Haalloween Costumes!

For Halloween we went as Hercules, Meg, and Baby Pegasus. I finally found my camera cord, so here are the pictures!

Costume and Crunchies

The first costume finished (well except for adding feathers to the wings) is Devlin's Pegasus costume! It's so adorable on him :)


For the "hair" I did a modified version of Dragonfly Design's Unicorn costume (I used shorter strips of felt and I added in some fleece bits. I also pinned them differently so the strips wouldn't fall down as much.) The tail (not pictured) was made from fleece that I cut up and pinned on. The wings were made from packing material and pipe cleaners, and I will be adding feathers to make them look more like Pegasus wings as opposed to fairy wings.


Today is a chilly day, with lots of snow and falling branches, so I wanted to make something yummy and warm for the cold day. I was reading Family Fun Magazine, which my mother-in-law was so kind to get for me and I came across a recipe for Corn Crisps! They looked so yummy that I had to try them, and I have to admit that almost half the batch is gone between Devlin and I (I was surprised that he kept asking for more, but I'm glad he liked them!)



Here is the recipe that I got from the magazine:

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Flour
1 Tsp Salt
3/4 Tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Ground Cumin
1/4 Tsp Sugar
1/8 Tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 Large Egg
1/4 Cup Milk
1 Tbsp Butter (Melted)
1 1/2 Cups Corn (Frozen, Fresh, or Canned)
1/4 Cup Chopped Scallions
Canola or Vegetable Oil

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, cumin, sugar, and cayenne. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, and butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until they are blended. Fold in the corn and scallions.

2. Pour oil into a large skillet (oil should come 1/4 inch up the side of the skillet.) Heat until the oil "shimmers". Drop a slightly rounded Tbsp for each crisp to make. Fry over medium-high heat until they are golden, about 2-3 minutes. Turn them over and fry the other side for about 2 minutes. Put them on a paper-towel lined sheet pan, add salt to taste.

Hands-on Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Makes: About 18

I didn't have any scallions, so I didn't add them in and I also didn't salt them to taste, but they were awesome! I think next time I might try making them with wheat flour to see how much of a difference it makes!

The start of our decorations

Homemade decorations are so much fun and this year we actually had some time to be creative. There are still more to come (we hope!!)

Simple paper decorations :)


Our door sign made out of fabric. I made it a couple of years ago and it might need an update soon...Still cute though


We have a big tree outside our fenced area, and we decided to make "ghosties" out of an old bed sheet that was ripped. The ripped parts made them look really cool!


Two of the ghosts in our inner yard we made out of an old (and a little gross) bath curatin. Not gross anymore, just cute!


And last is not really a Halloween Decoration, but a terrarium I made in my Horticulture class, with paper leaf decorations.

Halloween Decor

I am so ready to get rolling with my Halloween decorating, especially DIY stuff! I have some ideas for ghosts hanging from the tree, making some wood cutouts that we'll decorate together, and anything else we feel like.

I'll post after I complete projects!!

Great find for $5!!

I'm so glad I went to ARC today because I found a great deal!

I found a Xyron Personal Cutting System, hardly used with carrying case, 11 books, instruction manuals, etc. for $5! They had it priced at $10, but it was 50% off.

I looked up what it goes for new and with all the books, which range from $20 - $30 each, it would be $345 - $435 for all that I got.



The System is similar to a Cricut and Die Cut Machines. I'm really excited to start using it!!

Star Wars Baby Shower!

Here is a picture of the brownie "cake" I made for my sister's baby shower. I have to beat myself up and say that I don't think it's my best work because the working conditions weren't the best... I think the main part I'm not thrilled about was the Darth Vader head decorating.

Since she is due on October 31st I did a pumpkin patch with Darth Vader picking her baby as the strong one.
On the bottom it has Darth Vader saying "The force is strong with this one!"



It was a ton of fun to make!

Hopefully this won't give anything away

These are some of my sources of inspiration for my sister's baby shower cake this weekend. I am going to be spending Friday working on it, and I will post about it on Saturday!! I'm so excited :)

Time for some inspiration

Halloween is about 3 months away and I have an awesome idea for costumes. We love Hercules and I want Jaren to be Hercules, me to be Meg and Devlin to be Pegasus.

Here are pictures of what I'll base our costumes on:





Here is a picture that I just love and I want to create something based on this picture:



Any ideas?

What can we create?

I wanted to start showing off the cakes that I've been making in a new blog, solely dedicated to my creations.

CAKES


Last year for Jaren's 24th birthday! A Fun-fetti cake and frosting.


My first adventure into homemade marshmallow fondant. Jaren was playing a tank game, so I decided to make a tank. I used Fun-fetti and white fondant.


This time Jaren and I made a cake together. We had fun sculpting the roses and fairy and just experimenting with how we could make cool things with fondant.


I surprised Jaren with this chocolate covered strawberry with frosting cake for Valentine's Day.


Since we had tried fun things with fondant we decided to do a cool Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter Cake for Spencer's 23rd birthday. For the figures we used Crispy Rice with fondant. Crumbled cookies for dirt, Brown Sugar for sand. It was a blast. I made Yellow cake and Devil's Food cake with Lemon Cream Filling.


For our Friend Blake's 26th birthday we made a Liger cake for him. I made Devil's food cake with a peanut butter cream cheese filling and bits of Reese's in and on it.


For Sarabeth's 15th birthday we decided to do a fairy swim party cake and later added on Gnomeo and Juliet figures also. I made a Devil's Food Cake and Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Filling. We used crushed up Butterfingers for the tree trunk.


For Jaren's 25th birthday I made him a Mustafar cake with an epic Jedi/Sith battle. I did a Chocolate Cake and poured red jello in it and it melted the cake. I also made a cream cheese filling and colored it orange. I put some of the filling in the cake while it cooked and it made the cake fall in to look like a planet. It turned out so cool!


Devlin's 1st birthday cake! We did a Teddy Bear Picnic birthday so I decided to make a picnic blanket with a Crispy Rice Bear and picnic basket. I made a Fun-fetti Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Filling.


For our church's Stake Pioneer Day activity I made a Funfetti cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese filling (like Devlin's cake) I put on a layer of fondant and then put crushed cookies on top. It was a really hot day and the cake melted a little bit, which was sad!

Overall, I love baking cakes and creating fun ideas. I am currently in the process of coming up with an idea for my sister's baby shower! I'll post it after her shower next weekend. Ta ta, for now.