More 4th Of July Favorite Finds.....

So now that I am into crafty & yummy things this year I have been finding so many cute ideas for 4th of July dessert tables. I was planning on just doing cupcakes BUT I think now I might make a mini dessert table for the 4th! Here are some more finds that I will incorporate into my mini 4th of July dessert table!

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Greeting Cards

Recently I received The Cupcake Bible from my sister-in-law and today she gave me Bakerella's Cake Pop's book, which I am so excited about! I wanted to give her a thank you card but unfortunately I did not have one on hand and I did not want to go out and purchase one because very few times do I go shopping and actually come home with only one item. I then realized that I had so much scrapbooking paper from my cupcake toppers that I decided to try my hand at a thank you card. I decided to use the colors orange & blue because I think she is going to be using them for my nephews 2nd Birthday party next month and I thought maybe it would be a great way to advertise how crafty I can be! We will see what she says about it tomorrow, but until then, I think it turned out pretty darn good. Here is a couple pictures of it....

Maybe I will begin creating and selling these too along with my cupcake toppers on my soon to be Esty shop!

July 4th!

Every year for the last couple of years my husband and I have met most of my family on Main St. in Huntington Beach for their famous 4th of July Parade! This year is no exception. Last year I brought a dessert to the party and I was so proud of it.....

 Plain old cake with a surprise inside...

 an American flag!

Turned out pretty good!

I found this cake on a blog but since it was a year ago I completely forgot which one! This year I would like to do another dessert but I am still debating which ones. I recently began following this very talented woman who runs a website called TheTomKatStudio. She finds amazing things around the Internet along with creating her own amazing products as well. I would love to be the OC version of her and some day I hope too! Anyways she has some very cute ideas on her website like this one.....

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These adorable cupcakes are mimicking the old school red, white and blue Popsicle you get from the ice cream truck. The recipe to make them is also suppose to taste just like the Popsicle as well. I am not too sure if I will follow the recipe or if I will just make vanilla cupcakes with colored cream cheese frosting, but I definitely think I want to make these for the party!

I am really looking forward to the 4th this year and celebrating Independence in style!

Speaking of Independence, on a side note, I wanted to mention that today was a very special day in NYC because a law was past to allow gay marriages! I personally think laws do not need to be passed or sign allowing anyone to get married.....we all should be treated equal! I hope California jumps on board soon!

Garden Themed Dessert Table

Well last weekend we celebrated Father's Day along with my Mom's 64th Birthday. We BBQ'd for the Fathers and I created a Garden themed dessert table for my Mom! Overall I was very pleased with my first dessert table! It turned out really cute and definitely was one of the highlights of the weekend! I cant wait to make another dessert table for someone special, but until then, I will continue collecting fun and unique ideas for everything DESSERT! Here are some photos of the dessert table!

 Garden Cupcakes

 Chocolate Covered Pretzel Herbs

 Flower Garden Marshmallows

 Jelly Bean Seeds

 Sunflower cake pops

 The signs

 Decor

The whole table (My mom refused to take down the shell wreath, oh well!)

Cupcake Toppers!

As I have been lurking around the DIY websites and blogs I noticed these toppers that were very cute and added an extra pizazz to desserts and decor. I decided to try and do my own cupcake toppers but adding a little twist to them! I really liked all the toppers I saw but they were all printed off of the computer, I wanted 3D toppers that POP out at you as well as encouraging people to use them again when scrap booking or for other projects. Therefore, me liking to plan ahead, I created these toppers for a "What's it gonna bee?" party, which someday, hopefully in the near future, I can use for myself!

What's it gonna bee?

Bee embellishment

Flower embellishment

I then made some for my sister-in-law's bridal shower in hopes that they would use them, and they did! I made sure they were the colors being used for the shower and the bride-to-be made these really cute cupcakes that complemented the cupcake toppers so well!

Flower embellishments

Perfect colors!

I then began making them for birthdays, fundraisers, Boy Scout events, holidays and so on. Lately I have been lazy making them but I am planning on making some toppers for the decor for my Mom's dessert table and instead of sticking them on cupcakes I was going to use them for little signs!

St. Patrick's Day

Relay For Life

1st Birthday-Ladybugs

60th Birthday for Dad

Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby

Garden Themed Dessert Table Decor

I wanted to draw the most attention to my table by adding embellishments and decor. I recently tried Martha Stewart's pom poms and I loved the outcome so I decided to throw them into the mix. I wanted to stay within the neutral garden colors such as greens, browns and maybe some tarnish silver because it was for my Mother's 64th birthday, if this particular theme was for a child or younger adult I would have added lots of bright colors to it. I also wanted to create a couple signs saying "Happy Birthday" and "Sweets". I found some burlap at Joanne's on sale for $2.99 a yard which was more then enough. I decided to cut triangle shaped flags and then painted letters on each spelling out "Happy Birthday" and "Sweets". I then hot glue gunned each letter to a brown string and TA DA a homemade burlap sign! I think it goes really well with the whole garden theme. I had tons of burlap left so I think I will use some to make toppers with (which I will have to do a post about) and the rest will be used as table cloth under my dessert table. I went to Michael's yesterday and they have a ton of garden items on sale that would be great to add to the decor of the table but nothing jumped out at me! I think I might go to Joanne's tonight to see if they have anything that I like.

 Finished product!

Close up!

Chocolate Pretzel Vines....or Herbs?

After deciding on a cute garden patch for the cupcakes and sunflower cake pops blooming from flower pots I knew I needed more tasty treats to decorate my Mom's dessert table with! I knew I wanted to incorporate chocolate covered pretzel sticks into the mix but I was not sure how I was going to relate them to the garden theme. Then it hit me! Vines! I could do green chocolate covered pretzel sticks and then cover them in green sprinkles to make cute little vines! Then I thought what was I going to stick them in to stand straight up so that they can be plucked and gobbled up quickly? Then I had an ah-ha moment when I was at Walmart picking up items for the cake pops. I saw these adorable herb pots that were pretty cheap and already labeled. I didn't buy any because I like to focus on one treat at a time but now that I am focusing on the pretzels I think I am going to go back and buy them today! They would add so much to the overall look of the table plus I think the green chocolate covered pretzel sticks would look so cute popping out of the herb pots. So I guess instead of vines they will be herbs, which is perfect because I think they will look more like herbs instead of vines anyways!

The great thing about the flower pots and herb pots is I will be able to re-use them for actual gardening or for a future dessert table!

Now I need to worry about how I am going to get them to stand up in the herb pot. The cake pops were easy because the stick can get stuck straight into the foam but no one wants to eat a pretzel that has been stuck in foam.

~UPDATE~

So I went and bought the Herb pots and today Stella, Ollie and I made the chocolate covered pretzel sticks. I bought a large bag of chocolate animal crackers because they were SOOOO much cheaper then oreos and crushed them up to make dirt to go inside of the pots. I will also be using the "dirt" for the top of the garden cupcakes (but it will be much finer). Here is the finished product.....

I LOVE it!!!

Cake Pops are Popping Up!

If you haven't heard about cake pops yet...where in the world have you been?! Ever since Starbucks introduced their cake pops people have been raving about them. Therefore I thought, what is a dessert table without cake pops? So I went to bakerella to find out how to make them, they seemed easy enough, however recently I have discovered a company, thebabycakesshop.com that has a product that makes them without all the hard work! So I bought one, of course! I got it in the mail today and I made donuts right away. Why donuts you ask? Well, I didn't have all the ingredients for cake and to tell you the truth I am leaving tomorrow morning for Vegas and I didn't want to have tons of cake pops sitting around for the kids, I mean cats, to eat! So I made a small batch of donuts to try out the product and it worked magically! I love it to say the least!

 The cute purple cake pop maker!

 Some over-flow but perfectly round donut holes!

Sugar & cinnamon goodness!

Getting back to why I bought this awesome product. I thought that cake pops would be a perfect treat to add to my Mom's dessert table. I am planning on making the cake pops to look like sunflowers, which is her favorite flower. I wanted to go a step further to make the cake pops look like they are in flower pots. So I bought 2 ceramic pots from Walmart (only .84 cents each) along with some fake moss ($2.50) and green floral foam ($2.00). I stuffed each pot with the floral foam and then hot glue gunned the green moss on top of the foam to make it look like grass in a flower pot. After making each cake pop I will place around 5 or 6 in each pot to look like blooming sunflowers! I am really excited to see how it turns out but so far I can just show you the pots! I plan on making some sort of sign on each pot that says something along the lines of, "sunflowers" or "pick me".

 Side view of the pots

 Top view of the grassy pots

Materials used...

So for around $1.50 for each pot I think it makes for a cute embellishment to go towards my Mom's dessert table! I cant wait to see the finish product!

Dessert Table: Garden Themed Birthday Party

I am known as the dessert queen in my family. I am always the one to bring a special treat to all the family gatherings. I love to bake cakes for my nieces and nephews, cupcakes for special occasions, cookies for bake sales and I have decided what better way then to just do it all and take a stab at the new up and coming fad, dessert tables!

My next project is creating a Garden themed dessert table for my Mother's birthday. She recently became an avid green thumb and what better way to express her love of gardening then through desserts!

The first thing I did was look into garden themed cupcakes. My go to for cupcakes is one of the two books, "Hello, Cupcake!" or "What's New, Cupcake?" by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson. If you have not already (and you love to bake), go out and buy these books, your cupcakes will be the next big thing at parties! So I found a perfect "Garden Party" themed cupcake that look like little vegetable patches of radishes, peas, carrots and lettuce. I cant wait to make them! Here is a picture of the Garden Party from the book....

In the next few blogs I will discuss what other sweet treats I am making for the dessert table along with all the embellishments!

Goat Cheese & Chocolate

Now the title of this post may not seem too appetizing but they are examples of savory & sweet, the two tastes I want to base my whole business on! I want to make a twist on the plain desserts that you grew up on by adding savory to the sweet or visa versa. I do not plan on making everything both savory and sweet however a few cupcakes, cookies, whoopie pies with an added treat never hurts!

Based on Wikitionary Savory is something that is salty or non-sweet, such as meat, vegetables, bread, cheeses, rice, and so on. Whereas Sweet is the opposite, having the taste of sugar, such as chocolate, butterscotch, honey and so on. I want to take ingredients that have both tastes to complement each other and create a masterpiece in your mouth and excitement in your eyes! For example one of my favorite savory & sweet combinations has to be caramelized pears and Gorgonzola cheese. I think this must be the first savory & sweet creation I should work on.....

However, right now, I plan on just keeping it simple and sweet.

The Beginning of Something Sweet....and Savory

I absolutely LOVE dessert. While eating my dinner I look forward to what my dessert is going to be. Maybe that is why I am overweight.

I also love to be crafty and I am beginning to become more and more crafty and willing to make things instead of buying them. I will look at something now and say, "Hey! I can make that!". Now, the finish product may not look like the original one I saw, and it actually might cost me more, but eventually if I make it enough, it turns out perfectly and cheap!

Therefore, I decided that I am going to put these two skills together and create something amazing, spectacular and no doubt one of a kind! Desserts & crafts, in hopes of one day opening up a store in Orange County, Ca where delicious desserts are created and given a special touch, in a crafty way.

I would like to introduce you to Savory & Sweet: A Dessert Boutique.