, and we try our best to get water and snow off our boots before we come into the house, but no matter what, my front entrance is always a mess. So, the idea of having a pretty boot tray really appealed to me.

As luck would have it, I had a very successful trip at the thrift store this week. People must be doing some fall decluttering, because the store was filled with goodies. I stumbled across two identical chrome serving trays that were a little worse for wear. However, I knew they would be perfect as boot trays. You know what "worse for wear" at the thrift store translate to, right? Cheap, that's what. Two trays for $2, that's how cheap they were.

I filled them with some river rocks (about $7 worth), and now I have some really cool boot trays.

At first, I kind of wished that I had the tall-sided trays similar to what Martha has. However, after a few days of use, I was glad that my trays have no sharp edges for the kids to step on. Besides, doesn't it look as though there were sinks dug into the entrance and filled with rocks? It is kind of a cool effect. A happy accident, if you will.

Cakes

http://texasmonkey.blogspot.com/2010/04/dress-up-cakes-without-stress.html

Dress Up Cakes without the Stress

I'm one of those people that wants to do everything myself when it comes to party planning or holidays or events.  I don't want to hire someone, I certainly don't want to buy store bought, but I want it to look like I hired someone and not scream MOM MADE.  That's just who I am, Poppa has learned to love me inspite of me.  This little personality trait of mine can drive loved ones crazy.  I tend to be controlling and the finest detail has to carry through with whatever theme is set for the event.  So why am I revealing this not so loveable trait about myself?  Well one of the things that usually goes along with events and parties is cake.  And I prefer to make my own cakes rather than buy but I'm not a cake professional and getting a cake to not scream MOM MADE can be tricky without experience, lessons, or practice. 
Over the past 4 years I've made quite a few cakes for friends and family and I've learned a lot of cool tricks and tips and thought that maybe some of you might also want to make homemade cakes but have them look more professional.  And in my opinion nothing tastes better than my recipe that has taken years to perfect.  One bite and Poppa knows if it's mine or not.  (Toot Toot haha)

So today I wanted to show you some easy ways to decorate and dress up a cake, whether it's a cake disaster or lack of experience, anyone can pulls these off. 

Let's start with a few tips. 

To get even shapes without the middle dome, tap your pans filled with batter down on the counter gently before baking to release air bubbles and to help settle the batter.  Also don't over fill your pans, put the same amount of batter in each pan by using measuring cups.  If you do get the dome shape after baking, just trim and cut to make it even and smooth.

Although store bought frosting is quick and easy, it's not going to leave a professional look due to not being able to crust.  Your icing/frosting needs to crust over so that it can be smoothed out.  But this can be tricky and time consuming so here comes my easy decorating ideas that can look professional but allows you to use store bought icing.

Items You will Need for Decorating These Types of Cakes:
Icing/Frosting
Spatulas
Longer thin candies or cookies (ie: kit kats, twix, Wafer Roll cookies like Pirouette by Pepperidge Farm)
Toppings ie: strawberries, M&M's, jeally beans, etc.

If you're stacking your cakes and let's say it starts to crumble or fall apart, have faith in knowing that frosting acts like a glue and those pieces can be "glued" back together.  Take this cake for example.  My Nana over Easter weekend informed me she wanted me to decorate her a cake like some I had done in the past.  She'd already bought the decorations and would make the cake.  Now normally I'd prefer to make the cake myself and get the decorations I wanted but this is my Nana and it is still important to her to be able to do some things for herself so when she brought me the baked cake it was literally in 5 pieces.  But like I said, no biggie, just used frosting to piece it back together. 

This doesn't look like it's going to be worth anything to look at but just wait. 

Frost your sides then your top. Normally I'd tell you to do a crumb coat first but with these cakes we're decorating it won't matter if crumbs get in your frosting.  It doesn't matter how it looks frosted, it can be messy, clean, or in between.

Next you're going to grab your candy or cookies and add a little frosting to the back of each one and start placing around the entire cake, you want them to be touching each other.  (If using the wafer cookies, you may have to cut them to desired length).

Once the border is complete fill the top of the cake with your topper of choice, tie with a bow and you're done, that's it!  How easy and fun?!  Look at what all you can do for toppers.

Like how about chocolate dipped strawberries?

Or you could use a pie filling of any sort like blueberry.

Or how about beautiful flowers to dress up your cake, perfect for bridal showers.

You can use M&M's

Or Reece's Pieces

And don't Forget the Holidays like Christmas

Or Halloween

Or Valentine's Day

Or Even Easter

Pumpking Bowling

http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2010/10/pumpkin-bowling.html

pumpkin bowling

Last year, I somehow found myself in charge of my daughters halloween party at school...hmm..25 kids. yeah. I had to  think of something that would entertain. ENTERTAIN. I had all these old formula tins (um..do I need to once again remind you of the hoarding that is me?) and I hot glued decorations onto them.

( I drew them all myself....but it would be really easy to find some around blogville...or even use pictures from halloween color books! )

decorated 10 tins.

and filled each one with candy or a surprise.

they got to bowl with a gourd (or a little pumpkin) and whatever one they knocked down they got the treat from inside.

it was a ton of fun.

Pumpkin Cookie Plate

http://somethingfromcassie.blogspot.com/2010/09/mmmmmcookies.html

Mmmmm...Cookies

Two things I love...Cookies and Halloween.  Let's combine them, shall we?
First thing we are going to do to make this super easy cookie plate is gather some supplies.
I used some paper mache pumpkins, a charger plate, some Mod Podge and some MME paper from the Haunted line.
Yeah...it is flocked...so yummy!  I love that too...we should add that to the list of things that I love.
Flock!
I also bought those super delightful spiders at Pier One...yeah...they have pretty cool Halloween stuff...you should check it out.  Not right now though...let's make this cookie plate.

I cut out some long football shapes and then wadded them up...that really helped when I was trying to make it stick to the pumpkin.  I still wanted some of the paper mache to show through because I like the look and texture of it...it is up to you...you can cover the whole thing if you want...spray paint it, paint it with acrylic paint...Go crazy!
After I slathered the back of the paper with Mod Podge, I used my "hold it and mold it" technique.
Just hold the paper for a sec then BAM! You are done.
Place one pumpkin on top of the other and hot glue them together...You could probably use E6000...whatever floats your boat.  Then glue your charger to the top.
I glued spiders to the sides and threw some on top for good measure.  Add some cookies and Viola!
Done.
I started with 12 cookies...somewhere along the way I have misplaced a few...must have been the kids.
Easy. You can do it! Go forth and Create!!