Pine Cone Chick Craft

My sister Carolyn made this cute little chick with her kindergarten class for years.

What you'll need:
* Pinecone
* Yellow paint
* Cotton balls
* Orange craft foam
* Yellow feathers
* Googly eyes
* Easter grass
* Glue

To make, find pine cones that stand well, paint them yellow, and let dry.  Pull cotton balls into thinner strands and stuff cotton into pine cone gaps.  Using the orange craft foam, cut feet for your chick.  Attach Easter grass to bottom of feet and then attach feet to pine cone.  This chick also has rounded foam rectangles under the feathered wings which helps the feathers stand out more.  Attach feathers and eyes with glue.

Easter Candy Pie

Easter is a week away, and I was assigned the dessert portion of the meal (horray!).  This gives me an excuse to spend the next week baking up a storm.  One thing that's on the dessert menu for sure is Candy Pie.

My mom found the recipe at the grocery store years ago, and it is reserved exclusively for Easter in our family.  Why if it's so ridiculously amazing?  Because it takes a year for your cavities to fill after eating a piece.  The pie filling is made up of melted Hershey kisses and Cool Whip, but not to be ignored is the peanut butter cup layer.  Oh my goodness, it's sweet!

The recipe is on the Hershey website right here.  This is a great thing to bake with little helpers because the hardest part is unwrapping all of the candy.  Actually, the hardest part is unwrapping the candy and not eating it.

Now, I've got to figure out what everyone else will be eating.  What are you making for Easter?

Pintastic Beets!

Hi! Hello! Howdy! My, it's been so long. All apologies, but I'll spare you the excuses.

I've been continuing the pinning madness over on Pinterest. My new goal is to actually make some of the things I find rather than just pinning away the evening and then feeling guilty I didn't actually cook, craft, or, heck, talk to other human beings instead.

Today's project was beet chips. My husband is a beet-fiend so we've got a cupboard full of cans of them.  Now, canned beets are fine.  Actually, they're great for throwing on a salad to up the veggie count.  But, I adore going to the local fruit & vegetable stand, Sam's.  My girls love going too because it's the one shopping trip we go on where I don't say no to anything.  "Mom, can we buy kiwis?"  Sure!  "Mom, can we get yellow squash and green?"  Heck yes!  Don't get tricked into thinking that they will voluntarily eat the vegetables they've picked.

So, tonight's project was beet chips.  Here's a link to the recipe I found. My review...the thinner I cut them, the more chip-like they became. The recipe called for 1/16 of an inch.  I was at my mom's while trying this (it's good to experiment in other people's kitchens in case of mess or fire).  The trouble is that I didn't have a mandolin to thinly slice the beets.  This is essential!

Since my cutting was inconsistent, the thicker beet chips weren't as chip-y as I'd like.  The moisture didn't bake out so they were more floppy (tasty still, but floppy).  Overall, super excited about another way to eat up beets.  Whoop Whoop for a Pintastic recipe!

Little Heart Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day-Eve! I am baking the "smallest heart cookies ever" as instructed by Georgia's preschool teacher. She didn't say that I couldn't make seven million of them!

I am kind of relieved at the simplicity of this project. What was I thinking giving my kid such a long name? I doomed myself to a weekend of making a four-year-old write her seven-letter name twenty times. I have several Valentines with "Geor." is it horrible that I wrote the remaining letters left-handed so it'd look more uniform with her actual printing?

Once the cards are done, I'm pretty much ready. Such a nice idea to be able to spend Valentine's Day loving on my valentines rather than scrambling to get projects done.

Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year!  

Tet/Chinese New Year is today so the girls and I got our bake on to help celebrate.  Special shout out to all of you born in the year of the dragon!

Neapolitan Cupcakes

I heart Pinterest...like would get a temporary tattoo of it's logo love.  So I found this recipe for Neapolitan Cupcakes and knew I needed to eat them.

I'll admit that I totally cheated and used cake mix and brownie mix.  I made myself feel better by buying low-fat versions of each.  So this is basically health food.   

Basically, it is a brownie on the bottom, strawberry cake in the middle, and vanilla frosting on top.  We put pink chocolate hearts on top because of the three flavors, chocolate is my favorite and I want as much of it as possible.  I like how uneven Georgia and I made the hearts.  Love ain't perfect, right?

 My baking assistant.  She took over frosting the cupcakes.  

She also helped my deliver the final product to a couple of houses.  A couple dozen cupcakes wouldn't last long at my house because I'd pretend to need to feed the dogs and eat one in the garage (so I wouldn't have to share).  Since I'm not totally abandoning my New Year's Resolutions yet, they needed to get outta here.  

Ugh.  Third broken cake stand in three months.  It's an epidemic now.  

DIY Ombre Valentine's Day

I heart everything ombre.  I've compiled some of my favorite diy stuff from the internet to use for Valentine's Day.  Best part of the versatility of the color palette is it lets me work in all sorts of shades of red and pink.

A DIY project for ya from Green Wedding Shoes...a darling backdrop.

A butter cream ombre cake with tutorial from Bubble and Sweet.

Or this yummy alternative.  I adore that the inside and outside have shades of pink.  Glorious Treats made this super cute cake.

A floral centerpiece that falls into the category of "Oh, I Could Totally Do That" and then I cry after three hours of trying to get it perfect from Hindsight Bride.

This is more my speed.  If you may a bunch of these babies with different shades, they'd so fit with the theme.

This Save the Date card could make a super sweet Valentine's Day card.  Find the tutorial at Green Wedding Shoes.

Want more awesome finds for Valentine's Day inspiration?  Follow me on Pinterest.