Bunny Cakes

Glittered Eggs

Martha [Stewart] is the queen of many things--glitter included.  She has the best glitter selection out there.  I recommend her glitter collection packs, which give you a wide selection of colors that you can mix and match as you desire.  Also, her new florescent glitter collection offers a bunch of fun, bold colors.  This year I thought it would be fun to glitter some eggs to add some bling to old Easter favorites: daffodils and candy.  Glittering eggs is pretty easy.  To start with you can either paint or dye your eggs (I would paint them if they're fake or dye them if they're real).  Then coat with craft glue and sprinkle on a heavy coat of glitter and shake off the excess.  Plan to glitter about half your egg at a time...this way you can get a nice even coat.  Finally enjoy!  You can embellish your eggs further by adding stickers or ribbon.  If you are going to place your glittered eggs with food be sure to sit them in cupcake liners.

For the treat tower below the boys helped me make jelly bean carrot favors (idea from Martha) and then we layered in mini chocolate bunnies and carrots with our glittered eggs.  I used stickers (from Martha) and ribbon to add a little extra to the display.  The cake stands are also from Martha via her Macy's line.

My second use of the glittered eggs was to add some interest to Spring daffodils.  I first layered some sheet moss down at the base of the daffodils.  Then I nestled in the glittered eggs and some colorful glass flowers.  I attached a glass hummingbird to a skewer so he could hover amongst the blooms.  I also tied gold elastic around a few of the eggs to complement the glitter.

Happy glittering!

-K

St. Patrick's Day Badge

Here is a quick and easy project to make a little St. Patrick's Day badge to sweeten up any outfit or gift.  All you need is some ribbon, double sided tape, some festive cupcake wrappers and a printed copy this clip art from Martha.

To make this St. Patty's Badge, start by flattening out a cupcake wrapper.  You may have to crinkle up the middle to get it to lie flat.  Next, take another cupcake wrapper and fold it in half.  Use scissors (pinking scissors or scalloped scissors preferred) to cut about 1 centimeter off the edge.  Open it up and crinkle up the middle to get it to lie flat.  Do this again for your third cupcake liner, but cut a little more off the edge.  Here is how the three wrappers should look once you are done with the cutting...

Using your double sided tape adhere the wrappers together, largest to smallest.  Top with the clip art from Martha after cutting out the circle images.  Next, take a piece of ribbon and place a small piece of double sided tape in the middle and fold so the ribbon forms a 'V'.  

Finally, using your double sided tape again attach the ribbon to the back of your badge and enjoy!

Thanks to Urban Comfort for the initial inspiration.

-K

Go Batty!

Bats are a fun and easy way to add some Halloween cheer to your home.  You can buy pre-cut bats from a bunch of different sources (Martha and Paper Source to name a few) or DIY.  Here are some pictures to inspire you.  The first one is from our home, the bats we used are from Martha.

-K

A Sophisticated and Whimsical First Birthday Party

Can you imagine what Martha Stewart would do for her granddaughter's first birthday?  Well here it is...a sophisticated and whimsical luncheon with a menagerie of animals in soft hues.  Love it!  Some of the details include brown sugar layer cakes decorated with marzipan animals, Steiff animals and personalized alphabet blocks (create your own) running down the center of the tables coordinating placemats and beautiful sugar cookie favors.  To frame the party area she used cutout animals painted white and clear balloons.  She is already starting to think about next year's birthday party--that's my Martha!

Pictures by Francesco Lagnese

-K

Jelly Bean Carrots - An Easy Easter Craft for Kids

The boys wanted to do an Easter craft while they were home for Spring Break.  I was going to have them make more Egg Animals, but I couldn't find my stash of wooden eggs.  Then Martha came to the rescue with her easy-to-make jelly bean carrots--see link here for the how-to directions.  We ended up buying 1.3 lbs of orange jelly beans and 0.5 lbs of green jelly beans which made eight carrots.  The boys enjoyed the craft and now we have fun Easter decorations.

-K

P.S.  You can use piping bags as your 'cone-shaped' cello bags.

Easter Cookies

I realized I forgot to post on last year's Easter Cookies.  I love making sugar cookies for Easter, there are so many cute bunny and chick shaped cookie cutters and inspiration abounds.  For extra special cookies, be sure to add a second layer of royal icing to either give texture or additional detailing.

The boys brought in some Easter cookies for their teachers.  We packaged them in favor boxes from Martha Stewart Crafts and added a carrot decoration.

-K

Washi Paper Easter Eggs

Every year I look forward to getting our house ready for Easter.  I welcome the spring-like feel our house gets with the cute little bunnies scattered about.  But what I look forward to most is displaying the washi paper eggs made by myself and my grandmother.  For those of you who don't know what washi paper is, it is a decorative Japanese paper that has a thick and flexible quality.  Unless you are lucky enough to have a Japanese grandmother with her own stash, then you can find washi paper at Paper Source or other fine paper stores.  The key to washi paper is to never throw away your scraps, you can always find a use for them down the road--in fact these eggs can be made with larger pieces of scraps.  

The washi eggs created by my grandmother use actual real eggs, but the ones I created use wooden eggs found at the craft store (have you ever tried to blow out an egg? it is really difficult).  I saw a tutorial on Martha a few years back which does a decent job of explaining the process to create your own eggs.  Once you've made your eggs the displaying part is the fun part.  I put mine in milk glass eggs cups and a big wire bunny, but they also look great in a bowl or just on their own.

-K

Halloween Brownie Kabobs

Traditionally we always send in a treat to the boys teachers for Halloween.  Despite our kitchen being 'down for the count' we still managed to bake some brownies.  Instead of doing our typical candy roll packaging for the brownies, we decided to try something new: brownie kabobs!  We layered candy corn and orange & white M&M's on the bottom of a festive glass.  Then we piled on the mini-bundt cake brownies and stuck them through with a wooden skewer (mainly to make sure they don't fall over).  Finally we topped it all with a Ghostly peep.  We found that peeps leave a gooey mess on the skewer if you have to push it through far, so we just added the peep to the top brownie with a toothpick.  Wrap the whole thing in cello and tie with Halloween tag (ours are from Martha Stewart's Craft line) and ribbon for the perfect treat!

-K

Easy Halloween Treat Containers

If you're like me, then you're already thinking about Halloween.  I've already picked up a giant pumpkin (at the grocery store--couldn't resist) and gotten the boys to commit to this year's costume (let's just hope they don't change their minds).  Of course I have also been stalking my local craft stores to check out their Halloween goodies.  I am happy to report this is a great year for Halloween stickers.  There are some especially nice varieties of raised stickers.  I used some as a quick and easy way to embellish wooden boxes that I had painted orange.  

I got the idea to use the wooden boxes from Martha, the Queen of Halloween, but she has you cut out witches and bats and then apply them to the boxes with a glue stick (if you're interested, here is her template).  However, I think stickers are a much easier way to get a nice look.  The wooden boxes can be found at most craft stores and will cost $1 for a 3-inch box.  To paint them, mix equal parts acrylic orange paint & water (to create a wash), then apply with a foam brush (no need to paint the inside of the box).  Line boxes with wax or parchment paper if you plan on using the containers for food items.

-K

Bunting Cake

The boys turned nine last Sunday!  We had a nice family lunch to celebrate (their party will be later this week).  Of course we had to have cake!  I made a 4 layer cake with alternating devil's food and funfetti layers.  To decorate the cake I added a simple bunting made with red & white bakers twine and decorative tape (from Martha's craft line).  I could have used paper or ribbon to make the bunting, but the tape came in the perfect variety of colors and patterns.

The inspiration for my cake (and a far more lovely version) is this pink rainbow cake from Call Me Cupcake.

One day I hope to make a cake just like it!

-K