Granny Square Blanket

I realize that granny squares are no big feat of amazement when it comes to crochet, but this granny square blanket is my own design. I used small squares and large squares to make the blanket and put the squares together with a new kind of joining method. The joining looks like an extension of the squares. It was pretty easy and I can post the instructions later. The colors are white, pink and brown and I used a satin kind of yarn. Oddly enought, this is probably one of the first blankets I've ever made for myself.

Iris folding and yo yo adventures

I have a couple of new projects to post. Both of these were for my very dear friend Ericka's birthday. She knew she'd be getting the necklace but had no idea how "substantial" it would be. Needless to say, both the card and the necklace are one of kind....just like Ericka. I honestly feel so selfish when I give a handmade gift. I get such a sense of accomplishment and pride at the reaction. Ericka was thrilled with the card and even more amazed with the necklace. Yeah!!

Amazing bouquet - I WANT IT

I saw this at an event that I went to last weekend. The place was called The Vibrant Table, they're a catering company in Portland. Apparently, they're floral designer make this for the bridal show a couple of months ago. She will rent it out, but my goal is to either buy it from her, pay her to make me one of my own, or figure out how she did it and make my own. I'm a little obsessed about this.

The whole bouquet is made of broaches and pins. It's not real flowers. I've never seem anything so beautiful in my life.

* Still having trouble with loading pictures. Will try again tonight.

Cake Balls

These little balls of delight are going to be a bigger hit than cupcakes. I've been reading about them and have had friends Facebooking about them. Apparently, even Neiman Marcus sells them for $1.00 per ball.

I have a bake sale coming up at work (to raise funds for Haiti) and decided to jump into the cake ball world. There is lots of tips and tricks out there to read, so I waded through them all and gave it my best attempt.

I really wanted to do a red velvet cake w/ cream cheese frosting and vanilla chocolate. But, wouldn't you know it, the store was out of red velvet cake. I opted for German Chocolate cake, the pecan/coconut frosting for the german chocolate cake, and light chocolate candy melts, then sprinkled the tops with coconut. YUMMMMM. Mark declared that he could easily sit down and eat a dozen of them.

My second batch was a cherry chip cake mix,vanilla frosting, and white chocolate candy melts w/ red sugar sprinkles on top. A little sweeter than the last batch but equally as amazing!

So - how do you make them? Honestly, it couldn't be any easier and the cake/frosting/chocolate combinations are endless!

1. Store bought cake mix
2. Store bought container of ready made frosting
3. Chocolate (to melt and coat the cake balls). I used the candy melts from the craft store.
4. Something to sprinkle on top (optional)

Bake the cake as directed on the box. I used a 9x13 glass pan. When the cake is done, let it cool for about 30 minutes. Break the cake up with your hands into a large bowl. After it's down to big chuncks I used my hand mixer to break it down event more...like cake crumbs. Sometimes the pan sides of the cake are harder to break down, make sure to use the handmixer on those parts especially.

Add 1/2 to 3/4 (or more depending on the texture) of the frosting and mix it w/ the cake. You don't want them too dry or too wet. Maybe the consistency of a the crumble part of a pie topping.

Cover the bowl w/ foil and put it in the freezer for about an hour. After the hour, take them out and use a melon baller (for small cake balls) or a cookie scoop. I happened to have bought a great new cookie scoop at Bed, Bath, & Beyond that worked GREAT. Scoop up the cake/frosting mix into balls. Round them off a bit if you'd like, but have a little bit of flat bottom works well too. Once you've used all of the cake mix/frosting mixture, cover them again with foil and put them back into the freezer. They're almost impossible to dip into the chocolate unless they're frozen.

You can freeze them for two hours, or overnight. I froze them overnight and they were just fine. Take your candy melts (or any other kind of candy chocolate - maybe even regular chocolate chips) and melt them in a double boiler. You can use a microwave to melt the chocolate, but using a double boiler helps to eliminate the back and forth to the microwave.

Here's the only tricky part. I broke down and bought the cheap plastic "candy fork" set from the craft store to help with the dipping. One of the tools looks like a long handled plastic for with only the two outside prongs. The other tool is long handled and looks like it has an O or a cirle on the bottom. I've read that you can break the two tines off of a plastic spoon and use the egg dipper from an easter egg kit, but I figured if I was going to be doing a bunch of these, I might as well spring for the $3.99 to get the right tools.

Once the chocolate is melted you just drop a cake ball into the chocolate. Roll it around to get it covered, then (shake off any extra if you can) and put it on wax paper. If you're going to add a sprink of any kind, NOW is the time to do that. They dry very quickly. Move on to the next ball....do the same...continue. It takes a few to get the hang of coating them properly, but you're family will gladly eat the "not so pretty" ones. Mine did.

If the cake balls start to crumble or fall apart while you're dipping them, put them back into the freezer. I only brought out about 10 at a time and left the rest of them in the freezer while I worked. Each batch made about 45-50 cake balls.

After you've made them, they will store, covered, in a cool dry place for up to a week. DON'T put them in the fridge - the chocolate will "sweat" and you'll have soggy balls. Yeah...I said it...soggy balls. LOL

You can also store the balls (no yet covered w/ chocolate)in the freezer for quite a while.

p.s. Having trouble posting the pictures - will do that later.