Bunny Cakes

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

A Sweet Shower

I came across this truly *Sweet Bridal Shower* in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Weddings.  The shower is for Dylan Lauren of Dylan's Candy Bar (and daughter of Ralph Lauren) and is full of fun & yumminess.  Darcy Miller, the Weddings Editor for Martha, did a fabulous job planning the party.  I love the colors: hues of  pinks and a pop of yellow.  Also, she used a simple D heart P motif, which would be easy to do if you were throwing a shower.   Enjoy the eye candy...

For all the details, check out the full story here.

 -K

Marzipan Carrots

Today I made these cute little *Marzipan Carrots*.  I thought it would be a fun project to do with the boys, but they didn't get into it too much.  So I happily made them solo.  I'm still not sure what I am going to do with them.  I am thinking cupcakes or custard, but we'll see.  This was my first time working with marzipan and I found it pretty to easy to work with.  I followed Martha's instructions here.  The most time consuming aspect was coloring the marzipan.  Make sure you use food safe gloves (if you don't have any, you can use sandwich bags) so your hands don't end up looking like Easter eggs.  I also found when I was making the carrot leaves, the marzipan started to dry out a little and it was difficult for me to get a clean cut with my knife.  When I put a tiny tiny bit of water on the blade it remedied the issue.

-K

Fringetastic

I recently used the eye-catching images of Confetti System's work in a flyer to promote an upcoming event at work.  Now I am completely obsessed with them.  I am now plotting some serious DIY to recreate their tassel-laden garlands so I can have them at our event.  I was a little on the fence, since the event is a week and a half away, but when I picked up the latest issue of Martha Stewart Weddings they had a whole spread on the creative use of fringe.

Here are some fav Confetti System pix...

And some highlights from Martha Stewart Weddings...

I will keep you updated on my DIY progress.

-K