So anyway, yesterday was my beautiful Aunt Di's 39th birthday (hehe!) and even though we don't do gifts in our family, I decided I absolutely had to make these cute coasters for her birthday present! They were so so SO easy to make and they turned out so cute that I had to make a set for myself!
So cute, right??
I love all of the colors and the simplicity of these coasters! The best part about this gift??? It literally cost me $1.00 to make the entire set! Cheapest. Gift. EVER! So if any of y'all wanna make these and gift them or make them simply for your own enjoyment, I'm going to tell you how! All you need is a little bit of Mod Podge (the glossy kind works best for this project), some paint samples or pictures that you like, and the 4.25x4.25 white sample tiles (I got mine at Lowe's and they were 10 cents each!). The pictures that I used were from the paint section at Walmart. These are the pictures that try to give you an idea for your color scheme, but I just cut the words off of them and used the pictures only! So cute!
So basically all you do is cut the picture to fit the tile. You want it to be a little short so that you have a tiny border all the way around the picture, or else the corners of the pictures will come up and eventually start to peel off (no bueno!!!!). Cover the top of the tile with Mod Podge and then set the picture on top and make sure it is on securely. Then put a thin layer of Mod Podge over the picture, completely recovering the entire tile. While its drying it looks like this..
I took a picture of this one because it looked like it was raining.. and honestly I kind of forgot what rain looked like (because I haven't seen any rain since 1992).
Then just let them dry, and voila!!! If you want to (I did) you can put the tiny round felt furniture pads on each corner of every coaster; just so that they don't scratch your furniture -- since that is the point of a coaster in the first place.... duh...
I read somewhere that one way to tell if a man is married or not is determined by if he uses a coaster under his drink or not... so for all of you single ladies who are trying to keep your new boyfriend from straying away, this would be a perfect gift! :)
I also made a pretty cute dessert spread for Aunt Di's birthday party at the best restaurant in the world, Holy Frijole's!!!! Every Wednesday my entire family gathers there for dinner, drinks, and delightful dialogue. We like to think it's kind of like going to church since it is holy... right? Anyway, here is a picture of the scrumptious sweets that I made!
Top: white cake balls covered in melted vanilla chips
Middle: white cupcakes with cream cheese icing
Bottom: white cupcakes with cinnamon sugar cream cheese icing
(All stacked on the beautiful cupcake stand that my parents bought gave to us at our couple's shower!!)
Right now, I'm really into using boxed cake mix and adding a lot of different ingredients to it so that its personalized. It's still like halfway homemade then right? So I've been doing a lot of that lately, which is really nice because it is somewhat quicker, but still really delicious. Here is the recipe that I used for the white cupcakes:
Ingredients
- 1 box of white cake mix
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/3 cups of water
- 3 tbsp canola oil
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup sour cream
- 4 large egg whites
Preheat the oven to 325 and put liners in the cupcake pans. This recipe makes about 36 cupcakes. In a large bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients in the order as they are listed. After you have a moist mixture, beat with an electric mixer for 3 to 4 minutes; until all of the lumps are out. Bake for 16 minutes, flipping the pans around halfway through. I always flip the pans halfway through because it helps to cook the entire pan evenly.
Most recipes that I see recommend using low fat sour cream, or different oils that will make the cupcakes less fattening. But.... healthiness is already thrown out the window at this point so just use all the fattening stuff anyway (it tastes WAY better). Thats the best advice you're ever going to get from this fat girl! Also, canola oil is really the best oil for cupcakes because its much thicker, and you want cupcakes to be thicker than cakes so they hold their shape and their icing!
The icing is so so important when making cupcakes. Here is the recipe that I made up for the most delish cream cheese icing in the world:
Ingredients:
- 16 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
- 2 sticks of butter (room temperature)
- 1 bag powdered sugar, sifted (yes, 1 BAG, the ENTIRE BAG)
- 2 tsp vanilla
Cream together the cream cheese and butter until its smooth and creamy. Then slowly add the powdered sugar (MAKE SURE YOU SIFT IT ALL, I KNOW ITS SUPER ANNOYING BUT IT IS SO IMPORTANT!) about 2 cups at a time until the entire bag is added. Keep mixing and blending and adding powdered sugar until your icing is about the consistency of peanut butter. Then add 2 tsp vanilla and blend well.
I know that seems like a lot of fat.... and it is.... and it tastes great! I really hope that all of my friends and family still eat all of my yummy treats after this post....
For the cinnamon sugar icing, I took half of the cream cheese icing that I made and added 1/4 cup of granulated sugar and 3 tbsp of ground cinnamon. And it pretty much tasted like heaven!!!!
Add a couple of cute gum paste flowers and you have a beautiful birthday spread!!
I wanted to include a couple more things on this post, but I was babysitting my dad tonight and we went on a pub crawl instead. So blogging isn't exactly the smartest idea for me right now. I promise there will be more tomorrow afternoon!
Pace yourself... theres more to come!
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