PIN IT FRIDAY FAVS: Birthday Cakes and the Very Best of Pinterest Pins

I had a chance to make another tea pot and tea cup set last week plus I added a birthday cake idea I saw on Pinterest:

The tea pot and cup with the measurements and

video was shown in my post HERE...

then...I started seeing these adorable Hershey Nugget

cakes all over Pinterest and decided to create some

color coordinated trios!

(Happy Birthday die from Stampin' Up)

The directions on one of the Pinterest cakes
used a styrofoam ball cut in half, but that seemed like
a lot of mess...so I came up with a much easier solution.

I adhered the Nuggets to a 1" x 8" strip of black card stock - using red sticky tape to attach the Nuggets side-by-side to the strip while I curved it to form a circle. I trimmed the strip and left a tab to attach the last Nugget to the first Nugget. I simply hot glued the Nuggets to the heavy card stock small scalloped circle bases (made with Nesties). I also applied yellow Stickles paint to the candle tips to make them stand out. My formula for the construction was 7 Nuggets for the base, 6 for the middle layer and 5 for the top layer.

Here are a few more Pinterest pins of Hershey Nugget cakes:

 Original Pin HERE

 Original Pin HERE

Original Pin HERE

...and some with a tea light for the top layer:

 Original Pin HERE

Original Pin HERE

The creativity incorporated into these cakes

really makes me smile ^_^

BTW: My Safeway sells a huge bag of Nuggets

and it seems that they have a new customer

since I discovered how to make no-bake cakes!

I can tell you first-hand that these cakes

will bring your friends and family

a lot of happiness!

PIN IT FRIDAY FAVS: Father's Day Cards and the Very Best of Pinterest Pins

Father's Day will soon be here and I found the perfect card to make for the dads in our family:

Original Pin HERE

My Version:

To make the shirt collar with the gray pattern on it, I cut down 1 1/2" in the center and the white shirt collar was made by cutting down 1" in the center. I wish I had attached the white shirt paper to the printed paper first before adhering to the black layer so the edges would have aligned a bit better.

This WOW! card has a moving

camera shutter effect inside:

Original Pin HERE

Sandi includes a terrific video tutorial that is a must watch and she even included all of the measurements below the video on her blog post HERE. The inside shutter effect will surely cause the recipients to say WOW! 

My Version:

...and here's a little video I made to quickly

show how this card works...click HERE then click

on the little play icon in the upper right corner.

It did take me a time or two to perfect a template for the inside moving parts as shown below. It also helps to lay the inside parts in the card before attaching to see if adjustments are needed. Placing the 1/4" sticky tape close to - but not on - the fold/score line is also helpful.

My sister's 60th birthday is in June. She loves blue and this is the card I made her:

I got the idea from my walk down
Memory Lane HERE:

Original Pin HERE


to one terrific sister!

PIN IT FRIDAY FAVS: The Very Best of Recent Pins on Pinterest

CALORIE-FREE CUPCAKES
Last week, Splitcoast Stampers featured a cupcake box project for their Wednesday Tutorial HERE by Caroline Hallett. She included this photo of her cupcake boxes in the tutorial: 

Original Pin HERE

Since I had just reorganized my stamping supplies recently and re-discovered my stash of paper flowers that were quite the trend many years ago, I knew they'd be PERFECT for this project! I went to Michael's and bought a package of six 3-inch (76mm) balls, and thankfully, I already had the perfect size of paper cups to cut down to make the cupcake wrapper/base. (Cups were cut down to about 2" to 2 1/4" high.) Here are some of the boxes I made:

 

I used pins to hold the yellow flowers in place...then I tried

something different on my next two cupcake boxes:

After attaching the flowers to the foam ball using hot glue,

I used 3D Shiny Bright Yellow Paint by Scribbles

for the centers in the above two cupcake boxes.

The tops come off and open to reveal a space that can be used to hold a small gift. The inside of the foam ball cut in half is covered with a circle of medium weight DSP. (Circles were cut with Classic Circles Nesties.) To adhere the DSP circles, I used a 1" glue dot to cover the cut surface on some and I also used a low temp hot glue gun on others. Both worked just fine:

Check out the gallery on SCS dedicated to these cupcake boxes HERE...and for cupcake cards to give with this cupcake gift box, check out these Pinterest ideas HERE and my Pinterest cupcake board HERE. Plus....for the ultimate theme in gift giving, you'll want to make up a set of black-bottom cupcakes to go with your box and card! Check out these recipes HERE and my family's favorite recipe for them below and HERE! I also like to add 1 t. of orange zest into the cream cheese mixture because we're big orange chocolate fans and it also looks nice with the orange flecks! No frosting needed for these decadent treats full of deliciousness! I've provided the recipe with the orange zest modification below:

Ultimate Cream Cheese Black Bottom Cupcakes

Yield: 18-20 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Filling:
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips
• orange zest, 1 t. (optional)

Instructions

1. Make your filling first. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, egg, sugar and salt until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips and orange zest. Set aside. 
2. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cocoa in a large mixing bowl. Add in remaining ingredients and mix until smooth. Line a cupcake/muffin tin with liners and fill cups 1/2 full. Add one heaping tablespoon of filling into center of each cupcake.
3. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 25-30 minutes. Do not over bake. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely. 

My boss's wife made these for me when I first started in the office on July 3rd, 1979! They are heavenly and one of my most requested recipes!

http://hugsandcookiesxoxo.com/2014/01/ultimate-cream-cheese-black-bottom.html

PIN IT FRIDAY FAVS: Masculine Birthdays

My son's birthday was last month, and since he plays guitar, I thought this was the perfect card for him:

Original Pin HERE

Here's my version:

I used the Classic Circle Nesties to make the circles and the Happy Birthday from the SU Create a Cupcake stamp set. When I had it all made, I turned the card over to put my HOMMADE label on the back...then when I turned it over to look at the front, to my shock...there was an ink stain on the lower left area - ARGGG!...so...out came the JUST FOR YOU sentiment from the SU Teeny Tiny Wishes set so I could make a small banner to cover the stain.  It worked out OK, thank goodness...and while I had all of my Nesties and gold cording out, I made another one in a darker brown:

I secured the gold cording with red sticky tape on the back/reverse side at the top and bottom while making one continuous wrap around the card to create all six strings. I printed out YOU ROCK on red DSP, sketched out a template for the guitar pick then traced it around the YOU ROCK. To check out my Masculine Cards board on Pinterest, click HERE.

NOTE: I accidentally made two different posts today for my PIN IT FRIDAY FAVS. The post with my favorite Christmas card has been rescheduled for 11/28/2014. 

PIN IT FRIDAY FAVS: Fall Cards, Happy Dancing and Smiling BIG TIME!

This is the amazing card my pen pal sent me awhile back:

That was soooo nice of her to send me the directions inside the card! I did my happy dance right there when I saw that card =) I wanted to make her a card for Canadian Thanksgiving (October 13th) using her idea and here is the result:

My first version of the inside...but it needed something...

so here's the final version:

I finally got to meet Leslie-Ann and her wonderful husband last year. She surprised me with several gifts including her homemade chocolate chip cookies! One of those gifts was the stamp set I used on this card called Shabby Chic Autumn Leaves by Just Rite Stamps:

I LOVE this versatile set and have used it for many cards since receiving it. Thank you so much, LA!...and another thank you goes to Leslie-Ann for this wonderful card she sent me that made me smile BIG TIME:

The PERFECT masculine card for sure thanks to her clever creativity! I also received this card recently from one of my favorite talented card makers, Mel. This one really made me smile BIG TIME when I read the inside saying:

INSIDE SENTIMENT

...oh!...if I could only stick to the first sentence in that sentiment!..and here are a few Fall-themed cards that caught my eye on Pinterest recently:

Original Pin HERE

Original Pin HERE

...and another version on the same theme:

Original Pin HERE

Original Pin HERE

...and the grand finale...drum roll please...

Original Pin HERE

CARD DIVAS CARDS

Here are the cards we got to make at last Card Divas meeting:

Mel says the name of this die is

Butterfly Hearts by Memory Box.

Inside View:

The red centers of the flowers are actually paper!

This is a card made with my new mason jar

stamp from Paper Source. Here's another version:

Inside View:

The bee stamp is from a retired

Stampin' Up set called Botanicals.

Inside View:

Michele's wonderful card is made with

washi tape and nesties!

Christie wet embossed the flowers for us ahead of time

then we used daubers to rub on the color,

cut out the flower and popped it up

with dimensionals.

This card reminded me of my grandmother's

Singer sewing machine that she used to

make all of her quilts and clothes

for me and my sister!

Mel also sent along these cards for each of us that we had admired at a previous meeting:

What a nice surprise to get all three cards!

Here is Christie's awesome favor that she found on her last trip:

...and here are some food pics from Christie's kitchen:

  

 It was a fun fun day!