Rocking Reindeer

That is originally what I was going to title this little piece of artwork.

These hand prints were made by painting brown paint onto my sisters kids hands....
The messy hands were then pressed onto a piece of canvas that I had painted green (allowing to dry before adding hand prints)

Her youngest was 2 at the time and little ones hand prints can be hard to keep neat.
I found these wiggly eyes, pop-poms and craft paint at WalMart

I just loved that the wiggly eyes came in varying sizes AND they were self adhesive so no rummaging through drawers to find my craft glue!

Now the pom-poms were not self adhesive....SO....scavenger hunt time.  No glue in my craft drawer so went to Morgans room to investigate and lo and behold I found my hot glue gun! (which by the way had been left plugged in and therefore on)......I just want to pause here and sincerely thank God for watching over us and not letting us have a fire. 

So glue in hand, I glued on the noses and then painted on the mouths and the "Reindeer Rocks".......little tidbit here, my sisters families last name is Rocks....that's why I changed the wording.  Retrospectively I wish I had kept it as Rocking Reindeer.....has a much better ring don't you think.

This is a super easy project and the kids love helping to make the reindeer.  I've done something similar on a canvas bag and gave it to a family for Christmas!

Thanks for looking!

Love,

Bronwyn

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

                                     The Snickerdoodle Cupcake

I got this recipe from cakecentral.com  It was posted by Naillady and I must say they are delicious.

The recipe is fairly easy to make......

First start with a box of cake mix....the recipe called for white cake mix but I had a box of Butter Recipe Vanilla cake mix and used that instead.
Then add milk ......

and melted butter.......

3 eggs and some vanilla and cinnamon....

Mix the ingredients together for about 3 minutes and then put batter into lined cupcake pan....FYI the batter is thick (I thought I had forgotten to add something!)

I just got these muffin liners on Black Friday at WalMart....I love the design.

Bake the cupcakes for about 22-25 minutes on 350....22 minutes was just enough time for mine.
Your house will smell divine while these puppies bake!!
Let them cool...and then make the icing.

YUM.....

I tweaked the recipe just a tad and added a tsp of butter extract.....taste it first for yourself and decide if you want to add that but I thought it added just that little something that was needed.

You can also opt to sprinkle the top with cinnamon/sugar mixture.  I didn't do that but I'm sure it would be yummy....

I used the Wilton decorator tip #6B to pipe the icing onto the cupcake.

And now to taste it.......

YUMMY!  Look at all that cinnamony goodness!

Try some for yourself and share some with your friends and family.

Snickerdoodle Cupcake Recipe

1 package white cake mix
1 cup milk
1 stick butter (melted)
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp ground cinnamon
mix together for 3 minutes then place batter into muffin tin.  Bake for 22-25 minutes on 350 degrees.  Allow cupcakes to cool for about 30 minutes and then decorate or just slap on the icing....

Icing
1 stick butter (softened)
3 and 3/4 cup confectioner sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3-4 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp butter extract (optional)
Mix together until the icing is smooth.  Pipe onto cooled cupcake and enjoy!

Thanks for looking....

Love,
Bronwyn


This post has also been shared on these blogs.....check them out for great ideas!!

Two Birthday Cakes

The first cake is a the finished Harry Potter theme birthday cake

The cake is pound cake (of course) covered in buttercream icing.

The next is a sonic/mario cake for my Jacobs 8th birthday......I can't believe he is 8!
Two 6 inch round cakes make the base of the mushroom ( one is 4 inches deep, the other 2 inches deep)

The top was baked in a pyrex bowl...above pic shows stacking and the crumb coat.

Happy Birthday to Taylor and Jacob!!!

Thanks for looking!
Bronwyn

Two Shower Cakes

Just did these two shower cake

The first was inspired by a cookie I saw on cakecentral.com.
I loved the idea so made it as a cake for a coworkers baby shower.

Pound cake with buttercream icing.


Next was a Cat in The Hat cake for a baby shower.
The bottom is pound cake with buttercream icing and the hat is rice krispy treat with marshmallow fondant.

The little characters were in a previous post but wanted to show how they looked on the cake.

And again, the little fish was my favorite part.

Thanks for looking

Love,
Bronwyn

Harry Potter Cake

OK so the cake is not done yet but I was too excited about my little figures to wait...

This cake will be for a young lady who LOVES Harry Potter....

So I made her laying on her belly, reading a book

This is the first time I've used metal wire to support the figure......

I liked how it turned out....

Not shown here but I wrote Harry Potter on the top of the pages and scribbles for words.....
I also painted some brown on her hair so it wasn't bright yellow.....

Then I made....DOBBY!!!  I am so excited with the end result....the picture does not do him justice....

And also Hedwig....

Still need to figure out how to make my hands and feet better but overall I am very happy....

I think I may incorporate the flying car....not sure if Harry and friends will be in attendance, probably but just not sure how I will work it all in yet....

I will definitely post pics of the finished cake.
Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!
Love,
Bronwyn

Cat in the Hat Baby Shower

I have been asked to make a Cat in the Hat cake for a baby shower.....

So I made a few decorations yesterday to go on the cake.  My friend wanted Thing 1 and Thing 2 on the cake but asked me to name them Boy 1 and Boy 2.....
The couple already have 1 little boy and this new baby is a boy so.......

As I've said before, I really am never certain how these things are going to turn out but I did try to take some pictures of the process

I started with some white and red fondant/gumpaste mix

I put a toothpick in the body and attached the head

Then I made the the arms and legs..... 

Skipped a few steps here but you can see the arms and legs on the little guy......I indent one end of the appendage where it fits to the body.....

Then I made the little Boy 1 and Boy 2 labels and attached them with a little water.....

Now I had to do the hair....these things have really long, sort of spikey hair and I wasn't sure how to achieve that look with fondant SO I made some royal icing.....

And then I drew on the faces with edible marker......although I can't imagine anyone eating these things.....would break some teeth!

I had originally applied the royal icing with a #4 tip but then moved to a #17 star tip.....I liked the results!

Oh say can you see....my little fish in the background!?  I am tickled with the little boys but the FISH.......really turned out cute !!!

And here are all three together.......

I had so much fun making these......I will be sure to post pics of the finished cake.
Let me know what you think! 

Thanks for looking!
Love
Bronwyn

C.S.I. Musuem

Just went on a field trip with my Drew to the CSI Museum in Washington DC....
This place was really neat!
I was told no camera and followed the rules like a good girl........darn it!
When we arrived, however it turned out that its ok to take pictures without flash.......
and I left my camera at home......darn it!

I did try to take some pics with my cellphone and they turned out.....kind of.....The first section was dedicated to punishment during medieval times.....there was some horrible stuff here....
An iron cage for humans.....you did something wrong and got strapped into this thing and left to hang and die a slow death....They didn't take the body out until it was nothing but bones!!  YUCK
I don't have pics of that....(whew)
Then we moved to the time of the famous outlaws!  Jesse James and Billy the Kid....

Here are some Marshall badges and memorabilia....

 This is the flag of the James Gang, Jesse James' notebook and gun...

They had a replica of Wyatt Earps gun......

Here is a picture of a Thompson Submachine Gun

And here is THE car that Bonnie and Clyde were shot to death in!

Holy cow......it looks like swiss cheese!

After this section, we moved to a fingerprinting and booking section....the kids all scanned their fingerprints and got a card that described their crimes......Book 'em Danno
 
They had a mock line up......see if you can figure out which one is Drew.....

You're right if you picked the guy in the striped shirt.....the kid with the hat looks too crazy to be mine!!
They also had a jail cell....

Yes, Drew is sitting on the commode
Yes....he's pretending to use the commode....complete with noises........
What can I say....boys will be boys!

Then we entered a mock crime scene with details of the steps are taken to discover what happened on the scene and to determine the suspect.....This area was pretty high tech and very cool!

 The museum had a lot of other very cool stuff too but as I mentioned I was taking pics with my phone....UGH! Apparently America's Most Wanted is filmed in this museum!!  Very cool and sorry we didn't get to see it.....

If you have the chance to go to this museum it is well worth the visit......

Thanks for looking!
Love,

Bronwyn

Call to 911.....

I heard about this after it happened.....

Here's how I imagined it went...

"911, what's your emergency?"
"Hi, my brother is on the computer and won't let me on!"
"Do you have and emergency?"
"YES! MY BROTHER WON'T LET ME ON THE COMPUTER....MAKE HIM GET OFF!!!!"

From the other room a father hears this one-sided conversation and decides to investigate.....
He enters the scene, takes the phone from his son....

"Hello"
"Hello sir, this is 911, do you have an emergency?"
"Oh no!  I'm so sorry!!!  No we don't have an emergency."
"O.K. sir, have a good night"

Dad hangs up phone........

Calls the mom who is at work.....relays story to her.......
Mom starts cracking up laughing!!!!!!  (she has already had a few conversations with a 911 operator!)


Here is the child who called 911...(this time)

I guess Spiderman didn't know how to handle little brothers....

Thank you emergency operators from the Willett Household!!