Cupcake cones!

Yesterday I made cupcakes in ice cream cones and they turned out amazing!

I had to take a dozen cupcakes to school because they are having a mini "cakewalk" at school today during music class.

I read a ton of reviews online after I decided to make these.




I know you can bake them right in the cones and a lot of people do it. However (and this is a big however) the one thing a few people mentioned is that it CAN get soggy if baked in the cone. If I was going to serve them immediately or at a birthday party, I would have just baked them in the cone, BUT I knew I was going to drop them off at school the day before they would be eaten. So I just baked them regularly and then jammed them into the cones. This was to solve the soggy issue, and it also allows them to look imperfect, to boot. I love that! And mine did come out a little imperfect.

I did also look up a recipe for buttercream frosting on my favorite recipe site - say it with me - allrecipes.com

I made a half a batch of the frosting, put it in a gallon zipper bag, smooshed (technical term) it towards one corner, cut off that corner a little bigger than normal, and then put it liberally on top of the cupcakes that had been added to the cones. I ended up using about 2/3 of a cupcake in each cone because more just didn't fit. I added the frosting in a spiral, making it look like soft serve ice cream. On top, I wanted something to look like a cherry, but wanted it to be more like candy, so I got to stoll down the candy aisle of the store, looking for something that was red-ish. I ended up buying a box of strawberry milkshake malted milk balls. So it is a cupcake in a cone, topped with icing and a malted milk ball.

Now I knew I would be doing a lot of stuff and making the icing from scratch and since I had a boxed cake mix in my pantry, I just used that to make the cupcakes. I used a Duncan Hines Devils Food Chocolate Cake and it turned out amazing!

So then the issue was how to transport them to the school... I am usually pretty creative, but I was stumped. I went to my knitting group that morning and I was sure that one of them would be able to help me. I was SO right! Someone in that group used to be a preschool teacher, so she had a great solution! Her suggestion was to use the lid of a shoe box with holes cut into it for the cones. Then when it went back onto the show box, the cones would go to school nicely. My dilemma was that I had no shoe boxes, so we decided that any box would work! So I found a box that I thought would work, I used an exacto knife to cut 12 holes in the bottom of a box, then when I was done and knew that I had all the circles out of the box, then I taped up the top of the box so that it was stable. It worked like a charm!

I never did figure out a good way to cover them without totally smashing the icing, so I just let it go, knowing that they were going to be eaten the next day.

making valentines

Every year, I say I am just going to buy valentines for the kids and then every year I end up seeing something cute or having a great idea myself and making them. It always takes longer than I anticipate, but in the end, they turn out great and I hope the kids have great memories of making them and giving them out.

So this year, I intended only to make them for the oldest (who is 11 and in 6th grade) because he has a small class and between kids and teachers, there were only 10 required. Let's hear it for a private school!

So I found these adorable fake ipods in the Family Fun magazine and since my oldest is a boy and his class is all boys, I wanted to steer clear of anything too mushy and this seemed like the perfect answer. Then, when my middle son heard about it, he wanted them too. Now, he has a larger class (5th grade) but I wanted the teacher and the other kids and moms to know I was crafty, so I thought “What the heck?” And then, since I was going to make them for the older 2 kids, I figured I HAD to make them for the youngest, although the pre-school kids would not really be into the ipods, so I made a modified version of this other one I saw in the same issue of the magazine.

All told, I ended up making 50 valentines by hand and helping with 2 covered shoeboxes to hold them. I did finish by the Wednesday before, so I was done a full day in advance.

Organizing craft supplies

Before I put my house on the market, I did a lot of crafts. Since the house has been for sale, not so much. Anyway, I am not a big fan of things made specifically for organizing craft stuff because my stash tends to grow and most things are not that scalable.

This requires that you have shelves. Putting up shelves is pretty cheap and easy, so if you don’t have any yet, it is pretty cheap to get the wood and brackets from any home improvement store.

Once you have shelves, the clear plastic “shoe” boxes have worked great! I label each one and have a ton of them, but the beauty of the clear plastic boxes is that I can add to it whenever I feel like and if it gets smaller (as if!) then I can use the boxes for something else. You could use any size boxes too, as long as you pick a size you can use for something else. Because I am phycho about this stuff and a little anal retentive, I picked two sizes (one big and one small) and but all my boxes in one of those two sizes. Since I only use one size for this stuff, I know they will all be the same size and sit on top of each other very well. Having just one or two sizes makes storage of the empty boxes (as if!) easier as well.

I have each box labeled. I am sure you could use hand-written labels if you wanted to, but I use label-maker labels, because I like the way they look and they are all consistent. Never underestimate the power of a good-looking label! I was initially very skeptical of the labels, but I am now a firm believer.

Good mom???

I am an awesome mom! I wish there were an emoticon for an evil laugh, because I would totally put it here. I have my moments and today was one of them...

I made cupcakes. I have to take a dozen to school tomorrow afternoon because the music class is doing a mini-cakewalk. I am not quite done yet, but I will be by tomorrow afternoon, when they are due to the school.

Saturday's Deep Thoughts

Maybe you noticed (or not!) that I had no deep thought for this past Saturday. That was intentional and I was not really feeling it, so I thought it was better to not subject you to something half-a$$ed.

I do not knit socks

I do not knit socks. There. I said it. I am a knitter. I am not a great or experienced knitter, but a knitter nonetheless. I have been knitting for 5 years and have given quite a few knit gifts to friends and family. However, as a knitter it is hard to admit this, but I do not get the whole sock thing.

I know it is heresey for a knitter to admit this, but I cannot fathom spending so much time knitting something and then putting it on your own (or someone else's) feet! I understand that they might be quick and portable, but I just do not get it. I have absolutely no desire to make socks. I know that a lot of knitters LOVE to make socks. Maybe I should try it. Maybe then I will like it. But I doubt it. I have so many things I want to make and that are already in process, I have a hard time thinking I want to spend valuable knitting time on socks. And I say “socks” as if it were “the plague” or something else distasteful...

Maybe I should finish one of the 4 UFOs (knitter for “UnFinished Objects”) that I have already started. The thing is that I LOVE using larger needles because projects can typically get done faster. That is also one of the reasons I love felting. An experienced knitter will know what I am talking about, but for the rest of you, it is the act of INTENTIONALLY shrinking wool. You know how you have done or heard of someone washing and drying a sweater in the machine and it coming out half as big. There is a process whereby knitter do that on purpose. I have always done it with purses and bags, but I also have seen patterns for many other items. In that process, you knit something in wool and knit it about 1.5 times as big as you want the object. Then you put it in the washing machine (please read how to do this for real if you ever want to try it because I am not putting in all the details) and air dry it. The finished product is beautiful and the process of felting will generally hide some mistakes (another reason I like it a lot, I guess) so I have one thing on the needles right now to be felted.

Organizing Clothes

This is kind of hard to do as a mom who has to get other stuff done, but if you keep up with it, the effort is minimal and well worth it. If you do not keep up with it, it may take hours every once in a while, but keeping up with it will make it much easier!

The only stuff that should be HANGING in the closet or in the dressers is stuff that fits RIGHT NOW. It may not make sense as a mother, but the ability to know that everything in the closet fits is HUGE and makes many things much better.

The stuff that is a little too big and will fit soon should be in a container – I use a clear plastic thing – on the floor. When he needs clothes or we are ready for a change in sizes, you can either hang things a few at a time every time you are in there or if you do it all at once, it will take just a few minutes.

The stuff that is too small can go in another container – also a clear plastic one – on the floor. I do use the same container for things that are too small and too big because I am a little anal retentive and I like them to match. When stuff that no longer fits comes to your attention, you can just fold the stuff and throw it in the box. When the box gets full, you know to get a new one. If you get rid of stuff regularly, you can put the containers into which you want them to go permanently there instead. For example, if you give all your clothes that are outgrown to someone else and you give it to that person in garbage bags (my disposable container of choice!) then you can just put those on the floor instead of the containers and as your child outgrows something, you can just put things in there.

This works for any age child and makes sure that the seasonal clothing change is no big deal.