Chalkboard Magnets

A while ago Ai and I thought it would be a good idea to make little chalkboard magnets. We thought they would make really great gifts. They ended up being really cute and easy to make! The only problem we had was trying to find the right sized chalkboards. We wanted these to just be decorative pieces so we needed them to be fairly small. The chalkboards we used were definitely a lucky find. We found them browsing through kitchen stuff at World Market. If any one knows a place  where we can find a greater variety of small chalkboards please let us know! 


We had a bit of trouble coming up with themes for these so they ended up being a little random. The little trinkets on the chalkboards were made out of polymer clay and then attached with epoxy. If you aren't familiar with polymer clay charms check out our tips here. We couldn't figure out a way to connect a piece of chalk to these magnets to make the chalkboards an actual functioning piece, so the words were painted on with white acrylic paint. After everything on the front had set we glued four round magnets on each corner of the back of the chalkboards. You could definitely do this project with a larger chalkboard or even a dry erase board, but I would suggest making sure you have enough magnets to bear the weight! 


Now on to the magnets! 

Ai went with a cute love theme here! I just love those adorable little love birds in the tree! 

Neither one of us is a teacher, but we have a deep appreciation for teachers. Also teacher themed things are always super cute and fun! 

That's all for this week! Hope you all go out and make your own inspired chalkboard magnets! Happy crafting! ♥  

P.S. If you haven't already, go like our facebook page here. It would really mean a lot to us! ^_^ 

Panda Pinatas!!

So we know that we haven't posted anything in months! We're so sorry and we've finally buckled down and will not go missing for that long again! Although we've been absent, we have been crafting! Our inaugural post for our re-launch is all about pinatas!

My sisters had their birthday a few months ago and they wanted pinatas. If you ever buy pinatas then you'll know that the variety and quality of pinatas isn't very good. These pinatas also tend to cost $20+. For less than that you can make a quality pinata, but you'll have to put in the work. It took me three days to make two medium sized pinatas, but in the end my sisters' joy was worth it. And I know some of you might think it's a little silly to put in so much work for something that's just going to be destroyed, but that's the point of pinatas so I didn't have any reservations about doing it. You'll have to decide for yourself if the work is worth it. 

Unfortunately I made the pinatas on my own and couldn't document the process. But Ai and I plan on doing another pinata sometime this year and we'll give an in depth tutorial! I haven't made a pinata since I was in elementary school and it was only one of those traditional pinatas, which really aren't too difficult to do. So I went searching on the internet and stumbled upon THE BEST pinata blog here! This guy's pinatas are so amazing and his tips and instructions are really helpful and easy to follow! If you've never made a pinata I suggest you read everything he has to say.

So on to the pinatas!

Panda pinata with a sweet mustache! 

The other panda pinata. They both have their party hats on! 

The pandas faces and hats were made out of card stock. All the fringe was made with strips of crepe paper that I fringed and then layered. I'll go into more details when I put up the tutorial. The structure of the panda is traditional papier mache. Again I suggest you check out Pinata Boy! 

That's all for this week folks! Hope you all like the new layout and have been happily crafting while we've been away! ♥  

It's Fleece Hat Making Time!

So sorry about the long absence! We've been working on some super secret things lately and haven't had much time to post. But I just had to try and sneak in a post for February!

If you couldn't tell from the title of this post, I made some hats! I had so much left over fabric from Halloween that I needed to find something fairly easy to make to use it all up. So my sisters suggested I try to make those trendy animal hats that are ridiculously expensive in all the stores. 

I agreed and then realized I had never sewn a hat before! So I headed on over to Deviantart to look for some help and found this awesome tutorial for a basic fleece hat. But my sisters wanted the hats to have ear flaps so I had to make up my own pattern for the bottom part of the hats. Then I saw some yarn on sale and went crazy making little dangly hearts in addition to the ear flaps! Anyways on to the hats! 

This was actually a happy accident. I was supposed to make my sister a panda hat, but the dye only turned my faux fur gray. So it turned into a wolf husky type thing! hahaha

Cat hat with dangly hearts! 

A bird of some kind. It was supposed to be a penguin, but I think it looks more like a cardinal! 

This one was my favorite! It's a chompy dinosaur! 

It even has spikes running down the back! 

Back view of the dinosaur! 

A special Hello Kitty hat for my favorite niece! 

A group shot with the bear hat, which looks exactly like the cat hat! 

Oh and have a random Adventure Time pillow I made for my other sister! It's Jake! 

So that's all for this week folks! Happy crafting! And before I forget go like us on Facebook please!!! ♥  

Christmas Baking Part 2: Christmas Cookies

Alright so this is really the last of the Christmas themed posts since the holidays have been over for a month now! Every Christmas I love to make baked goods for my loved ones and my favorite thing to make is frosted sugar cookies! They're always so cute and festive and make me insanely happy! 


I've shared this cookie recipe with all of you before, but I'll put it up again. Also, I made a chocolate version of this recipe since my family doesn't really like gingerbread cookies. 

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar 
• 4 eggs 
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out dough on surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 6-8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely. 

For the Chocolate cookies: Melt down about 4 ounces of semisweet chocolate and cream it with the butter and sugar before you add the eggs. 

TIPS: 

This recipe is exactly as written from allrecipes with the only change made is an added teaspoon of vanilla extract. The directions for this recipe are fine, but I do like to do one more thing before I actually bake the cutout cookies. I like to let them chill again in the freezer for 30-60 minutes before baking. I feel that this helps the cookies retain their shape. Also to make cutting the cookies easier, dip your cutters in flour before making each cutout. 

Royal Icing 

Ingredients 

• egg whites from 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons water
• 4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon of any clear flavored extract

Directions

I am very adamant about safe food handling procedures, so I scoured the internet to find information about the proper way to handle raw eggs whites in an icing recipe. Luckily I found wonderful information from here on how to handle egg whites properly. 

1. In a double boiler or metal bowl placed over water in a saucepan, stir together the egg whites, half of the confectioner's sugar and the water. 
2. Cook over low heat or simmering water, beating constantly with a portable mixer at low speed, until the whites reach 160 degrees F. 
3. Pour into a large bowl and add the remaining sugar and clear extract and beat until you reach soft peak consistency. This is the consistency you'll use to pipe your borders, lines, dots, etc.

To color your icing: 

I like to use gel or paste food coloring for my icings or frosting. Gel food coloring is much more concentrated than liquid coloring and doesn't affect the consistency. Just add a little coloring at a time until you get the colors you want. 

To change the consistency:

To get a runnier consistency for filling spaces, simply add water a little at a time till you reach the consistency you want.

Extra Tips:

Don't let your icing sit out uncovered. I like to take a wet paper towel and cover the bowl until I'm ready to use more icing. 

Cute little stockings for Ai, her boyfriend, and their dog! 

Christmas stars! 

Snowmen and an ornament! 

Christmas presents and a wreath! 

Red nosed reindeer and Santa's sleigh! 

Snowflakes are my absolute favorite to make! 

So that's all for this week folks! Hope you go out there and make some of your own cute cookies! ♥  

Christmas Baking Part 1

So we know we've been really bad bloggers! We had set an easy once a week posting schedule and we just got busy/lazy during the holiday season. hahahaha But we're back for good now! We know that the holidays have been over for a few weeks now, but for the next few weeks, you're all finally going to see what we've been up to! 

Our first round of holiday baking posts were inspired by Bakerella's snow globe cupcakes, but of course we did things just a little different. We did everything the same except we made our own fondant using this marshmallow fondant recipe and we topped the cupcakes with chocolate sugar cookie disks so we'd have a stable base. I'll share my cookie recipe on next week's post! 


So now it's on to all the snow globes! 

All the cupcakes without their snow globe tops.

An overhead view.

We made the presents with the same chocolate cookie recipe as the disks and just used royal icing to decorate. 

A cute little Christmas penguin! 

The same penguin in his snow globe! 

A polar bear with a big red bow on his back!

The bear's super cute bow! 

Inside his snow globe! 

Another Christmas penguin! hahaha I made this one and he just looks like he's a tad slow! 

Three polar bears! 

Our three penguins! 

A solo shot of our last penguin! 

Our reindeer! Their antlers were also made out of the chocolate cookie dough.

Hanging out inside of their snow globes!

A snowman, snowlady, and polar bear! 

Our fat little snowman! 

Our cute snowlady is striking a fabulous pose! 

This little guy has a present topped with a big red bow just for you! 

Winter time pets! 

Two cute kitties all ready for Christmas! 

My doggie Gizmo all ready for the holidays! 

Ai's dog Socks all bundled up for winter! 

Christmas tree with a cute train going around it! 

So that's all for this week folks! We hope that everyone is having a lovely start to the new year! May the new year bring all of you new and wonderful crafting ideas! ♥