More Truffles!!

So two of my friends are getting married today, Sonya & Warren. So I agreed to make a big batch of chocolate truffles for their wedding reception. Here they are, all 82 of them!! I bought the brown candy cups for this project, and turns out they were too small. So I had to use the white cups that I had in my crafting stuff, unfortunately, I ran out!! Ah well, who cares what the candy cups looks like right? Its all about the chocolate!!

 

 

I've made chocolate truffles twice before this, but they were hand rolled ganache dipped in liquid chocolate and left to harden. This batch was made using two different chocolate molds:  swirl chocolate molds and the "cherry flip" mold. I ended up doing 7 1/2 trays worth of truffles.  

 

The chair project is finally done!

It turned out to be wayyyyy harder that I expected, but I am happy with the end result. Here are pic of the finished reupholstered chair. This is the original post about the chair in case you want to see the before pics.

The hardest part was definitely the upper back of the chair.

 

 

I ended up making a throw pillow to go with it as well. 

Things that I learned: Don't agree to a project before getting a good idea of what you are getting in to!
Oh, I learned something else too, about how when the going gets tough, I prefer to ignor the issure rather than fight though to the end. I now have a much better appreciation for what professional upholstery and small time furniture manufacturers go through. Also, I may not be agreeing to any other reupholstery projects for a while, just saying...

Just a touch late, Spring Cookie Creations

Happy Spring everyone!!! I got so inspired by all the Easter and Spring themed cookies all over the web, I had to make some too. I knew that with the success of my Christmas cookies, I wanted to make another batch. Well, I finally got around to it. Check these out!!

So here are the results of my second batch of royal icing decorated cookies. I made a basic sugar cookie inspired from Sweetopia. (One of my favorite places for cookie inspiration.)  I went nuts  had a lot of fun with the royal icing decorations. And, I got to finally use some sanding sugars and sprinkles that I bought a few months ago, yay. Hope you enjoy!!

Playing with Inkscape

So you may have noticed that I've had a few changes to my blog header lately. I've been wanting to customize my blog for a while and recently started searching for ideas. So instead of having to pay a ton of money on some expensive drawing program, I ran into a open source program called Inkscape. It has similar attribute as the Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw programs.

Anywho, I've been playing around with Inkscape and so far have come up with a few ideas. The header you now see was created with Inkscape. I'm not 100% percent satisfied yet. And besides, I want to create a nice background and overall look for the blog, including buttons. So, please pardon the dust as I continue on this path of creation and tweaking.

The one think that I learned by using Inkscape is that technology for computer graphics has exploded and I am way behind on the learning curve. But thank goodness there are some great tutorials out there for inkscape. I look forward to getting a new and refined look to my blog soon!!

Talk about getting crafty!!

The Maya Pedal project is folks in Guatamala repurposing bike parts into Bicimáquinas. Or - pedal powered bike/machines!  They are used for blending shampoo, milling corn maize, washing clothes and even pumping water. This is the coolest thing ever,  I'm really inspired!

This is a picture of a woman making natural aloe shampoo on her bike/blender!

Check them out here !!

Gearing up for "V" day!

That's right, Valentine's Day!

 Shown above are some chocolate covered strawberries I made for a party last night. I used Ghirardelli - 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Bar mixed with Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Baking Chips. I have this small chocolate fondue pot that melts chocolate perfectly.  I prefer dark chocolate myself, but most folks like a mix of dark and milk. But I think I went overboard on the milk chocolate this time. Ah well, still tasted yummy! The pink drizzle is Wilton's Pink Candy Melts. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I like Wilton's products, but the candy melts are NOT chocolate. And they do not melt or pour like chocolate. So I had to rig a small piping bag out of a sandwich baggie. I cut a tiny snip away from one corner and it worked perfectly to make the cute drizzles. I got creative with them as you can see, hehe.

The strawberries have a slight glean to them because I stored them in the fridge overnight, and the moisture condensed on the outside. Its a quick way to get the chocolate to set up quickly, but it can make the strawberries a tad runny. I would recommend a short time in the fridge to urge the chocolate to set up, then store them in a container at room temperature. On to other V day goodies!

Today I made a batch of Rice Krispy treats. Since I'm taking them to a pot-luck, and its near Valentine's day, I dyed the marshmallows pink! I used one drop of red paste food coloring, and wow! I bought the food coloring from Williams Sonoma. Here is the mixture in the pot getting stirred up. I haven't made these treats in ages and I don't know why not. They are so quick and easy!!

Dreaming of new business ventures

So I recently signed up for the Indie Business: Compass eCourse by Freckled Nest. Its an eCourse directed at creative business exploration. I am really jazzed about it and ready to get inspired. I've been daydreaming about starting a creative business of my own. And I just need some additional direction as to what I'm going to achieve and how I'm going to do it.

I started the course on Thursday and can't wait to get started on my future creative business!!