Patriotic Desserts Take the Cake

The Fourth of July is a really big deal in my hometown. Almost all class reunions are held that weekend, 'kids' who have moved away come home to visit every year because, let's face it, when else are they likely to encounter that friend they haven't seen in years? And my house is going to be overrun with grandchildren as all of my kids come home for the holiday.

Since preparations have been on my mind, I decided to see what fun designs Wilton had on their website. I found some fantastic cake ideas. All of these cakes have complete directions available at the linked location on the Wilton site. The first few use the star pan.

This one is called Bursting in Air, and it uses lollipop sticks, and either colorflow icing, or food coloring and fondant--which is the way I would make it. If you use this method, it's best ot use the cute star shape cutouts. It also calls for colored foil, but if that's not handy, a little ingenuity will fill in instead.

This tasty treat uses fruit to add color and style to your cake. On the Wilton site it is simply called the July 4th cake.

This one is called the Country Cake, and could be adjusted for any country with a star on the flag. It uses the star shape cutouts too, though any star-shaped cookie cutter would work instead.
This one is called Soaring Spirit. It uses 6" and 10" pans, more lollipop sticks, fondant, and star fondant shape cutouts. This cake would be perfect for a more formal holiday occasion, or any other patriotic event.

This one is called the Rocket's Red Glare and uses the Enchanted Castle pan. See my blog on other fun cakes you can make with the Enchanted Castle pan here. Again, lollipop sticks feature in this cake, as does white florist ribbon, and colored foil.

You can buy almost all of the supplies for these cakes and much more on our Website.

Time to Make Easter Candy

Are you tired of the same commercial treats that are available every year? Want to do something different and special for your family and friends this year? Wilton has candy-making supplies and molds available so you can customize your Easter experience.

There are several different mold sets available to suit your fancy. The first is the Hoppy Easter Lollipop mold. It has 8 different designs and 9 cavities for a variety of designs and large candies.























Next comes the Fuzzy Bunny Lollipop Mold With four different shapes and four cavities, for big, bold treats.























The third mold is the Decorated Egg Lollipop Mold with these three great egg designs.























Each package comes with directions and great ideas for variations. We also have sucker sticks available in four and six-inch lengths to fit your molds, and candy melts in a variety of colors. You can also purchase kits for wrapping your finished suckers to give them a professional touch. Want to add flavors or colors to the candy? We have that available too.

There are also other great candy molds available for other holidays. Check them out here.

This Shape Pan Offers Enchanting Possibilites

Do you love the shape pans available, but wish you could get more than one use out of them? Relax, with a little ingenuity, you can adjust pans for several different themes. As an example, I've chosen the Enchanted Castle pan from Wilton. All of the below pictures were pulled off of Wilton.com. The first picture is the one posted in the 1996 yearbook. Directions for making this cake are included with the pan, or can be downloaded from Wilton.com.


Next, we have the haunted mansion. The jump from princess castle to scary Halloween retreat is easy to see, but how about the next one?


The Lighthouse seascape cake is a nice adjustment for a summer vacation celebration, or going away celebration for someone interested in rocky beaches.






















And Christmas cake anyone? This array of candles could easily be adjusted to celebrate a fifth anniversary, or with a tweak, change the candles to people and you could picture your family. The possibilities are endless.

To buy the cake pan, and any supplies you may need, check out our Website.

Thanksgiving dolls

I'm always finding new ways to use my Paper Dolls Dress up Cricut cartridge. For Thanksgiving I cut out a bunch of people and clothes and let my grandkids create their own little Pilgrim people. I started with a selection of hair, clothes, and bodies.

Using glue sticks and some imagination, they started piecing the dolls together.Happy girls and their creations!
This activity kept the girls busy for quite a while, cutting down on boredom and arguments.
It's important to remember when you cut out the clothes for your paper dolls that If you cut five inch dolls, you need to keep the setting at five inches on the clothes. This allows the machine to make the clothes fit the dolls.

I used the Cricut Design Studio to plan my pilgrims and clothes. Each color of paper was set up in design studio to conserve paper and to prevent me from loading and reloading the same colors onto the mat as I realized I had forgotten pieces.

Make a vinyl Christmas scene

Christmas decorations are popping up everywhere and with Cricut's Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge, you can decorate your windows and walls for the holiday.

The Paper Dolls cartridge has dozens of great outfits and ideas, from a Hula girl outfit, a princess with castle and dragon, Halloween costumes, a full Nativity, to Santa, his reindeer, sleigh and elves and so much more. This year I decided to put a Santa scene on my family room wall.

First I drew out an idea of how I wanted to set it out just on a sheet of paper. You don't have to have any real artistic ability to do this--all you're trying to do is get a feel for how you want it to look.

Next I decided on the scale I wanted to use for the people, reindeer, sleigh, and trees. To do this, I cut all of the major outlines out in plain white paper. I didn't bother cutting out clothes, because I just wanted to make sure the pieces were the right scale for the scene. I taped these pieces on the wall where I was going to stick the vinyl, that way I knew I had the right spacing between pieces, and that it was centered right on the wall. After the picture below was taken, I taped them to the wall to get a better look. Setting the pieces out like this showed me that the sleigh was a little too big in proportion to the reindeer, so I cut the sleigh out a little smaller for the final version.

Next I started cutting the pieces out. The important thing to remember with the Paper Dolls cartridge is that if you cut out a ten inch person, you keep the ten inch setting for the clothing. The cartridge automatically fits the clothing to a character that size. For Mr.s Clause, I cut a person that was nine inches tall, and her clothes at nine inches as well.

If you have the Design Studio, you can plan ahead and cut all pieces from one color of vinyl at once. This can simplify the process if you think ahead.

Finally, I applied the pieces to the wall. I was pretty happy with the way it worked out.

Partaking the Joys of the Season

Earlier this week I talked about the Christmas Cheer Cricut cartridge. Since that earlier collection of Christmas designs came out, ProvoCraft has produced a new cartridge, called the Joys of the Season. This includes many new card and tag options with different pictures, a complete collection of images for the Twelve Days of Christmas, and even Chanukah images!

The book that comes with this cartridge shows you how each image can be stretched, bolded, cut out of tags, and even has directions for a wreath project.

Whether you are planning to dress up your scrapbook, your Christmas cards, Christmas party, or decorate a wall or window (using the great vinyl colors this machine can cut for you), there something for nearly any situation.

For a full set of images from the book, click here for a look at a PDF file. To purchase this or many other Cricut products, visit our Web site.

Spreading Christmas Cheer

The holiday season is nearly upon us, and scrapbookers are on the lookout for fun ideas to dress up their pages this season. Whether you are buying for yourself, or for someone else who has a Cricut machine and Christmas fetish, there are great solutions out there for you.

Christmas Cheer is from the first group of cartridges to hit the market. It includes pictures of Santa, his sleigh, reindeer, trees, decorations, Christmas candy and much more. Among other option, this cartridge allows you to cut the shapes out of rounded-cornered squares, circles, tags, and place cards. You can even create mini boxes for Christmas goodies.

Remember these designs can be cut any size up to 12"x24"on the Cricut Expressions, enabling you to size the decorations to your project. You can even cut these out of vinyl to adhere to walls and windows!

To see images of everything this cartridge can do, visit the ProvoCraft Web site.

To purchase this or any of the other many Cricut products we have in stock, visit our Web site.

Last-minute supplies for your Halloween party

There's still time to add fun touches to your kid's Halloween party. These ghost or bat-covered party bags allows the kids to take their treats home in style. The package contains 20 4"x9 1/2" bags that are sure to be a hit.


I know I've found cupcakes are much easier and less messy for kids to handle when they are settling in for a snack, these great ghost cupcake liners can brighten up a simple treat. There are 100 liners per package, so there should be plenty to share with school classes, and friends alike.


If you're planning for a smaller group and want a quick and easy way to dress up simple cupcakes, a whole cake, cookies, or even ice cream treats, these smiling candy pumpkins will fill the need. They come twelve to a pack.


Another fun and simple decorating idea for cakes and cupcakes would be to use these fun color mists. We have them in orange and black, but they are also available in half a dozen other colors. Using these great products, you can give your homemade cupcakes a professional look.



Any of these items can be ordered at our Web site. Check back for other posts about our holiday cake decorating items, holiday scrapbook supplies and much more!

New Halloween costumes abound

There's something about Halloween that intrigues both young and old, whether the chance to become someone else for an evening or to eat too much candy, I'm not sure.

In the past weeks we've been unearthing all of our Halloween things and getting them posted up on our Web sites and ebay store. We have dozens of different masks from the silly to the frankly gruesome for both children and adults, many, many costumes, witches hat and hair combinations for adults, witches hats by themselves for adults and children, and other accessories including many types of makeup, vampire blood, nail polish and lipstick and spider nail decals.

Are you planning a party for All Hallows Eve? Regardless of whether your celebration is for children, or an older audience, we have things you will need. We have spooky music CDs, games, decorations and party favors. We also have tons of decorations including giant fuzzy spiders in 20-, 30- and 50-inch sizes.


To see a full list of what we have available, visit our Web site