Easter Cookies

I was on my favorite online cookie cutter shop, http://www.cheapcookiecutters.com/, looking for a rather obscure cookie cutter I needed (a syringe...and yes, they had it!), when I stumbled across a carrot cookie cutter. I thought carrots would be so cute with some little bunny cookies for Easter, so I ordered it.

The recipes I used for the cookies:

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies and Sugar Cookie Icing

If you are looking for non-traditional cookie cutter shapes (and the traditional ones too), http://www.cheapcookiecutters.com/ is the place to look. This is where I purchased the shapes for my Strawberry Cookies, Onesie Cookies and Elmo Cookies.

Places I'm Partying:

Official Leprechaun Sighting!

My 5 year old son and I just learned that you can try to catch a leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day. We live on a conservation lot and our neighbors have a motion-activated game camera strapped to a tree to catch pictures of wildlife behind our houses. They have captured pictures of deer and coyote, so they figured...why not a leprechaun???

So our neighbor recruited my son to help him set the trap in the conservation. He sprinkled Lucky Charms and gold coins in the trap as bait.

The next morning, imagine our surprise when the trap was up-ended and that it had startled the leprechaun so much, he dropped his hat, glasses, and a handful of coins!

Obviously, the leprechaun had been there, so we could only hope the camera caught all the action. When we checked the images on the SD card, look what we found:

And I guess the leprechaun was a little upset we tried to trap him because this is what happened inside our house while we slept:

Salt Dough Easter Egg Garland

One of my most popular posts was my Salt Dough Starfish Garland, and that was my inspiration for this Easter project. I love the way it turned out!

What You Need:

• Salt Dough: Mix 2 cups flour & 1 cup salt with approximately 1 cup water to form dough
• Egg-shaped Cookie Cutter
• Acrylic Paint & Paint Brushes
• Mod Podge
• Ribbon for Hanging

How You Make It:

• Roll salt dough out to about 1/4" thick and cut out egg shapes (I cut 12).

• Poke hole in the top of each egg. I used the non-pointy end of a Bic pen.
• Place on cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees for several hours until eggs are hard & dry.

• Once cooled completely, paint your eggs with pretty patterns & colors.
• Once the paint is dry, seal with a coat of Mod Podge.
• Tie a loop through the top of each egg with ribbon and then suspend each one from a longer ribbon to make the garland.
• Hang garland and step back to admire how cute this project turned out!!!

Link Parties I'm Posting To:

  www.lilluna.com

My entry into A Crafty Soiree sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines.

Speedy St. Patty's Day Wall Art

With St. Patrick's Day only a few days away, I figured I'd better get a move on and make some decorations for the house before the day has come and gone. I am feeling much more in Easter-mode, so wanted a really short & sweet project....this was it!

What You Need:

• Green Glitter Foam
• Scrapbook Paper
• Square Frame (I used a white 10x10 frame)
• Glue

How You Make It:

• Find a four-leaf clover template (I searched for one in Microsoft Clipart and printed it out).
• Trace clover onto foam and cut out shape.
• Glue clover to scrapbook paper.
• Put in frame

Like I said....short & sweet (just like me)!

Sharing this post at the following linky parties:

http://www.oneartmama.blogspot.com/

http://www.whipperberry.com/

http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/



Best Zucchini Bread EVER!

I love to bake and have tried tons of recipes for zucchini bread in the never-ending quest to sneak vegetables into my kids' diet. This recipe I found at www.allrecipes.com is by far the yummiest one yet. My 5 year old will eat it even though he can see "specks of green stuff" in it. That, in itself, is pretty amazing.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Grease & flour two 8x4 bread pans.
• Sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda & cinnamon together.
• In separate bowl, beat together eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla extract.
• Add sifted ingredients and beat well.
• Stir in zucchini and nuts (if you choose to use them) until mixed well.
• Pour batter into pans.
• Bake 40-60 min (usually closer to 60 in my experience), or until tester comes out clean.
• Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.
• Eat a slice, save a little for the kids, then wrap up the rest of the bread and run it to the neighbors because, if you don't, you will end up eating it ALL in a very short time. Not that I know this from personal experience :)

You can find original recipe for "Mom's Zucchini Bread" here.
FYI, this recipe has a 5 star average rating out of 3,500 reviews, so I am not the only one that thinks this is delicious!

Sharing this post at:
www.todayscreativeblog.net
www.thirtyhandmadedays.com

Strawberry Birthday Party

With my daughter turning 2 in just a couple months, I've been thinking about her upcoming birthday party and reminiscing about the last one. Her first birthday was strawberry-themed. The Gymboree store had a line of strawberry clothing for babies that was so darn cute, I actually designed the party around the outfit. Unfortunately, my daughter cried every time I put her in the dress, so it was returned and she ended up wearing something completely non-strawberry. But the party was still cute.....

The dessert table had strawberry Twizzlers, strawberry hard candies, fresh strawberries, the birthday cake & cupcakes, and strawberry cookies.

I purchased the strawberry cookie cutters (2 sizes) from http://www.cheapcookiecutters.com/

For the centerpiece, I made a strawberry ribbon topiary.

Click here for Ribbon Topiary Tutorial

I used my Cricut to cut out shapes and letters for a banner.

I also got some red balloons and drew little black seeds on them with a sharpie and put a little curly green ribbon on the top to make them look like strawberries.

Our happy family!

A good time was had by all! 

Sharing this post on:
www.todayscreativeblog.net
www.igottacreate.blogspot.com
www.thirtyhandmadedays.com
www.oneartmama.blogspot.com
www.whipperberry.com
www.seevanessacraft.com