Cat in the Hat Treats

When my daughter started Kindergarten, I felt like I needed a starter-mom course in the new parental expectations department. When I was in elementary school, nobody brought in treats on their birthdays and we didn't celebrate "school" holidays like Teacher Appreciation Week and Dr. Seuss's Birthday. Don't get me wrong, it's all well and good; I just wish I had KNOWN some of this stuff -although I still think the whole bringing goodies on your birthday thing is disruptive, exclusionary and encourages too many "sweets days", but for now, I'll consider it a necessary thing- especially since my daughter SHARES a birthday with the aforementioned Dr. Seuss. Can you believe that? I felt under DOUBLE pressure to come up with a treat that celebrated both. I remembered seeing a marshmallow-on-cookie pilgrim hat in an old FamilyFun magazine and had an idea: What if we doubled the marshmallows to make a tall Cat-in-the-Hat type had treat? It was super-easy although a bit time-consuming.

Ingredients:
1 bag Large Marshmallows
1 package White Almond Bark (or bag of White Candy Melts)
1 box Ritz Crackers

Stack two large marshmallows and secure them with a toothpick although I might try pretzel sticks next time so I don't have to warn the kids before they eat them. Next, melt the candy/bark. Place a dollop on a Ritz Cracker and place the marshmallow stack on top. Wait until secure (about 5 minutes) and dip the whole concoction in the melted white goodness. Be sure to scrape the bottom so there's not too much and place on wax paper to harden.
When the "hat" is dry, take a tube of red decorator's icing and pipe on stripes and a red top. Note: Although the effect was appropriately topsy-turvy, this technique was way sloppier than I had hoped plus it tasted just like pure food coloring. I think next time, I will make the stripes with red Fruit Roll-ups so I can make them neater. Any ideas?
In the end, you just can't go wrong with white chocolate, icing (even the gross store-bought kind), Ritz crackers and marshmallows (toothpick optional). They were a big hit with the kids- even thought they weren't the standard cupcake, and the teacher appreciated the fact that they fit the theme of the day.


Linking to:

Chocolate Soccerball Cupcake Toppers

So, I got this idea at about 12:30 am the night before my hubby's Birthday which happened to fall on Father's Day this year, and could not get to sleep until I had tried it. I know, I really think I'm starting to go nuts! The good news is that it totally worked... we'll get to the bad news a little later. It is very easy to do and pretty quick going- I was done by 1:00am. Oh, and I must apologize ahead of time for the crapola photos- it was after midnight... need I say more?The first (and most difficult) thing you need to do is find a simple image to recreate in chocolate. Size it how you want it and print. Then, move your image to a hard surface such as a cutting board or an inverted cookie sheet and cover it with wax paper. Melt some chocolate using your favorite method and put it in a piping bag with a small round tip or do it the easier way and just melt the chocolate in a plastic baggie, squeezing every 30 second or so until completely melted. Squeeze a corner of the bag to free it from chocolate and trim off the very tippy top of that corner. Twist the opposite end of the baggie (the end with the zippy enclosure) until the chocolate starts to come out as you like it and there's your tool. Carefully and slowly, trace your chosen image on top of the wax paper, then, move your image and trace again until you have as many as you need. Don't worry about little splatters here and there as they are easily chipped away after they harden. I was then going to melt some white chocolate the same way and pipe it into the parts that should be white only... ...um, yeah, it seized... twice! I have no idea what happened- there was no water even near it- so that idea was nixed! I just hoped for the best and kept the chocolate outlines in the fridge until the next morning when I needed them and everything turned out perfectly! Actually, I think they turned out better so you could see the whipping cream underneath... that is IF the whipping cream had kept its shape for even one minute! Banoffee Pie is my hubby's favorite dessert and it is delicious but I decided to try and mix things up a bit and make Banoffee Pie Cupcake Tarts. Yeah, there is a reason you can't find a recipe for that! They were total flops! The whipped cream totally fell as I said before and everything else just sort of was messy. They tasted great- you can't really mess that up, but by the time it got to the table it was a total joke. My sister started laughing and insisted this go in the "flops"section... as if she had to tell me that. The good news was that I now have a new technique for creating unique edible cupcake toppers and my family has another funny story to tell about the failed dessert. At least THEY turned out- and even better than expected! Happy Birthday, Paul!

Smurfday Party- part 1- Decorations

My sister had a birthday in February but was living across the country with plans to move back here in the summer. She really wanted these Smurf mushroom house sets (she is in her early thirties, but used the excuse of being a teacher for wanting them... she's just always loved the Smurfs) but didn't want the hassel of having them sent there only to have to move them back so we ended up doing nothing for her birthday. Well, summer arrived and we were so excited to have her home again, we decided to throw a "smurf-prise" Happy Smurf-day Party to welcome her back and to celebrate the birthday we weren't able to earlier in the year. Note: it is WAY easier to make a surprise party for someone when they don't even know there is something to celebrate. We ended up going really overboard with the theme and it was a total success! It has been a secret for so long, it is nice to finally be able to talk about it. The decorations were started early in the planning process- my poor hubby has been living with smurfs for weeks now. Here are some highlights:
Smurf Wreath
I cut out a wreath form from a heavy-duty cardboard box and gathered the supplies (basically, a rotary cutter and some coordinating smurfy fabrics. The fabric was cut into 2 inch strips and wrapped around the wreath form tying simple square knots to join the fabric strips together carefully keeping the knots on the front. Afterwards, my sister's old Schliech Smurf figurines from her childhood were tucked into the knots. My mom spent hours meticulously cleaning each one and they looked great! A hanger was attached by threading ribbon through an over-sized button and that was it. Fast, easy and smurf-tastic.Life-sized Smurf Diorama
As everyone knows, smurfs are 3 apples high. I wanted to invite a few to join in the festivities so I scoured the internet for images of our favourite characters, blew them up to the desired height and printed them out on cardstock. Well, that WOULD have been easy-peasy except for the fact that we ran out of colour ink so we ended up fixing the half-colour ones and just flat-out colouring the rest with coloured pencils. That took a bit longer. My 6-year-old really helped out and did such a great job colouring- she did Brainy here all by herself! To make them stand, I attached them to clear baby food jars. Then, I just free-handed a mushroom house and a little bush to really make a proper diorama. I think the results were smurf-a-rific!Happy Smurf-day Banner with Crepe Paper Rosettes
I could not believe how much the "Cuttin' Up" Cricut font cartridge looks just like the official smurf font! Totally lucked-out there, so I HAD to make a big banner. The sides looked a bit plain, so that issue was remedied with Crepe Paper Rosettes. Here is a pictorial tutorial (hey, that rhymes!): If that was confusing (I think I'm confused and I'm the one who made it) you can find better instructions HERE and HERE. I love these because you could use them for so many things like awards or hair accessories, etc. AND you can make them as plain or as fancy as you want to.

Sooooo, getting back to the party; The gifts were all wrapped up in smurfy colours as well (and they were all smurf stuff). Like I said, we went WAY overboard with the theme and to hit the point home even further, there will be smurf-day posts the rest of the week - YAY!!!

Paper Punch Birthday Banner

Whipped this puppy up pdq. It was super easy and fast (it needed to be... I was way behind preparing for the party). Here's what was used:
Pick your font and be sure to space the letters far enough away from each other from the sides and from the top and bottom. Print and punch.
Using your colored card, punch larger circles. I used a scallop-edge punch but you could use plain, or even a different shape.
Lay them out and glue the letter on the scalloped circle. Measure and cut your ribbons using your floor layout as a guide.
With a regular ol' paper punch, make two holes at the top of your circle. Thread your ribbon through the holes securing it on the back side with a bit of sticky tape.
Hang it up! Instant (well, near instant) festive atmosphere. I think this would look so cute using square punches as well. Maybe next time!