Voting via Cupcake

(This is a copy of a post from my family blog from Election Day November 2008.)

My coworkers and I voted twice today - once like the rest of the country, and then again in our office in an unofficial "cupcake election".

I had some leftover red, white and blue cupcake liners and sprinkles from July 4th so I thought I would bake some cupcakes for Election Day. I wanted to get some picks to decorate the cupcakes - what I wanted were some donkey and elephant picks, which would be more specific than just, say, a flag. But I couldn't find any picks, not even at my favorite cake decorating store, Toots.

Then I got the bright idea to make tiny replicas of yard signs. I just searched the internet for pictures of the signs, printed them out and taped them to toothpicks. I had equal numbers of McCain and Obama signs.
When I set up the cupcakes on my trusty little cupcake stand, my coworkers went nuts. They thought it was very cute and clever. Eventually the cupcakes started disappearing. The unofficial tally was Obama 11, McCain 9. My specific office was split down the middle but several people from neighboring departments stole some Obama cupcakes so it tilted in the Illinois Senator's favor.

Oh, the cupcakes were yellow cake (a box mix since I was pressed for time) stuffed with diced strawberries, topped with white chocolate buttercream frosting.

And as I type this, NBC just called the election, so I guess my cupcake experiment was a good indicator of the real deal.

Onesie cookies

Here's some baby onesie cookies I made for my coworker Gina's baby shower (rubber ducky-themed). They turned out pretty cute. It was the first time I'd done the "outline and flood" technique with royal icing. It was a little tricky but I like the final outcome.

Eric's Lego Birthday Party

When people call me "supermom", I usually blush and get all shy, but gosh darn it, today I feel like I just may have been worthy of that title. Today I threw a 5th birthday party for my son and nine of his closest friends, and a grand time was had by all.

Eric has a lot of interests currently - the movie "Cars", all things policeman and fireman-related, and Legos. When I asked him to pick a birthday theme, he chose Legos. There isn't a lot of "Lego themed" stuff in the party supply stores currently, which is surprising to me as it seems to be a perennial favorite. Even the official Lego website doesn't carry party goods, but they do sell a birthday party kit, which we did buy. It included invitations, thank you cards, nametags, and little goody "packs" with Lego building instructions and a "minifig" i.e. "Lego guy".

So since I couldn't just run to Party City, I checked out Pinterest for some DIY ideas. Did I ever hit the motherlode! I've spent quite a lot of time gleaning some great ideas from other "supermoms" who have thrown awesome Lego-themed parties and have been kind enough to share their photos and ideas. I wanted to do all of them, but time just wasn't on my side. So there weren't any Lego Head cake pops, or Lego Head party plates, or even the Lego cookies with MnMs as the "bumps", but I managed to pull together this:

Knowing that our meager house couldn't hold 10 kids and their parents, we opted to use a room at our church. Again, since there's no official Lego-themed party goods, I shopped at Dollar Tree instead. Everything came from there - all decorations (except the plain balloons which came from Tribouts Party Supply in town), the plates, cups, napkins, etc. I think all together it looked great! I especially like the "preschool sized" tables and chairs we borrowed from the Pre-K Sunday School room. There was minimal spilling which I think is in part to the tables being a comfortable height.

The first half of the party was on the Lil' Tumblers Bus. This is a local version of the national franchise of Tumblebus. Lil' Tumblers comes to Eric's preschool on Mondays and he just loves it. It was an easy decision to rent them out for Eric's party. All of the kids just loved the bus - they were like pigs in slop. It was a big hit.
After the hour on the bus was over, the kids came back inside for cake and snacks. I received a lot of compliments on the cake, which was inspired by numerous Lego-themed cakes that I found on Pinterest.
For the cake, I used three boxes of yellow cake mix and make two 9"x13" cakes (they bake up to measure 8"x12") and two 8"x8" cakes. I cut one of the larger cakes in half lengthwise to make a 12"x12" single layer square. The two 8"x8" cakes made up the middle layer, and from the leftover 4"x12" strip I made the top two 4"x4" layers. I didn't dowel them like a wedding cake - I just slapped them together and iced them up.

The candy Legos were made with Wilton Candy Melts in a Lego-shaped candy mold. I am very fortunate to find a local store that had the molds in stock for $2 each. They are a small fortune on Amazon and eBay. The kids got a kick out of the candy Legos on the cake, which made me happy since I included them in the guests' goody bags.

I also found the ideas for the Lego cheese and crackers, fruit kebabs, and individual carrots and ranch dip cups on Pinterest. I kept beverages simple and offered Hawaiian Punch, lemonade (Eric's fave) and water. Straws were a must-have to use with the party cups for this age group.
Eric's little sister Lucy did pretty well, even though the party coincided with her naptime. She played with some toddler Legos while the big kids were out on the bus. The Legos later became table decorations on the kids' tables.
My party piece de resistance was Eric's Lego shirt. This was another idea I found off of Pinterest. I had done some very simple applique work on a previous project, but nothing of this magnitude. It was not too hard, except for the eyes and mouth - they were so very small I had to hand stitch them down. I did add my own spin to the shirt in that I decided to add Eric's name and age to the back in the style of a sports jersey. I found some striped fabric at Joann's and used a Sharpie to draw the vertical lines so they looked like stacked Lego bricks. It turned out pretty awesome.

I'm really pleased at how it all turned out, even though there were a lot of ideas that I didn't get to try. Lord willing, Eric will have another birthday party, so I'll have another go at it next year!

Diaper Bouquet

One of the reasons I created this blog was to post my craft projects and then share them through Pinterest. One "pin" I saw recently was a Diaper Bouquet. It's a different take on the Diaper Cake that has become a baby shower staple. Usually a "pin" will provide a link to a blog or website that shows the step-by-step instructions on how to do the project. This, however, was just a photo with this description: "The diapers are rolled around wooden skewers and secured with clear rubber bands, and then pushed into a foam ball which is hidden and wedged into the vase. Accent with tulle." Sounded easy enough.
On my weekly grocery trip to Shop 'n Save, I found 12" wooden skewers with the kitchen tools. I also picked up a bag of store-brand diapers that were on sale. On a separate trip to Dollar Tree, I bought a vase, three bunches of silk flowers, ribbon, little hair elastics, and extra-large storage bags. I wanted to give the mom a way to store the diapers when she took apart the bouquet. One of my biggest DIY stumbling blocks is that I need instructions. Even when I cook, I need a recipe; I can't just wing it. But with no instructions for this, there was a boatload of trial-and-error, right from the start. At first, I laid the skewer on the diaper, rolled it up, put an elastic around it, and held it up. The diaper slid down the skewer. Rats. I studied the diapers and discovered that when folded, the waistband had little pockets at the very top. So I slid the skewer into the pocket and then rolled it up.



I started putting the diapers in the vase, and realized it was not going to be able to handle the load. Part of the reason was that I had bought size 2 diapers, thinking that everyone would buy newborn or size 1 diapers. However, for this project, I think the smaller the diaper, the better. Next time I'll use newborn size.
I rolled the rest of the diapers, separated the three colors of flowers and then attached one stem of each color flower onto a skewer. That was as far as I could go until I could find a replacement for the vase. Off to Dollar Tree I went, where I found a wide basket and some floral foam. When I got home, I hot glued the foam to the basket. (The picture shows two donut-shaped pieces of foam, but I only needed one. Another round piece of foam was stacked on top of the one in the donut.)
Now it was time to arrange the "bouquet". All of this time I had forgotten how bad I am at flower arranging! What was I thinking? Again, lots of trial and error here. It was a good thing I bought cheapo skewers, because they needed to be trimmed just like flower stems. I was able to break them like twigs. I just shoved the diaper skewers into the foam until they looked ok. Then I pushed the flower skewers in places that looked good to me.
Finally, I took the ribbon and wrapped it around the bottom row of skewers to camouflage them. The remaining ribbon became a big bow for the front.

Voila! It's not nearly as pretty as the original, but with no instructions to go by, I'm pleased. This is much more fun than just handing over a gift-wrapped bag of diapers.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cake

Lately my favorite recipes have come from the folks at Cook's Illustrated/Cook's Country. I discovered them through their PBS show America's Test Kitchen which I watched while home on maternity leave with Eric. They thoroughly test their recipes so when you make it, you can trust that it will turn out great.

Between the two, I am partial to Cook's Country, as they focus on simpler, American recipes. They especially seem to love perfecting classic, showstopping desserts. Some of their cake recipes make 3-layer cakes which certainly has a "wow" factor. However, the layers are made from 8 inch cakes, and I didn't have that size, let alone 3 of them. But I found them at Joann's, and used a 40% off coupon for each of them. They are going to be a pain to store, but look at what they can make!I made this Mint Chocolate Chip Cake for a birthday celebration (i.e. Food Day) at work. Everyone was super impressed with it visually. Also of importance - it tasted good. Just like mint chocolate chip ice cream.

The recipe was half easy, half tricky. The cake batter is pretty straighforward but uses 6 egg whites, which is a little tedious. Added to the batter was mint extract, (which smelled like mouthwash - I was scared!) green food coloring, and mini chocolate chips. I have a double wall oven, so two pans went in the larger top oven and the third in the smaller. I set my timer for only 10 minutes to remind myself to rotate the cake pans in the larger oven. The cakes baked up beautifully and flat - no leveling needed!

The frosting, with its 2 1/2 sticks of butter and $5 worth of melted bittersweet chocolate, was a little fussy. I melted the chocolate and let it cool per the instructions. But I guess the bowl of my stand mixer was cold because some of the chocolate stuck to the side of the bowl instead of mixing with the butter. It still tasted good though.

The cake was very minty and very chocolatey, but they were in pretty harmonious balance. The birthday girl, Gina, was very appreciative and seemed to enjoy the frosting especially. And looks-wise, wowza - the thing is 4 1/2 inches tall! It just barely fit in my cake carrier.

Would I make this again? Yes, probably for my mint chocolate-crazed mother. She took a quarter of it home with her. And I spent $3+ on the bottle of mint extract (ouch) so I'd like to use it up!

Birthday Countdown Chain

It's a new year. Christmas is over, but Eric's birthday is at the end of the month. Being 4 years old, he doesn't have a great understanding of time; that is, the difference between a minute, hour, day, week, etc. Having an Advent Calendar was a big help in visually reinforcing just how close Christmas was coming. He knows his birthday is coming "soon", so I thought a countdown chain would be helpful. Each day he'll tear off a link and as the chain gets shorter, the day of his birthday party would be closer.

One of Eric's Christmas presents was a Crayola Art Supply kit. It came with crayons, markers, colored pencils, watercolors, construction paper, scissors and glue. I thought I would use the paper, markers and glue to make this craft. Then I remembered my stapler and thought that would be a lot easier than the glue. I folded the paper into sections and then let Eric cut out the chain links with the scissors.

I got out the markers and encouraged him to color the last link, the "birthday" link. He finished it and then started to color another link.
I hadn't planned on that - this was going to be a fast project. But hey, this is his chain! So he would color a link, give it to me, and together we would staple the link onto the chain.

After about 10 links, he began to get a little restless. Freshly colored links became belt buckles (?) or projectiles. After some redirection, we finally got all the links colored and assembled.
A simple ribbon tie and a nail in the wall - presto! Our birthday countdown chain was done.