Pulling Into The Station - Cookie Stop

Man, I have been on a baking kick here lately. I love looking at those types of blogs, and today's blogs are chalked full of beautiful pictures and instructions on how to make cookies and other baked goods.

First off let's visit a place where the cookie decorating skills are amazing. Please go to The Decorated Cookie.

Just look at these St. Patty's Day cookies she posted.

Second, these cookies are so detailed. I just don't see how she does this. Please visit Cookies Are My Canvas.

Check out these Olivia The Pig cookies she recently did.

On our last stop, we are going to a place that not only has great looking cookies, but there are great looking baked goods as well. Please visit Bake at 350.

Check out these cute trees and hearts that she did for Valentine's Day.

Party Wrap Up

I am just going to make a really long post for the rest of the things I did for the party.

First off the cute toppers for the cupcakes. I did a search online for images for Tangled. I found some tattoo images that had 6 different images in them. I then did a Print Screen of my IE window, and pasted it in Word. From there I cropped out everything that wasn't my images. I then adjusted the size of the image to what I wanted. I made the images about 1 1/2 inches. Once those were printed out, I traced circles around my images and cut them out. I then cut out pink circles that were slightly bigger than the Tangled image. I used glue dots to glue those to sucker sticks, and then stuck them into my cupcakes. My cupcakes weren't anything fancy. They were made out of a cake mix and store bought icing.

Next, I made sugar cookies and iced them. I used Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix. I then made some royal icing and dyed it pink. Once, the icing was hardened, hubby and I drew towers on the cookies with food color markers.

I then made a banner for the wall. For this, I cut out circles from tissue paper, and then sewed them together with my sewing machine. I added some scrapbooking stickers to spell out baby girl's name.

For a game, I used rope. Just what type of game can you play with rope? I thought of tying the kids up, and 'untangling' them, but I didn't figure the parents would like it too much if I tied up their kids. (Just Kidding! This thought never crossed my mind.) What I did was cut two pieces of rope. I put knots into the rope, and each child on the team had to undo a knot until Repunzel's hair was 'untangled'. Since, the party was primarily younger kids, I didn't make my knots very tight. This was a fun activity for about 5 minutes. I really needed to come up with a few more things to do.

Hope I gave you several ideas that you can use for your next party.

Pulling Into The Station - Refashioning Spot

Welcome!

Today's visits will hopefully inspire you to create eco-friendly outfits, that are not only budget-friendly, but that are stylish as well.

So, go dig in the bottom of your closet in those clothes that you never wear anymore. You might just find a new wardrobe piece in the making.

The first site is one that I have read from the first post to the last post. It is seriously that good. Please go visit New Dress A Day.

The second post is one of the first blogs that I looked at on a daily basis. The author of this blog is starting to slow things down a bit, but there are still new post coming in. Please go visit Wardrobe Refashion.

I could come up with a third refashioning blog that I really liked. So, here is where you come into the picture. If you know of some cool blogs that are based on refashioning, please leave me a comment, and your site might just end up as the third blog to check out on this post.

Thanks,

Baby Girl Turns 5

Hello Everybody!

I am excited as punch to show you Baby Girl's Birthday party. I worked hard on this party, and I had some help, too. Shaun and Mom thanks for putting up with me this weekend while I was preparing for the party.

First off, just look at that big girl, isn't she just the prettiest 5 year old you ever did see? I certainly think so.

Now onto the other lovely in the picture, the piece de resistance, the cake.

This took me a couple of days to work on. I started out by doing a batch of marshmallow fondant using this recipe over at Wilton. This was my first time at doing fondant, and I know I didn't do it exactly right. I think it needed more powdered sugar, and I probably used more shortening then it called for. It still turned out ok for my first attempt. I also made this Buttercream icing recipe from Wilton. I then made two 9-inch cakes from a box mix...Shhhhh, don't tell anyone! I put the cakes in foil and put them in the freezer overnight. I put the fondant and the buttercream in the fridger overnight.

I got the idea for the tower from one of the cake shows on Dish Network. I think it was Extreme Wedding Cakes or something like that. Sorry, I really don't remember which show it was. I do know it wasn't Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes. Anyway, on the show they made a batch of rice krispies and moded them in the form of a tower using a pvc pipe and non-stick spray. They then pushed the tower out the other end. For mine, I started to put it in a pvc pipe, and then I decide I would just form it with my hands. Just a note, put your rice krispies in the fridge for a couple of hours to let them set up a little bit. This makes them easier to form into whatever shape you are making. I formed my tower around a dowel rod so I could stand it on the cake. Another bit of information, one dowel rod alone will not hold the tower, it is really heavy and will sink into your cake and eventually fall over...wouldn't know this from experience. I recommend forming it around at least two rods if possible or even digging out a little bit of the cake where you would like it to sit. Don't really know if that would work, but it's worth a try. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. I also formed a cone shaped roof to attach to the main tower part. Once you have your tower formed, stick it in the fridge so it will harden and set more. Now, onto the fun of decorating your cake.

The next day I took my fondant and buttercream out of the fridge and I let them come to room temperature. I then took my cakes out of the freezer. I put a little bit of buttercream on my cake stand and placed the first layer on the stand. I then put a layer of buttercream on top of the first layer. I placed the second layer of cake on top. This is where mom came into the picture. While I was working with my fondant, she iced the rest of the cake in the buttercream.

I colored my fondant pink by taking a toothpick and sticking it in the food gel, and then poking it into the fondant. I did this several times to get the pink color that I was wanting. Once, you have put the food coloring in just knead your fondant until it becomes the shade of color you want. I used Wilton food coloring. I rolled the fondant out, and then placed it onto the cake. Mine cracked on one side, and it took me several tries to roll it out and lift it up without breaking. If anyone has any pointers on this step, please let me know.

For tower, I colored it a gray color using a little bit of black food coloring. I then put a thin layer of icing on my tower. I then placed the tower on the fondant and just rolled it up...much easier to put the fondant on the tower than it was the cake. For the roof, my husband dyed the fondant a purple color, and he cut individual shingles out and placed them on the roof one at a time.

We placed both the cake and tower back in the fridge until the party day which was the next day. We didn't put the tower on the cake until about 30 minutes before the party was supposed to start.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know what you think or if you have any pointers for future cakes.

Thanks,

Pulling Into The Station - Card Stop

Welcome to the station. Hope you enjoy your stay at today's blogs.

Our first stop on today's trip is to a place where you can capture the moment forever. Her products and cards are amazing. Please go visit Nichole Heady over at Capture The Moment.

The second stop on the trip is to a place where you can be surrounded by your favorite things. Please visit Dawn McVey over at These Are a Few of My Favorite Things.

The last stop on this trip is a place where you can connect with friends and make the perfect cards. Please visit Paper Crafts Connection.

Hooked on You

For my mom's birthday, I decided to make her something to hold her crochet hooks. I got the perfect tutorial over at Little Birdie Secrets.

The inside has a section that holds your crochet hooks, scissors and small needles. On the section that holds your hooks, you sew lines across the section sewing the lines closer to each other as you go across the sections. This ensures that the needles stay snug in the pockets.

The outside has your button or clasp of some sort on it.

I followed the tutorial for the most part, but I didn't have any thin hair elastics. Also, last week we had awful weather in the part of Texas that I am in. So, I decided to make a loop made out of the fabric that I used to make the main part of the case. It worked just fine. Just goes to show that you don't have to follow a tutorial exactly.

For my fabric loop, I cut a long narrow strip of fabric. I then ironed in the two long sides and folded it in half and ironed it again. Then I sewed down the open side to keep it closed. You will put the loop in when you put your two sides together with the fronts facing each other. When you pin in your loop, the ends need to be sticking out. i just wanted to make that clear since in the picture on Little Birdie Secrets, it looks like the loop is sticking out.

Deets~Fabric is from Wal-Mart, thread is from Joann's and the button is one I found in my mom's stash a long time ago.

Pulling Into The Station - Party Stop

Welcome to the station. Hope you enjoy your stay at today's blogs.

Our first stop on today's trip is to a land where with a little work you can be the hostess with the mostess. Please go visit Hostess With The Mostess.



The second stop on the trip is to a land where everyday is a party. Please visit P is For Party.



The last stop on this trip is a place where even though everything is Half-Baked,the planning isn't. Please visit Half-Baked, A Cake Blog.

Ballerina in the Making

This is the last project I made for Christmas. So, now I have to come up with some other crafty endeavors. Trust me there will be a few in the coming weeks because we have several birthdays this month.

I had lots of tulle left over from my wedding 8 years ago just collecting dust being stored at my parents house so I decided to make some tutus for my daughter and niece. It went from this:



to this:





I looked online for a tutu tutorial, and I am not sure which one I used. They are all basically the same. My tutus took a little bit longer than normal ones because my tulle from from the bolt and not the little spools you can buy it on.

Deets~I measured my daughter to get the length from her waist to her knees. I then cut some elastic to the length of her waist plus about 1 inch so I could over lap the ends. I then hand sewed the ends together. Next, I cut strips of tulle about 3 x 15. I put three strips together, and knotted them onto the elastic strip. After I was done with that, I thought it looked a little plain so I added some ribbon all the way around the tutu. I think my daughter liked it, but she hasn't wore it very much.