Jennuine

Here comes Peter Cottontail Hopping down the Bunny Trail Hippity, Hoppity Easter's on its way Two of my favorite and most nostalgic Easter sweets are chocolate covered marshmallow bunnies and Peeps ® .   So, my girls and I decided to combine the two classics, resulting in: COTTONTAILS ON A STICK These sweet bunny silhouettes are so simple to make and taste incredible! Here's all you need: Marshmallow Peeps ®  Bunnies Lollipop Sticks  (found in the cake decorating aisle of most craft stores) Candy melts, bark or tempered Couverture Chocolate Mini marshmallows Step 1:  Line a baking sheet or tray with wax paper (no need to use expensive parchment) Step 2:  Prep your Peeps ®  by inserting a stick as far as it will go without coming up through the ears. Step 3:  Prep mini marshmallows by trimming off 1/3 with scissors.  Keep the larger pieces and discard the trimmings. Step 4:  Melt your chocolate. Step

I love the charm and old fashioned elegance of the silhouette. For this year's Easter eggs I decided to stray from the usual palette of pastel & polka-dotted whimsy; opting instead to play off the natural alabaster of the eggshell with a sharp contrast of elegant black. The wonderful thing about this technique is that it doesn't require special transfer paper or expensive equipment.    If you have some white tissue paper, Mod Podge, a glue stick and a printer, you can make Silhouette Easter Eggs without spending a penny! Silhouette Easter Eggs Materials Eggs (hard boiled if you plan to eat them, or blown if you want to keep them) White tissue paper (ironed flat if it's wrinkly) Silhouette images (I used the beautiful free images from The Graphics Fairy ) A sheet of copy paper A glue stick (I like the Elmer's Craft Bond Repositionable) Scissors Mod Podge Paint brush An old gift card or club card to use as a refi

After the fun I had last year adhering elegant Silhouettes to Easter eggs, I felt inspired to try embellishing my eggs with a different paper-thin medium this year.  What could be more naturally lovely and simple than pressed flowers?  These beautiful eggs require only three materials:  eggs, pressed flowers and Mod Podge.   Lacking the patience to press my own flowers, I sent away for a sample pack of pressed blossoms from Greetings of Grace .  After a bit of trial and error, I determined that the thinner the flower, the easier they are to adhere.  Try to avoid flowers, like daisies, that have thick centers.  Here are some of the types of flowers that work best:  pansies, verbenas , violas, hydrangeas and forget me nots. Each egg can hold 6-8 blossoms, although I liked the way that the single chrysanthemum on the stem turned out.  The pressed flowers can be purchased in packages and end up costing only a few pennies each.   Ready to make some?  Let

I've been working for years to perfect my signature chocolate cake recipe -- a cake that is moist, deeply chocolatey , and can be stacked umpteen layers high.  The batter is versatile -- baking up perfectly peaked cupcakes or easy to level layers.  The best part is, it hardly takes more time to throw together than a mix!  When you have the perfect recipe, it's easy to get creative with all the possibilities for complimentary fillings, frostings and decorati ons.  This week my youngest daughter turned eight.  She's a huge fan of Ki t Kat bars, so when she asked th at I bake her a choco late cake , I knew ex actly what I'd make for the birthda y girl.   This towering chocolate confection feeds 10, generously.  It consists of 6 layers of decadent sour cream chocolate cake , homemade ch ocolate frosting, and lots of Kit Kat bars. Print With Image Without Image The Ultimate Kit Kat Birthday Cake Yield: 1 tall 6" cake Autho

Lace crowns are utterly enchanting. But they can be time consuming to make. Not these. Whether you plan to adorn one royal head or a whole party of princesses, this new shortcut method for making lace crowns from crochet lace are royalty-read y in just a few hours. In early 2012 I fell head-over-crafty-heels for the lace crowns I had seen online (at Bitter Betty Blogs , Girl Inspired and Joyfolie to name a few) .  The crowns were sensational and the technique was simple.  Yet the fabric stiffener used in the projects often needs 24 hours to completely dry.  I'll admit it -- I'm an impatient crafter.  So I immediately started experimenting to find a quicker way to make lace crowns.  In February, I published my " Lace Crowns: Quick Microwave Method ".  Using the same materials as the other tutorials, I was able to shorten the time by using a microwave oven.  The method is quicker, but has a few quirks, so I've been longing to come