Guest Post from Meg at A Little Knick Knack

Hello All!

I'm thrilled to be guest blogging at Jessica's today! She has such a wonderful blog and FUN ideas. It's been great getting to know her through blogging and emailing back and forth.

My name is Meg and I'm from A Little Knick Knack. I have 3 young children that keep me on my toes most of the day. The nights are mine, though, so I use them to make our house a home and find fun new projects for the kids to learn, grow and explore. I learn a lot from fellow bloggers and am always happy to find kindred souls out there to share my crafty obsessions!

Now, on with the show!

My friend and I have been working on a project. We've been working on this project for weeks now. Not because it's time consuming (well, it is, but not this time consuming....). Life just got in the way of our little craft addiction.

We gathered out supplies....


....to make a wooden block calendar. How hard could it be? Surely, not that hard! My partner in crime took it upon herself to find some affordable solutions to our craft obsessions.

Ideally, we wanted to have an even, four-sided block of wood for the months. After raiding the remnants bin at Home Depot, she found an acceptable solution. The Home Depot guy even cut the wood for her for free! Way to work her magic! She ended up paying less than $1 for all of the wood. See how wonderfully thrifty she is?!?

The small blocks for the numbers were purchased from Michael's for $1 each.

We got together one afternoon to measure, cut and glue all the paper on the wood. And then we put the project aside, because, like I said....life got in the way.




Finally we were able to come back together today and proceed with the project. Friend-of-mine has one thing that was absolutely necessary (but not vital) for our project----a Cricut! Bless her! I have never used one before and can I say, I'm a total convert! Those things are AWESOME. On a side note, though, for those of us who usually don't have a Cricut at our disposal, the number & letter stickers from Michael's would have worked fine as well.


Anyway, we let the Cricut cut for us, and we glued and glued and glued. Then we sanded and sanded and sanded.


In the end, it all turned out pretty cute!



Thanks, Jessica for this wonderful opportunity!

Have a wonderful day!

OH MY GOODNESS!! Isn't this just so cute and fabulous??!!! I KNOW!!! I'm sure you all already read Meg's little slice of heaven, but in case you don't ... get your bum over there and get to it!!! Thanks Meg, you are awesome!!!

Are you ready for some FABULOUS cupcakes??!!

Then YOU came to the right place!!! Ashley, from Joyful Creations, is doing a Guest Post for me today and is making some SUPER-DUPER Mint DOUBLE Chocolate Cupcakes!!! Aren't you excited just by the DOUBLE part?? OH YEAH!! Besides, who doesn't love a great cupcake?? Well, enough out of me ... let's let Ashley do her thang!!

Well, hello there! I just want to thank Jessica for giving me the opportunity to be a guest blogger here. I've been a follower of her blog for some time now and I just can't get enough of it.

My name is Ashley. I'm a full time employee for a general contractor and a part time crafter/blogger. Totally wishing it was the other way around. I've been married to my husband for 4 years and we have a handsome 6 month old son. They are my 2 favorite guys in the world and they bring so much joy to my life. I've always considered myself a creative person. There's not one single craft I don't enjoy doing (or trying, even if I fail). Here lately I've been focusing on 2 things, card making and CUPCAKES!

Today I'd like to share a fun cupcake recipe that I hope you will enjoy.

Mint Double Chocolate Cupcakes

1 box of Chocolate Cake Mix

Chocolate fudge

2 Pastry Bags

1 plain pastry tip

Mint Extract

4.5 tablespoons of milk

3/4 stick of butter

(up to) 3/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract

3 cup powdered sugar

2-3 drops of green food coloring

1 square of chocolate (optional)

Bake cupcakes as directed on box.

I am using a hand held mixer that is almost as old as I am. It works like a dream though.

*tip* use a small measuring cup to fill the cups of your cup cake pan. It will save you a big mess to clean up in the end.

In the oven they go!

While they are baking make your icing (but don't forget about your cupcakes!)

Soften your butter with the mixer.

Add milk.

Add powdered sugar slowly so it mixes well and doesn't powder your whole kitchen.

Once it's mixed well and a good frosting-y consistency add 1/4 of peppermint extract at a time tasting each time. I say this because some people don't like a lot of mint, and others do. Make it they way you will like it.
After you have it flavored just right add 2-3 drops of food coloring until it's the color green that you'd like.

The many stages of the icing. You can't see the green very well in any of these pictures, but it was a pretty pastel *minty* green.

Once your cupcakes are finished baking and cooled.

Put about 2 heaping tablespoons of fudge in a pastry bag, clip the end and attach your small pastry tip.

Poke down into center of cupcake and inject your fudge while sliding the tip back out of the cup cake. I try to fill mine until you can see it about to over flow the whole.

I used Smuckers Toppings Chocolate Fudge! YUM!

I forgot to take a picture of the tip that I use to fill the cupcakes. It's long and skinny. And as you can see from this picture it wasn't cooperating very well as the fudge was coming out of the top of the tip. It still served it's purpose.

Sorry, I couldn't get a picture of the actual filling process since it takes 2 hands and I was home alone. But you can see in the middle where the fudge is just peeking out. It you fill it too much just clean it up with a butter knife or spatula.

After all the cupcakes are filled you can begin icing your cupcakes. My favorite part of making cupcakes is decorating with the icing but I'm still new to it. If you prefer to spread the icing on with a knife, that's totally OK too.

Pastry bag filled and ready to ice the cupcakes.

Almost too pretty to eat... ALMOST!

If you have the square of chocolate on hand just to add a little more to it, shave it with a grater on top of the icing.

Can you see the fudge? I know, bad picture, but I sure could taste it!

Now, go throw these babies together, poor you a big glass of milk (or make a cup of coffee) and EAT UP!


OK .... I am TOTALLY making these once I get home!!! A big thanks to Ashley for helping me out and sharing this awesome recipe with all of us!!!