Tuesday Tutorial: Pretty Pumpkins

I recently saw similar pumkins in a magazine, and decided to put a sisters sassy spin on them for today's tutorial... stay tunded, they are as easy to make as they are pretty!

Supplies you will need include

 3 sheets of pumkin colored paper and 1 for the leaves (I used Jeepers Creepers paper from the Paper Studio)

buttons

hot glue

flameless candle (optional)

Cut your paper into 1" strips.  For largest pumpkin, you will need 10 1"x12" strips.  For the next size down, you will need 8 1"x10" strips, and for the smallest pumkin, you will need 5 1"x12" strips.  For the leaves, you will need 3 1"x12" strips, and also some 1/4" x12" strips. 

Starting with the biggest pumpkin strips, glue 2 stips together lengthwise, making 5 really long strips.  Cris-cross these strips to make an * shape, and glue them all together.  Next, starting with one of the tips of the asterisk, glue each tip to the next one, to create a sphere.

Repeat for all 3 pumkins.  Next, to form the leaves, take one of the strips, and form a figure 8, gluing them together.  You can make curly vines by using the thinnest strips of the green and wrapping them around a pencil, then gluing these to the leaves.  to make the stem, glue 3 buttons together.  Put it all together and you have a cute little pumkin! 

For added stability you can cut 2- 2"x3" rectangles, make an "x" and glue to the bottom of each pumpkin.  A flameless candle inside these pumkins is adorable! (Sorry the picture didn't turn out!) You can also select paper according to the Holiday, would be beautiful table decorations for Thanksgiving as well! 

Happy craftin!

Tuesday Tutorial: Salted Caramel Sauce

Now that it is apple season, it’s time to make some salted caramel sauce!  This recipe truly is really easy!  You’ll love it for your ice cream too.

First step is to combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and heat it until the sugar is dissolved, then turn up the heat and let it boil. 

5-6 minutes later it will be turning colors, wait until it gets a nice dark amber color.

 

Then take it off the heat and SLOWLY whisk in the heavy cream, pouring in just a little at a time.  It will boil up on you, so be careful.  Once it quits boiling up, still whisk it in slowly as it will prevent that from forming a hard ball in the middle. 

Finally stir in your salt and butter, and there you have it, salted caramel sauce, ready for apples and ice cream and whatever else you can imagine!  Put it in a jar, store it in the fridge and it will keep for 2 weeks. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

• 3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

 

Directions

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar and water over medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and bring to a boil, without stirring. Boil until the syrup is a deep amber color, about 5 to 6 minutes.

Remove the sugar from the heat and carefully whisk in the heavy cream. The mixture will bubble. Stir in the unsalted butter, and salt. Transfer the caramel to a dish.

Oooh LA LA

style

headband clip

indicate color

Check out the feathered headbands!  They are so much fun!  Can't you imagine a little flapper halloween costume??  Not to mention fun for any day of the week!  These cute things are $8, we'll put on an headband or clip, just let us know your preference!

 

Tuesday tutorial: simple note pad

Today's project is this cute little "match book" note pad!  It is so quick to make, you can easily whip up several to use as party favors or gifts! 

We're going to do something a little different for this week's tutorial, and that is, we're going to send you over to my other blog, mean jean's craft machine for the tutorial.  I think followers who enjoy paper crafting and Cricut will enjoy this blog.  I plan to use my other blog to share cards, layouts, and my love of paper crafting and the Cricut.  I will have lots of tutorials or "Recipes" for making products, as well as tips and ideas for using the Cricut, craft shopping, and so forth! 

Tuesday Tutorial: Multicolored cupcakes

 

This past week was my daughter’s birthday and I knew strawberry cupcakes just weren’t my thing, but I wanted pink cupcakes.  So I did some searching on the internet and my new favorite pinterest and came up with these multicolored cupcakes.  They really are very easy, and you can make them as complex or simple as you want.

First things first, you make a white cake, divide it into however many bowls you plan on having colors for and add some food coloring drops to change it colors.  Here I did pink and blue to give that cotton candy look and for each color I used about 5-6 drops of coloring.

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Next you put it into the lined cups.  A full cookie scoop is probably too much for each color, but about 3/4 scoop is just right.  Drop in your first color, and then swirl the second color on top to cover all of the second layer.  If you just drop it on top, you’ll get a u-shaped color effect, I wanted flat layers so it had to be gently swirled on top.

 

I know, I am not the neatest baker, but it does turn out pretty in the end! 

Next, bake up your cupcakes as usual frost them up, and see how pretty they turned out!  We did do several colors, you can see some of the pink and purple ones too.

Frosted with Salted caramel buttercream frosting, these were awesome!  You can use all kinds of color combos…try candy corn colors for halloween or fall parties, rainbow colors for a little girl, or your favorite team colors for a football party.  Now, obviously brown should be chocolate, and some colors may require that food coloring gel instead of the drops you buy over the counter.  But, mess around with it and see how it goes!

Tag Rag

We have been making quite a few of these, I just haven’t been able to post a picture yet as I have given them all out before getting a picture!  These tag rags are wonderful, made of minky material, 1/4 yard big.  We can do all kinds of colors and themes from Camo to hawkeye/cyclone to boy or girl.  I even have cow print right now.  Let us know your thoughts and well come up with a color choice that is great for you.  We can even do custom embroidery on it for extra charge.  Cost is $20 each.

Sock Monkey Hat

Ok, it is finally here!  The sock monkey hat!  I just love this hat!  Of course, you can do whatever color combo you like (I’ll be working on some John Deere colored ones next) and for girls we can do a flower, boys a pom-pom on top.  Just let us know  what colors you’re thinking and the size (newborn through adult), and we’ll make it up right away.  My sassy daughter LOVES hers and won’t hardly let me take it off!  Paypal link up soon, they will cost $25 for size newborn through 3 years, $30 for sizes above that.