Valentine Cookies

Please excuse me for not posting in a while! I was sicker than sick last week, and finally pulled myself together.

I wanted to make chocolate cookies rather than the standard sugar cookies for Valentine's Day. This was my trial run. However, the recipe I used was not that great. It was sticky and hard to work with, even after being refrigerated over night. It would have been better as drop cookie dough instead of rolled dough.  The taste was passable...nothing impressive. I was disappointed, but I will be trying another rolled chocolate cookie recipe I found.

The icing turned out passable this time as well. I learn something new at each attempt. I was trying to get the perfect consistency where I could kind of "cheat"....not needing stiff and flooding consistency but at last, I came to the conclusion that I personally cannot do it.  Here they are; but don't look too close, hah!

Hmmm, yea, those are nothing to brag about huh? =/ So next time, which I hope will be quite soon, I will have stiffer icing to make a dam outlining the cookie, and thinner icing to fill and flood the insides. I have not completely given up hope. I am strangely very intrigued by this challenge. Anyone have tips to share in regards to icing? 

I would greatly appreciate it!

Also, I need craft inspirations! What should we create next? 

I'm staring at my bottle of mod podge.... 

=)

Bath Fizzies Semi-Fail

I had this grand idea to make bath fizzies/bombs. You know, the ones you throw into a bath and they are supposed to fizz.  Ones that I thought would be fun for a toddler to experience. Ones that sell at Lush for $5 each.

Google provided me plenty of recipes and most called for a powder form of citrus acid, which I don't have. But I saw some recipes that stated it could be substituted with lemon juice and/or cream of tartar. Perfect, because I conveniently have both ingredients. And they will work!

Wrong.

My concoction was great, until I tested it. NO fizz! Darn. It sure fizzed when I mixed the lemon juice in, but in a glass of water, it just slowly...melted. I think I've made some Bath Melts instead of Bath Fizzies.

So here is the 1st batch, and should feel like wet sand. It is SO white...looks like something illegal is going on here, but I swear it's baking soda:

Packed into heart silicone mold (found at the Target's Dollar Spot):

After drying for 24 - 48 hours, they harden and I carefully popped them out.  I was so excited:

For the 2nd batch, I added some cream of tartar and some coconut oil. And I shaped them into little balls with measuring spoons. I scooped generous amount of the mix on each spoon:

Then press them together, dusting off the excess:

Then I released the top spoon and carefully rolled it onto a paper towel to dry:

They look cute, right?

FAIL! =(

 Where's the fizz? I might as well pick up some alka seltzer next time, haha!

Banana Muffins

I found an easy and delicious recipe for Banana Muffins! This is from Cat Can Cook. I also added some of my preferences. It seriously took no time at all.

Banana Muffins - makes 12 muffins in a cupcake pan. But only 10 are shown in the above picture because umm, they looked so cute and yummy that I ate two right after taking them out of the oven. Hehe

Ingredients:
3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed. Use 4 if you want them to be moister.

Generous 1/2 cup white sugar

1 beaten egg

1/3 cup melted margarine or butter

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups flour

Optional: mini chocolate chips and chopped nuts of choice

Directions:
* Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg and margarine together in a bowl. Set aside.

* In a separate (larger) bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour.

* Pour half of the wet mix into the dry mix. After a few stirs with a spatula or wooden spoon, add the rest of the wet mix in and incorporate. Be careful to not over mix.

* Throw in a handful of mini chocolate chips and some chopped nuts (I chose pecans). Give it a quick stir.

* Pour into a greased and floured cupcake pan, and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes.

* Let them cool down for a bit, and they would pop right off the pan. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!

How to Wear a Scarf

There is a fantastic youtube video on 7 Ways to Wear a Scarf. Genius, I say! When I wear a scarf, I just do "The Loop" because basically that's all I know how. There are more than one way to wear a scarf?? Amazing.

Being a stay at home new-ish mom - and I say "new-ish" because Little Boo is already 1.5 years old - my fashion sense disappeared. But it is very slowly coming back. Simply put, it's hard to go shopping with a toddler, and so I rather not go at all. I am in jeans and a frumpy old t-shirt every day. Or pajamas. Not by choice. May a scarf help me look more put together.

Salt Dough Hearts

I'm lazy trying to introduce a new tradition in our home.  We set up our artificial Christmas tree 3 days before Christmas, and I don't want to take it down now because it's only been what, 2+ weeks? I want more time to admire it!  And it's a lot work putting all that away. So I thought, why not keep it up until...hhrummmm,Valentine's Day?  I'm changing the theme to Hearts, of course. I put away all the ornaments that are too "Christmas-y", leaving only the solid colors that would go with Valentine's Day. Then I made salt dough heart ornaments (this picture is before the glossy spray finish):

Recipe:

1/2 cup salt

1 cup flour

1/2 cup water

Mix the salt and flour together in the mixer bowl. Using a dough hook, slowly add the water in. After a minute or two, take out the dough and knead on a floured surface. It will be dry and crumply but it's ok. You can add droplets of water as you knead. Put a piece of wax or parchment paper on top of the dough, and with a rolling pin, roll it out to about 1/4 - 1/2 inches in thickness.  The wax paper will keep it from sticking to the rolling pin. You can do without the wax paper, and instead flour the rolling pin but adding too much flour will change the dough consistency. Peel the wax paper off and cut out the heart shapes as you would with real cookies. I had the hardest time trying to explain to a 1.5 year old that this salt dough stuff is not cookies [or as the baby says, "toktees?! toktees!"], and they do not taste good. 

Make sure everything is dry - you don't want any stickiness.  Line cookie pan/sheet with wax or parchment paper and place the shapes in.  Don't forget to make holes for the string, and make sure the hole goes all the way through! I used the larger end of a chopstick. Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours. Let them cool down for a few hours. I needed two batches to get the amount of hearts I made. I had to flip the shapes and poke again to get the holes through: 

Bake and dried:

But there is something extra I did. How I got the swirly pattern on the hearts:

After rolling out the dough, I used Fiskar's texture pattern plate and placed it upside down on top of the dough. The plates are used for embossing papers, but I thought it would work on dough. And it did! I used the rolling pin to roll and "transfer" the pattern on. Then I used the heart cutter to cut out the shapes. And bake.

How I got the words on the hearts:

After rolling out the dough, cut out the heart shapes.  Then I used this letter stamp set I got at Big Lots for $3 on clearance. I simply pressed it each letter onto the dough.  And bake.

After they all dried, I painted them. The small Delta bottles are on sale (as of yesterday, Wednesday Jan. 6th) at Michael's for 89 cents each. I have some regular matte ones, and some "pearl" ones. They have a pretty shimmer finish.  This is the difference between the gold pearl and a regular purple. Both without the glossy finish spray:

Here are the names of them from left to right - Kryon low odor clear finish glossy spray, Delta pearl finish, Delta seashell white, Folkart purple lilac, Delta fuchsia pearl, Delta metallic 14K gold, Delta laguna blue, and Delta rooster red:

For the the white hearts, I painted the pearl finish on top of the seashell white.

After 2 to 3 coats of paint, I got a can of Kron's clear glossy finishing spray ($6.99 - forgot my Michael's 40% off coupon, darn!) and gave them 2 light coats. 

Put string through, hang them on the tree, and...done!

=)