Cake stands

I know I am so behind on blogging. I have many things waiting to be blogged yet I just haven't gotten around to them. This Idea I just have to blog. I can not take credit for this genius idea it came from my mother. She showed me these beutiful cake stands she made over the web cam today and I immediately asked her to take pictures and send to me and then I went and found some things in my house to make my own mini cake stand to show off my mini cupcakes.

I have one cake stand that I received from my great grandma as a wedding present and I love it, but I feel like I use it to much and sometimes I want to use something different. Well you may say just go buy another cake stand. Well my husband doesn't see the need to spend money on another one. Well here is a perfect solution. These cake stands are made with candle stick holders and a plate. You can make the cake stand just how you want. You can have different ones for each holiday.

It is a great way to use antique items you have such as a grandmothers china or just those great finds at the thrift store.

You can use them for other things other than cake. They can be used as decoration or other type of food.
It would be cute to have lots of different size ones lining the table at thanksgiving with all your yummy food.
So do you have an old candle holder and a plate laying around? All you need to do is take a little metal glue or super glue of some kind and glue the candle holder to the bottom of the plate.
How easy is that. I am not sure it will be dishwasher safe, but how hard is it really to wipe of a cake stand.

Apple Treats

We went to a local apple orchard last weekend and came home with 10 pounds of apples and some raspberries. I thought it would be a fun family outing, and while it was I then had 10 pounds of apples to deal with (good thing I didn't get the 20 pound bag). So All week I was making different apple and raspberry treats and I am going to share them with all of you my faithful readers.
First I made apple crisp.

I prefer apple crisp to apple pie and it is so much easier. I don't measure things when I bake I just throw things together and apple crisp is a great one to throw together because it doesn't really matter, but for those of you that need a recipe this one from Betty Crocker is similar (pictured above).

4 medium tart cooking apples, sliced (4 cups)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Cream or Ice cream, if desired

1.Heat oven to 375ºF. Grease bottom and sides of 8-inch square pan with shortening.
2.Spread apples in pan. In medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients except cream until well mixed; sprinkle over apples.
3.Bake about 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a fork. Serve warm with cream.

Next I made Apple, raspberry, mango crumble. The crumble part was the same as the apple crisp recipe, but I coated the fruit (apples, raspberries, and mango) in a little it of sprite. I had noticed that many people put some sugar and lime or lemon juice on their fruit well I didn't have any lime or lemon juice, but I did have lemon-lime soda and really all it is is sugar and lemon and lime flavoring plus the carbonation maybe added a little. Sorry no picture I don't know what I was thinking,probably more about eating it than taking pictures.

Then This past weekend with still at least half our apples left we made carmel apples.
These are such a fun fall treat and not that hard to make. All you need is
5 Apples
1 pkg carmels (the individual wrapped candies)
2 tbsp Water
1 tsp Vanilla
Popsicle sticks

Melt the carmels over the stove with the water and then stir in the vanilla. Take your apple and stick a stick in the stem area and dip the apple in the carmel. I then scrapped off the bottom of the apple on the side of the pot and placed them on greased tin foil. It worked really great for getting them off later.
If all you wanted was a plain Carmel apple then you are done, but you can fancy them up how ever you want. Drizzle melted chocolate over then, roll them in your favor candy or cookie crumb whatever you can come up with have fun. Now I did remember to take pictures of these.

And with the left over Carmel and chocolate we make Carmel chocolate popcorn.

Cheap Halloween Decorations

Halloween decorations (or any decorations for that matter) are a want and not a need around our house. I have a few decorations I have picked up at the dollar store or thrift stores, but not much. I have always wanted to go all out and decorate for a holiday, but have never had the money. Well with a few dollars and a little creativity I was able to decorate my house for Halloween.

I made these pumpkins using this tutorial with a few changes. I used card stock instead of construction paper, because I didn't have construction paper and two because I think it looks nicer. I also liked that I could use different patterned paper instead of just plain colors. The other change I made is that I didn't glue the strips to the toilet paper roll I just glued the ends of the strips to each other (my strips were 1 in by 8 1/2 ins). The card stock wouldn't stick to the toilet paper roll very well but it glues to itself pretty good and then it made a nice little place to stick the stem in and the strips just held it there with no glue.
I think they are pretty cute and your kids can help you although my 18 month old lost interest after putting glue on 2 strips and she just wanted to put glue all over everything.
I am also in the process of making one of these ghosts and some of these bats.
Anther great and cheap thing to use for Halloween decoration is spider webs I bought a bag of spider web for a dollar and just hung them everywhere.
They go a long way I didn't even use half the bag. So with a little bit of spider web and using bits of fabric and paper I had on hand I was able to decorate for Halloween for only a few bucks. What are some of your strategys for easy cheap holiday decorating?

Card, Cards, and more Cards

Today is national card making day so I decided to post a bunch of cards I have made in the last year. Last year I was in Stamp Club with Stampin it up so most of these cards were made in those workshop and all of them were made with Stampin it up stamps. Hope they give you all a little inspiration for making your cards and don't worry there are still plenty of cards to post later on.