My oldest son Aidyn just turned 13. And one thing we know for certain about him: he absolutely LOVES Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (and really anything that has both peanut butter and chocolate). So for his birthday cake, he wanted me to make him a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.
As a surprise, I decided to get a little creative with the decorations. The most fun part was adding Reese's Pieces around the sides of the cake! I wasn't exactly sure that it would work since they are heavier than sprinkles, but I just pressed them on by the handful and the placed the whole cake in the refrigerator to set the frosting. If you are a more professional baker than I am, you could also carefully line them up or even make a pattern around the cake with them.
It came out really cute! (And delicious - did I mention delicious?) The consistency of this cake is really more like a fudge brownie and the frosting recipe makes a generous amount so that you can just pile it on!
Chocolate and Peanut Butter Fudge Cake
I just happened to have two recipes that I've used for years, but I've just never put the two of them together in one cake. You'll need these recipes for this cake:
plus 2, 4 oz. boxes of Reese's Pieces (I used about 1 1/2 boxes full to go around the side of the whole cake.)
I have always made a chocolate frosting for the chocolate cake and a peanut butter cake to go with the peanut butter frosting. (Those recipes are included too - in case you want to try that!)
But, let me tell you - the Chocolate Fudge Cake with the Peanut Butter Fudge Frosting was a real winner! Doesn't that look yummy?
And here's a few photos of the cake with candles and the birthday boy blowing them out!
This makes for a really pretty cake that would be perfect for birthdays, fall, or Halloween since it is decorated with orange, yellow, and brown fall colors. And, since fall is the time of year for organizations to ramp up on bake sales and cake walks, this would also make a great contribution for one of these!
I hope you'll give this cake a try. If you have a Reese's lover on your hands - I promise they'll love it!
My front porch has needed a Halloween makeover for a few years and this is the year! Today I'm going to show you how to make a funny candy themed Halloween wreath for your own front door.
The neighbors have the good candy - isn't it the cutest? I mean, I dont' know about you, but I am guilty of buying Halloween candy WAAAYYYYY too early, eating all of it, and then buying it again (OK, maybe twice). By the time Halloween gets here, our loot may have some Tootsie Rolls and Dum Dums mixed in with the prized candy bars (because honestly, we ate most of those looong before October 31 rolled around . . . . ). We do draw the line at handing out Raisin Creme Pies - we are not monsters. :-)
So, this wreath is just giving all the kiddos a heads up! (And in case anyone's wondering, this will not deter the kids from our house one bit - and it's not meant to! You guys know that we always dress up with our boys for Halloween and walk around the neighborhood with them. Our neighborhood does Halloween BIG! So we always leave out a giant bucket of candy on the front porch with the light on.) This wreath is just all in good fun!
For a few years now, I have had a conservative all white pumpkin wreath on my front door at Halloween. It matched the dapper skeleton and his dog that would take up residence on our front porch every October. Here's a picture of the porch last year with a few other dashing goblins you might recognize.
Is this not a sassy skeleton?
Every October, he's all like, "Hello, neighbors! I bid a Joyous Halloween to you!"
But this year, I wanted something different. And that something caught my eye when I was in our local craft store in early September. (Of course, as soon as I get wind of stores putting out their Halloween decorations, I immediately go to see what they have put out!) So, yes, I have been sitting on this project waiting to post it for a few weeks now. ;-)
Don't worry, our friend Mr. Skeleton and his dog are living it up in our dining room this year, so you might see more from them later this season in our Halloween Home Tour. Stay tuned!
Candy Corn Themed Halloween Wreath Supplies
1 black pine wreath form
10 3" foam candy corn floral picks
8 5" pom-pom floral picks
Outdoor Mod Podge (optional)
Deco Art Craft Twinkles, crystal color
7 various Halloween themed wire edged ribbons
Chenille stems or wire
Candy themed Halloween sign
Hot glue gun and hot glue
Scissors
Paint brush
2 Soda can tabs (optional)
Directions
1. Paint both sides of the candy corn picks with 3 coats of Mod Podge, allowing each coat to dry the recommended amount of time between coats. (I did this to help the foam picks hold up a little better on an outside wreath. This step is optional if you're going to use your wreath indoors.)
2. After the final coat is dry, paint one side with Deco Art Craft Twinkles. If you want your candy corn to be really sparkly, you can paint a second coat after the first has dried. Note: I only painted one side of the candy corn because only one side will be showing on the wreath.
3. Then, fluff your wreath before you start decorating it.
4. My sign had a decorative rope stapled to the back for hanging. So, if your sign has anything like that, you'll need to remove it so that you can wire your sign to your wreath.
Since my sign had no other hangers, I hot glued two soda can tabs on the back of the sign so that I would have something to loop chenille stems through.
Here's the back side of the wreath. As you can see, the soda can tabs won't show, but the are just the right thing to hold the sign to center of the wreath!
5. Once your sign is attached to the wreath, the next biggest thing on the wreath will be the bow. I followed this YouTube tutorial and made 4 of the bows she shows.
I used about 7 different types of coordinating Halloween wired ribbon. I already had some of these ribbons stashed in my craft closet, and I bought a few of these specifically for this project. You can always make a bow out of just one type of ribbon if you would prefer.
When I was finished with my 4 funky bows from the tutorial, I attached them all together into one large bow before attaching them to the upper left corner of my wreath with a chenille stem.
6. After you've attached the bow, you'll need to "dry fit" your candy corn picks and your pom-pom picks around the wreath and make sure that you're happy with their placement.
7. Once you're happy with how everything looks, just hot glue all the picks in place.
Now you're all set to hang your new candy corn wreath on your front door to greet the ghouls and goblins for Halloween (and send them to your neighbors' house - ha)!
Hope you give this DIY Halloween Candy Wreath a try for yourself.
If you're just itchin' for some more Halloween goodness, and you can't wait for the new stuff that's coming in a week or so, make sure you take a stroll through some of our most popular past Halloween posts.
For Jaxon's birthday, I decided that I was going to finish an afghan that I started for him quite some time ago. This Captain America shield afghan is probably one that you've seen making the rounds, and as crochet afghans go, it's really pretty easy to make. However, as crafters are known to do, I had a tendency to put it down after I'd started it to start and finish other projects.
But since his birthday was coming up (and since as of the last Avengers movie, things are not looking so good for our superhero), I thought now would be the perfect time to finish this project. Here's a look at this patriotic afghan.
The Materials
The yarn I used for this project was a mix of some yarn I already had in my stash (the blue and white) and a red that I chose as a complementary color. I used a size I hook with these yarns:
The inspiration for this blanket came from the Lion Brand Little Superhero Blanket Pattern, which is a free crochet pattern. But, that pattern uses a chunky yarn and makes a smaller sized blanket for a young child.
Since I wanted to make a larger blanket for a 10-year old, I decided to "wing it." Really, if you look at photos of Captain America's shield, it's easy to get a feel for how large the red and white bands are in relation to the blue center circle.
This Captain America shield afghan is a simple double crochet circle with increases as needed to get to the size you desire. Here's a tutorial for creating a crochet circle to get you started.
The pattern I used for the white star in the center was a free pattern from Jessie at Home for a Star Trivet. I just continued increasing rounds until I reached 13 total rounds.
For the entire afghan, I used the following repeats:
24 DC rounds - blue
16 DC rounds - red
16 DC rounds - white
16 DC rounds - red
1 crab stitch round - red
Because the entire afghan is worked in double crochet, I thought finishing in a crab stitch would add some variety. Here's a close up look at the crab stitch border.
Advice for Creating Large Crochet Circles
The biggest challenge with this project will be keeping a large crochet circle flat and looking like a circle. My best advice is to remember that as you increase the size of your circle, if you continue placing increase stitches at even intervals (2DC, 1DC, 1DC, 1DC, 2DC, all the way around, for example), then eventually your project will start to look more like an octagon, an then a nonagon, and then a decagon. Flashback to your geometry classes, I know - but you get the idea!
If you want it to smooth out into a circular shape, you're going to have to randomly increase on some of the rows so that all of the increases don't perfectly line up with each other (which is what eventually forms points in the project).
Then, you'll need to start watching out for curling and waving. If your project is curling at the edges (like a bowl shape or a hat), you don't have enough stitches and you need to increase more frequently. And if your project is waving or ruffling at the edges, then you have too many stitches. You will get a feel for it!
Attaching the Star
To sew the star to the front of the afghan, I lined up the star on top of the blue circle where I wanted it to sit on the final afghan. Then I cut long pieces of white yarn and tied down each of the five points of the star.
I used the long tails of those pieces of yarn to sew the star to the blue circle, being careful to only sew into the front posts of the blue stitches (so as not to have any white showing through to the back of the afghan). If you catch the back loops of the star as shown below, the yarn you are using to sew the star to the afghan should blend nicely when you're finished sewing.
In the photo below, the stitches to the left of the yarn have already been sewn down and the stitches to the right of the yarn have not yet been sewn. See how they look very similar?
The finished size of this afghan is 91" in diameter across the center of the afghan. That's 7 feet 7 inches - enough to cover a king size bed! And perfect for snuggling under!
Other Superhero Afghan Options
Some of you may remember that years ago (when my oldest son was 5 years old - he's almost 13 now by the way!?!?!) that I made a crochet Spiderman Afghan for him. And he still uses it to this day!
It has held up well, and I'm quite sure that at the time (and maybe even right now) many people were thinking "why on Earth is this woman making such HUGE afghans for such little boys?" Well, it's because those little boys grow up to become young men and their fascination with superheroes has not wavered yet. They still love them.
And here's a peak at what both boys look like with their afghans today. Aidyn's is a little smaller on him than it was when I originally made it, and Jaxon's is a little bigger on him than it will be in a few years. But they have lots more years of enjoyment left in these.
So, I would encourage you to consider making superhero afghans larger than you think you'll need to. They will use these for a lot longer than their toddler and childhood years!
Just two weeks ago, the president of our local chapter of the Autism Society and fellow homeschool mom announced that she would be hosting a second chance prom to help fund the sensory friendly activities and events that they have planned for their members throughout the year.
I can't say that I am in need of a second chance for my prom. I have some great memories of my last years in high school. With traveling buddies and kindred spirits alike, I made my way through high school.
...But a second chance at the 80s: yes, please! This would combine two of my favorite things, thrifting and costuming. First things first, I googled Glamour Shots and much to my chagrin, they are practically non-existent, here in NC anyway, so any big hair was going to have to be done by yours truly with the aid of some Aquanet (if that was still in production). I started scouting out dresses online. It didn't take long to realize that this little endeavor was going to require some legwork. I checked out some local places, including a little place I like to call Daddy's closet and came up empty handed except for these little numbers:
That's right, these are original, dyed-to-match, satin pumps. Worn only once, I'm sure, I pulled them directly from the back of Daddy's time capsule closet. But sadly, with no matching dress, I was headed to the infamous Megathrift in Harris Sister Donna's neighborhood. I was not disappointed. They had rack upon rack of dresses.
After quite a search (who would have thought that all prom dresses would be in junior sizes!), I did end up with quite a selection, which is when I thought we might see what Facebook had to say.
Here's what we were working with, options 1-5 that you voted for on our Facebook Page in no particular order:
The majority just loved the "Back in Black Lace Halter" dress, and I must admit I am in love with it too, but since I was going for an '80s look, I chose "Billie Green".
I snazzed it up with some polkadot tights, satin gloves (of course), plenty of jewelry and who could forget the blue eye shadow?
'80s hair is no easy task! After some two hours of getting ready, I was off to meet up with my fellow second chancers for dinner.
We ate and messed around with Snapchat filters. Typical prom stuff, amIright?
My honey bunny joined us for the prom.
We danced and ate and talked about what in the world we are going to do with all these extra dresses!
Girls just wanna have fun, or so they say. So when you have a classic car in the family, it was bound to become a prop for one our fun-filled Harris Sisters' photo shoots at some point. And we finally made that happen not too long ago.
Harris Sister Deanna here. And the car you see in these photos is a 1967 Corvette, and has belonged to my husband, John, for more years than I have known him. There is a story that goes along with this car, and I will get to that in a minute, so stick with me.
But first, the Harris Sisters and our little photo shoot. If you look at girls and classic cars photographed together, you often find pictures of pin up girls. Oh, don't get me wrong, the Harris sisters love pin up style. But for this particular shoot, we were thinking more along the lines of Thelma and Louise. Just look how cute they are. All they were missing was a third girlfriend, but we can't all be the Harris Sisters, right?
So we gathered up our best head scarves and oversized sunglasses, and set out for a little road trip of our own. This shady little road is literally about a mile from our house. It's such a gorgeous tree-covered path and its shade makes it a wonderful location (and background) for taking pictures. We parked right in the middle of the road and only saw one or two cars pass the entire time we were there. And in case you were wondering, yes, the car was parked the entire time. It's tough to photograph a moving vehicle. And it's a lot easier for us models too if the car stays in one place. :)
This Vette is candy apple red, so we decided early on to wear mostly black and white, and then threw in some yellow to accent our outfits. I think the colors turned out great, and we really made the car look good, or it made us look good. Probably both, in truth.
Even though we planned to accent our outfits with yellow, I don't think any of us knew we were all going to wear yellow shoes. Great minds.... And here's a look at the interior of the car. Yep, it's a two-seater. So we had to get a little creative with our photos for the three of us in this car.
But let's talk about this car. John has owned Corvettes his entire life. His first car was a 1973 Corvette. That's what he was driving at age 16!! I don't even want to talk about my first car. In any case, when I met him, he owned two Corvettes, one of which was this one. And we still own it today. Probably always will. According to many car buffs, the 1967 Corvette is the most desirable year. The body style changed in 1968, and most agree that the 1967 was just about as good as it gets. Hard to argue; the old girl is a beauty.
John has had this car for about 15 years now. When he acquired it, he already owned a 1968 Corvette and wasn't really looking to buy another car at the time. But a friend of a friend knew of this car, so he went to look at it. The owner was a middle aged school teacher, who wasn't really looking to sell the car. It had belonged to her late husband, and had spent about 20 years just sitting in a garage. She didn't drive it, and after 20 years of sitting, it didn't run anymore.
But John must have turned on the charm because he ended up buying this car - that wasn't for sale, AND that he had no intention of buying. He spent the next many months working on getting it running again. He had to completely rebuild the engine, among many other things. And it has purred like a kitten- actually more like roared like a lion- ever since. John has always been a car guy. I'm thinking of hiring him out. :)
But back to our photos- this photo shoot is the most action this car has seen in a while. Certainly more girls in it than it has ever seen I'm guessing. What a fun morning, and such a fun shoot.
So that's a wrap!
You thought the story was over, right? Not quite. I would be remiss if I didn't introduce you to the owner of this fine automobile, my wonderful hubby John, and our always-patient photographer for many of the Harris Sisters' photo shoots, including this one.
Not only is he a car buff, he knows how to shoot a camera to boot. Think I'll keep him... and the car.
