Holidays

Paint Dipped Bud Vases for Mother’s Day

0 · Apr 18, 2012 · Leave a Comment

One of my Mom's great loves in life is gardening. For as long as I can remember she has worked daily on her beautiful flower garden. Carefully planning and pruning to create a stunning floral landscape every year. She would always bring in her flower cuttings and was in constant need for vases of all shapes and sizes. For Mothers Day this year I thought I would try out a new painting technique that I've been dying to try with the Martha Stewart Crafts Paint by Plaid. I created some fun paint dipped bud vases for her to have on hand for her beautiful flowers.

Click here to learn how to make them!

Vanilla Bean Heart Doughnuts | Recipe

0 · Feb 2, 2012 · 18 Comments

Ahhhhh… can you feel it? Love is in the air. As promised I have the recipe for the Vanilla Bean Heart Doughnuts that I featured last week with our Gift Gloss post. These little gems are perfect for any Valentine goodie or gathering. Don't worry, you don't have to make them heart shaped. Any good donut baking pan will do.

I found my heart doughnut pan at Target if you want to make the heart shaped variety or you can find a good ole' round doughnut pan large or small at your local baking store or online. Here is the recipe that I used.

Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 vanilla bean

2 eggs slightly beaten

3 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and spry pan with non-stick cooking spray

In a large mixing bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add buttermilk, vanilla, eggs and butter. Cut the vanilla bean length wise and using a knife scrape out the vanilla seeds and add to the mixture. Mix just until combined. Fill each doughnut cup 1/2 full and bake accordingly.

large doughnut pan or heart shaped pan 10-12 minutes

mini doughnut pan 4-6 minutes

The top will only slightly brown and the doughnut will spring back when touched. Let doughnuts cool in pan for a few minutes and then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Now my little secret is… I dip the doughnuts in melted chocolate to create that lovely glazed look. The funny thing is I now prefer my doughnuts with a chocolate topping! I used the red colored candy melts along with some white jimmies from Sweet baking & candy making supply. I prepared the chocolate according to package directions and then added a tablespoon of canola oil to the chocolate to thin it out a bit. You'll have to check the consistency of the chocolate and may need to add a little more. Just start slow until you get your desired consistency. Don't worry, the chocolate will still set-up with the oil. Carefully dip the doughnuts into the chocolate and then sprinkle the top with the jimmies. Put doughnuts into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes until the chocolate sets-up. The lovely thing about the chocolate is that it makes it super easy to package your goodies without making a huge mess and they taste aaaaaamazing!!

What kind of goodies are you making this year? Here's another fun Valentine idea from WhipperBerry…

Heart shaped cookies with a free packaging printable. Yes… I have a thing for heart shaped goodies!

Valentine Snow Globe | Anthro Inspired

214 · Jan 11, 2012 · 59 Comments

I have to admit… I have fallen for the Anthropologie snow globes from this last holiday season! While I was putting all of my holiday decorations away I just couldn't part with my snow globes. I decided that I would make a Valentine's Day version. Here you have it… my Valentine Snow Globe.

I took my Anthro inspired snow globe and removed the trees and safely stored it for next year. Then I used my Epic tool and my new Sweetheart Nesting Scallop Heart die from Lifestyle Crafts to make the pink heart. I made two and then placed them back to back with two, two inch pieces of a paper drinking straw in the middle to secure to the bottom of the lid with some large 3D glue dots. For the tutorial on how to do that click here.

Then I used a fun felt Christmas tree ornament for the large heart. You could of course, make another paper heart for the large one. I just happened to have the perfect felt heart already on hand. I did the same with the two felt hearts. I placed them back to back and placed two, three inch paper straws in between to help secure the heart to the lid. They were a little wonky so I used a small section of the paper straw and some glue dots in between the hearts to secure them a little better…

Don't worry, people won't notice the straws at all. It will just look like you have beautiful hearts floating in your snow globe! What else do you think we can do with the ever popular snow globe?

Crayon Heart Valentines | Lifestyle Crafts

84 · Jan 10, 2012 · 132 Comments

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and today I thought I would share my "you color my WORLD" Crayon Heart Valentines, made with the new Sweetheart die collection from Lifestyle Crafts and heart shaped crayons made with melted Crayola crayons.

Isn't that fun? I am always a fan of homemade Valentines for the kiddos classes every year. It's also a bit of a challenge to make valentines that are fun, colorful and easy on their sugar intake for the day.

I know this isn't a new idea by far… My neighbor made these heart shaped crayons several years ago after finding this fun idea in Family Fun magazine, but I thought it would be a perfect fit for the new Sweetheart Nesting Hearts from Lifestyle Crafts. Cutting the hearts was super simple using my Epic three in one tool from Lifestyle Crafts. The Epic tool cuts, embosses and can create beautiful letterpress projects as well.

But I am getting ahead of myself! Before we can make the cards we need to make the heart shaped crayons…

You will need to gather all the old crayons in the house… if your house is anything like mine, that won't be a problem. You can also purchase new crayons as well. I will have to admit, the new crayons were easier to remove the labels from. I used an X-ACTO knife to make a slit down the length of the crayon to easily remove the labels. The older crayons took a little more coaxing.

Once you've removed all of the labels, break the crayons into small pieces. The smaller the better…

I also found that separating them into color families made for the best looking crayons, but that is completely up to you!

You will need to use a heart shaped silicon baking mold to melt your crayons in. I found mine at Michaels in the baking section and it worked like a dream. The girls and I decided that we wanted our crayons to be a little glittery so we added about 1/2 a teaspoon of silver glitter to the bottom of the baking mold. Then we filled the baking mold with the crayons about 1/3 full. The mold I used was pretty deep so depending on what you use you will have to play around with this.

Place in your oven that has been pre-heated to 300 degrees and baked for 15 minutes. The crayons will become completely liquefied so be careful when you pull them out of the oven. Carefully place them on the counter to cool. You want to make sure that you don't move them around too much and mix the colors more than you want. Wait for about 20 minutes or until the crayon is solid again and then gently remove it from the mold and let cool completely.

I made 57 hearts with the Wilton Mini Heart Mold using approximately 200 crayons.

Now it's time to pull out your Epic Tool to make the heart shaped cards for you to place your new crayons on. I used two different dies from the new Sweetheart line for this project. The Nesting Heart and the Nesting Scallop Hearts work beautiful for this card.

I decided that since I wanted the focus to be on the crayons I used a basic white watercolor paper for the base of the card.

Once I cut out the heart shapes, I used my rolling alphabet stamp to create the fun saying on the card. "Valentine… you color my WORLD" I just LOVE that look!!

Of course I had to dress up the heart crayons with some Divine Twine from Whisker Graphics. I just wrapped the hearts randomly and tied with a bow or made little twine bundles for the decoration…

This is such a fun project to do with the kiddos. My girls and I had ball gabbing while we were prepping the crayons. After that it was a perfect opportunity to have a color class while we created our crayon concoctions. From start to finish this is an easy and elegant Valentine treat that your little ones {or big ones} will love to share with their friends this Valentine's Day!!

Come back tomorrow I have another fun Anthro inspired Valentine project made with my Sweetheart dies from Lifestyle Crafts!

Here are some more WhipperBerry Lifestyle Craft projects…