Wild Things Cupcakes

Found these online - and figured I could make them without directions. It only took me 2 horrible ones to figure out the tricks. So I thought I'd share them.

Wild Things cupcakes: What you need

batch of cupcakes - any kind will work. Make sure the cupcakes go just over the edges of the paper. It helps the cupcakes to be flat and it gives you enough space to decorate.

 right size cupcake:

 wrong size cupcake: I tried decorating one of these - and there wasn't room enough to put a whole face on.

Reeces Pieces for eyes (I used yellow for "the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes - any color would work - M&Ms would work too)

 Candy Corn - I liked these and I don't think you can find them except during the fall. But I could be wrong on that. Regular ones would work too.

Break off some white pieces to be teeth. You'll use the brown and orange part for the nose. I used unbroken candy corns for the horns.

#1 - frost

#2 - eyes (sorry I forgot a picture)

#3 - nose - push the bigger part of a broken candy corn in between the eyes.

#4 - horns - I liked how solid the unbroken candy corns were for the horns. Also, I tried to make sure both candy corns were about the same size.

 #5 - teeth - Put your little white pieces straight up and down for the teeth. This is a little tricky, but not too bad. The bigger the pieces of white are the easier this is. You can press them down further into the frosting to hide any orange that might be left.

#6 - sprinkles around the edges - make sure you don't leave your cupcakes too long before you do this or the sprinkles won't stick as well. I pressed them on a bit and then dumped the extras onto a plate.

#7 - Use the gel decorator stuff to add black dots for the eyes and the mouth. Try to cut the smallest hole possible. I should have cut it at an angle I think because my hole was too big. But it worked as long as I was gentle. Practice on a plate or something besides your first cupcake!

And that's all there is to it! I think it took me about 45 minutes to get 6 decent Wild Things. I had 2 tries that looked horrible - so 8 cupcakes. About 5 minutes a piece I would guess. Then I added a few of these - because they looked cute and took about a minute a piece. And the boys were awake. And it's not going to be a big party here anyway. Just 4 of us. 

I think I may have frosted too many cupcakes. I did freeze the rest...but 12 might be more than we can handle with just the 4 of us. But they looked so cute! How could I stop without making enough polkadot cupcakes to make this great picture?

And my 3 year old is so excited! But it's a good thing he woke up before I finished - he couldn't figure out what they were. Hopefully tonight he'll be super excited to have Wild Things cupcakes - and we won't have to explain what they are...cause that just wasn't the grand moment I expected it to be.

How to color rice

I tried a couple ways of doing this. I think this is how to do it the easiest (and it smells ok. If you use vinegar it smells like vinegar.)

Things you will need:

1 plastic container with lid (I used an old spaghetti sauce container)

1/2 cup water

A few drops of food coloring

1 cup rice

First I had my husband punch some holes in the lid of my container.

Put water in the container. Then add food coloring. Swish it around till it's mixed nicely. The color should be fairly dark at this point. It will end up looking a lot lighter on the rice than it does now.

Add rice. Shake/swish until the rice is all covered in color. Let it stand about 5 minutes.

Drain out extra water. This is where the holes in the lid come in handy. Screw on the lid and you can drain the water out without having to have a sieve or any thing else. Make sure to shake out as much extra water as you can.

Dump out onto napkins on a cookie sheet (or paper towels or newspaper - just something to collect the extra water)

Spread rice out over napkins. Cook in the oven on a low heat (warm or 200) for 10 minutes. Take the napkins out. Spread the rice out over the pan. Cook another 10 minutes. If your rice is dry at that point in time you're done. If you let it soak a while it might need to cook another 10 minutes. I think if it's warm outside when you do this you could just leave it out to dry. But here in Idaho in March - it's not really warm enough for that.

Note: The rice gets kind of sweaty in the oven. So if you're not sure if it's dry or not, take it out of the oven for 5 minutes and see if it still feels wet.

Angel Baby Blanket pattern

My friend got me started helping with this Angel Baby project. I'm kind of addicted now. I have lots of things to try. Today I made blankets. Here's a tutorial for anyone who is interested. I didn't make up the pattern. I found it HERE but the instructions weren't great so I wrote some out for anyone else you may need/want. I also added instructions for making it larger too.


I used the Caron Simply Soft yarn and an F hook for this pattern. This pattern should make a blanket for a 20 week baby. To make this pattern larger simply chain more at the beginning. You'll need your total number of chains to be a multiple of 3.

A yarn: white

B yarn: pink

Start with B

Ch 45 - turn

Row 1: (working in back loops only) sc first 2 - *ch 2 - skip 2 - sc 1* - repeat * to * all the way across - (make sure to end on a sc) - chain 2. Do Not Turn

Row 2: Tie in color A at the end where you started row 1. Chain 3 - dc 1 in first stitch (both loops) - *dc 3 in chain 2 loop* - repeat * to * all the way across - dc 4 in last chain 2 loop - ch 3 - turn.

Row 3: color B: sc 1 in first dc (both loops) - *ch 2 - sc 1 in space between each set of 3 dc* - repeat all the way across. End with sc in last space between dc 3 and first dc of row 2. Ch 2 - Do Not Turn.

Row 4: color A: dc 1 in second chain stitch of Row 3 - dc 3 in each chain 2 loop all the way across (including last chain 2 loop) - dc 1 in last dc of row 2 - ch 3 - turn.

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until blanket is desired length. For the Angel Baby blankets I did a total of 29 rows (I ended on a row 3) - sc around the edge - tie off.

And here are my two completed sets:

Sets don't necessarily include blankets but I really wanted to try this pattern. Outfits and hats can be donated separately - but they do like matching sets. HERE is the website with more information about Angel Baby outfits.

For more Angel Baby patterns and info click HERE.

NOTE: These blankets are a bit on the small side. Blankets are useful any size between 12 inches X 12 inches and 24 inches by 24 inches.

Crocheting fun

Some of my recent projects:

Blankets for a friends precious twins

I used the same pattern for these blankets that I used for Emmett's Christmas blanket. Basically they are tiny granny squares and then I used a single crochet to put them together.

I also used a variation of that pattern to make a blanket for Sam for Christmas.

He tries to wrap the little baby blankets I make around himself. So I made him his own that won't have to stretch to wrap around him.

This is just a bigger granny square - three rows then a row of single crochet for each square - then a single crochet to put them together.

And this is the newest one I made. I used a wooleater or Bavarian stitch

I'm so happy with how it turned out. I think the back looks pretty neat too:

I've been finding lots of fun patterns on pinterest so I'm trying them all out. Crocheting is such a great hobby to have with little people in the house. It's easy to put down and doesn't involve lots of pieces.

A Christmas blankie for a Christmas baby

Besides Squirt getting better this is about all I have to show for last week. I worked on it a whole lot last week. But now it's done and I'm so excited!



I saw a similar blanket HERE and though I had no idea where to find the pattern, I decided to try it anyway. I'd never tried crocheting granny squares before - but it was actually really easy.




The best part was that I could work on tiny little squares for most of the time and didn't have to hold a whole blanket on my lap. Definitely a good summer time project!

Garlands

Brandilyn gave me stuff to make a garland for my Panache Package in December.

I think she created a monster. Since then I've made two more garlands - but I did these just out of scrapbook paper and didn't decorate them much so they were simple and I finished them each in an evening.

Hearts for Valentine's Day




Pinwheels for Spring.


And cause Pinwheels are just cool. I love pinwheels. They might be my favorite toy. I can't wait till we can go outside and Squirt and I can get some real pinwheels to play with.