Yay for Leap Day!

So it's no secret to any of my family or friends that I love a holiday, special occasion, event or any reason to be crafty and pull out my hot glue gun and glitter pens.  I was pretty excited when I was asked to make some Leap Day cupcakes for a friend and decided to use a play on words and make some fondant frogs on top of buttercream cupcakes. I found the inspiration for these on Cake Central from another cake decorator.

After making these cupcakes it immediately got me thinking about what else I could do for this day that only comes once every four years.  I didn't have to look far because my inbox was soon flooded with ideas.  I have subscribed to several great crafting blogs and apparently Leap Year was on every one's mind this week. The first idea I ran across came from Busy Bee Kids Crafts and was super simple and perfect for my 2 year old. I had all the supplies on hand and decided to give it a whirl. Here is what you need:

Glue

Green (Washable) Paint and brush

Red pipe cleaner

Green construction paper

White paper plate

2 white pom-poms for eyes

We first outlined her sweet little hands.

Then she painted the white paper plate green. (P.S. I always cover my kitchen table in newspaper when paint or Play-Doh is involved. Ekk!)

Then we attached the green hands, pipe cleaner mouth and pom-pom eyes and viola, a fun leap day frog!

 Easy peasy right?!

The next idea came from my recent obsession with Pintrest! I like everyone else have hopped on the Pintrest bandwagon and have found so many fun ideas!!! If your not already following me on Pintrest you can find the link in the upper left hand corner of my blog.  Anyhow back to the project! If you have a toddler then you know that they are super picky eaters and want pasta the majority of the time! (At least my toddler does.) I however have found that she will eat almost any vegetable if it is covered in ranch dressing.  So with that little helpful bit of info I serve almost every vegetable with ranch dressing!! (I honestly would not mind if it was covered in ketchup as long as she is eating a vegetable I am happy!)  A couple weeks ago I ran across a picky kids lunch blog and I was excited to find another use for my cookie cutters besides cookies!! So using these cookie cutters this is what I came up with.  Of course the frog and crown would have looked a lot cuter if it was a spinach tortilla but I wasn't about to truck it up to the store for green tortillas.  I have also found that putting food inside of cupcake liner is a huge crowd pleaser with my toddler and she automatically thinks its fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Crafting,

Jennifer

Snow Suits and Bathing Suits

Another busy week in the world of babies and baking has come and gone and it was a nice break to have some down time in between cake orders.  We started the week in snowsuits and ended it in bathing suits. (OK a little exaggerated with the bathing suits but I did end up sporting flip flops and short sleeves for two days so that's close enough.) Monday brought the first snow of the year and I have never seen a 2 year old so pumped about SNOW!!! This was her first REAL snow that she was able to actually play in and I think I may have been more excited then her.  I have to say that this was one of the highlights of my week.  At first glance she seemed to be a little put off by the the cold white stuff, but that lasted only a second and before long both she and I were covered in it! The snow was perfect too. Perfect for building snowmen, playing in, sledding in and gone by the afternoon. PERFECT!

What's a snow day without homemade hot chocolate?!? Of course I did not have condensed milk on hand and I don't usually keep it in stock so I came up with my own quick version of this old fashioned favorite and it was really, really good!!  

Here is my quickie recipe:

1/3 cup of cocoa

1/2 cup of sugar

1/3 cup water

*Whisk together on medium/high heat until almost at a boil then add 3 cups of milk and 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract.  Heat to desired temperature and top with marshmallows!

YUMMY!!

Towards the end of the week the weather God's smiled down and we ended up having temperatures topping 80 degrees, CRAZY for February!  So I decided that since the weather was AMAZING this would be a perfect opportunity to visit our local zoo. I recently made a baby shower safari cake and since then my daughter has been OBSESSED with zebra's, giraffe's and all things zoo related.

   This was our second visit to this zoo and I had much higher hopes this time around.  The first time we went I was unimpressed to put it mild. There had to be 10 different schools on field trips that day and  it was insanely crowded.  It was 120 degrees (or at least felt like it), the cages were gross and well it smelled like a zoo.  Everyone I told my horrible zoo experience to assured me that I needed to go back and that it must have been an "off" day so I gave it another chance and I am so glad I did. 

This time around there were NO field trips because it was winter time!! (HA!) The only people there were other mommies and their children.  The cages were clean and the weather was great.  It still smelled like a zoo but I guess that's not going to change. :)

Now I'm looking forward to another busy and entertaining week ahead with lots of fun St. Patty Day crafts and sweets to come. Stay tuned!  

Let's Get Started

I have to admit that I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to blogging but have found some pretty helpful people along the way to assist me.  For several months now I have enjoyed reading many posts from some awesome bloggers and I have learned so much from so many generous people out there willing to share their "how to's."  I love the idea that a blog can be a business and a personal journal and also serve as a place to pay homage to those that I admire.  (See my sidebar on your right for some fabulous blogs. ---->)  I know over the course of the next few months I will continue to learn more and will be tweaking this blog as I go.

 My website www.galleykitchencreations.com  has been up and  running  for a couple of months now and is purely devoted to the specialty cakes, cupcakes and cookies I have made.  With this blog I wanted to focus on a lot of other fun interest that I have as well as cakes. I recently discovered a bunch of great mommy blogs that have been entertaining, uplifting and inspiring.   I am hoping to be able to share what I think are great ideas, time saving tips, some mom stuff, some personal stuff and a few fun facts along the way.  A few facts about me are that I am a perfectionist, I cannot spell, I suck at grammer and punctuation, I am a over thinker, I love to write and I met my husband when I was seventeen, married at twenty-one and I am now thirty twenty-nine. (Gulp!!)  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will continue to be a part of this new journey with me. 

XOXO, 
Jennifer