KaraKreative's Birthday 2013!

Hey everyone one of my best friends Kara just so happens to also be a blogger and I wanted to write a post of how we celebrated her birthday this year. This was back in March when it was still super cold outside, and rainy . . . and just dreary. We still wanted something fun to do to celebrate so we picked Bowling!!

 It was no surprise that Kara slaughtered us all look at that form!!

Much like any other sport, I really stink at bowling. It's pretty bad when the owner suggests using bumpers after looking at your scores. But we all still had a really fun time and believe it or not, I was the first person to get a strike! That victory was quickly overshadowed since it was Kara's birthday we let her win. That's not true at all, Kara won both games we played out of pure skill.

 

But if you haven't gone bowling in a while and need something to do on a day where you can't do outside activities I highly recommend it. After our thrilling games we headed back to the house for some cake and presents. I got Kara an extendable jewelry holder and a cute elephant antibacterial holder for her purse. The awesome thing about the jewelry holder was that it held all her OTHER presents she received!!<

The party's theme was "Owls" and I was lucky enough to find a "Cute Owl Cake" tutorial from Leave Room for Desserts at http://leaveroomfordessert.com/2011/01/cute-owl-cake/. The recipe I used was a super fudgy chocolate cake that I let cool and then followed the step by step photos from the post. With a little modification and a dash of imagination the owl cake came together:

Kara loved how it turned out and it was delicious! We had such a fun time celebrating Kara's birthday and are planning more creative parties and DIY projects for the summer time. Be sure to check out Kara's blog where she posts about Graphic Design, Movies, Books and more at http://karakreative.blogspot.com/ Hope everyone has a Happy Friday and a great weekend!!

A Pinterest Perfect Valentine's Day!

Hey everyone just wanted to update the blog with how my Valentine's went. I always tend to embrace Valentine's day regardless of my lack of a significant other. A day whose main theme is not only commercial but revolves around hearts, candy and cakes?? Heck yes I'm going to celebrate it!!

Me and my friends threw a little Valentine's day party before going out to watch the ever-so romantic "Die Hard" sequel in the theater. Let me admit this first, I am total Pinterest addict and I wanted to share with you some of the wonderful tips and tricks I found through Pinterest that I used in my party!

First off I made these cute little Valentine's gift baskets for my friends. It was filled with chocolates, sugar wafers, and cookies I baked in the shape of hearts. I even dipped some of the sugar wafers in some red melting chocolate and covered them in Valentine's themed sprinkles an idea I pinned from Craft-O-Maniac from http://www.craft-o-maniac.com/2013/01/valentine-cookies.html

After showering each other with gifts we did our planned craft which was creating memory jars. This is an idea that I have seen on Pinterest a lot. Find a jar. Decorate it. And fill it with little slips of paper with memories written on them. Fill it up and open it up at the end of the year! Basically an overly simplified, personalized and pretty journal jar!

The jars we bought at dollar tree. Paper and stickers from Joanns and HobbyLobby. The finished products all came out really cute and different from each other. 

This was the one my best friend and fellow blogger KaraKreative made!! So elegant!

We all get together for Christmas and exchange gifts so we'll have to open up our jars and share our favorite memories with each other then! Last came dinner. I picked two great recipes I found on Pinterest a baked rigatoni and heart shaped dinner rolls. The dinner rolls were a huge hit.

 

The recipe for the Valentine's Dinner rolls can be found here: http://www.rhodesbread.com/recipes/print_recipe/2051 and the recipe for the Rigatoni I got off SkinnyMom here: http://skinnymom.com/2012/02/05/skinny-rigatoni/?_szp=120432&_szi=3 The pasta was made with ground turkey yum yum!!

 

We had such a fabulous Valentine's day! I honestly have the best friends on the entire planet because no matter what we do we always have a blast doing it! For more of my favorite pins you can always follow me on Pinterest @nerdycupcakes. Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day and have a safe weekend!

Nananana Pumpkin!

If I said it once, I said it a million billion times but I  . . . LOVE. . . HALLOWEEN. So this post is going to be about another ode to Halloween; pumpkin carving! Almost every year since I've had this blog I've posted my carved pumpkins including an American Psycho pumpkin and a yummy cupcake. But this was last minute, late at night and I should not be able to handle sharp objects past 8pm but I had a hand in pretty awesome pumpkin carving this year!

My friend's family went down to the pumpkin patch and brought home a pumpkin. The problem was what to carve in it? The obvious answer? BATMAN. But who would be able to draw Batman on a pumpkin for them? That's where I came in.

From there it was carved out and we threw in a jar candle. I think the pumpkin turned out pretty awesome. I hope everyone in the states is okay during hurricane "Sandy." I'm ready with Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwhiches, books and flashlights. Stay safe everyone!

Marvel Comic's Revisable Bag

September is always a tricky month for me. Why? Because so many people I know have birthdays in September. And there's nothing wrong with that . . . don't get me wrong. BUT that means I have to get that brain buzzin with gift ideas!

My friend Chelsea (pictured above) loves the Thor and Marvel comics AND is also very eco friendly so I decided to go about making her a re-usable grocery bag for any produce she just happens to stumble upon at a Farmer's Market IN an Thor printed fabric.

I grabbed a pattern off the verypurpleperson blog that looked easy enough and went about sewing. I was lucky enough to find a great Marvel fabric from Joanns fabrics and crafts that didn't skimp on the Thor. We tried to center it to feature maximum Thor.

The bag didn't take very long. At most, maybe 2 sittings total. I haven't sewn in awhile though so my mom was able to help me. The first sitting we got everything but the handles done. The handles were probably the only challenging part. Well that and the top stitching around it.

(Yes my table DOES have a glittery table cloth) I forgot to take a photo of it reversed, it is reversible after all but if you can't tell it's yellow on the inside like Thor's hair. Overall it came out great though and is definitely a bag I would make again. Maybe Hello Kitty on one side and Batman on the other. . . hmmmmm.

If you want to try making the revisable bag yourself be sure to check out the craft tutorial here: http://verypurpleperson.com/2010/04/making-reversible-bag/ I hope everyone has a great day!!

Cute Brownie Packaging!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to show off some packaging designs I made for a Thank You gift! I got a Brownie Maker as one of my Christmas gifts so I decided to put it to good use yesterday by making some brownies.

I had some regular party bags and decided to add some flair with my artistic skills!

Cute right?? Here are some detailed shots of the gift:

Front of the tag :D

Back of the tag

I hope that Linda likes her gift! The brownie maker works really well! It takes a little longer than my Babycakes Cupcake Maker but cranks out really amazing results. Plus you now have crust on every brownie, which to me, is one of the best parts, MMMMM!!

If you like the gift bag and interested in your own CUSTOM party bags to fill with your very own baked goodies be sure to get in contact with me by filling out a Contact form at http://www.violet-ink.com/contact

Homemade Easter Gift :)

Hey everyone!! I got to celebrate Easter weekend with my awesome friend Kara. Queen is practically her religion and she loves Freddie Mercury so I set out to create a Freddie Mercury Easter Bunny :)

First I drew out the pattern and bought a few different colors of felt and a pair of wiggle eyes. I already had a sewing machine and heaps of needles and thread laying around. But, I am not the best at sewing unfortunately so I tried my best!

Between working on a sewing machine, using lots of tacky glue and some poor hand stitching skills my creation was complete!

I put it in a basket filled with homemade sugar cookies, a Ring Pop, a Snickers Egg and a Hershey's Marshmallow bunny and lots of pink Easter grass and gave it as a gift to Kara!!

With more practice I am sure I could create something a lot more polished, but I was really proud with how my first stuffed animal came out!!

Hope everyone had a great Easter :D

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hey everyone! Thursday was my birthday I just wanted to briefly share some things of what I had been up to :)

First of all, the day before my birthday my parent's ended up giving me my present early since I was going shopping ON my birthday, just in case I wouldn't buy what they got me... and what they got me was a cupcake maker!

I tweeted about one when I had initially saw it. The thought of making cupcakes in about 5 minutes is a great idea. I suck at baking so much. I never know how much mix to put in the little muffin tins, or how long to leave them in. I don't have the patience to wait 20 minutes, and usually burn myself getting them out of the oven. This machine is a godsend.

I did make one batch of cupcakes in it so far. It makes eight little mini cupcakes. I made a recipe for exactly eight, and spooned about 2 and a half tablespoons of mix into each cavity. You check to see if they are ready with a toothpick, just like the real oven, and ta-dah!

It makes more than just cupcakes though. It has instructions for brownie bites, muffins, appetizers, etc. I could make pancake puffs! Oh and mini pies :D

On my ACTUAL birthday, I did go shopping. Here are the things I bought:

Timberland Boots with some financial help from my brother...

some cute argyle sweaters from Target. Argyle is one of my most all time favorite things :)

Amy Sedaris' craftbook at Books a Million! I had her cooking / entertaining / whatever book this is the second one of hers. She's a very funny lady :) maybe more about this book in another post...

and these plaid slippers from Aeropastale (not photographed because well, they're on my feet)!! Super comfy.

We also ate at CiCi's pizza which is super yummy :) especially the mac and cheese pizza!

I got little things here and there from my friends here at home too. Not to mention the nice birthday tweets, and facebook wall posts :) what a great birthday!!

Mother's Day Crafts!

Hey everyone! Well it's Mother's Day soon... two days!! I actually bought all of my mother's day gifts AHEAD of time and they were all fun crafty things I bought at Michaels Arts and Crafts so I figured I would share some cheap projects I made!!

I put together a small gift bag for my mom. The bag itself was usually 1 dollar and on sale for 25 cents!! Talk about a deal.

Next I picked up two cute stationary items in their Fun Finds aisle! I bought Mom a magnetic list pad and a journal. Both were 2 dollars a piece!!

Now for the crafty items! I could not pass up these cute plaster bobble head dolls for 1.99 a piece. . .

The paints I used were a 3.29 strip of Apple Barrel paint pots. Apple Barrel is my favorite craft acrylic! (I actually already had these stored away so $0 dollars spent there...)

Mine turned out great, although painting a bobble head doll is JUST as difficult as it sounds.

I am also not the best painter in the world :\ so excuse my mess ups! Mom will still love it, it's the thought that counts!

For my next project, I'm going to cheat a little and tell you I already had the frame, glue, paint pens, and bottle of acrylic paint on hand, so it was relatively even CHEAPER for myself.

The frames though, are only a dollar and my Michael's always has a TON. They're in the wood crafts aisle, as well as on an end and on a Mom's Day project grid.

The brand of acrylic I used was $1.19 Apple Barrel Gloss. . .I took a foam brush and did about three coats of acrylic paint on the frame.

They also had great, pre-made wooden accents that were mom and dad themed only for 1.00.

The one I picked out was sparkly and pink and read: "I [heart] Mom"

With the paint pens I carefully outlined the outside and inside of the frame. I used quick short lines to create a stitch-like pattern with alternating colors. The paint pens are 3.29 each, but just used as as accent colors. You can just as easily use a fine brush and paint the accents on with colors from your paint pots!!

And VOILA! The finished product came out nice. I wrapped everything in some pink tissue paper I had lying around and they're ready for Sunday.

There you go, perfect mother's day gifts. All and all I added it up, piece by piece and you'll only pay about 18 some dollars depending on your tax. I myself only paid 7.24 BECAUSE, as I mentioned, I had a lot of the supplies on hand.

Don't forget Mother's Day is this Sunday so happy shopping!!

Leopard print, Elton John, and Robots

Hey everyone it was raining today so I had some free time to take some photos and stock up my Etsy shop!!

Here are the new items for sale:

Leopard Print Mini Journal
Front cover has soft velveteen spots. On the inside is sparkling red cardstock and blank white pages. Hand stitched binding with scarlet cotton fabric!!

Click here to buy!


Orange Robot Mini Journal
Front cover has a repeating pattern of robots, rocket ships, and planets!! On the inside is texture metallic blue cardstock and blank white pages. Hand stitched binding with sky blue cotton fabric!!

Click here to buy!

To shop for more great handmade items like this, made by me, Laura, be sure to check out my Etsy store @ violetink.etsy.com

ALSO I went to see Elton John Friday in Concert so I figured I would post some quick pics from the show:

We were the only ones dressed like this!!! Jeez people it's ELTON JOHN, not church! I'm on the left!

The man himself! We had great seats!

The only thing I purchased from the show. Awesome red flashing LED glasses. You press a button on the side and it offers about 6 different settings for the lights. Batterys are replaceable and they say Elton John down the side, and Rocket Man 2010 on the piece that wraps around your ear. Win!!

That's it for now. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!