Froggie Pops

Reagan requested frog cake pops for her birthday school treat this year, and I must say I was disappointed she didn't want turkeys but I WAS happy with how much easier the frogs are than the turkeys!  I even added green food coloring into the white cake I made so it was green inside and out :) 

These were simple just dip, add eyes and then later put on the mouths and noses.  Some hungry ones got tongues too.  They were a big hit at school!

One yummy bite :) (you can see the ones with tongues drying in the background, too bad I didn't get any pictures of these by themselves)

Reagan's birthday cake

For her 6th birthday Reagan wanted a Barbie birthday party so I decided to make a Barbie cake.  She of course wanted Barbie in a green dress, but since this was my first time to use fondant, everything ended up being white LOL.  I used a recipe for fondant that calls for using marshmallows, water, and powdered sugar which makes it taste super yummy!  It took a LOT longer to get it mixed than I would have expected so I didn't have enough time to perfect my skills or try to color it.  There are 3 holes just below her belt and that is because I tried to put some picks in there so Barbie could hold up the little birthday cake on a tray in front of herself, but it ended up being too heavy so the little cake made it way onto the cake in front of her.

The cake looked ok, if you didn't look at it with Kerry Vincent (judge for food network cake challenges) eyes, but there is a lot that could have been done to make it look better.  I think next time I will plan to try to find some store made fondant and see how it works with rolling it out and working with it.  I also think that if I hadn't been trying to mold something in 3D it would have been more successful :)

The rest of the layout

Here is the other 2 page layout I did to complete Kathleen's baby shower.  I was again inspired by an old layout sketch from the Nuts About Sketches blog.

I wanted to match the paper from the shower cake pops layout and since I don't work with this green color very much, I decided to use up some of my button stash.  The embellishments I used were all buttons and I did the lettering using my Storybook Cricut Cartridge.

Halloween Costumes

I just finished the main sewing of my Larry Cucumber and Bob Tomato costumes.  I have to get the kids to try them on so I can 1. get a picture and 2. get the faces attached in the right areas.  I bought some red and green felt and I had some scraps of black and white self stick felt (this is stiff) that used for the face details.  All of the work is just free handed so there are plenty of imperfections, but I think they make them just perfect.  I used some E-6000 crafting glue to glue the noses and reinforce the self sticking of the faces.  Here is what they look like so far!

And here is the final product (minus the greenery for the top of the tomato).  Was able to get the face parts on so that (hopefully) the kids will be able to sit while wearing them without the stiff felt coming loose or getting in the way.

Past TEC banner

Last year I used my Cricut with one of my newest font cartridges (Hannah Montana) to make a banner for Mid America TEC.  I am so happy with the way it turned out and I can't wait to make some more.  I have plans to make 2 more that are very similar to this one and hopefully once I get them made I can add them to the site too!

2 Challenges in one Layout

I finally took some time to do some crafting!!! I was inspired by the Nuts About Sketches Week 182 Challenge and the Cooking with Cricut Challenge # 55 (bears, cakes and cupcakes).  I found the perfect occasion to combine the sketch with the cupcakes and bear theme.  I used the Animal Kingdom, Sweet Treats and Accent Essentials cartridges to make the cuts for this layout.  I used the spread of cake pops I made for my sister's baby shower.  So happy with how it turned out and so glad to have scrapped after all this time!

Baby Shower Pops

I had so much fun making the cake pops for my sister, Kathleen's, baby shower in April.  The shower had a jungle theme and we ended up making a diaper cake and used that help display the pops.  I used both long and short lollipop sticks to add some dimension to the final display.  I made Lions, Tigers and Monkeys...oh my!

Soup to Share

Reagan made these jars of soup to share and I fixed them up with labels from my Strech your imagination cartridge.  The fall theme one we gave to her teacher and the winter one went in a gift basket for her school last fall.

Easter Cake Pops

I have been getting more and more brave with cake pops over time (I love the Bakerella Cake Pops Cookbook I got for Christmas).  I made some bunnies - both pink and white, chicks and little Easter baskets (which were terribly cute, but difficult to eat).

More Cake Pops

Here are the strawberry Valentine's heart cake pops I made for Reagan's class and also the football shaped pops I made for Wil's birthday to go with his Grover cake.

Past Cake Pop Success

I get most of my baking inspiration from the Bakerella blog and once I got her Cake Pops book last year for Christmas I have really been able to step up cake pop making. They are more time consuming than regular cupcakes, for instance, but I just love the response I get from people!

Reagan's Soutwest Playschool Fall Festival (apples and pumpkins)

I also made turkey's for Thanksgiving

Old homemade gift projects

This is a simple compostition notebook that I gave a facelift to before gifting it to my bff for Christmas.  I was inspired by Joy over at Joyslife.com to make this simple journal.

I created an 8x8 baby's first year memory book as a gift to a 3rd time mommy.  I didn't want to just get something ordinary or something they might already have so I decided a ready made - just add 4x6 pictures - would be the easiest gift to give.  I like the layouts so  much I took note of the fonts and sizes I used so I can replicate the book in the future if I need/want to.  It is was done gener nuetral since they didn't know the sex of the baby.

Some old cards

These 2 cards are some of the first projects I did for challenge blogs.
This was my first ever challenge submission it was for a MAG challenge where you can only use images from one page of a certain cricut cartridge.

This card was made for a Cooking with Cricut challenge.  It required the use of a snowman image from and cricut cartridge.  I decided to make a costumed snowman using both of my Paper Dolls cartridges.  It is just too cute (in my opinion!).

Some old layouts

Here are few layouts I have done in the past that were submitted to challenge blogs!

This right-hand side of the layout was submitted for the Nuts About Sketches design team call.

This layout was created for the Cricut Cardz 3 flowers challenge that required the use of flowers (and what goes better with flowers than butterflies?)  It is one of my favorites and I can't wait to get the pictures added from our 2010 family vacation and butterfly festival event.

 

This layout is designed from Nuts About Sketches #145 - I love the high number of pictures included in the sketch...it let me put all my great giraffe shots on one two-page spread.

This layout was a scraplift of a Papercraft Star DT member...it was a Nuts About Sketches project, I think it worked well for our Air Show pictures from the Zoo.

My new home for crafting projects

Hello all!  I am Mary Jo aka MoJo and you can find all of my crazy crafting projects here.  I love to do all sorts of crafty things and I still love learning about new things.  I will be adding prokjects (new and old) to this blog for people to enjoy.  I will also be using this blog to post projects I will be completing for different challenge blogs I like to dabble with.  Hopefully you can be inspired by my projects here and find something to try for yourself!