Scottish Sweet Bun

http://sweetenyourdayevents.blogspot.com/2012/10/brave-themed-birthday-party.html

REAL RECIPE: http://www.cestmamanquilafait.com/article-gateau-de-merida-gateaux-rebelle-de-disney-109378342.html
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024536485/


This week is Multicultural week at our school and I've already decorated the door. Now I needed to make a dish from another country. I've made my family's Kolač  recipe many times. We decided to go a different route.  We love Disney around here. And Brave is one of my favorite Disney Princesses (it must be a red head thing!). Hailey really wanted to try the buns that Harris, Hubert and Hamish are always stealing. Amazingly enough there was a pin for it!

 

Now, I'm not exactly Scottish...and... I think  my husband's Irish..I can do a great Merida impression though. We decided it was OK for us to do this one, because...well...it was fun!


Ingredients for 16 drop cakes
- 3 cups  plain flour
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 Stick real butter (not melted)
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 3 large eggs
- 2 TBSP vanilla extract
- 1 TBSP of baking powder
- 1 pinch of table salt

Icing and red topper (alternative: Wilton microwavable cookie icing)
- 2 cups powder sugar
- 4 ½ TBSP  water
- Glacé cherry or cinnamon drops or other red candy to top. (I used red hots)


Recipe
Beat soft butter with sugar, then add milk, eggs and vanilla extract. Add flour, baking powder and pinch of salt. Mix well. The dough will be sticky. Cover container and place in Refrigerator for  30 minutes.

 

with about 10 minutes left on the waiting, pre heat your oven to 350. Line pan with parchment paper and add little drops of dough (it will still be pretty sticky). If you have an ice cream scoop with the spring in it, it will help give it a rounder form.

 

Bake 7 to 8 minute, bottom shall be deep golden and top puffy and light.At this point I tasted the little pieces that were baked- they were good :)

While they are cooling, mix the icing together. I did a "full dip" of icing on mine for extra flavor.


Verdict: I think they are good, but I might want to use a cookie icing instead next time. I'm not really "into" that kind of icing. We hope the school enjoys them and our cute little sign!

One year ago..

 A year ago yesterday we started our little blog. There were a lot of cheers and tears. All in all we did at least 330 pins in the last year.

A lot of them went undone. Ones that we had planned to make and never got around to for whatever reason. That's why last night, we decided:

We were going to year two!

If you have any pins you'd like to see us try we'd love to consider them! Please put them in the comment box below!!

Emptying Grease

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915022922279/
No original source

I never really knew what to do with the left over grease when I was done cooking. I knew it shouldn't go down the drain, but I also knew that it shouldn't be dumped into the garbage either (think- hot oil and plastic). My mom use to use a jar or an empty soup container and pour the left over grease in that and just keep using it until it was done. The results in that: Stinky/ gross smell anywhere near that thing.

Finally I saw this and knew it was my answer: Place tin foil in a container (I used a measuring cup) pour the oil into the tinfoil and let it set. When its solid just toss it out!

Kaper chart

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024512475/
indulgy.com

 My daughters Daisy troop leaders asked if I could help make a kaper chart for our troop. I was thrilled. I love crafting and I love helping out (especially when it involves crafting). She had one idea in mind, but didn't like the circles. She liked the one pin above but we didn't want to put a bunch of holes into the board. So we combined the two and got this:

 

We have:
Foam board
Bulletin board letters/ numbers
ribbon
colored paper
gem daisys (found at Michaels)
Sharpie (to write with)
clothes pins

Directions:
I made one flower pot and then traced out the rest. Next I made the blue ribbon for around the pot (enough for each one) and the bows separately glued on top. Next I made some leaves and stems out of green colored paper and glued them underneath the pots. After that I made a daisy and cut out several colors (enough for each chore: Pledge, Song leader, Snack/set up, Clean up, Closing, Promise,  Attendance, etc...) The gem daisys were beautiful and I had originally wanted to add a small paper daisy beneath them, but thought it dulled the sparkle. So we lefts them simple and wrote  each girls name on a clothes pin and called it a day.

Pepperoni Pizza Roll

whataboutpie.blogspot.com

What you'll need:
Rhode house dough or my favorite pizza dough 
 sauce
Your choice of toppings

Seasoning ideas:
Italian season
Garlic Salt
Parmesan

Start by either rolling out the Rhode island dough or mixing all ingredients and letting it rise for an hour. Then rolling it out.
Add your toppings

Roll it up and either bake (Rhode Island) or let it rise for at least 30 minutes.

BAKE: Accoding to package or at 425 until finished

Alright It kinda tasted like a Calzone, but not as good. There was a little too much cheese in certain spots and not enough in others. It wasn't that good warm, but it tasted better cold the next day :) All in all we decided not to make it again but it was fun to try.

Cinnamon sugar soft pretzels

http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2011/03/recipe-cinnamon-sugar-pretzel-bites.html
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024515367/

Cinnamon & Sugar Pretzel Bites

1 package of active dry yeast
2 Tablespoon sugar (or brown sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour (if you don't have you can substitute with 1 cup regular flour then minus 2 TBL)

TOPPING
4 Tablespoons melted butter
5 Tablespoons  sugar (for this part we're using sugar substitute. I  like to think that any less sugar is better) mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

In mixing bowl add dry yeast, water, and sugar. Let sit for ten minutes. Mix in flour and knead for about 8 minutes. There is something I've learned over the last few years: The stickier the dough the better the rise. I've noticed when the dough is in a perfect ball and a little more firm the end results are a little dryer.

After the dough has doubled in size, it's time to shape them. I like to cut the dough in half and then cut long strips off to form either the pretzel, or the bites.

 

Now, I made mine two ways:
My typical way is to  drop the pretzels into a baking soda bath for a few seconds before baking. The others I left like the recipe. After baking you can see the difference in color that the  baking soda ones have:

5. Place on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet and let rise for 20 minutes. (this only needs to happen when the dough is not already soft!)

6. Bake at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes.

7. Place on cooling rack dip or brush with melted butter and either sprinkle cinnamon sugar or salt onto them. They are best when served warm, if you can get that far. I was making them before lunch and started to snack. 

Makes about 10 servings.

Storing potatoes

http://www.wikihow.com/images/f/f6/Stop-Potatoes-from-Sprouting-in-Storage-Step-1.jpg
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024515652/

We like potatoes in our house (it did take until marrying my husband for me to acquire the liking, but still). The only problem? Half the bag sprouts before I can use them!

Directions:

Place potatoes in paper bag in cool, dark area.  I just got my potatoes yesterday (the 17th of February) So  you'll have to come back and check to see if this works!

Some people swear by an apple- last time I did that, it did not prevent sprouting.
March 1st 2013:




March



March 11th: spuds.

Cleaning coffee maker

http://pinterest.com/pin/2955555977264532/
http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-a-Coffee-Maker
After reading the yahoo news article about germiest things my house. I wasn't really expecting my coffee maker to be on there. The silly ones like :credit cards, bottom of rugs, purses-yeah. So this afternooon I decided to clean my coffee maker. It's super easy.

It's two parts water, one part vinegar. place enough liquid into the coffee maker to fill it to the 12cup mark. Add a liner (which I forget) and start the machine.

let it run a cycle, dump it out and refill with fresh water. Let it run again. Dump out that water and you're done. Clean :)

Giant rice krispie "Kiss"

 http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024485631/
http://katiedail.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/hersheys-kiss/

Eight years ago today was mine and my husbands very first Valentines Day together as a couple. In the gift basket he had made for me was a giant Hershy Kiss. As kids we use to both always want them. Even after getting one is sat on a shelf and moved from apartment to apartment with us until about 4 years ago (gross, I know).

Anyway I saw this pin and thought immediatly of that Valentine's day 8 years ago, I thought I'd make him one out of rice krispie (which I knew would be eaten).

Start by making rice krispies ( I did half a recipe of: 1 1/2 TBL spoons butter, 2 cups mini marshmallow and 3 cups cereal). I let it set for a few minutes and then got ready to form the kiss. I don't actually have a funnel, but even without one I was able to shape the rice krispie into the "kiss" form by buttering my hands.

Then I wrapped it in plastic wrap, and again in foil. Using tissue paper I wrote "Happy Valentines Day" and used it as the tag for the signature look.

MORE VALENTINE IDEAS:
Valentine Day to show care
Card for family from kids
funny Valentine Card for Serious relationship

Valentines Day

I'm not actually big on Valentines day. all I really want is a heart shaped pizza & to relax in my pj's and watch a movie. True story. My girls are still little and they are really into all Holidays. I wanted to surprise them this year with something small and handmade.

Attack of the Hearts
skiptomylou.org 
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024206478/ 

Typically, this is called a "Heart Attack" but because we take that a little too seriously in our house (too many people passed away from one). We called it "Attack of the Hearts". Last week I cut out a bunch of hearts in various colors and sizes. In a sharpie I wrote a bunch of different things that I liked about each girl. (Great Artist, lovely smile, I like how you find the good in everything, caring, intelligent, beautiful, funny, etc..)  I never specified who was what. Except for the "Best (childs name). Ever" heart. This morning while they were sleeping I taped them to the door and closed it so that when they woke up in the morning they would have to open the door to see it.

Setting the scene
http://stylishlyeverafter.blogspot.com/2011/02/happy-valentines-day-caramel-apple.html
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024294602/edit/

 

 I saw that one mom had taken and set their gifts up so that would be the first thing her kids saw and thought that was a really cute idea. I blew up the balloons with the left over helium from my daughters birthday party and tied them to the chair. They each got a bag of candy they really like to share.

 

 I made them each a pet bed for their American Girl Doll pets



Breakfast awaits

 
When they came out to the kitchen, they had their special breakfast of Crepes and hot cocoa.
OTHER BREAKFAST IDEAS:
Valentine Pakecakes
Egg on a Raft


Kid Hairstlye
http://pinterest.com/pin/271130840038785447/

 

We are known at our school for doing crazy festive hairstyles. It only seemed fitting to make my oldest daughters hair into a heart this morning...the picture is bad, I'll have a better one later

Valentine egg on a raft

http://pinterest.com/pin/137500594842961915/
http://www.petitekitchenesse.com/2012/01/22/egg-in-the-basket/

So, while my girls were busy having Mardi Gras pancakes for dinner, I chose an egg on the raft. But I "Valentine-d it up". All you have to do is butter both sides of the bread, and cut out the middle with a heart shaped cookie cutter. place it on the skillet and let cook. Add the cracked egg (or in my case- the yolk makes me gag so I scamble the egg and THEN add it). Cook until done :)

 

Now, imagine how your favorite person would feel Valentines day morning when they woke up to that?

Swedish Frendship Hearts

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024430899/
http://threepixielane.blogspot.com/2011/02/little-more-love.html

We love all Holidays here and I love Scandinavian things. This year my daughter saw another second grade class make these hearts and asked if we could make some too.

We started by folding some papers (normal 8x11) and cut them into half a heart.

After that,  cut strips at the base of the heart. Choose a second color and do the same thing. Then weave together

Mardi Gras Pancakes

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024474502/
http://catholicicing.com/2010/02/shrove-tuesday-fat-tuesday-mardi-gras-pancake-tuesday/

Happy Fat Tuesday! So, I was going to make a King cake today for fun, but I already made cupcakes for my daughters teachers birthday AND we already had a butter cake. Amazingly enough I really do try to limit sweets in the house ;)

Since one of the main foods today is pancakes, I knew we couldn't go wrong with colored pancakes for dinner (and who doesn't love an extra reason for breakfast in the morning). Start with your favorite pancake mix, divide into three colors: Yellow, purple and green

 

 Bake on skillet :)

 

and enjoy (preferably without the bead necklace)

Valentine Card Holder Bag

familyfun.go.com
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915022057322

What you need:
template (from site)
scissors
paper: red, white, pink and black
glue
A bag (for the body)

Directions:
We saw this last year after valentines Day from Familyfun.com and we knew we needed it this year. Just print the template off and trace it onto white, red and black.  The tricky part is making the hole in the bag for the mouth. Line it up where you want it to be, trace the mouth (after you've cut out the mouth on the face, obviously) Then cut it out on the bag, glue it together. The arms and legs are pink paper "accordion folded"

Valentine Pancakes

bystephanielynn.com
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024273078/

 

Yesterday was Pancake Day. What better way to celebrate then by eating pancakes for dinner?  I saw this on pintrest and decided it must be made. It it really easy. Just make your pancakes (either by box of from scratch- we don't judge here). Make the White/plain colored panckae first. Then add dye to the second half and bake. When they are done, use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the middles of each pancake out and trade places with them fromt he other pancake.

 

My daughters really enjoyed this and we had fun making them. to make the plain pancake a little less...well, plain we added some red sprinkles to it.

Pet bed for American Girl Doll

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024427357/
http://jembellish.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/pet-bed-tutorial-anyone-can-sew-this-in.html?m=1

If you follow my other blog, you know that I am making pet beds for my daughters American Girl Pets. I made one a square one. I saw this circular one this morning and I kind of liked it better for the fabric I was going to use.

Now I admit after reading the blog I got a little confused with her TT measuring...so I just did the best I could. I first took Ginger and chose a good sized circle (ours happened to be 7 1/2 inches round. I trace the container onto my fabric. Then I put batting in between those pieces of fabric.

To make the sides I used strips (folded) one was 20 3/4 inches long and 3 inches high. for the little part where the pet comes in and out i used a 4inch long by 1 1/2 inches high (picture says 3- but it's wrong). Also stuffed with batting. I then pinned it all together and sewed it closed. to give the front a clean look I took the short piece and sandwiched it into the long strip. Then I hemmed the edges closed and sewed them together (the stitches are visible, but I think it looks OK).

**If you found this funny, useful or made it, follow me and share your pictures!**

My other American Girl items:
school supplies
feel better kit  (Just like McKenna's!)
Gymnastics accessories
head band
Minnie Mouse ears
sleeping bags
sleeping mask
pillow dress
accessories
pet accessories
generic witch costume,
Tutu Style Witch Costume 
Scooby Doo Costume
Square Dog bed

2 Hairstyles for Girls

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023433079/
http://wantu.taobao.com/detail/15085637?spm=a1z0j.1000818.1000257.5&wantu_c=meirong&u=40747129

Don't be intimidated by this hairstyle. It was surprisingly easy. It is similar to Swedish Piggie's but I think it is actually nicer. The "locks" as I will refer to them as are a lot smaller than the piggies and not tied off after each side.

 

Start with 3 locks of hair (note the 1st lock will be where the 1st side is) Carefully bring the 3rd lock over to the first lock. Next brush over the 4th lock to the right side. Next start a 5th lock on the right side (refer to the picture if you get confused). Continue down your hair until you get to the desired length. Put in pony tail.

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024385550/
duitang.com

 

This is nothing more than a light french braid put into a half pony tail. 

Valentine Card

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023496665
jaredandrewschorr.blogspot.com

 

When I saw this card, I knew I was going to have to recreate it. It made me giggle. I started with card stock. and folded it into a card shape. Then I took  an index card and drew (by staring at a picture of the original card) the head of the hammer. When I perfected that (it took 3 tries) I took brown construction paper and drew a handle of a hammer. With light pink I made thin triangles.

When I was ready I took pink heart stickers and placed them on the pink triangles to act as my nails. I then glued down the hammer and colored around the rim of the card. On the outside I wrote the message "I want to nail you". On the inside I wrote Happy Valentines Day. Now I just have to get his gift together.

Cute Valentine Card

 http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915024384990/
mykidsguide.com


This card meant a lot to me. Growing up my sister taught us the sign for "I love you", she even had a cookie cutter. As a parent, my youngest was speech delayed and one of the only forms of communication was sign language. The first time she told me she loved me it was through sign language and it melted my heart.

 

This year we decided to make a few cards for family members and send them out. First we chose a card color, then pink (for skin because I don't have peach). We traced the girls hands and glued them onto the card stalk.  Next we bent the two middle fingers down to form the sign. Then we added our own heartfelt message.