Making Headbands

I saw several ideas online. I started buying different supplies for this, several months ago. I love this one bidding site called Tophatter, most sellers are from etsy. So I bought these silver metal headbands, twine, flowers, buttons, hello kitty clips, strands of beads, etc.. I had promised the girls that Thursday night we would make headbands. But, the only problem I was having was I had to put the twist the twine on the headband before we could put anything on it. That takes time & patience. So, we did the mini hamburger cookies & they took showers as I twisted twine.. I used hot glue & honestly do NOT recommend using it. I then moved on to gorilla glue, which I would recommend or some other tacky glue or something.

These are the items I used and how we started....

              

Danika did not get to pick her color because her mom (ME) just grabbed a color and started twisting the twine on there. She got to chose her beads. I should have taken a picture of all the string of beads I had. I will add those later. So we made 2 headbands for her. She got the bottom one with the Hello Kitty. 

This one is my favorite, because the way it came together. This is the way I had it in my head. Hailey loved it and she picked her own color. What a goofy face. :)

 

I may have to redo the beads on this one. They started popping off a little, I think the string got broken. But the concept is cute. I love this one, but it really frustrated me because a couple of the beads started popping off. And I have to admit, the Hello Kitty is a clip and I clipped it on and then hot glued it on the bottom with tons and tons of glue. Then got distracted and grabbed under the Hello Kitty, so guess what? I got a glump of glue on one of my fingers and burned the heck out of it. I had to put it under cold water... ugh

Next times, we are adding flowers. We will be making our own & then adding button some how. Need to use my imagination. 

Mini Burger cOoKiEs

I saw a picture online & had to do this with the girls. So adorable, so easy & very quick. With hardly any mess.  They look so cute!!

Nilla Wafers

Keebler Grasshopper cookies

coconut (dyed green)

tube of yellow & red frosting

          

      

 Hailey's creations above

   Danika's creations


We did not use a lot of coconut, because only my boyfriend likes it. He is not going to be eating all those...

Making Rock Candy

So I been wanting to do this for awhile with the girls, so I decided I had enough sugar to do this project. I also had mason jars from Danika's birthday left over. I had bought skewers and clothespins to do this project, so I had everything on hand. I read several different recipes, one of my girlfriends had done this project for her kids for science. So I got her feed back also on what to do and not do.
So I used 3 cups sugar to1 cup water; boil to candy stage. You then turn off the heat, let set for about 10 min. You want it to cool some. We used 3-4 drops of color. 1/2 tsp for imitation flavoring and 1/4 tsp if it is oil based.
Since we were doing 4 jars (2 colors for each kid), I had put the sugar mix in a bowl and waited for it to cool, while getting the other girl ready for her next color.












It was fun and messy. The girls picked cherry, raspberry, peppermint & plain for their flavors.

The girls had plugged in the radio in the kitchen so we were rocking out making rock candy!!

I have to say within 2 hours the blue peppermint began crystallizing. I will show you pictures.












I also read that during the time, if it begins to crystallize on the sides to pour into a new jar and wash out the old one.. move the stick over too- don't forget.

It was all over the mason jar, I could  not pry it out at all. I used  a knife to jab it out and then the stick came out with nothing on it. Guess what we might have to do tonight? Start a new blue one over. This one got crazy and over grew. I really think it was the flavoring, because that was the only difference between all the jars.

Baking Cakes

SO, my boyfriend volunteered me to make cakes for his oldest daughters boyfriends birthday. About 50+ people were suppose to show. More like 20-25 showed, but the point was Andres (the boyfriend) likes Burnt Almond cake & I figured for that many people I will just do 2 cakes & one will be chocolate. You can never lose with chocolate, right?! Burnt Almond takes alot of time to do & many ingredients! I use to work in a bakery for about 20 years and so I use to decorate & at some point started making all the icings, etc..
I made the cakes the night before, and the burnt almond crunch. I gave myself about 3 hours to make the icings and decorate the cakes. I make the icing from scratch and ice the cakes right away. The 2nd cake was chocolate, strawberries & buttercream.  I can not give out my burnt almond cream recipe, but I must say it turned out delicious! I brought some in for a girl at work, who loves to bake also & she could not stop eating it & begged for the recipe. The only thing I have to say, is that when I know how to prep a recipe, I never go by the measurements. I do my own thing, whatever looks right. Hard to explain, I guess it is like something you know so well, you don't have to follow directions. You know what it is suppose to look like.

One thing, I do miss about working in the bakery is the fact that you have a huge table to work on. I had to sweep my floor 4 times in this process. And then this morning mop it, I would have  mopped it that day or the next but time restraints and to many people in the house at one time.