Allison: Second Annual Girls' Weekend

Hello again!  Sara's recent post motivated me to finally post again.  I know how busy Sara is with prepping for a big move, so if she can find time, so can I.  This post will be dedicated to the "Sisters" part of "Five Crafty Sisters".  I promise to address the "Crafty" part next time.  :)

We, the Platt sisters, just had our 2nd annual Girls' Weekend, this last month.  Most of us (all the contributors of this blog) met in Utah and spent 3 days and 2 nights chatting, eating and spending time together.  It was so much fun, and made me even more homesick for family.

This year, our mother was able to join us, and brought our father as a travel buddy.  Our first night all together, we had a family barbecue and enjoyed time visiting with lots of nieces, nephews, in-laws and siblings.

The Girls

Mama Platt, Micky (SIL), Allison, Shauna (& baby), Lisa, Sara

Who's that girl ruining all the photos?!  :)

Sorry, Shaun... I love this picture!  

"Salt and Pepper"

The Boys

Briant (brother), Papa Platt, Dave (BIL), Rich (BIL)

It was fun to see everyone and to be reminded of what an amazingly fun family I have.  It also made me even more excited for our family reunion this Summer!

The rest of the weekend was spent talking some more, eating and eating and eating.  We even got to throw an almost surprise baby shower for Shauna.  She finally figured out something was happening as we tried to shop for baby clothes while she was with us.  We weren't very subtle.  :)

Quality cell phone picture.  Probably should have had her sit
on the opposite side of the table.  Oops!

As we ate some delicious breakfast food, we talked about the future of this blog, and how much we've enjoyed contributing.  As life gets busy, babies are born and technology doesn't always cooperate, we might not be as consistent as we once were, but we're trying.  :)

I LOVED spending time with my sisters and appreciate our individual personalities and points of view. I'm committing now to post more regularly.  We'll see if it happens.  Have a great week!


Allison

Allison: 20,000 Views' Giveaway

                                    

                          **************** GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED ****************

Hello again!  Doesn't that cupcake from Sara's last post look amazing?!  Mmmm... Okay, I'm back.  Our humble little blog has been running now for almost a year.  Crazy!  I have loved posting about my creative ventures, and sharing this space with my sisters.  We just recently passed our 20,000 views' mark (can you believe it?!), and I can't think of a better way to show our appreciation to loyal readers than with a giveaway!

It's already broken 90 degrees here in Arizona, so it got me thinking about my most frequently viewed post: the Car Seat Cooler Tutorial (found here).  Having been viewed over 1800 times, I thought it would be fun to give one away this week.  All you have to do is post the answer to this question below:


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What is your favorite Summer craft?

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Post your answer to that question by Friday at midnight, and you'll be entered to win a car seat cooler of your own.  The winner will be announced Saturday morning.

I will hopefully be selling these practical little "coolers" in our Etsy shop soon.  Everyone have a great week, and a HUGE thanks for supporting our little blog!


Allison

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Have you ever tried a recipe that was just so delicious that you wanted to share it with the world?  Well, I have one of those oh-my-goodness-this-is-amazing recipes.  I found the original recipe here on Ms. Martha Stewart's site (so of course it will be heavenly, right?).  Enjoy!

BOSTON CREAM PIE CUPCAKES

Directions for cupcakes:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Vanilla Cream (directions at the bottom) - I doubled this recipe to ensure I would have enough cream for all 20 cupcakes this recipe made.  I was glad I did because we ate the extra cream :)
• Chocolate-Ganache Glaze (directions at the bottom)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You can either butter and flour a muffin tin or do like I did - use cupcake liners.  Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. 
2. Beat eggs and sugar with a mixer on high speed until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Beat in dry ingredients.
3. Bring milk and butter to a boil. With mixer on low speed, add milk mixture to batter, and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each halfway. Bake cupcakes until light gold, about 15 minutes. Let cool in tins for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks. Let cool.  When my cupcakes were cool, I then took the paper liners carefully off of them.
4. On the Martha Stewart site, she cuts the cupcakes in half and puts the cream in the middle.  That is a bit too messy to eat for me so instead I put the cream into a pastry bag and pipped the cream into the cupcake.  It was super easy and very nice and tidy.  After the cupcakes were all filled, I dipped the top into the ganache.  I had a bowl of extra ganache on the side for those who like a little extra chocolate.

Directions for Vanilla Cream

Ingredients for Vanilla Cream:

• 2 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Whisk yolks until smooth. Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add milk and start whisking. Cook, stirring, until mixture begins to bubble and thicken, about 5 minutes.  Make sure to keep stirring because the bottom of this mixture can burn easily.
2. Pour 1/3 of milk mixture into yolks, whisking constantly. Return egg/milk mixture to saucepan, and cook over medium heat, again, stirring often, until thick, 2 to 4 minutes. Stir in vanilla.
3. Pass vanilla cream through a fine sieve into a bowl (I didn't do this and mine did not turn out too lumpy). Press plastic wrap directly on surface. Refrigerate until cold, at least 1
   hour, or up to 2 days.

Directions for Chocolate-Ganache Galze:

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Directions:

1. Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan.Remove from heat, and add chocolate and corn syrup. Let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Transfer to a bowl, and let cool, stirring often. I let my ganache sit for quite a while before dipping my cupcakes into it.

Allison: Toddler Muffins

Hi!  My name is Allison... I used to contribute regularly to this blog.  Remember me?  Yep, I'm back.  I have no idea how, but time has just slipped away from me these last few months.  It might have to do with sick babies and just daily life.  But I have some creative opportunities coming up in the near future, and I thought I'd better get back in the habit of blogging.

Anyone out there have really picky eaters in their house?  I knew that my little Isla (2 1/2 years old) was picky, but lately, it's gotten so much worse!  There are days where she'll skip lunch AND dinner.  My skinny little girl seems to be getting even smaller, and it's started to worry me a little.  She's definitely more of a snacker, and I've found myself giving her things I wouldn't normally, just to get her to eat something.

So when I found this recipe here for "Toddler Muffins", I knew I had to give them a try.  Here's the best proof if they were liked or not:

She loved them and ate 3 for breakfast.  The only foods we've been able to get her to eat for breakfast are cinnamon toast (or "sugar toast", as she calls them), and french toast with syrup.  Can you find the theme here??  This girl definitely likes sugar (I have no idea where she gets that from)!

I didn't modify the recipe too much.  I didn't have oat bran in the house, but saw that others had substituted oats or flax seed.  I had ground flax seed in my house (weird, I know), so I used a 1/4 cup and a 1/4 cup of oats.  I'm sure a half cup of oats would work just great too.  For the baby food ingredient, I'm sure any pureed veggie would work.  I had a baby food pouch of pear and butternut squash that I used.  I also only added a 1/4 cup butter instead of 1/2 cup.  That seemed like a lot.  They still turned out super moist and delicious.  I also added raisins.  Because of the bananas, they tasted a lot like banana bread.  Yum!  They yielded 24 mini muffins, with enough left over to make a mini loaf.

Well, I hope this recipe helps some of you with little ones that have a mind of their own when it comes to food.  I'm hoping to make a few more adjustments (maybe wheat flour?), or adding more veggies.  Whatever it takes to get them eating their fruits and veggies, right?  Until next time... have a great week!


Allison

Allison: 14 Day of Valentines and Kids' Crafts

Hello!  Remember me?  Yeah... life has been a little crazy, but I thought I'd share a fun activity I've been doing all month.  My husband, Brent, might be the hardest person to shop for... IN THE WORLD.  He might counter saying that I'm the hard one to shop for, but don't listen to him.  So I jumped on Pinterest for help, and came across a fun idea: "The 14 Days of Valentines".  I saw a couple of variations, but the idea was the same: a gift/act/service each day for your significant other.

I won't go into what I did too much, but really enjoyed surprising my husband with goodies in his car on the way to work, or leaving fun notes for him to find on the front door, or on the bathroom mirror.  My sweet husband LOVES sushi, so when I came across the candy sushi idea, I knew it would be perfect.  I found a video tutorial here, and found it to be pretty easy, and kind of fun.  My two-year-old was also a fan!  I surprised him further with some actual sushi for dinner.

My husband thought it was fun, and I got the credit for being creative.  

I tried to coordinate each activity with the day of the week.  For example, Brent has meetings Monday mornings, not always allowing him time for lunch.  So I packed up the girls, and we dropped him lunch at work.  

Saturday morning, we made Brent breakfast.  I saw this idea for pancakes, but had a little trouble with the hearts.  :)  

Here we are at day 12.  I know it's a little early, but we decided to make Brent some Valentines.  I knew that mixing my two-year-old with paint, might be a recipe for disaster... but it turned out okay.  I saw the idea on Pinterest of using empty toilet paper rolls, shaped into hearts.  But I had a hard time getting it to work just right, and decided to use a cookie cutter instead.  It worked great, and Isla enjoyed creating this pretty picture.

Norah's valentine was a little easier, as she just laid there, drinking her bottle while I painted her feet.  :) I like how it turned out.

Doesn't Brent have some cute little Valentines??  Two more days of surprises to go!  What are you doing for your significant other?  Hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day!


Allison

Allison: Valentine Wreath Giveaway!!

*****  GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED  *****

Hello!  I know... it's been too long.  But I have a fun way to make it up to you.  How about a give away?  I was looking through my Valentine's board on Pinterest, and found this cute wreath.  I knew I had the supplies to make it, so I attempted one myself.  A few months ago, I found some great 1/2 wreath forms at Target in their dollar section.  They're great, because they lay flat against the door.  I knew I'd have a reason to use them eventually.  It's that very thinking that has my crafting supplies busting out of every storage space of my house.

It took me about 40 minutes to wrap the wreath in yarn (10 minutes here and there), and not much longer to cut out 12 hearts from scrap felt I had from other projects.  I used a cookie cutter as my template and cut the heart out of a cereal box.  (We're real sophisticated around here.)

I used a tiny dab of hot glue to secure each heart in place, until I could wrap them with yarn.  It was such a fast and easy project!  I was going to write up a tutorial, but after I finished, I clicked on the pin that had originally inspired me, and found a great tutorial found here.  Go figure.  :)

So... here's the giveaway questions:

What's your favorite way to spoil your significant other on Valentine's Day?

Or...

What's your favorite way to be spoiled on Valentine's Day?

Leave a comment below, and Monday morning I'll randomly select a reader to win this cute, 9" Valentine's Wreath.  I hope you all have a great weekend!



Allison

Allison: Christmas Card Books

Hello, and Happy New Year! It feels like forever since I've posted and I figured it was time to get back in the routine.

I have many resolutions this year, but one that always seems to make the list is to stay organized. I thrive in an organized environment and usually feel completely lost in mess and disorder. Needless to say that with a two-year-old, I usually find myself in the later situation.

Post-Christmas is usually a time I feel a little stressed as the house is overflowing with new toys and gifts, and a plethora of decorations that need to be stored. I always feel a little sad as the cards and pictures from family and friends get taken down. Last year, I stumbled upon a fun way to keep those special cards organized and cherished for years to come: Christmas Card Books.

I simply organized the cards of each year by size, punched holes, scrapbooked a cover and held them together with rings. To personalize them a little further, I added a significant event or two from the year to the cover. I then store them with my other Christmas decor and now we can see how our friends have grown and changed each year.

Look at Sara's adorable family!!  :)

I hope you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to all this new year will bring. Have a great week!


Allison