Valentine's Day Rice Crispy

In Today's Blogging & Baby Sitting Mikey and I decided to make food crafts and since its Valentine's Day coming up we thought we would make heart pops form rice crispy treats.

Supplies:

*butter
*Rice Crispy Cereal
*Wax Paper
*heart cookie cutters
*sprinkles
*food coloring if you want to dye the crispy mixture
*frosting
*white marshmallows
*spatula
*thin baking rack to flattened out cereal

This is a great way to get the kids involved when its time to decorate and cutting up the crispy, since Mikey is still young I allowed him to decorate everything and I cut up the rice crispy since they are a little tough to apply force for such a small child.

In a large pot melt about half a stick of butter depending on how many rice crispy you want to make I only used half a bag of cereal therefore half a stick of butter otherwise if I was to use the whole box I would use the full stick of  butter. Avoid the butter burning this will cause the marshmallow's to brown and start adding in the cereal

once its all sticking together similar to the consistency above

 take it out of the pot and empty it all on to wax paper.

In order to flatten out all the cereal find something with a flat surface I used a baking sheet without the raised edges then let it cool for about half hour or till cooled. Using a spatula apply a thin layer of frosting

 Place it in the refrigerator for at least an hour till it hardens and then your ready to decorate.

Once your done decorating place them back into the refrigerator so the frosting and all sprinkles will set and enjoy your dessert.

Creme Brulee

The next two weeks I am on baby sitting duty so from time to time I will be blogging about my adventures with the 2 year old toddler. He is a very animated kid we have plans of whooping us some crafting some food crafts and we will see what else is in store for us the next few days. Yesterday we attended a birthday party for one of my cousins, I wanted to make something so, I decided to make  Creme Brulee because I have always wanted to try it.
I watched a YouTube video on how to prepare everything since, this was my first time making creme brulee, I knew it was going to take me about 4 hours to refrigerate so in the meantime Mikey and I ran a few errands, we headed to Trader Joe's. He noticed the samples and quickly told me he wanted some, sure enough he was quiet a good few minutes as he devoured the Macaroni & cheese.  Once he finished he said "yumm thine um hum good" I was kinda busy looking for a particular cereal as I noticed my basket full of food I didn't put in there. Mikey had choose a bunch of snacks and tossed them right in. I thought to myself we better get out of here before this kid breaks my bank ha ha. I wait till he turned to start putting back some of the "yonke" (Spanish for junk).  He is a great helper and knows exactly what he wants when it comes to shopping. He threw in berries, macaroni & cheese, nuts, and fruits that we had stocked up on at home. Our cashier gave him a roll of stickers, and he immediately had a huge smile on his face and began peeling them off and sticking them to his sweatshirt.

Once we got home there were stickers stuck to the window, I told him "oh noo were going to get in trouble" and had this confused look on his face and replied to me "huh? no thine the humming bird in trouble" of  course I'm not sure what he was talking about or trying to tell me but, later I learned that he was watching an episode of  Wonder Pets and the pets rescued a humming bird because the bird couldn't fly or something it was just funny to see the connection he tied in when i mention were in trouble. This day and age allot more kids are so much smarter, he knew that by telling me about the humming bird story I would probably forget about the whole sticker situation,  and yes it worked because, I was too occupied trying to figure out what he was talking about.

wallah creme brulee...

Happy 16th Birthday Joe!!

  purchased from The Phoenix Bakery

Holiday Door Hangers

For all you brave souls who like a challenge and are great at using power tools such as myself, here's a project you may want to tackle.  Keep in mind this is a dangerous craft because if your not careful you will easily get cut by the blade off the saw or even a couple splinters. going forward if you still would like to give it a shot here's what you will need.

*MDF Plywood (Medium Density Fiberboard) 
*safety goggles
*a wood sander but if you don't have a sander then the old fashion way will work with sand paper
*permanent marker sharpie for small details
*table saw, skill saw or jigsaw (any of these will work)
*electric drill
*acrylic paints, color of choice
*paint brush
*clear gloss spray paint
*copper wire
*wire cutter and needle nose pliers
*compound cement for beard and white puff ball for Santa clauses hat

Snow Men Series from 2010

This craft is a tribute to my father, he used to enjoy making and sculpting things out of wood and in efforts to keep his tradition alive I began making Christmas decoration to hang around the home or where my dad intended them to be adorned in front of the door. I began carrying on his tradition in 2010 by making Snow men for some of my relatives however, not everyone was able to get one because, I ran short on time and wood so this year I made one for those that didn't receive one last year. As you may have imagined  there weren't many to go around so I must get started early this year for the holidays. I don't mean to brag but, I'm very excited about the upcoming project for 2012. It will remain a secret so you will just need to wait and see.

 As I already mentioned snow men were last years hanger, this year I choose two design concepts: Santa Clause to stay with a holiday tradition and also penguins.  Since each piece is unique to the recipient I asked each of my family members which of the two they wanted and penguins were all the rage this year.

My uncle who is a huge Angel's fan wanted something to do with baseball so I incorporated the emblem on the hat for his home so that Santa wouldn't be just an ordinary clause. 

My mother asked me to make her tin soldiers, they are just to decorate the house with, the Santa Clause picture at the very top of this post is the door hanger that hung on our door this year. I should have know since, I'm the one making all the decorations my mom would want one of everything. In the picture there isn't only one tin soldier theirs three and I wonder why that might be well let me tell you. My mom didn't want one soldier to feel lonely so she asked me to make two more so they would all stand proud together. Ironically, I don't believe that excuse either she just didn't want to mention being greedy that she wanted more because they turned out cute. 

this penguin is supposed to a Laker girl inspired cheerleader, my piece isn't finished yer I made myself a Yankee inspired penguin. I painted it and choose to change it so once its finished I will be sure to post it to see what everybody thinks.

 My cousin Mike who is a Raiders fan recently converted his garage into his "man cave" so this Raider penguin hangs proudly in the man den. I'm not a fan of Oakland but hey, I still think it turned out really really good. I think the extra details of the Nike Cortez's added some personality to this "Raider Nation" penguin wouldn't you agree?

Dressing up Birthday Bags

Brown paper bags can be boring and make you think of elementary school lunch bags. Well, they can be used for gifts too and they will be transformed into a super cute brown bag as long as you dress it up. After your gift bag is complete I'm positive your gift will get the attention of all, probably will be opened before anyone else's gift even.
Supplies:
*paper brown bag
*A hole puncher
*ribbon or tulle
*puffy paints
*markers
*glitter glue
*loose glitter


Take your brown paper bag and start by writing the name of the person you will be gifting this to, I choose markers by crayola because they are thick enough to give a bolder look. Now go over the name with a puffy paint any color of your choice. I like to create a design concept by adding two or three dots before adding a line to connect the dots and outlining the shape of the letters but you can come up with your own style or try mine. Repeat this for all the letters and now let it dry. Once, its dry you can choose another color for the star across the name, Since my friend likes the color pink i choose black puffy paint to accent. Take your glitter glue and start drawing a star but your only going to draw half the star so it will look as if the other half of the star is behind the name.




Cut just enough to make a bow in either the tulle or ribbon, squeeze the ribbon through one of the wholes you punched out of the bag and then through the other starting from the back so once you tie the bow is in front. Simply an eye catching bag for any event.

Another example

Oversized Birthday Card/ Guest Book

Everybody needs a card when giving a gift, and the idea of buying one just makes me feel a bit traditional and as far as I'm concerned I'm far from that, so being the planner that I am I planned ahead. This birthday so happened to be a Halloween theme but, you can critique your card to which ever holiday or favorite colors the receiver likes. As you can imagine a card this size meant so much to the birthday girl, she was so excited to see such an enormous tribute not only because it was in her honor but, also since it has pictures. I think the best part she liked about having everybody sign it was so that late she would be able to look back and be reminded of who attended her party.
Supplies: I purchased all my supplies @Michaelscrafts
*Foam Core Board with the tri fold opening
* Card stock or scrapbook paper, any colors of your choice.  I choose Halloween colors since the birthday girl I am giving this birthday card to falls during this holiday.
*3d dots; its a double sided sticker like tape that will give paper a tiny bit of height and keeping it glued in place at the same time
* extra foam core board to use to add more height making the card look 3D
* Halloween glitter stickers,
*felt spider web
*doorknob foam skeleton kit
*The Cricut, Cartridge #29-0287 Alphalicious Cartridge, if you don't have a Cricut you can purchase letters already cut for you
optional: glitter, puffy paints

Here are some of  the pictures from the event I wanted to share, enjoy creating your card.

look at all of us having a great time, we sure did! 

Princess Aubrie as Princess Jasmine opening her gifts.

 Here is another example of a birthday card only it was done with a foam core poster. The birthday took place on fourth of July and his theme was Curious George so I choose to make this card with primary colors that will tie in with the theme.

I also made 9 dozen confetti eggs for everyone to enjoy & yes even the adults joined in on the fun too or shall I say yes, even I did too...

It looks like the birthday boy still had some confetti left in his hair

 

Everyone also had their faces painted.