Every year, I have made cookies for Spane’s class for Valentines day. When Spane was in preschool, I bought bags at Michael’s to put the cookies in. When he got to Kindergarten, there were more kids, so I put the cookies on a plate, and Spane gave out the standard Valentine cards you get at the Dollar store. I didn’t really like the cards, they just didn’t go with my homemade cookies, so I decided to start making my own cards to go with the cookies. I did that in 2010, and again this year.
These cards are very simple to make and really make a great presentation. You might already have everything you need, or can pick up what you don’t have at the local dollar store.
Pictures and recipes for appetizers for Spane’s 8th Pirate themed birthday party. Fruit boats, cucumber boats, a cheese ball skull, cannon balls (rum balls), and a Jolly Roger cake to complete the theme.
I just love marzipan. It is so forgiving, easy to work with, and delicious. As a child living in Germany, I remember every year at Christmas time, the bakeries would put out a nativity scene made from marzipan, with the structures made from gingerbread. These were true artisans. So, when I decided to make a Jolly Roger cake, I wanted to do something in that tradition.
Originally, I was going to make large cannon (rum) balls for Spane’s pirate-themed party, but I soon realized that I could not put a candle on them the same way I could a cake. I still made the rum balls, and they turned out wonderful as well.
Making the cake was easy. I used my standard chocolate cake recipe, using Hershey’s Dark Cocoa, with the addition of a little Chipotle powder and Saigon cinnamon. Black food coloring made for intensely dark chocolate.
Halloween is my favorite holiday for crafts. There are so many fun projects you can do. Amber is making Zombie Dog Pumpkin for her son’s pumpkin contest. I’m sure she’ll win. I decided my theme this year was going to be about dead people, as I already have some Styrofoam I am going to use to make tomb stones.
We started our Halloween project this afternoon. A few weeks ago, I found some Polyethylene Foam laying discarded on the side of the road. As I walked past it, I thought, gee, it kind of looks like a ghost. Well, I went right back, picked it up, and took it home. Then when I was helping at the school a few days later, I found some smaller sheets and took those home, too, thinking I could make smaller ghosts.
So, I thought I would make a Bride and Groom ghosts, since I still have a lot of tulle left over from making Spane’s First Communion favor bags.
The flip flops, Bow, matching barrettes, and bracelets
A Girly Birthday
Spane and Noelle are very good friends, and play together a lot. Her mother, Amber, and I sat down a few weeks ago and started making plans for the party. Amber is going to make a waterfall scene cake, and I told her I would make some pixies for it. I will be posting that when I make themmade the Pixie wings, as the party is not for another 10 2 days, and now, I have made the pixies out of marzipan. But, we went to Michaels and got some great gifts to make for Noelle. You can view the album of pictures we took to see the completed projects.
Spane came home with a rather large piece of dark blue construction paper, out of which we were to make a hat that expressed his personality. Spane loves trains – a conductor hat was the obvious choice.
So, I looked for vintage conductor hats for my reference – all the other hats were from costumes for engineers – not conductors. The train conductor hat is similar to an airline pilot hat, but not quite. Once I found one, it looked pretty simple.
