And Now For Some Cupcakes!

Well, I made my first cupcakes from my new book: Hello, Cupcake! We really loved them and thought they turned out great!

I took a risk and let The Princess choose whatever she wanted out of the book for her birthday. I thought she took it pretty easy on me when she chose this one:

And she really did, these are probably the least complicated in the entire book~thank goodness. Although putting it together was the challenge! Vince and I nearly came to blows in the kitchen trying to get it just right-ha!!

First I gathered my *stuff*: cupcake papers, cake mix, candy decorations, cookies, frosting ingredients. Then we got started.

I went with the *Funfetti* cake mix, which is just white cake with sprinkles mixed in. As you can see in the photo from the book they used different brightly-colored cupcake papers for each tier with white cake. I couldn't find solid bright cupcake papers anywhere so I decided to use white paper cups and food coloring gels to dye the cake mix. It was a pretty good solution!

After the cupcakes were cooled and frosted (with my fave buttercream frosting!), we began the decorating and stacking process.

Note: use a wider platter than the one in the above picture! We ended up having to take this apart and start over on a very large silver platter.

I never knew that candy could be so expensive!! I bought this at one of those mall candy shops where they sell it by the pound. Quite pricey, but I justified it since I was saving so much money with a *homemade* cake:) wink, wink

Then we put on the cookie candles. I couldn't find these types of cookies with pink stripes like in the book, so we bought these golden Oreo fun stix (which are sinfully delicious, I might add) and my sweet sis, Kari, striped them for me with red food coloring. She did an awesome job!

To make these look like candles you put a *banana* Runt candy in the top and pipe orange frosting around it. Really cute!!

So there you have it! Not perfect by a long shot (especially since I had to trim off some overly browned edges and that made the frosting process more difficult), but a very cute and memorable birthday cake! It tasted absolutely delicious, by the way:)

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

One Way I Refresh During the Summer as a Homeschool Mom

As our homeschool takes some time off this summer, my mind almost never stops thinking of and planning ahead for the upcoming school year. This is probably because I'm Type A and an obsessive planner...lol Whatever the reason, I do enjoy this season of planning. But I also need to be refreshed as a homeschool mom. Homeschooling can be incredibly exhausting and all-consuming. It's not easy and it's a lot of responsibility. And I take that very seriously when I am researching curriculum and planning toward the next school year. So also taking some time to rejuvenate and refocus myself is very important. How do I do this? Each summer I take some time to read something inspiring and motivating that speaks to me as a homeschool mom. Some of my fave reads from past years--that I have nearby on my shelf and refer to often--are Educating the Wholehearted Child, The Well-Trained Mind, The Charlotte Mason Companion, A T...

Arkansas' Crimson Clover

One of my favorite things about Spring is the crimson clover that grows along the highways and interstates here in Arkansas. I say Arkansas because this is where I first grew to love it. We actually saw some in Mississippi on our way here and I saw it in our town in Alabama for the first time this year. But it spreads like that, each year it grows and looks even more beautiful. I'm not sure who decided to plant it in the medians of the interstates , but it was genius! It seeds itself and just comes back more lush the next year. I always want to take pictures, but of course it's almost always in the median of a very busy interstate~which is a little dangerous for photography. However, the other day I found the perfect patch of it on the side of a not-too-busy highway, so Vince obliged me and pulled over:) Isn't it beautiful? I just had to share it with you...

my blessed life

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