Halloween Crayons - Make Your Own!

I found this on Pinterest a while ago and finally got the chance to try it out.  I went to Bulk Barn and bought a Wilton's non-stick 12 mould Cookie Pan for $11.99 (had a $3 off coupon).  I figured I could use the pan again for cookies of course, but maybe also soap.

I wanted to make my crayons mostly mono colour, so first I went through my bucket for crayons, finding lots of the same Halloween colours.  Then, I had to peel them.

Next, I cut the crayons up in pieces and filled the different moulds with the different Halloween colours.

Once the mould as ready, I put it in the oven at 300 F for 10 min.  It's really, really important to only use silicone moulds or other moulds that you know are OVEN SAFE, as others may not survive!!

This is what the moulds look like, freshly out of the oven!

This is what the moulds look like once dry.

The moulds came out really easy.  I did not even have to grease the pan or anything, as this one is a non-stick pan.  This is what the finished product looked like:

I decided to bring some of them to my Friend's Halloween Party, who throws the most amazing parties ever and printed these FREE bag toppers off Pinterest.  The baggies I got at the Dollarama.

And this is the finished product. :)

Linking up with: Skip to My Lou

Purple Bunny Birthday Party

I was thinking and thinking and couldn't come up with a theme for my daughter's 4th birthday party.  I finally thought to do a Bunny Party.  Olivia really likes bunnies, even her must-have stuffed animal for bed time is a bunny she received shortly after her birth from her godmother Barbara from BKluge Photography, located in Halifax.  I searched for bunny cakes on Pinterest, as I wanted to try something different than piping one, this year and finally came across this awesome Blog Post.

My friend Lila from Sweet and Lovely Crafts (she has an AWESOME BLOG, don't miss out on it!) sent me this link on how to make these Bunny Ears - this is what we used instead of party hats.

So, here is what I did for our little girl's 4th birthday party.  Let's start with the cake.  I made the Cookies & Cream Cupcakes recipe, and used it for this cake, as it's a really nice treat.  Since I only had half the Oreo Cookies I needed, I used half Oreo Cookies and half Golden Oreos and we loved the cake.

I used a stainless steel bowl from a regular Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer for the top part of the cake and a 9" cake pan for the bottom part.  I made the amount of the recipe above and before I poured it into the pan and bowl, I put two stripes of parchment paper into each pan, so they overlapped and made an X for easy removal.  I also greased the pans before I put in the batter.

Once I was done putting the batter into the round cake pan, I put in the Oreo and Golden Oreos (only half the cookie with the centre on it), alternating, until the whole top was covered.  I then pressed all the cookies down a bit further into the batter and smoothed the batter over top as much as I could, as I wasn't sure if they would burn, if left uncovered.  I think that was actually my favourite part of the cake - the way the bottom of it tasted, thanks to the cookies!

So when taking the cakes out of the oven, I turned the one from the cake pan and upside down.  Then I trimmed the top part of the cake from the Kitchen Aid Stand mixer (and by the way, this one took a loooong time, to actually be baked).  Then I turned that upside down as well and set it on the other cake, putting a generous layer of frosting in between.

Next, I frosted the whole cake with a nice layer of frosting, trying to form somewhat of a neck and head.

Next, I attached two little muffins with tooth picks as the bunny's nose and cut two little teeth out of a white marshmallow.  I cut the nose out of another piece of white marshmallow (because I couldn't find any pink ones) and put pink hearts on it, to make it look pink.  I also cut two little eyes out of licorice. 

You could also use this kind of licorice, if you want to make your bunny look a bit crazy! ;)

My dear husband made the bunny ears that we only stuck in the bunny the next morning.  He made them out of white bristol board and pink paper, making a pocket with the white paper, so he could stuff a pipe cleaner in between, so the ears can be bent.  Make sure you let some pipe cleaner stick out of the bottom, so you can easily stick it into the cake.  To finish off the bunny, I gave the neck of the bunny a bit of colour - purple of course!

One of my favourite parts of the cake were the sparklers!  Unfortunately we weren't smart enough to have one person light them on the right and simultaneously another person light them on the left side and therefore the right side finished sparkling before the left side even began, but it was still cute. :)

We made these Toilet Paper Roll Bunnies that were fairly quick and easy.  Though, as you can see from the picture, I forgot all about the cotton ball tail - shame on me!

The kids made a Bunny craft and a Candy Necklace.  For the Candy Necklace I bought purple laces at the Bulk Barn, Fruit Loops, Marshmallow Bunnies and Candy with a whole in the middle.

After that, the kids had Bunny Peanut Butter and Jam sandwiches and Bunny Fruit Kabobs with Vanilla yogurt dip for lunch.  

Picture (c) of Lila from Sweet and Lovely Crafts

The Bunny Fruit Kabobs included bunnies out of water melon, melon and cantelope.

I'm happy to say that Olivia very much enjoyed her Purple Bunny Party for her 4th Birthday.  If anyone tries out any of these ideas, especially the cake, please let me know how it turned out, as I would love to get your feedback.

Thumb print Birthday Card

Since I did not have a birthday card for my gorgeous god daughter, I figured, Olivia and Lexie could make her one using their thumb prints.  I think home-made cards are a lot more special anyway, especially when they come from little ones. :)  We ended up making two cards, one for my god daughter's little brother as well, as their birthdays are only a month apart.

I actually bought the card stock paper - pastel at the Dollarama for $1.50.  It comes in a package of 100 with the following colours: yellow, green, blue, pink and purple.  I also bought the ink pads at the Dollarama - I got blue, yellow and purple.  I love using those, as it's SO easy to clean your baby or toddlers fingers, hands or feet.  You just use a wipe after using it and it's a no mess clean-up.

Making birthday cards does not get any simpler than this.  We used Olivia's thumb prints for the big balloons and Lexie's thumb prints for the little balloons.  Then I drew a string on each of the balloons and drew some easy birds for a little bit of life to finish up the birthday cards.

Linking up with Skip to My Lou

Fun Family Crafts - Website

Check out this awesome site Fun Family Crafts that we are featured on!  It's a really neat site where you can take 30 seconds to sign up (login name, password, e-mail address required), so that you can have your own Craft Box on the site and store tons of cool ideas to make later. I already found some easy to make Smurf Cookies, so exciting!

Footprint Bumblebees for Daddy on Father's Day

This year for Father's Day I baked Jessica Seinfeld's Applesauce Muffins (which I will post soon) and wanted for the girl's to make a sweet Father's Day "card" for their Daddy. This was our very first attempt at the Footprint Bumblebee. I had found the idea on Pinterest (feel free to click on the red "Follow me on Pinterest" button below the blog header) which is from Crafty-Crafted.com. I pinned it a couple of weeks ago and couldn't wait to try it. Here's what we did.

With a big enough ink pad (purchased at the Dollarama of all places!), I got my 3 year old's and my almost 11 months old's foot prints on a white piece of paper. Using this ink pad was really easy, as I was able to just wipe their feet clean with a baby wipe, once done!

As you can see, Olivia didn't get one of her toes properly printed :)

Next, we painted 3 black lines onto each of the bees. I actually dug out my 16 year old Caran D'Ache water colours for this project. I used to paint with it at my school in Switzerland, where I grew up and probably haven't used it in 16 years! They worked perfectly, except for the white paint, because it comes in a tube.

Then I needed white paint, but the 16 year old tube that came with my water colour set, was dried out, so unfortunatly we had to make do with grey for the eyes of the bees. My 3 year old finger-printed on the eyes for each bee. She used the index finger for her bee (the bigger one) and the little finger for her baby sister's bee (the little one).

Older kids can surely do this by themselves but I painted on the wings, eye brows, mouth and antennas of each bee.

To finish up, I wrote a little message to Daddy from his Little Bumble Bees. I think this would even make a really nice art work on the wall, if framed. This wasn't hard or time-consuming at all and Olivia had so much fun - try it!

Linking up with Skip to My Lou