Birthday Wishes

Stamp-a-faire Challenge #3

"Punch a window from you card cover and tie ribbon or twine from the window to the side of your card. "

I was worried I'd run out of time so I snapped the above photo. Here is the slightly more embellished card - I took three more minutes adding jewels and some pen lines. 

Stamps: Make a Wish

Thank You Card: Floral

Stamp-a-faire Challenge #9

"Your challenge is to look at your stamps in a new way, turn them, rotate them at new angles and see if YOU can come up with anything unique!"

I decided to use birthday candles from Make a Wish combined with the flowers from Merry Little Christmas as flower stems and buds. 

Dies: Victorian Lace Border, Tag Sale #1

Sentiment: Fillable Frames #2

This is also my entry for the Flower Power challenge at Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog. I never realized how much I DON'T use flowers in my projects until this challenge came up. Weird. 

Hello Sunshine

This is my entry for PTI's Stamp-a-faire Challenge #5: take a solid shape and create your own custom "faux" border.


I used a birthday cake/present from Make a Wish on this card:

Stamps: Make a Wish, Fillable Frame #5

Dies: Fillable Frame #5, Cloud 1 & 2 Die Collection

Cake #26: Amaretto Cake Balls

This recipe calls for leftover cake. And I know having leftover cake can be as elusive as a unicorn sighting but sometimes... like, say, when you make a giant, bordering on obscene, trifle, you do end up with some cake in the freezer. In times like that, think of these.

I first heard of rum truffles when reading Vanessa's lovely blog, Nifty Thrifty Things

She's nice. We talked. I like her very much.

Anyhow. All you do is crumble up your leftover cake, sprinkle it with cocoa powder and add liquor a table spoon at a time until it makes a nice playdoh-like blob. Roll it in little balls and then roll them in cocoa powder or sprinkles (we don't like sprinkles, even though they're very pretty). Delicious.

These are a grown up version of cake pops and I'm a big fan. 

We used Amaretto di Saronna but I bet Kahlua would be awesome too.

Be sure to pop by Vanessa's blog to see them styled all pretty. Mine are three days old and I'm not walking well so food styling was out of my scope in my current condition.

P.S. Did you see my ugly plate? I love those blue-smoosh atrocities. Back when I was a baby grown-up we used to host a care circle for our church and the first few weeks I went through a whole trees worth of paper plates. Appalled by the waste and the expense, I went to Goodwill and found a stack of thirty ugly restaurant plates for a dime a piece. We never bought paper plates again and since then whenever I send desserts home with guest I can say, "keep the plate" and not even bat an eye. Those ugly plates have saved the environment and our budget a thousand times over in the past ten years. Now they stand as symbol for who I try to be.

Check out the rest of my 52 Cakes HERE

Beautiful Inside and Out Card

Step One: Make Background

Step Two: Add Tags

Step Three: Add Embellishments

Step Four: Decorate inside of card with rub-ons and accents

Finished Card: I added a printed sentiment tag

All supplies came from the summer CupCards {to go} Kit. That kit is sold out but there are many others available.

Mixed Media- For a Friend

Gosh, I think I've caught some sort of 120 day curse. I can't seem to get well for more then a day or two in a row. More likely, it's just my whack-a-doodle immune system paired with the Prednisone disaster. Either way, in amongst all the back silliness I've started throwing up. I don't think I'm actually sick though - just my body is acting weird. Or maybe, I'm just so darn charming my food wants to see me again. Either way... UGH!

So my apologies if my posts are slightly less frequent. It's been ugly around here.

On the good side, I've been laid-out enough to get to a lot of menial tasks I NEVER want to do. Like cleaning the lids on my various salt shakers, organizing and labeling my spices, throwing out long expired food... yeah, I'm a wild party. My cupboards look fantastic though :-)

Back in April I made this for my gorgeous friend Brittany. My plan was to have it complete except for her race stats, add them as soon as they were posted, varnish and have it to her early in the week following her race. Nice thought, no?

Instead I broke my foot on Monday, contracted creeping death on Tuesday and kicked off this happy time... back in April. But, it is finally done and in her possession.

And it has great texture...

...kind of like Brittany's hair. She's absolutely beautiful and often wears the cutest cap sleeved tops. I tried to capture her fashion sense and look in the collage:

Photo by Raji Barbir

Making something for someone I admire so much was a real pleasure.

Cake #25: Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes

I found this recipe on Pinterest at  Yum Sugar. It's a minor adaptation of Nigella's Fairycake recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I was intrigued as I've never made a cake recipe in my food processor before.

I'll warn you, it makes a shockingly small amount of batter that doesn't seem capable of making twelve cupcakes. But it does! Twelve gloriously fluffy, wonderful, kick-ass cupcakes.

Speaking of fluffy, I've never had a lighter from-scratch cake in my life. They're stunning.

Orange Creamsicle Cupcake Ingredients:
3/4 cup self-rising flour
2 large eggs
1/2 cup butter, softened
7 tbsp sugar
2 tsp orange flavoring
1 tsp vanilla extract
Optional: 1/4 tsp almond extract
2-3 tbsp milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with baking paper cups.
3. Put all the ingredients except for the milk into a food processor and blend until smooth.

4. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel to make for a soft consistency.

It doesn't seem like enough batter, but it will all work out, scrape every bit from the bowl and try to fill each cup equally. Mine came to about 1/3 full.

5. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are golden on top. It's best to start checking them at 12 minutes.

Orange Cream Cheese Icing:
1 stick (4 oz) butter softened
8 oz softened Cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp orange flavoring

Directions:
1. Combine the room temperature butter and cream cheese together in a mixer with a paddle attachment.
2. Slowly add the sugar 1/4 cup at a time and add the orange flavoring at the end.

3. Pipe unto cooled cupcakes.

A thing about piping. My favorite piping technique is to use a ziploc bag and to cut the end off the corner. No tip, no fuss, no bother. And it looks great. The bags are easier to fill if you place them corner down in a tall glass.

Add orange slice.

Next time when I bake these again, and there will be a next time, I think I'll add some orange zest. They were very subtle, but still incredibly delicious.

Linked up With:

Whipperberry

Tatertots and Jello

Addicted 2 Decorating

Today's Creative Blog

Cupcake Month at Pressed Down and Shaken Together