Summer Cups For the Kids

This position for PC has led me to creativity that I never thought of before. I'm using my Cricut every day. I'm having crafty dreams, and thoughts constantly. I'm having to take a notebook with me so I can jot down my next big idea.

Too bad I'm big on thoughts and small on time.

I've always been in love with the idea of vinyl. Vinyl on the walls, the truck, and now cups. (No, not record vinyl, though there are some great things that can be done with that too.)
I went to the Dollar Tree and bought two cups for Nikki and Jimmy for the summer. These are cups that are authorized to go outside, and cannot have anything but water or juice in them, Nikki picked out the ones with straws, and I'm NOT a big fan of that. Gunked up milk and me do not get along. And I've shoved way too many pipe cleaners (You will never get me to say chenille stick, I'm sorry. It wasn't broke, it shouldn't have been 'fixed'.) up a tube in my lifetime because the child couldn't live without the cup. This would be the same child who couldn't be bothered to rinse out the cup in the first place either, I'd rather toss them.

So Alas, I've got straw cups again, in in my week of blinging things out, I'm closing with these:

The kids love them, and I'll manage to not cuss too much over cleaning straws all summer long.

-Roberta

Big Pimpin'

I was a little bored last week and pimped out my pink Expression. We'll blame it on the Fedex guy.
There is her front. I used a vinyl sticker I got on clearance from Mike's and glittered stickers to embelish the sides.

Here is her backside. It will never be a big deal if I get bored with it, it comes off easily if you want it gone.

Do you know those white spinning tool racks they have for 39.99? Yeah, they're cool and all, but never would I pay that, not even with a coupon.
Until it was sold as it for missing a drawer for 9.99. Then they gave me the coupon price, and I paid 6.00 for it! Hello!
Problem was, it was white. Whiter than virgin snow. Nothing in my house is that white for long. So as I was cleaning up my craft room one night, I picked up a sheet of rub on's I picked up at Big Lots for a buck. These were so cool, swirly and graceful, everything I'm not.
Then I leveled my eye at the caddy, turned it upside down, spewing forth the contents in every direction in my crazed creative pimpin' state. Then I turned loose with my popcicle stick and quickly realized what a pain in the ass those are. I really want that new rub on tool!

Then came my HAHA! AHA! moment!

I have a dry embossing pen! It has a metal ball on the end, it doesn't roll, but it might do the trick.

Guess what?

You already know it does! Holy fluffy angora fur! This made it so easy, I tossed that popcicle stick over my shoulder with abandon and haven't seen it since.

On to the pictures!

I feel better now.

Have a great one on me!

-Roberta

Cake Balls!

I was inspired by Bakerella to make cake pops. I call them cake balls, but when you add the stick ironically enough they become a cake pop.
Last week I made a batch as a test run, because as soon as I saw these, I knew it would be the perfect treat for the end of the school year picnic at the kids school. So I made banana, strawberry, dark chocolate. They tasted good, but the consistency was a bit mushy. Time to do some research!
I browsed a few (several) dozen sites and on Monday made two batches of cake. Wanting to be festive, I chose red velvet and a white cake tinted blue. (Can you believe that until yesterday I'd never had red velvet cake? It's right on up there with Devil's now.) I baked the cakes and let them sit in the open air all night.
The next day I used a fork and broke up the cake, then using my hands crumbled it into a bowl. I let that sit for about an hour, going back and tossing it every now and then.
The reason for all this sitting out in the air is because with my first batch, it was a bit mushy. My cake had been too moist, and I may have added too much binder.
For the blue cake I used cream cheese frosting, and I only used slightly less than 3/4 of the can. For the red velvet I used chocolate, and I used about the same amount. When mixed it should hold form when picked up. I put both batches in the fridge for about two-three hours.
I took my melon scooper, and you'll want that pretty much even and roll that into a ball, putting that onto your sheet. I take this time to insert the stick into the ball. I dip the stick into the some of the melted candy chocolate then into the ball. I noticed this time it did seem to help keep the ball stable.
After rolling both batches into ball, and sticking them, I put both back into the fridge for another two hours.
You need pretty firm balls if you're going to dip them, I haven't frozen them, though I've heard if you dip the frozen balls, the chocolate will crack as the ball thaws. Makes sense to me.
I used regular white chocolate candy melts to dip these in, though I did add a little shortening here and there to loosen up the chocolate.
Dipping can be a bit of an art, I've taken the easy road with the sticks, I just dip the ball in take a spoon and twirl the pop and spoon the chocolate over the top. Then keep on swirling and bring the pop out of the chocolate. This works 90% of the time. The other 10% I tried other things which gave me various results, the gentle twirl is good. I then sprinkled some fun things on. I'm not much for sprinkles, but kids love em.

Onto the Balls! (Pops!)

My undecorated ones for later!

I busted two open so you could see the inside. Still looks cakey! Buena!

-Roberta

My Shame On Me Post

I'd say my mother taught me better than that, but I just know this wasn't good form.
I won a giveaway two weeks ago from the lovely Melanie and I didn't post about it.
She held a giveaway on her blog, and it was a random generated thing. As soon as I saw it, I fell in love, but I'm not so much the lucky type, but I'll enter a giveaway if it really moves me.
I was moved, and luckily so because now I have this lovely thing in my home to display!

Not a good picture, it's morning, and gloomy, and looks like it will be that way much of the week. No excuses this is getting posted!

I am so in love with the fabric... I want to wear it out and about.

Thank you Melanie! I love it just as much as the first picture! It'll be residing right in the middle of the table this weekend!

-Roberta

Another Card, And A Little Cake

I did manager to get into my craft room last week and make something. One of the girls at Michaels loves bacon as much as I do, and I just bought the Just Because cart two weeks ago and while Cricut doesn't have a bacon image yet, they do have an egg one. This is what I came up with....

I embossed the yolks of the eggs, since I can't get Diamond glaze locally. It just needed a little something extra.

It's a pretty simple card, the font is from Cake Basics, welded with the Gypsy. Still loving the Gypsy!

Onto my demo cakes, it would help me so much if I didn't wait until late Saturday night to make them. I'm up until 3:30 in the morning finishing them up. Even after having the Cake out on the counter all week. I did cut cheese, that was really fun and easy. I bought some of the Duff fondant, chocolate, and it was very good to smell and taste. Like tootsie rolls, yum! The frosting sheets sent to us are brittle in odd places, but I'm making it work, and I still think we're not rolling the gum paste as thin as we're supposed to. I'm thinking about placing an order for some SugarVeil. Expensive, but the thought of having something fabric like to cut is so tempting.
On to the goodies!

Jim wanted to do this cake. We only did it for fun though, Michaels no longer carries the Solutions carts, so I can't demo any of those. (This is from the Indie Art) and Brandy who will be 15 in September wants this for her cake now.

I wanted to do something elegant, and this seemed simple and elegant enough to fit the bill. Later for the demos I put a pink grosgrain ribbon around the bottom. I forgot to take pictures while demoing, it was pretty busy this week.

And with all the graduations going on these next few weeks I thought this would be pretty fitting. I put a blue ribbon at the bottom of this one. And the manager asked if she could keep one in the store, I left this one, it's from the first week and starting to look a little rough, so if something happens to it it wouldn't be a big deal.

And last but not least, the cheese! I made these for Jimmy's snack for school. They were a hit, and so easy to do!
I'll be buying a Cake after I have to give this one back, I'm already having interest in it from friends and family. I think Jim is on board with that as well. He stays up with me and helps decorate, and if it weren't for him I never would have started in the first place.

Until next time....
-Roberta