Tuesday, July 31, 2012

More Peanut Butter cupcakes

Can you tell my husband loves chocolate & peanut butter? Drew had an event at work that he needed cupcakes for, and that's the flavor combo he wanted, again. Not wanting to make the same exact kind twice, I hunted Pinterest for a new recipe. I found a couple that would work, but the best looked like this Pin for Peanut Butter ball cupcakes.
Instead of just dropping a Reese's into the bottom of a chocolate cupcake, she mixed peanut butter with powdered sugar, butter & vanilla to form peanut butter balls that would go into the cupcake.You chill the balls in the freezer for about 10 minutes & then they're ready to be added to the cupcake batter.
The frosting was a very rich combination of peanut butter, whipping cream, shortening, butter, vanilla & powdered sugar. Needless to say, it was really, really yummy!! 
I piped on the frosting with a swirl tip, topped with a mini Reese's and added a few sprinkles. I think they are pretty :)

Cupcake Party! - high heels, speghetti & angry birds

After some massive hint dropping, my husband bought me the newest Hello Cupcake book, cupcakes, cookies, & pie, oh my! for Valentine's Day! Love him :) I could not wait to get started on some of their newest designs, especially the high heels!! (I have a slight shoe obsession!) I called 3 of my favorite baker friends over & we had a cupcake party. We do it like this: I make all of the cupcakes & at least one batch of buttercream frosting. Each guests brings over a can of store bought icing (we're going for looks at these, not taste), a design they have picked & all the ingredients needed to make 12 of their design. We all make each design together & have three tries to get it right! When it's time to go home, everyone has 3 of each cupcake to take with them.
Tiffany has a 3 year old boy who loves speghetti, so this was her pick. They were super easy to make & ended up really cute! The "noodle" is piped icing done with a small round tip. The "meatball" is a chocolate candy & the "sauce" is strawberry jam. I'm thinking it wasn't the best taste combination, but it looked pretty authentic!

CUTE!

Jennifer's choice were the characters from the game Angry Birds. She got the idea off Pinterest. Each character was first flat iced and then dipped into solid sprinkles, color depending on the character. The mouths were all made out of marshmallows, the eyes were mini marshmallows with mini chocolate chips, eye brows (?) of licorice, nose/beak from orange candy slices & the feathers were jelly beans.

One of the teachers at Drew's school loved the pictures he showed at work on Monday, so I actually made them again that week for a birthday party. Drew said the ones we made for the party (below) are more correct, because thier faces are to the side, like they are flying, which they do in the game. I have no idea- I don't play it! I just think they are cute!
Next up were my high heel cupcakes!! Not surprising, my design choice was a bit ambitious, but I am in love with them!! The shoe can go from a pump to a peep toe by removing a semi-circle of cake right at the tip of the cupcake. The heel is a pretzel stick, and the sole of the shoe is a grahm cracker, cut into a triangle then dipped in white candy coating. All three pieces are glued together using the same candy coating. It took a little trial & error to make them actually stick, but it was worth the work!   

Here's a side view. Yes, they are a little messy, but it was late & we were a little giddy on all the sweets we had been consuming!
 Here are 5 of our favorites. I'm apparently not real good at free handing zebra print. Something that I'll need to work on for next time. Aren't they aweomse?!
Next up was Kinsey, who wanted to try sheep cake pops. She had never done cake balls before and they ended up being too much work for the amount of time we had left. We decided to save those for next time!
And we forgot to take a group shot of all the cupcakes with the four of us! O well- have to do it again soon!

I LOVE cupcake parties!!

DIY mirror frame

What to do on a Saturday night when your husband is playing with the guys & your crafty friend wants to hang out? Frame our bathroom mirror! finally! I have had this pin from House of Smiths on my home board for a while, trying to work up the nerve to do this. My friend Jennifer had already done it to her bathroom mirror so we decided it would be a perfect project for us. Here's the before picture of the builder's grade mirror in our master bathroom.  Basic boring mirror with fabulous light fixtures that we added as soon as we moved in.
Jennifer & I measured the mirror & headed to Lowe's for some moulding, base boards & liquid nails. We followed the House of Smith tutorial for the most part, cutting the boards to my mirror's measurements with 45 degree corner angles. It was the first time I had used my brand new miter saw that my parents got me for Christmas (this post is supposed to be February!), so it took us a little while to get the saw figured out! But after we did, it went really smooth. The pieces fit together pretty well & it was time to glue them together! Okay- here is where we deviated from the tutorial. I tried & tried to glue the frame together before adding it to the mirror by applying liquid nails to the corners & leaving it to dry overnight. I don't know if it was the weather or just Kelly error, but the frame would not stay glued together!! So, I moved on to plan b- paint each side piece & then add the sides of the frame to the mirror individually. I started with the left side piece, added liquid nail & glued it directly to the mirror. I then did the top, right side & finished with the bottom of the mirror. Great news- it worked!! To make sure it would stay in place, I added some blue painters tape to it until it dried.
I left the tape up for about 24 hours. And let me warn you- liquid nails in a small space like a bathroom stinks!! for days!!
Anyway, after removing the tape, all i had to do was fill in any gaps in the corners of the frame with wood filler, sand & repaint where I sanded. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but after I got it figured out, the guest bathroom mirror only took half of the time!
Here's the finished mirror

 I LOVE it!! I didn't loose much of the mirror & it gives the bathroom a more finished look!
Ignore the sweats, but check out that pretty corner. Let me tell you- I was very impressed with myself!! Guest bathroom pictures to come after I take them :)