Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Getting Into the Holiday Spirit!

It's been awhile since I've shared a post or even thought about writing one. Once November hit, things got pretty busy with a birthday trip to Vegas, more birthday celebrating, Thanksgiving, a trip to DC for the Kennedy Center Honors via my husband's amazing job, and Christmas prep. In between all of the fun, I did find some time to make some tasty treats and create an adorable snowman to adorn our door all winter.

Turkey Cupcakes??

First up are these fun turkey cupcakes! They're not made of turkey but certainly look like them. I never put much effort into Thanksgiving decor and crafting but I do always find myself baking something for the holiday so this year I thought that I'd put a little Thanksgiving decor into our dessert. Behold the end result:




Aren't they fun? Unfortunately they are not such a novel idea as I have seen a lot of people posting their version of this creation this year but nonetheless, I enjoyed this project. I must warn you they are not as easy to put together as they look due to the messy nature of the fudge frosting that I used.

Materials Used:
  • 2 boxes cake mix (any flavor that pairs well with chocolate/fudge frosting)
  • Ingredients required by chosen cake mix
  • 2 cans of chocolate or fudge frosting
  • Candy Corn (buy this early because it runs out towards the end of November)
  • White Non Peril Sprinkles or Edible Eyes
  • Toothpicks
  • Muffin/Cupcake wrappers
Directions:
Bake 1 cake mix box into cupcakes as directed by instructions on box unless you are following a recipe. Let cupcakes cool. Make 1 box of cake mix into cake pops (minus the sticks) for the turkey heads. I have a cake pop machine which makes this task much easier. Let the heads cool. Frost cupcakes and frost turkey heads. Use tooth pick to affix turkey heads onto cupcakes (I could not get the heads to stay on the cupcakes without the toothpicks). Attach and arrange candy corn on cupcake to make feathers and beaks. Attach your eyes. Put in fridge until an hour before serving to allow the candy corn to affix better to frosting. Don't forget to tell your samplers that there is a toothpick attaching the heads if you use them!

Total Cost:
About $12

Snowman Door Greeter

I was ecstatic when my good friend, Sarah, said that she wanted to make some winter crafts with me. Crafting is more fun with friends after all. We had ideas for about 3 different crafts we were going to make one cold Sunday, however, the first one took us the whole time that we had which means there are future crafts for us to get together, make, and post about.

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was adorable...

 So we made our own...

I think that they turned out really cute and it's fun how you can tweak them to have their own personality. I decided to stay with more of the rustic look for mine while Sarah wanted to add some color to hers. As mentioned this craft took us a long time to create (about 3 hours) so it was not as easy as it looked, however, well worth the time if you have it.

Materials Used:
  • White Yarn 
  • Burlap Garland Roll 
  • Wired twine 
  • Styro foam plates or styro foam boards
  • 3 buttons
  • Pipe cleaners 
  • Cotton balls
  • Hot glue
  • Scissors
Directions:
I decided to use styro foam plates because it is less expensive, but you can buy styro foam boards that are sturdier from the craft store. You can leave one plate alone to be the largest, bottom piece. For the other two smaller circles, I cut them in graduating sizes for the head and torso. They do not need to be perfect because the yarn will cover up any cutting imperfections.

Next, make a spiral in hot glue in the center of the foam circle and place various cotton balls, this is to make snowman appear fuller. Hot glue the end of the yarn to the back of the foam and start wrapping the yarn in one direction. This can be tricky when you get close the sides of the circles, just hot glue the yarn in place. I wrapped the yarn over each foam circle twice to cover all the cotton and foam. It also helps to cut some slits in the plates to run your yarn through in the beginning while you build up a good foundation of yarn. Next hot glue the circles together. I overlapped the bottom two and glued the edges together of the top two.

The arms & hands are made from twine and pipe cleaners. My twine was not sturdy enough to hold shape on its' own so I wrapped it around pipe cleaners to give it more of a rustic look and then bent, shaped, and twisted for strength. I then hot glued them into place.You can also make the arms just out of pipe cleaners sans the twine like Sarah did.

For the hat and scarf, I simply cut pieces from the burlap roll. You can just tie the scarf around the snowman's neck to your liking and hot glue gun the hat on the snowman's head.

Frosty's nose is made from an orange pipe cleaner twisted in a spiral as I could not find a tiny enough carrot in the craft store for this. Hot glue the nose on along with the buttons. Affix some yarn in a loop to the back of Frosty with a hot glue gun for hanging and you're done!

Total Cost:
$20 (You can make many snowmen out of these supplies at the quantity that they come in)

Rudolph Cookies

Last but not least, my husband needed a quick and fun item to bring to a holiday work potluck. These cute Rudolph cookies did the trick and were easy to make!


Materials Used:
  • Sugar cookie recipe and ingredients needed or sugar cookie mix, Bake and Break, etc..
  • M&Ms
  • Mini Twist Pretzels or Chocolate Flipz pretzels would be good too
Directions:
Prepare sugar cookies as directed. While cookies are baking prepare your pretzels and separate out your brown and red M&Ms. As soon as the cookies are out of the oven, start placing the M&Ms and pretzels on the cookies and press them a bit into the cookie while they are still soft. I had a harder time getting the pretzels to stick and had to use some frosting to affix them to the cookies. I then put the cookies in the fridge for about an hour to let the frosting harden. All around, very easy and festive!  Next time I think I will frost the entire cookie before affixing the M&Ms and pretzels to make them stick easier.

Total Cost:
$6

Thanks for reading this very long post! I hope you enjoyed what I shared and that it might have inspired your next creation. I think my next post will showcase some holiday decor that I've been capturing during my whereabouts. 




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