Fortune Cookie FAIL!

When I saw THIS post over at Our Best Bites, I knew I had to try making fortune cookies. I bought all the chocolate for melting and dipping, and the sprinkles for decorating, and I was really looking forward to giving them to a few friends that I was going to visit today.

The only problem? I suck.

I could not, for the life of me, get it right. Either I spread the batter too thin or too thick, cooked them for too long or too short, or didn't move fast enough so even if the first cookie off the tray worked, the rest of them didn't. I can't tell you how frustrated I was! This is all I ended up with at the end - a bunch of too brown, too broken, too chewy fortune cookies that wouldn't be fit for a dog. :(

Sad day.

If any of you have tips on making these, or have a better recipe than the one linked above, please let me know. I'd love to give them another try!!

Glitterati

It's taken me a few days to be able to post this because my hubby had the camera at work with him.

I've never been huge on decorating for "minor" holidays, (ok, let's be honest, I only ever decorate for Christmas), but this year I wanted to dive in and start decorating other times of the year, too. First up, Valentine's Day.

You all saw this easy-peasy heart garland we made a few weeks ago, but it just wasn't doing it for me. (Whatever "it" is...). It's cute, but it just wasn't enough. So, a couple weeks ago while I was out and about, I stumbled across a styrofoam heart wreath, and some glitter. Had to get it because who knew when I would be out that way again.

I couldn't take any "during" pictures because, like I said, Sam had the camera at work with him. But here's a little sneak peak before the projects were completely finished:





Finished projects:

Hanging hearts inspired by THIS POST.



Hearts cut out of cereal boxes, used a paint brush to spread white school glue around in a thin layer, sprinkled glitter, (or rather, poured glitter) all over the heart (and all around the table and floor... eek!). Let dry, flipped over and did the same to the back side. We used different colors on both sides for a fun effect. Hung up on our light w/ white ribbon. Easy peasy and so fun for the kids. (I'm going to be cleaning up glitter for months!)

THIS blog post inspired the next craft:



I had some twine that I started wrapping around the heart, but it was too thin and wasn't giving me the look I was hoping for, so I scrapped that and went with red ribbon instead. Then using the same technique as the glitter hearts above, (i.e. using a paintbrush to lightly spread white craft glue all along the surface), I glitterized (haha) an old frame I had in my closet. I wish I had spray paint, but alas. I kind of like it. It's funky. And it could probably be used with several different holidays, I just have to change what's hanging inside. :)

(Funny story... when my hubby came home from work and saw the frame while it was drying, his eyes widened in horror and said, "You're not putting our family picture in that, are you?" Haha, I still laugh about it.)

I can't decide if I like the black in the background or not. If I was hanging the frame, I would not have the black there, but since I needed to use the frame stand, the black is there.

**Note** You can head over to my family blog to hear a special love song every day leading up to Valentine's Day. :)

eek!

My "tutorials to try" list keep getting longer and longer by the day! There are so many things I want to try. My hubby is on-call at work again tonight, so I'm thinking about getting out my sewing machine and working on something. Or I might scrapbook. I don't know, but I need to do something! Will definitely let you know how it goes.

Baby Shower!

This past Saturday, I hosted a baby shower for my good friend Audrey, who, sadly, is moving away in a couple days. :( One of our other friends brought pasta salad and prepared the games, (thanks, April!), and two other friends, (Thanks Danly and Vivien!), brought the beautiful roses and bowls of fruit. I prepared the other food, but everyone helped with setting up and cleaning up afterward. Usually in our social circle, these things become potlucks, but I didn't want to do that this time.

First of all, the spread...

Cake/mini cupcakes, heart-shaped brownies, veggies crudites with hummous dip, olives, tortilla roll-ups, pasta salad, Asian Wonton Salad, strawberries, grapes, and 7-layer Mexican bean dip w/ tortilla chips.

A close up... I made the Asian Wonton Salad for our book group meeting earlier in the week, and everyone loved it. So I decided to go ahead and make it for the baby shower, too. Again, everyone loved it. You should try it. So easy, and so yummy! Find the recipe HERE.

With the 7-layer dip, I didn't follow an exact recipe. I intended to use Pioneer Woman's recipe, and her recipe for guacamole and pico de gallo, but I ran out of time. So it ended up being a basic compliation of several recipes.

I started with a layer of refried beans (with a bit of taco seasoning mixed in), then a layer of sour cream, then a layer of guacamole (3 ripe, mashed avocados + finely chopped tomatoes w/ the seeds and "wet" part removed + finely chopped red onion + a little salt + juice of half a lime), then a layer of salsa, then a layer of sharp cheddar cheese, a layer of shredded lettuce, layer of chopped olives, tomatoes and topped with chopped green onions. It took me longer to put it all together than I had planned, but it turned out good and everyone seemed to like it.

I couldn't believe how easy the tortilla roll-ups were to make. I didn't follow one exact recipe, but looked at several and then came up with these on my own. I used "cilantro and garlic" flavored tortillas. The inside mixture is a combination of 1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese, about 1/3 cup sour cream, finely chopped red bell pepper, finely chopped red onion, finely chopped black olives. You spread a thin layer of the mixture on each tortilla, add a slice of ham or turkey (if you want), and roll it up. Tightly wrap with saran wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. I made these the day before, so they refrigerated about 24 hours. When you're ready to serve them, you just cut off the "wonky" ends, and then slice them in 1/2 inch pieces. Yummy! I got a lot of good comments on these.

It took me a long time to decide what cake I wanted to make. I finely decided on this cake. I'm sorry, I can't remember where I got the idea from, but I probably googled "baby shower cakes" and a photo came up somewhere. So anyway, this is basically just a yellow cake mix with cream cheese frosting. I LOVE this recipe for cream cheese frosting, though because of the butter it turns the frosting a light yellow. I need to find one that will let the frosting be white so that it can be tinted a different color w/out looking funny. The flowers are just plain m&m's, but it tasted so yummy all together! :)

Cream cheese frosting:

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

2 tsp. vanilla

5 3/4 - 6 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add 2 cups powdered sugar, beating well. Gradually beat in additional powdered sugar to reach spreading consistency. (This frosts tops & sides of two 8" or 9" layers. Half the recipe for a 9x13 cake.)

CAKE DECORATING TIP #1!

When trying to decide what cake to make, I looked up some websites about tips for frosting a layered cake. I learned a very good tip! When you frost the sides and top, do what is called a "crumb layer" of frosting. That is, just put on a very thin layer of frosting first, and yes it will pick up some of the crumbs. Then, put the cake in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes until the frosting hardens. Then do another, thicker layer of frosting on top. It's much easier to spread this way, and none of the crumbs get pulled to the top layer of frosting. It looks much nicer.

I brought a bunch of little silk flowers to scatter around the table for some extra color. I also made 2 candle holders (hard to see in the pic above), by using pretty-shaped jam jars, tying pretty ribbon around the mouth of them, and putting pink tea-candles inside. It was a nice added touch, I thought.

Lastly, I made this little "advice" book for Audrey, since it's her first baby. I bought a small hard backed notebook and covered it with fabric, and hot-glued on the embellishments. On the inside front/back flaps, I taped in coordinating paper, and throughout the book I taped in cute parenting quotes.

Audrey, you will be missed. Thanks for being such a great friend!

Baby Doll clothes!

Last night after I put the girls to bed, I decided to try making some baby doll clothes for Zoe's little baby. I've been wanting to try making little diapers ever since I saw THIS tutorial. I finally got around to it last night. I'd actually made the pattern/template awhile ago, so at least I didn't have to do that. Here's how it turned out. Pretty cute if I do say so myself. I have to admit that I had to pick off the velcro and re-place it because I didn't measure quite right.

(Sorry if any pictures are sideways. We just changed to a mac computer, and I am still trying to figure it all out!)




Since I had all my fabric out, (my stash isn't huge, lol), I thought I'd give a few other things a try. I've seen tons of tutorials on gathering, but I've never tried it, so I decided to try making some little clothes for the baby doll. I first made this skirt. I wasn't following any tutorial for the skirt itself, but basically just making it up as I went along. I was too lazy to get out my ironing board and iron, so the seams don't lay flat exactly, lol.

First I started with the purple band. I sewed it into a tube. Then I did the gathering on the blue fabric, and sewed it onto the purple tube. I then sewed up the seam in the back of the blue fabric, but I didn't sew the purple, yet, because I added some thin elastic to make the waist band gathered. Once that was done, I sewed up the rest of the purple band. Then I hemmed the bottom.


By then, it was nearly 1am, and I needed to go to bed, lol, but I knew I wasn't done yet. The baby still needed a shirt.

So this morning, after I got Maya off to school, I found one of Zoe's old t-shirts that was too stained for her to wear anymore. I cut the sleeves off, and then tried to see how to cut the non-stained parts into a shirt. I ended up making a pattern for this, too, by holding a piece of paper up to the baby doll and tracing the areas I needed, lol. (I still have a LOT to learn!)

Anyway, this tiny shirt took me much longer than it should have, but considering it's the first time I've ever made a shirt (and technically this is my first refashion!), I am really pleased with the outcome. (I used the sleeves and hem from Zoe's shirt to save myself some work.) After I got the basic shirt on the baby, I realized that I cut the neck hole too big, so I played around a little and decided to do a little ruffle around the neckline. That didn't help much, so I decided to try making one of these fabric flowers. Again, something I've seen all over the blogs, but have never tried to make before. I am really, really happy with the outcome! (Though I still need a lot of practice.)



What do you think? I think they are cute, but I wish I had cut the strip for the gathered neckline, and also the fabric for the skirt longer so that it would gather up more.


Now, if I could only get Zoe to like them. So far she is REFUSING to let her baby wear them, lol. Change is hard, Zoe. Change is hard.

Simple Felt Heart Garland

I am repenting! I have been daydreaming too much and getting so sucked into reading other people's craft blogs, that I haven't done any crafting myself! Well, last night, that all changed. My hubby was on-call at work again, which meant I could get out my sewing machine and all my stuff and having it laying around guilt-free! :)

I've been seeing a lot of Valentine's decor lately on the blogs, and I was wishing I could make something. But since our flat is so small, and HK isn't exactly the craft capitol of the world, it's hard to do much decorating. But when I saw THIS simple felt heart valentine garland, I knew it would be perfect.

First I cut out about a million little felt hearts, (thankfully I had felt left over from my Mr. Potato Head project), and then Maya and Zoe helped me arrange them into order. And we decided to jazz some of them up by adding stripes. Fun, right? (Please excuse the unmade bed and surrounding mess. It was a really laid back day, lol)



I first took the ones that were going to have stripes and just sewed all the stripes on, and then trimmed around the edges. When I finished that, I just sewed them all together through the middles. (The ones that have contrasting hearts layered on them don't have any additional stitching holding them on besides the stitches through the middle.)





Cute, right?

My very first Valentine's Day decoration!

(And how cute is this? Maya went to a birthday party on Saturday, and she got a little felt sewing kit project. Here she is trying to sew. I helped her a bit, but I think this project might be a little advanced for her. Any ideas for a simple sewing craft for kids?)

In love....

My in-laws have been in town for about 5 days, and so I haven't had time to do any crafting this last week. But I did spend some time craft blog surfing. This new hobby is going to get me into real trouble because I find myself delving deeper and deeper into craft blogs that before I know it, 4 hours have passed! (That might be an exaggeration... or maybe not...)

Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple of the blogs that I have just discovered in the last several days and show pictures of a couple of their projects so you can see why I've added them to my "Inspire Me" blog roll. Seriously, get ready. :)

The first is All Things Thrifty. I am absolutely amazed at the talent some people have!! Here are a couple of my favorite projects they shared, but you're going to have to check out their site for the details. The thing I love most about this blog is that they show you how to do everything yourself, and at a fraction of the price if you bought something new or paid someone to do it.

Have you ever seen a wall like this?? Check out the details in THIS POST.



Or they can teach you how to make adorable pillows HERE:



And even have step by step instructions on how to refurbish furniture, such as these chairs HERE:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The next is not a craft blog, but a food blog with a few crafts interspersed! I am IN LOVE with this site. I'm drooling just looking at it. I'm in the process of planning a baby shower, and there are so many recipes on this blog that I am tempted to try out. Narrowing the choices down is going to be hard! Go visit Our Best Bites and come back and tell me which recipe you're going to try this week!

Here are a couple that I'm considering for the baby shower:

Dessert Wontons





Asian Wonton Salad

White Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake with Pecan-Gingersnap Crust



And aren't these the cutest HALLOWEEN CUPCAKES ever???

Last up is one that I found linked from Our Best Bites. It's called Not So Idle Hands. She has some super cute craft ideas, and one in particular is really jumping out at me. I have never seen this before, and I am dying to try it. Maybe as door prizes at the baby shower??? Find the tutorial and pics HERE.



And how adorable are these photo block puzzles? Eek! I'm dying over the cuteness right now!! Tutorial HERE.



AND, if you really don't like pulling the guts out of pumpkins to make traditional jack-o-lanterns, then try some of these! So cute! Tutorial HERE!





Happy Crafting!!

(I'm really hoping to get some done this week!)