This past year, I went pretty simple for my birthday cake. I did my red velvet with a new frosting technique. I did decide to top it with some ruffled gumpaste flowers. I had seen these simple, yet pretty flowers on a few cakes and figured I could do it too. Turns out it was as easy as I thought.

I used circle cutters to make the different sizes for the flowers. I used the pointy tool to thin out and ruffle the edges. I used the small ball tool to push down each petal. With a dent in the middle, it makes it easier to stack the petals and have them fit together. Once each one was ruffled and dented, they were set aside to dry.

I used a mix of shimmer dust and color powder to paint the edges of the flowers. Just brush it on and blow off the excess dust. When they are all colored, I used water to stick the petals together. You just have to find out where they will touch and paint a little water to the petals so they will stick. I let them sit overnight so that they were good and set.

Other than taking a few days to put it all together, these flowers are probably the easiest gumpaste flowers to make. I made them three days before I needed them to make sure that they were rock hard and would sit on the cake correctly. When it was cake time, I arranged the flowers on the cake. They were the perfect touch for a simple cake. I loved how these cam out and can’t wait to get my cake business going in our new home!! Enjoy!

     Meg

Spritz cookies are just the best. They are the same butter cookie that I decorate with icing, but take way less time to make. Mix the dough, pop it in the cookie gun and press away. All that is left to do is the cherry topper.  Easy,peasy, lemon squeezy.

Once the dough cleans the side of the bowl, it is ready to go. You don’t want it too hard or it won’t go through the cookie gun. For these cookies, I used the five petal flower looking cookie. There are a ton of cookie plates that you could use—pick one that you like the best! I filled the pan with cookies—they don’t spread too much, so you can put them pretty close together.

Before they go in the oven, put a piece of cherry in the middle of each cookie. I use the candied cherries—you see them at the holidays, but can probably find them on the baking aisle. You won’t need many cherries since each one is cut up into eight pieces. I keep the cherries in the freezer until I need them again next year.

These are great cookies. They bake up quick and are a perfect filler in a cookie tray. I love the chewy little cherry bite in the middle. I have always made them at Christmas time because that is what my mama did. They are really too good to just have once a year. You can totally make these any day of the week—to give away or just for you! Enjoy!!

Cherry Spritz Cookies

4 sticks of butter

1 1/3 cups of sugar (it’s ok to heap them a little)

4-5 cups of flour (start with 4 and then add as needed)

Candied Cherries

Preheat oven to 350°

Whip butter and sugar with the paddle attachment until white and fluffy. Add flour gradually until you have the right mix. You don’t want them to be sticky, or too crumbly because of too much flour.

Put the dough into the cookie gun a little at t time and press the cookies onto the cookie sheet. Chop each cherry into 6-8 pieces. Top each cookie with a piece of cut up cherry. Bake for about 9-10 minutes at 350. Remove them from the sheet and let cool on the counter before packing up or just eating them in the kitchen!

Meg

Happy 2012! Wow…I know we say this every year, but I still can’t believe another year has come and gone. 2011 was an amazing year for us and I know that this year will be even better.

It’s funny how reflective we get at the end of the year—thinking about all that happened and making predictions about the year ahead. If only we did that more often—really thinking about what we are doing and what we want to do with our life.

My new year’s hope is that your life finds you healthy, happy, and doing what you love with the ones that you love. If you are not happy about something, change it. If you want to start something new, get out there and make it happen. Don’t just wish for things to happen to you…make things happen for you.  Clean out the negative in your life and focus on the things that bring you joy.

I have so much love and happiness in my life—I feel truly blessed. I am always excited to see what the new year brings and this year is no exception. I hope that you love often and laugh much and have the best year yet! Bring it on 2012—I can’t wait!!

Meg

Having a lot of time on your hands and the crafty gene can lead to all kinds of fun things. One thing I decided to whip up was a yarn wreath. I had seen them all over pinterest and knew that I could make one. All I needed was some yarn, a wreath, ribbon, glitter and way more time than you think.

I had two of the rounded wreaths, white yarn, ribbon and glitter balls all ready to go. And, of course, you need a glue gun. I will say that I thought I would just put this together in less than an hour…nope. This little project was a two-dayer for me. I am sure I could have done it in one, but I got so tired of sitting and wrapping the yarn around.

Pick a starting point and glue it to the wreath. Keep wrapping around and around…and around until you have the whole wreath wrapped. Mine took so long because I wanted a single layer and to have it wrapped tight. If you want to have lots of layers, you can wrap it much faster.

Once I had the wreath wrapped, I went on to the yarn balls. I found these great foam ornament picks from the dollar tree. I pulled the stick out and popped off the top and they were perfect to use for the yarn balls.  I wrapped the big and medium ones in the green yarn that I had. I wrapped them until they were the size I wanted for the wreath. Be sure to stop and glue the yarn as you keep wrapping it—that way if you drop the ball the yarn won’t completely unwind.

When all of the green balls were wrapped, I hot glued them to the wreath. Make sure you like the place because there is no moving them once the glue is set. I used three green yarn balls and filled in the gaps and space with the medium and small red glitter picks. I did have to patch the hole that the stick left with some red glitter before adding them to the wreath.

I was super happy with how the wreaths came out. I used a red ribbon to hang them from our doors on the patio. I loved making these and will definitely try some more yarn projects. Even though I used red and green for Christmas, you can use any color of the rainbow to make yours. Put on a movie and get to making your wreath! Enjoy!!

Meg

I decided to take in cupcakes for our holiday lunch at work. Not wanting to just have a plain cupcake, I figured that I would dress them up a bit. I was searching around for cupcake toppers and found something like this on etsy. Knowing I could easily make them, I went to dig out the fondant.

The first thing ya need is red circles. I used all fondant for these simply because I didn’t want to fool with the gumpaste. I did them three days before I needed them, so they had plenty of time to dry. I rolled it out and used a round cutter that was about the same size as the cupcake.

I rolled out the tree and base a little thinner than the red. For the tree, I used my medium triangle cutter to cut a bunch of trees.

For the tree base, I used a darker green and cut out squares. I cut each square into five little strips. I just used the cutter to mark the strips and cut them with a pizza cutter.

For the star topper, I rolled out my yellow fondant to the same thickness as the tree. I used my teeny tiny star cutter. It was the perfect size for the top of the tree.

I used the little white pearls as lights on the tree. I poked them down in the tree to make a spot. Then I brushed the spot with water and put the pearl back. The water holds the ball in place so that it doesn’t roll around on the tree.

I had the circles dry on a cookie rack for a couple of days. Having them on a rack allows air to get to the whole thing and get it good and dry. Once they were dry, I used water to assemble all of the pieces. Make sure you use just a touch of water. Too much and it will ooze out and make a mess.

These were super easy to make. It took about 2 hours to get everything rolled and cut and put together. They came out cuter than I pictured and were fun to make too. Hope you have fun dressing up your cupcakes!! Enjoy!

Meg

Baking is a huge part of the holidays. I love to try new things every year, but my standard treat is always cookies. I have always done the butter cookies, but have changed up the frosting a bit in the past year.

I love the buttercream type frosting that I used to used, but this one dries hard like royal icing but tastes waaaaaay better! Easy to make and easy to pipe, this is now my go to cookie frosting.

The cookies are mixed, rolled and cut out in shapes. I usually do that one day and the the frosting the next. When icing, first I outline all of the cookies. Then I flood the middle of the cookies. Last thing to do is any extra decorations like the stripes on the candy cane.

Make sure to have the icing thick when doing the outline. Thin it out with more corn syrup to do the flooding of the middle of the cookies. I always use a squeeze bottle to do this part. I is much easier than using a pastry bag because it will not run all over the place. When they are all iced, I leave them on cookie sheets over night to dry.

The lime green trees got little white pearls as their decorations and the dark green trees were topped with multi-colored sprinkles.

I love doing these cookies. They are work and take me forever, but are still my fave.  I can’t wait to get going on the next round of holiday cookies. I hope that you will start some holiday memories of your own with these cookies! Enjoy!!

The cookie recipe is here. Just roll them out and cut them instead of using the cookie gun.

The icing recipe is here. So simple and tasty.

Meg

I absolutely love making Christmas cookies. This is one of my favorite baking times of the year. Besides all of the cutesy holiday treats out there, cookies seem to take over during the holidays. I usually do iced cookies, gingerbread cookies, and these cute little spritz cookies.

I use the same recipe I do for the butter cookies, but it gets even easier in this recipe. Instead of rolling out and cutting the cookies, the dough gets pushed into a cookie gun and out pop perfect little, bite-sized cookies.

The dough is ready when it cleans the bowl and is not sticking. Take a chunk of dough at a time and smoosh it into the cookie gun loaded with the tree cookie plate. Press the cookies on the sheet. They can be place pretty close together since they are not big and won’t spread too much. Before they go in the oven, I like to sprinkle them with green sugar. I also topped each one with a star.

This is the easiest cookie recipe ever. If you have an hour, you can make a ton of these little cookies. They only bake for about 9 minutes. Because they are so tiny, they are perfect for that cookie tray in your house or to bag up and give away to others. Enjoy!!

Christmas Spritz Cookies

4 sticks of butter

1 1/3 cups of sugar (it’s ok to heap them a little)

4-5 cups of flour (start with 4 and then add as needed)

Preheat oven to 350°

Whip butter and sugar with the paddle attachment until white and fluffy. Add flour gradually until you have the right mix. You don’t want them to be sticky, or too crumbly because of too much flour.

Put the dough into the cookie gun a little at t time and press the cookies onto the cookie sheet. Sprinkle with the sugars. Bake for about 9-10 minutes at 350. Remove them from the sheet and let cool on the counter before packing up or just eating them in the kitchen!

Meg

….to this! Pie crust used to be one of those things that I was afraid of. Once I got in there to make it, I found out how really easy it is. It takes no time to put a pie crust together and always comes out flaky and delish!!

It really doesn’t get much easier than this crust recipe. The flour and crisco are cut together with a pastry cutter. Add in a pinch or two of salt. Mix the water in with a fork. Add in the water a tablespoon at a time and keep adding until you have the right consistency. It should come together as a ball and clean the sides of the bowl. When it forms a dough ball and is not too sticky, then your crust is ready.

This crust was used for an apple pie so it had a double crust. Roll up the crust with the rolling pin and put it in the pie plate. Cut off any extra, leaving enough to pinch the edges of the two crusts together. If doing a double crust pie, be sure to cut a hole or two so that the pie can vent. I had enough dough left to cut out little leaf shapes to go around the edges. Make sure to cover the edge with a crust cover so that it doesn’t burn before the pie is done.

I have never made this crust recipe and had it not work. I always comes out flaky and delish. With Christmas coming up, pies will be baking away in kitchens everywhere. If you are making a pie this holiday season, or any other time, give this pie crust a try. It will be sure to make everyone happy! Enjoy!!

Perfect Pie Crust

2 cups flour (you may need 1/3-2/3 more cups of flour)

1 cup shortening

dash of salt

4-6 Tbsp ice cold water

Cut the crisco into the flour and salt with a pastry cutter. Add in the water 1 tablespoon at a time and mix with a fork. If the dough feels too sticky, add in the extra flour a little add a time. Once the mix has come together as a dough ball, turn it out on a floured surface to be rolled out.

Roll the dough to the desired thickness for your pie. Make sure the board and rolling pin are floured so that the dough will not stick. Place rolled out crust in the pie plate. Fill with toppings and bake according to pie directions.

Meg