Making People Happy One Cake Pop At A Time!

I've never seen happier faces than when people see cake pops! What is it about these little rounds balls of cake, frosting, and chocolate that do this to people? Seriously, these little suckers can really turn a frown upside down! Especially, my children! My 19 month old daughter is talking a lot these days, and I'm not sure that I love that she knows the word "Pop" as it refers to pure sugar! And if my 3 1/2 year old could eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she would. She's already putting in her request for her birthday in June! But how can I say "No" to them! I know just how devine they are!

In the last three months I've made four batches for different occasions.Two batches of Elmo heads for 2-year old birthday boy parties. These are the funniest of all! I learned how to make them from Bakerella, the queen of cake pops!

                          Here's a set she made of the Sesame Street crew for their anniversary.

These little guys bring so many smiles, not just because they are so darn cute, but who doesn't love that fuzzy little red puppet? And two, they're delish!

Here are the basic instructions from Bakerella with a little tweaking from myself.
Supplies for the basic cake pop: 1 box cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can frosting (16 oz.) ( I use 3/4 of a can)
Wax paper Color candy melts (color is your choice) (1 lb. pkg.)
Lollipop sticks (or a thicker tan stick with a spear at the end - these work well when using styrofoam - my sister in-law turned me on to them) you can find these in Michaels.

Directions: After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.

Mix thoroughly with 1 can frosting. (I use the back of a large spoon, but it may be easier to use fingers to mix together. ( I mix with hands) But, be warned, it will get messy.

Also, you may not need the entire can of frosting, so start out by using almost the entire can and add more if you need to.)
Roll mixture into quarter size balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50) Melt chocolate in the microwave per directions on package. (30 sec intervals, stirring in between.)
Dip the tip of your lollipop stick in a little of the melted candy coating and insert into the cake balls. (Insert a little less than halfway.) Place them in the freezer for a little while to firm up.
Once firm, carefully insert the cake ball into the candy coating by holding the lollipop stick and rotating until covered.
Once covered remove and softly tap and rotate until the excess chocolate falls off. Don’t tap too hard or the cake ball will fall off, too.
Place in a styrofoam block to dry.

Here are my Elmo pops!

Look at these lovely little ladies! There's something really delicious about white chocolate too! I admit, I ate my fare amount of those white chocolate melts before they were melted! I brought these for favors to a Welcome Baby Brunch for my friend, Jamie, who just had a baby. They were a hit! Everyone asks that question, "How did you make them?" They arent' that hard, but they are very time consuming. Especially those Elmo heads. But it's really fun!

                                                                                                                          

                                                                  Before Decorating

 I decided to melt some pink chocolate and drizzle it over the plain white pops.  In order to do this, take a ziploc sandwich bag and place it inside of a glass and fold over the glass.  Then put some melted chocolate inside.  

                                      

Remove the bag from the glass, twist the top closed or put a rubber band around it.  Then cut the tip of the bag, and begin drizzling the pops.  There is no science to drizzling, just move your hand around. 

                                        Get creative and draw out the guest of honor's names on the pops too!  

                                                       This is what you do with your leftover chocolate! 

If you're using these as party favors, you'll want to wrap them in celephane and add a twist tie or a ribbon, or string.  You can find the right size bags at Michaels.  You can add "Thank You" party tags, like these.        

                                  Here are the printables that I made - use them for your pops!

Eat and enjoy!!!

White Ruffled Curtains - The Perfect Curtain For a Nursery

Okay, things have been crazy busy, but I'm still working away, just not posting away. Blogging is more time consuming than you think. Especially when projects with photos are involved. But I've been up to a lot that I really want to share. A couple of weeks ago I made white ruffled curtains for a friend's nursery. I went to visit her a couple of weeks after she had her baby.  While visting, she showed me the nursery.  She had a big beautiful window in there and she told me she was looking at white ruffled curtains from Pottery Barn Kids.

                                                                 Pottery Barn Curtains

                                                               
She said that she didn't want to spend what they were selling them for.  They were $84 a panel and she needed two.  So, I said, "I'll make them for you!!!" I had never done it before, but I knew that I could.  So why not give it a shot?  Because I just don't have enough going on in my life, right? This just gave me the opportunity to learn something new, plus these were going to be a gift for the baby anyway.

I immediately began looking around at my options. I looked online for others that had made them and could give me some pointers. I quickly realized that to make the exact curtains that she wanted could be a lot more work than I wanted to do. So, I found these and ran them by my friend to see if she liked them as well. I thought these were a perfect compromise between the two.

She liked them, so I got to work! I decided to check out my trusty old friend, IKEA, first. I had purchased some great white ruffled ones from them years ago, and I thought they might have something similar. They didn't! But they did have white panels that would work. And they came two per pack, so I bought two packs. I decided I would use two panels as my base, and the others to make my ruffles! What a genius, right? It's like that Food Network show, "Semi-Home Cooked". They're semi-home made curtains! I'm not that dumb! I do know how to make life a little easier when I can.

A few things varied from the curtains I wanted to make and the ones that were already made. The width was much smaller on the ones that I wanted to make then the panels from IKEA. I considered making them a little smaller to match the others, but I thought it'd be too much extra work to do that, so I just left them the width they were.

You can make your ruffles any width you prefer but mine were about 7 inches or so.  And in order to cover your base, you'll need them to be double the width of the base curtain.  So, I laid my extra curtain out on the floor and used the length of the curtain to make my ruffles. Then I made a cut at the top every 7 inches.   Then I just began ripping them instead of cutting the strips.  Believe it or not, it's faster and much more accurate then cutting!

I made 4 ruffles per curtain.  So, after you've ripped your 8 strips of fabric, you'll want to hem the side that will be showing.  The side that will be sewn to the base doesn't need hemming.  However, you will need the top ruffle to be hemmed on both sides because you don't want an unfinished edge showing.

There are two ways you can do this part to make the ruffle.  You can set your sewing machine on your largest stich setting and sew all the way across your strip.  Then leave some extra thread so that you can pull it, which will cause it to ruffle.  For some reason this never works right for me.  Therefore, I just make basting stiches instead.  These are large stitches that you run through the top and then pull the thread to make the ruffle.  It's the same concept as using your machine but you have a larger stich. 

Once you've got your ruffle, pin your ruffle at the edge of each side of the curtain first, and then adjust your ruffles accordingly.  Once your ruffle is where you want it, pin the heck out of it to the base.   Use a lot of pins here.  I had to redo the first couple of ruffles that I did because I didn't realize that by doing this it would keep my ruffle straight while sewing it to the base. 

Then get busy sewing those suckers down.  You'll just over lap the bottom of each ruffle to cover the top of the previous ruffle.  This part wasn't easy.  But you can do it!  I promise.  It's time consuming, but you can do it!  I promise.  And when you've had enough, take a break!  Eventually, you'll want to just get it done, so you will.  It's really like The Little Engine That Could type of project!  You think you can, so you do! 

                                                                    See you can do it!!!

After I added all the ruffles, I hung one in my bedroom to see how they would look.  The height wasn't the same as the height of her window, and so the bottom ruffle is laying on the floor, but this gave me a good idea of what they'd look like. 

                                                                          And...
...here they are hung in the baby's room!  I had my friend take photos for me, and this is what she sent!  How cute.  And Baby Savannah's, big sister, Emma, adds just the perfect touch to the curtains!