Pinterest Has Everything

Pinterest...you can find anything on there. 

Photos to describe your mood:

http://www.whyworldwhy.com/trying-on-bathing-suits/

Or anything right now for that matter. 

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi00MzlkNmRhYmFkMDAzMDM2

Pins to make you laugh:

http://veryfunnypics.eu/2012/11/23/mexican-one-direction/

Pins to help you get a job:

http://themetapicture.com/how-to-write-the-best-resume/
It's true...here's the cover of that issue: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061225,00.html

Pins for raising kids:

Pins to get you through the airport:

http://funsubstance.com/fun/38661/luggage-tag-win/
This is genius and I love it. See the original creator and visit her etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/49332438/personalized-gift-for-guy-girl-who-has?ref=tre-1492041139-1

Pins to help you decide what to 

put on your headstone:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/familytreemagazine/4153264140/

Pins to make you feel old:

Pins to teach punctuation:

Pins to liven things up at work:

http://www.dumpaday.com/dump-e-cards/funny-office-prank/

And people say Pinterest is a waste of time. They just don't know what they're missing. 

Show and Tell Saturday: 10 Tried and True Recipes from Pinterest

Finding recipes on Pinterest is a scary ordeal. Are these real recipes? Are they as good as the site says? Can a cooking dunce like me actually pull these off decently? I trust my cookbooks more than Pinterest, but sometimes I find recipes on Pinterest that look too good to pass up so I pin them. And then they sit there for a while until I get up the guts to try them. We often show you recipes that people (often time us) have tried from Pinterest that failed miserably...but we never show you the successes. For today's Show and Tell post I wanted to share some of the favorite recipes I've discovered on Pinterest. These are recipes that I personally have made, eaten, and highly approved of. Most of these even have the husband's stamp of approval, so that's always happy too! Need something new to put on the table or in the cookie jar? I recommend any of these! 

Cajun Chicken Stuffed with Pepper Jack and Spinach

http://cuckooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/cajun-chicken-with-pepper-jack-cheese.html

This was so tasty and so easy to make. Cameron made us these awesome sandwiches last week and we prefer spinach over lettuce in our sandwiches, but we're not big salad people. Consequently we had leftover spinach that I didn't want to waste, and we already had chicken in the freezer, so this was a really easy and cheap meal to put together for us. The combination of the cajun seasoning with the cheese and the earthy spinach flavor was amazing. If you're not a cajun seasoning fan you can use any seasoning and it'd still taste great. 

Green Chile Pork Burritos

http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2011/03/green-chili-burritos.html

I'm a New Mexican, I LOVE green chile. These style of burritos have been a favorite for years, but I just got around to making them for the first time this summer (I had my sister show me how...I thought it'd be harder than it is for some reason). Try them, you'll love them. 

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

http://www.thecurvycarrot.com/2013/04/01/vegetarian-tortilla-soup/

If you're a meat lover (as I am), don't let the "Vegetarian" in the title scare you away. I found this soup when we were putting on a 7 course etiquette meal for the teens at church. One of the girls is vegetarian and we tried to find food that would be yummy for everyone but still edible for her. I'd never made this before and wasn't so sure about it...but it ended up being the adults favorite course of the evening. The kids that actually tried it loved it, but some thought it looked weird and didn't want to try eating soup gracefully in front of the opposite sex. They missed out. It was amazing. It's really easy and really really really yummy. One of the male leaders got the recipe and took it home to his wife so they could make it. She commented later that he never does that, so she knew it had to be good. 

Macaroni and Cheese

http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2012/04/macaroni-and-cheese.html

This is another recipe I grew up with, but never made until this past year. My sister put it up on the family recipe exchange blog and I decided to finally make it and it's been a favorite around here. 

Hot Cocoa Cookies

http://www.pipandebby.com/pip-ebby/2011/11/14/hot-cocoa-cookies.html

These are really excellent when they're hot or warm, but pretty average when cold. Nuking them in the microwave for a few seconds works to warm these back up in a jiffy. 

Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles

http://cookiesandcups.com/cream-cheese-filled-snickerdoodles/

These cookies are slightly labor intensive to make, but they are soooooo worth it. They may be one of my favorite cookies of all time, and the reason I gained quite a bit of weight around Halloween last year when I made them for the first time. SOOOOOOO yummy!

Spicy Zucchini Pickles

http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/spicy-zucchini-pickles/

The zucchini plants in the garden are just about ready to begin harvesting this year. We already have plans to make a few jars of these pickles. When Cameron found the recipe I was pretty hesitant. They sounded weird. But it was a way to use all that zucchini, so I agreed to try it. These are so tasty and yummy and crisp! I didn't think they'd crisp up like dill pickles, but they do! These also are just refrigerator pickles, so you don't need to have a canner to make these. Just cut up the zucchini, make the brine and pour it over, and then pop them in the fridge. Yummy!

Knockoff Reese's Peanut Butter Egg

http://thewhimsicalprincess.blogspot.com/2011/03/diy-reese-peanut-butter-egg.html

These are so yummy and get pretty close to the taste and texture of a Reese's egg. Cameron is reminded of Buckeyes when he eats them. I'm just reminded of why I love Peanut Butter. 

Chicken Cordon Bleu II

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-cordon-bleu-ii/

This was way yummy! Made this for a fancy dinner for my brother's date one night and it was a hit. 

Layered Ratatouille

http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2010/08/layered-ratatouille.html

This is a great one for this time of year with gardens in full production. It was really easy and it tasted so yummy. The husband it not normally a fan of squash/zucchini, but he really loved this. We tweaked ours to fit the ingredients we had on hand and it still tasted great. You can see that version here: http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2013/05/ratatouille.html. 

If you've never tried any of those, I recommend picking on and giving it a test run. Or picking them all and giving them all test runs. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do! 

Pop Pops

Schools are starting back up and the summer weather is not as intense, but I'm still holding on to each bit of summer that I can. I love fall...but after fall comes winter and that's not my favorite season. It seems like I get to this point each summer and I realize all the summer foods and treats I haven't done yet and suddenly my menus and plans get a kick of summer. Summer salads, ears of corn, fruit pies, popsicles, etc. The big summer treat around would be the ever favorite popsicles. Otter pops, homemade pops, karate pops, you name it, we love it. Popsicles are referred to as cracksicles around here...once you have one you just can't stop and before you know it the whole box of otter pops is gone and sadness fills your soul. 

As a kid I always loved it when Mom would pull out the popsicle molds and we'd get to help her mix up the Koolaid and pour it in. It seemed like it took days for them to freeze and be ready to devour! I remember making Koolaid pops and juice pops, but it never occurred to me as a kid that you could make soda popsicles. Or can you? 

Melissa sent us in the following pin and her results when she tried to make them:

The Original Pin:

I have been looking for the original site for this photo for a while now and I just keep going in circles. Many link to http://www.diy-queen.com/2013/02/gummy-bear-popsicles/ as the source, but she even put up a link to a tumblr account she got the photo from. I followed the sources for a while and never found the original. Google Search failed me on this one too. So I have no idea where this photo originated from.  *update*: The original source was sent to us in a comment. Read to the end to find out what these really are and who made them.

The recipe on the diy-queen site has these as gummy bear and sprite popsicles, so that is what Melissa tried, and she wasn't too impressed with her results:

The Pinstrosity:

Definitely not the pretty and clear pops from the original photo. Melissa said "I don't think Sprite can be clear like in the picture while freezing.  I know distilled water freezes clear, but not Sprite. I think the picture is not Sprite!" And I think I agree. 

I've only tried to freeze soda once. For our last Halloween party that Em and I threw together we were going to make the frozen hand floating in punch treat. 

http://simplystated.realsimple.com/2009/10/06/creepy-treats-for-halloween/

We were serving clear soda (for our color changing cups) and didn't want the soda to get watered down with just regular ice, so we thought we'd freeze the soda into an ice hand. We filled the gloves and put them in the freezer...and forgot about them for the party. The day after the party I found them in the fridge and was said that we forgot the awesome ice hand. I opened up the gloves and out fell crumbly sprite ice. It didn't form a solid hand and it was more like separate ice crystals than a solid ice block. So even had we remembered to pull the hands out of the fridge, they wouldn't have worked anyway. So from that experience I learned that pop doesn't freeze solid...at least not really fizzy pop. 

So I'm thinking that Melissa is completely correct in saying that the original popsicles were not made with Sprite...or at least not fizzy Sprite. Maybe flat Sprite. Looking around online I did find a blog post with the same original picture but the caption said, "These ice lollies are perfect for your little ones, and look incredibly pretty too- simply place lemonade in an ice lolly mould and sprinkle in a few gummy bears for a unique treat." Now, that blog is based out of the UK, and UK and USA versions of lemonade are different. My cousin's fiance explained to me that the American lemon-lime soft drink and the UK lemonade are similar to each other. The American lemonade is called "traditional lemonade" or "homemade lemonade" in the UK. So I assume the writer was talking about UK lemonade/American lemon pop, but this did make me think that you could use U.S. lemonade (if you make it yourself with lemon juice-fresh or bottled-lemonade isn't as yellow as commercially produced and dyed lemonade)  and have this turn out a little more successfully than with Sprite. 

I did find pictures of a lady who made the Sprite version and her pops are slightly less cloudy and crystallized than Melissa's, but still not the pretty clear version of the original picture:

http://zoomyummy.com/2013/07/15/gummy-bear-and-sprite-popsicles/

So I think this pin is popped. What do you think?

Update:
You readers are awesome! If you see in the comments below the mystery was explained, but I'll tell you what they pointed out. These didn't turn out like the original picture because the original picture isn't even edible! Welll...it's not edible unless you like to eat soap. This is another case of a mis-captioned and mis-blogged photo. Check out the original soap item here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/99146372/gummi-bear-popsicle-soap-gummy-bear. This lady makes the coolest soaps, and they all look so yummy and edible. Bacon soap?! Chocolate Eclair soaps?! That's just awesome.

P.S. Does anyone else get a shudder of chills go through them when they think of the gummy bears in the pops? I know kids would love them, but it seems like they'd be really hard at first and then be slimy...hmm. 

Paper Crafts and Observing Spaces

Occasionally (read: every other day) you look at the clock happy with your accomplishments of the day just to realize that it's 8 PM and it was your day to blog. And you haven't. Well poop.

 

Today is obviously one of those days. In my defense I finished a project I have had on my list for the better part of 6 weeks or so.

You will get to see it for next week's Show-and-Tell Saturday!

 

Well we got this fun little post by Cena that I thought was different, fun, and creative. I really like her writing too, it really brought the story to life! Check it out!

 

Paper Crafts

The Pinspirations

http://hutchstudio.blogspot.com/2012/09/paper-house-lights-at-hutch.html

 

http://thevegasweddingplanner.com/2010/06/21/fold-napkin/

 

http://www.elli.com/blog/diy-paper-orchid/

 

http://catchmyparty.com/photos/356663

 

http://knucklesalad.com/six-paper-flowers/

 

(Some of her links wouldn't load, but you get the jist!)

 

These were all her inspiration for a few of her fun paper creations she made for a play going on in her community, check out her versions!

 

The Pin-Wins!

 

 

 So Cena made all these for the local theatre she participates in and had some good reminders to share with us that might help you skip some of the troubles that she had, check it out!

 

"While I would classify this as a 'pin win', I DID trip and fall into several common Pinterest 'pitfalls' along the way.

I'm involved heavily in local theatre. One of the things I find myself doing time and time again is props for shows. As a creative endeavor it is FANTASTIC! It's part shopping, part treasure hunt, and part crafting adventure. It seems every show has it's own unique challenges and quirky props. I've made everything from 20 nativity Jesus ornaments out of salt dough, to a Hitler baby doll (don't ask), to fake suppositories made of white chocolate (really don't ask).

My latest foray in props centered heavily around paper. I turned to Pinterest for instructions for paper flowers and other papery inspiration. I found tons!

 

Now, as for my mistakes (and there were several):

 

Mistake #1: Underestimating the amount of time required for the craft.

 

I am SO guilty of this one. Unfortunately, due to the nature of plays I had a pretty strong deadline. And while I'm sure that we can all agree that deadlines can be very motivating they are also incredibly stressful and not really the best thing for creativity.  I was foolhardy enough to take on this project while I was already stage managing the show. Between work and rehearsals I had very little time to work on the props. As a consequence I ended up alone in a dark echoing theatre at 11 at night gluing bits of newspaper to a roasting pan. I'm sure there's the potential for a horror movie in there somewhere.

 

Mistake #2: Failing to show the proper respect for the hot glue gun.

 

It's a very useful tool. I love it. It has a fearsome wrath. I really don't suggest using one while wearing shorts. I now have the scar to prove it.

First there's the drip, followed by the searing burn- then you've grabbed it with your fingers. Which isn't really a terribly good idea is it? You go to rub it off and- ABORT ABORT! Do NOT rub it on this shirt, you like this shirt! So instead you end up frantically rubbing your fingers together and stretching them apart madly. A motion that might remind one of a demented crab. Respect the glue gun.

 

Mistake #3: Failure to think about your space.

 

A pin can be wonderful, beautiful, amazing, and still not work with your space . It could match nothing you own, it might have pointy bits that don't agree with small children, or in my case, it might require a ten foot ceiling. I saw the much pinned lamp with the paper lamp shade and it was perfect. Fit the paper theme, fit the line in the play "A house made of paper?",  just perfect. I made a pattern, made a bajillion tiny houses, tore a  lamp shade apart so I could use the metal hoops for a framework (very therapeutic), and hung it in the theatre with its delightfully high ceiling.  After the show was over the lamp needed a new home and I was determined to keep it. So now I hit my head on it regularly. On the plus side it is made of paper so it's considerably less traumatic than other head on collisions. "

 

I like your writing style Cena, very playful and yet still informative!! And all of your paper crafts turned out wonderfully!! You're theatre company is lucky to have you on hand! One thing in particular about your e-mail really spoke to me though, "Failure To Think About Space".

I think she makes a really good point here, sometimes the Pinstrosity itself isn't the craft. It's how the craft doesn't fit with anything else you have, or doesn't do what you were hoping it would in a certain space, or as a gift etc. Many a time I have bought something at a yard sale or thrift store just to bring it home and realize it really doesn't mesh and back into the secondhand kingdom it goes. Such is life, just make the best of it eh? Sometimes it doesn't work and a bow, or a new paint job will do the trick...sometimes not. I feel that that is the best lesson we see here. Not all the things we create will mesh with our space, or meet their intentions, AND THAT IS OK!!!!! And when this happens, go with the flow, it's just a craft, it's just a pin, and there will ALWAYS be more.

Breath in, breath out, relax, and move on :)

 

Happy (late) Wednesday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Magnetic Mayhem and Creative Crises

Good Morning Pinstrosity land! Are you ready for an uber productive day? Me neither...but I'm bound and determined to make it happen. Roughly every 5 to 7 months the mice of the world decide to hold Woodstock under my house and, regardless of the level of cleanliness or filthiness of the house,  for 7-10 days my house smells like animal pee and filth. The smell comes up through the vents and the walls and it just reeks. We're about half way into the week of stench and I'm just done. So today I'm hitting the house hard: cleaning every room really well (I know it doesn't help the smell...but there's just something in my brain that says "You're house smells like pee, you have to clean."), throwing poison pellets under the house, and then coming up with some sort of cover I can attach to all the vents to keep the stench from coming in as much. So...there's my plan for the day. If I have time afterward, I want to create and craft and do something fun, and today's post gives me just the idea of what I want to do. 

The Original Pin:

http://mycraftyworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/message-center.html

It's a message center made out of a dollar store cookie sheet, magnets, a tin can, and scrapbook materials. I think it's a super fun idea that could be tweaked to fit a number of different needs. I've been wanting to make a station for our weekly planning night (we call it Family Night) that has a calendar, memo pad, and a mini menu area. This could be adapted to that so easily. I've also decided I want to make me a writing station with stationary, pens, stamps, envelopes, stickers, etc. for my letter writing. This would be a great way to organize that. I don't have an extra cookie sheet lying around, but I have more empty fabric bolts and I'm sure I can adapt this message center idea to the supplies on hand. Maybe. We'll see. Famous last words: "Oh, I'm sure I can substitute this for that and it'll turn out just the same!". Haha, oh well. If I get enough cleaning done, this'll be my fun project reward for the day. I'll report later.

Leslie saw this message center idea and wanted to make one for her, so she gathered her materials and started crafting away. She went with a sea shell and copper beach theme and when she put it all together on the table, it looked awesome!

Everything seemed great until she hung it up, and the Pinstrosity happened.

The Pinstrosity

"The magnets weren't strong enough to hold on top of the scrapbook paper. I now wasted 5 hours (yes, I know!!!) yes, 5 hours of my precious "me time" making a pretty, well, pretty useless cookie sheet that won't cook cookies or hold my messages."

Sad sad day. I'm sorry Leslie! That is frustrating. I got curious about the cookie sheets I have in my cupboard and how magnets would work on them, so I grabbed an average strength magnet from my fridge and pulled out the cookie sheets. The cheap pan I bought my 2nd year of college (nearly a decade ago now! yikes!) works fantastic. The magnet holds super strong. The nice big cookie sheets we got at our wedding do not work at all. The magnet doesn't hold in the slightest. So Leslie may have run into trouble a few different ways. First, it may be that her pan is just not made of a magnetic metal (iron, nickel, cobalt, gadolinium, neodymium and samarium are the magnetic metals according to ask.com). If your cookie sheets are aluminum (as many are it seems), magnets won't stick in the slightest. If your cookie sheet is a weird alloy of various metals, the magnets may sort of stick, but not great. So there's the first technical issue that may have happened here. Second, it may be that the magnets themselves were the issues. I have some magnets on my fridge that are only strong enough to hold up a receipt or two while other magnets will hold up a wet dishtowel. 

When you are gathering your supplies for this project, be sure to test out your pan and your magnets before you put in the time, effort, and emotion. You'll need a pan that is magnetic, and magnets strong enough to hold through a few layers of thick paper. 

But...now what to do with a magnetic message board that doesn't work? 
Here are my untried and untested ideas:

• Peel all the paper and glue off and scrub it down back into a cookie pan (lots of work and not so much fun)
• Morph it into a cute serving tray for fun dinners, picnic lunches, or parties
• Glue more containers on (like the pencil holder), to hold papers, stickers, or whatever items you want to use with your message center. 
• If the pan is magnetic and it's the magnets that are messing things up, just hold out until you can find you some of those super strong magnets (many craft stores have them)
• Turn it into a menu board. My sister made one and the magnets wouldn't hold, so she glued mini clothespins on the board for each day and had three compartments at the bottom to hold the meal ideas, and then she just used the clothespins to hold the meals in place for each day. It was really cute! 

Whatever you do, don't despair and give up on your creativity when a project doesn't work out. I know in my life sometimes I feel like I have streaks where none of my projects turn out the way I want them to, and having failed or disappointing projects one after the other can really test your sanity and self-confidence. I've had this "genius" idea for a while now on how to turn our graduation tassels into Christmas ornaments (not the clear glass ball one you see on Pinterest...but that's what inspired me). The other day I gathered my supplies, put them together, and they look stupid. Really stupid. I wasted time, supplies, and excited energy and it was really frustrating. But, I've learned with my failed projects not to throw them away immediately. I take them and the leftover supplies, and put them away (sometimes that means in my nice unfinished project drawer, sometimes it means in the top of the closet where I can't see them, or just chucked on the desk in the spare room). Later I'll eventually come back to them and find they weren't so disastrous and I'll be able to salvage them somehow, or I'll find I can deconstruct the failed project and use the supplies for something else. But I definitely don't have the patience for either of those right after the initial project fail. 

The yearn to create is within each of us, but we each express this creativity differently. Some craft, some write,  some keep kids happy and entertained, some build houses, some come up with great business improving ideas, some are able to just look in a pantry and create an awesome meal out of three mystery cans of food, some come up with great cleaning ideas. We all have a creative drive within us, but unfortunately Pinterest is flooded with more crafting, food, and decorative pins than with any other type and it can really make it hard to feel like you're doing okay if those aren't your strengths. Don't let what you see on Pinterest give you the wrong idea. You are creative. Every person is creative. I have a great book for you about this. My aunt introduced it to me years ago (4 or 5 years now, way before I heard of Pinterest), and it has really helped me change my perspective on creativity and my abilities. It's a fantastic read and I highly recommend it to anyone, especially those that feel like they truly aren't creative in any way, shape, or form. The book is A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle (the same lady that wrote the "A Wrinkle in Time" series). 

It's easy to get down on yourself. Trust me, I do it all the time. But that's a rough way to live from day to day. Give yourself a break, just breathe, and remember that things don't have to be perfect (my family is probably laughing at that last line...me say something doesn't have to be perfect? I know). 

 

Show-and-Tell Saturday!! Roses Are Red...

Roses are red,

Violets are blue (or violet if we are being picky here)

Cupcakes are yummy

Get into my tummy!!!!

 (I'm obviously NOT a poet, and now you all know it....)

 

Today we have an AWESOME post by Meghan. I wasn't able to get my head together after the big family reunion last week to craft (finish OR start anything), so I have a fun post submitted by a reader this week instead.

 

She figured out all the issues of her pin, laid it all out for us, and came out with a delightful result!
Seriously Meghan these look fantastic!! You did a great job!!

Check out today's Show-and-Tell Saturday!!

 

 

Show-and-Tell Saturday

 

The Inspiration Pin

 

http://cakecentral.com/t/672414/cupcake-bouquet-disaster

 

 This cupcake rose bouquet is adorable, and delicious! These would be great for gifts, or cute at parties and also they are a functional way to display your amazing frosting artistic talents!

 

Here is Meghan's version!

 

Show-and-Tell

Pin Win

 

So I just love everything about this! The colors, the pot, the icing art, all of it! This is just awesome Meghan!

 

Here is what she had to say about it:

"This is a project that started to go south several times during the middle, and ultimately did not end up as I envisioned it, but was still mostly a success.

I made this for my boyfriend, as he often gets me roses as a "just because" gift, and I am never sure what the guy gift equivalent of flowers is. I do love baking, though, and this seemed like a cute way to show him my appreciation. 

Issue #1: while I am quite good at baking tasty desserts, I have little to no skill at decorating. My previous attempts at decorating with icing have tended to look like they were done by a five-year-old who was "helping" Mommy decorate. Nonetheless, I looked up a few tutorials on making icing roses and felt sure that with the right tools, I could succeed in making a rose. I rushed out and bought a basic decorating kit that included a petal tip and a flower nail, and got to work.

Issue #2: I had gotten a cute little red and white flowerpot at WalMart to make my bouquet in, and I wanted my roses to match it, so I set out to make a deep red icing. I had icing gel food color in "Red Red," so I assumed that it would not be too difficult to achieve truly red icing. An ungodly amount of food coloring later, my icing was still distinctly pink, and I decided to give up. Oh well, my boyfriend is pretty secure in his masculinity and would not flinch at pink cupcakes.

Issue #3: The icing rose tutorials I'd read recommended royal icing or a "good, stiff buttercream." Royal icing tastes horrible, and I hate the sickly sweetness of the standard powdered sugar-based buttercreams, so I chose a Swiss buttercream that has gone over well in the past. It's light and airy and not overly sweet at all. It also proved far too soft to make roses with. The "cone" of icing you build the rose around would just wobble and fall over as I attempted to put petals around it. I popped the icing in the freezer for a few minutes to firm it up, and ended up with icing that was too stiff to squeeze out of the piping bag easily, and that started to bleed red food coloring in an unsettling way as it warmed up.

Issue #4: I committed a familiar Pinstrosity mistake and just skimmed the pictures in the original pin and thought I had the gist of it. Portion cups, flowerpot, hot glue, icing roses: got it. I failed to notice that the pictures that showed perfect little icing roses on the bouquets were made with MINI cupcakes. To make icing roses large enough to cover a standard cupcake, I would have needed to buy a much larger petal tip. I now had squares of waxed paper that were covered in deformed, strangely disproportionate roses that continued to bleed red food coloring. Disgusted, I failed to take a picture, scraped all my icing into a container, and threw it in the fridge to regroup and start again the next day.

The next day, I gave my icing a thorough beating in the Kitchenaid, and the food color that had bled out reincorporated really nicely and actually made it look a little redder. I put a really large star tip on my piping bag and, starting at the middle of each cupcake, piped the icing on in a big swirl. The softness of the icing actually worked well here, and my cupcakes ended up looking pretty roselike. The one in the front of this picture was the best one; I tried to hide the really uneven ones at the back of the bouquet. I'd intentionally underfilled my cupcake liners a little, so the cupcakes nestled perfectly into the portion cups. I had some silk flowers lying around, so I stripped them of their leaves and used them to cover up some of the mess I'd made hot gluing the portion cups into the flowerpot. After this picture, I disassembled the whole thing and put the cupcakes, along with some extras in case of disasters in transport, into my cupcake carrier and reassembled it at my boyfriend's house. He did immediately drop some of the soft, red icing onto his shirt, and given the amount of food color I used, I doubt the stain will come out. But other than that, it was a pretty big success.

I plan to reuse this idea in the future, when I need small gifts for friends, and I assume it will go more smoothly now that I know what I'm doing."

 

So readers, there you have it, todays Show-and-Tell, I love that she went through and broke it down, found where she perhaps had gone wrong and fixed the problem. She even went back through and reread the directions, and her project turned out amazing! Thanks Meghan!
Some day I will get brave and dive into icing flowers, but for now I should probably focus on breakfast!

Happy Saturday all!