Superbowl Cupcakes Decorating Tutorial

I'm not gonna lie. I was never very into sports.

This is probably due to three factors: 1] Neither of my parents are very into sports, 2] I was never very good at sports myself and 3] I grew up in a city with no major sports teams. The biggest thing in Toledo is our minor league baseball team, the Toledo Mud Hens.

I mean, their mascot is a little chicken that lives in the mud.

That being said, I have always liked sporting event parties. Consider three more factors: 1] They often involve lounging on couches or other squishy objects for hours on end, 2] It's ok to drink a lot and 3] Everyone is allowed to eat anything they want. It's like any dietary rule or shred of culinary sanity gets tossed out the window. The bigger the event, the more calorically suicidal the cuisine.

One dish at the Superbowl party I went to last year was like someone had exploded together a burrito, a bag of bacon cheeseburgers and a block of velveeta cheese and somehow coerced the byproduct into a casserole dish. It was glorious, for at least the single bite I could choke down.

Anyway, this captive and willing food audience is a perfect excuse for me to make cupcakes and not have any left over. I made these goalpost cupcakes last year and they were a hit. They're relatively painless to make considering how cute they are.

You can just use a mix and canned frosting, or use your favorite cupcake recipe. The only non-grocery items you'll need are yellow Candy Melts and green sprinkles, which you can find at Joann's or Michaels or a specialty baking store.

Oh and p.s., I'm more into sports now. One season of being in a fantasy football league changed that. Don't knock it till you try it...

Superbowl Cupcakes

Materials:

1 batch chocolate cupcakes

1 can white frosting or your favorite buttercream frosting recipe

green food coloring

green sprinkles

yellow Candy Melts

ziplock baggies

parchment paper or foil

First you'll make the goalposts. Melt about 1 cup of Candy Melts following the instructions on the package. Pour them into a ziplock bag and snip off one of the corners just about 1/8". Pipe the goalposts onto parchment or foil. Make the 'stems' extra long because you'll need to stick them down into the cupcake. Make more than you need, because some will break, or just be ugly.

Stick the goalposts in the fridge while you do the rest. Reserve 2 spoonfuls of white frosting in a ziplock back. Use food coloring to tint the rest green. [I used about 10 drops, maybe a few more.]

Frost the first cupcake...

...just like that. It doesn't have to look beautiful, it won't show.

Now put some of your green sprinkles in a small bowl.

Take the cupcake and gently press the frosting into the sprinkles, turning it a little to get all the edges.

Hey! An astroturf cupcake!

Now take the reserved white frosting in the ziplock and snip off a corner. Pipe some football field lines onto the grass. To do that, I did one big square 'u' shape and two lines crossing it. [Last year I also piped some colored frosting in the end zone that matched the teams' colors. This year the Patriots and the Giants have really similar colors, so that wasn't really going to work. But try it if you wanna.] You can microwave the ziplock bag for 3 seconds to make the frosting flow better.

Now take one of your goalposts and gently stick it down into the frosting right behind the end zone.

All done! Superbowl cupcakes! Repeat for the rest, then drink, eat and cheer.

Quilt Update + Sewing Pattern Giveaway!

Remember that rainbowlicious stack of fabric I mentioned in my first post of 2012? If not, here's a visual:

I've been spending some time hacking it apart and sewing it back together [aka making a quilt, sounds silly when you say it that way]. It is coming together nicely.

BUT.

I'm not going to show you any pictures of it. Yet. Why?

Because the first person to guess what sort of quilt I'm making wins one of my PDF patterns! Winner's choice.

Leave your guess in the comments below.

I did have some 'help' while attempting to work.

Luckily I was able to divert Hootie with gentle suggestion to an alternate bed of soft squishy fabric.

The contest closes Sunday at 5pm PST. Don't necessarily think quilt only...think outside of that! [Hint: consider the colors!] Also make sure you check back before then, I might post another hint...

[p.s. that 'Miss Make' banner in the second picture is one I use at craft fairs, I didn't just make it because I love staring at the name of my blog while I sew.]

Knitting with Kool-Aid

I finally casted on [or is it cast on??] a new knitting project with my kool-aid dyed yarn. It's a hat pattern I've made a few times now with a nice squishy folded under ribbed edge.

So far the yarn is knitting well. There is some pooling in the colors, it seems mostly in the purple for some reason. If I were to do the same colors again I would put the purple on the end of the skein instead of in the middle, I feel like there's a little too much of it.

But it's neat to see how different it looks as each stitch is added!

Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn Tutorial

When I was a kid, nothing said summer like a tall, strong glass of Kool-Aid.

Grape was always my variety of choice. That intense fake grape flavor with a few ice cubes clinking around in the glass...oh man. Bring on the purple mustache.

But did you know, since Kool-Aid is actually colored with all synthetic dyes, you can use it to [very easily] dye yarn and other natural fibers? You don't even need to add anything to make the dye colorfast, it's acidic enough on its own. It actually dyes so well that it makes me feel strange that I used to drink the stuff. And bonus - it makes your yarn smell like it was marinated in liquid Starbust.

caffeine free, oh good

You could do all one color, but since it's so easy, it's really fun to play around with several different flavors and see what happens when they mix. To make the yarn in the picture all you need is some natural undyed 100% wool yarn [acrylic won't work], 5 different packets of Kool-Aid [make sure you get the unsweetened kind], a pyrex dish and a microwave.

The yarn I used was Knit Picks Bare 100% Peruvian Wool:

There are tutorials a'plenty on this subject all across the internet, but since I did a little batch of my own dyeing a few weeks ago, I thought I'd throw my two cents in. So here's what I did:

UPDATE: If you'd like to see what this yarn looks like knitted, here are some pictures.

Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn [variegated colors] 

Materials:

100% wool yarn

1 packet each of unsweetened cherry, orange, grape, lemonade & black cherry Kool-Aid

Pyrex dish - 8" square or loaf size work well

tap water

microwave

collander

1. If your yarn is in a ball, rewrap it into a big open skein, like in the first picture of the post. You can do this by looping it around your arm or the back of a chair.
2. Fill the Pyrex dish with a few inches of water. Add the cherry Kool-Aid and mix until dissolved.

3. Put the dish in the microwave. Place one end of the skein of yarn into the Kool-Aid water, squishing it down a little. Let the rest of the skein hang out on the floor of the microwave.

4. Microwave for 5 minutes or so, stirring every minute to make sure the yarn isn't floating. You'll know the yarn is done when all the dye has been absorbed and the Kool-Aid water becomes clear.

5. Carefully remove the dish and yarn [it's hot!] and dump into a collander in the sink. Rinse the yarn with warm water a little bit until it's cool enough to touch.

6. Now mix up the next color in the dish [I used orange]. Put it back in the microwave. Submerge the next section of the yarn skein into the Kool-Aid, letting the red end and undyed end hang out over either edge. Microwave for another 5 minutes, stirring every minute.

[NOTE: At this point the yarn will act as a wick and suck some of the water out of the dish and into the bottom of your microwave. It's not that hard to clean up, since there is no sugar, but make sure you use junk towels to clean up because they'll probably get Kool-aid stained.]

7. Repeat for the two remaining colors [I did grape, then lemonade]. If you want at the very end, you can submerge the entire skein into a single color to change the overall look. I used 1/2 packet of black cherry over the whole thing to temper the colors and 'unite' them more.

8. Rinse the yarn until the water runs clear. Place it in a towel and gently push the towel to soak up some of the water. Hang the skein up to dry.

Young Hearts Photography

Diamond rings on every hand. An unending supply of free cake. Several competing and out of sync thumping bass beats.

I describe not my most recent post-snooze-button hallucination, but the Santa Barbara Bridal Expo.

This past weekend I went up to SB to help a friend with her expo booth. She and her friend own their own wedding photography company, Young Hearts Photography. I was craftily responsible for the lettered garland, heart garlands and Mr. and Mrs. bunting.

Wouldn't that bunting be cute on the front of the bride and groom's table at the reception??

They also let me sit behind the table with them and hand out cards. Thanks guys!!

Some of their freebies were layers of salt water taffy...

...and cute little notepads made out of seed paper. When you plant the covers, wildflowers grow. I know, right??

If you're in the market for a wedding photographer, check out their website. Their pictures are beautiful and inspiring.

They provide at least 500 fully edited photos with their basic package [some photographers just hand over thousands of raw images and the bride and groom have to weed through them themselves].

They do engagement sessions too!

 Santa Barbara is their home base but they're definitely up for traveling.

Just look at that barn. That's what I want someday. A wedding in a barn. With a live band and miniature desserts and flower ponies.