Bottle Cap Magnets

You need:
-Magnet backing (I like business card magnet backs from Staples! They are easy to cut and sticky already.)
-1 inch scrapbook circle punched out
-1 bottle cap
-1 inch epoxy stickers (or resin)

I use a 1 inch punch on some cutesy scrapbook paper.  I rarely scrapbook any more, mostly because Shutterfly keeps sending me good deals on books. 

Glue the circle into the bottle cap using crazy glue, E6000, regular glue, whatever you have on hand.  I basically use E6000 for everything.

I don't like to use epoxy stickers on jewelry, but they are just fine for magnets.  Put the epoxy stickers in, cut a circle out of the magnet backing and attach.

Put the magnet on your fridge and enjoy!

I never have enough magnets in my apartment, so I think I will make an army of these.

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Homemade Oatmeal Raisin Mini Muffins

Ingredients:
-1 C flour
-3/4 C sugar
-3 tsp baking powder
-1 1/4 C oats
-1/2 C raisins
-3 TB oil
-1 egg
-1 C Milk
-1 tsp vanilla

Topping:
-2 TB brown sugar
-1 tsp cinnamon

Mix all the ingredients together and spoon into mini muffin pans.  If you want them to be extra delicious, you are going to need to go to Trader Joe's and get their Jumbo Medley pack of raisins.  Then and only then have you achieved amazing raisinmuffinness.

Hey dictionary, add that word.

Anyway you add those together and spoon it into the mini muffin cups.  Put a little of the topping on and bake at 350 for about 14 minutes.  Test for doneness and adjust time as needed.

It is amazing how different each oven is.  These were made in my mom's electric oven.  If you are using a gas oven (like my apartment one) I might suggest checking them around 12. Ovens distribute heat differently, so just be aware. 

For bigger muffins, test the doneness at about 15 minutes and adjust accordingly. 

Try these with different dried fruits and add ins, I would like to especially suggest cranberry and white chocolate together! Yummy!

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Sea Shell Cake

This is the cake that the white chocolate pieces were for!  I love to have cakes that have a lot of white chocolate decorations, because they are delicious.

I highly suggest to brides out there to consider taste in every detail.  The really weird thing about weddings and cakes is that the bride is so busy a lot of them hardly even taste their cake.  So it is really cool to get some every now and then that are thinking solely of their guests!

Anyway, the topper was found on amazon, and the luster dust on the shells really made them coordinate with the topper.  The sides have brain squiggles (ok fine, Cornelli lace if you insist) on them and it made a vibrant fun cake that looked beautiful. 

It is on a silver stand from Hobby Lobby.

AND that is a tasty, beautiful, craft of the day!

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Pearl Dust and Chocolate Decorations

We have a wedding cake in progress at the moment that is a beachy theme. 

A lot of the decorations are going to be made from molded chocolate, which is DELICIOUS and a fantastic way to deck out a cake.  And how simple is it to pour chocolate in a mold?  Super simple.

But just having a plain chocolate decoration sometimes doesn't do the trick.

The perfect answer is pearl dust! You can get pearl dust at hobby lobby and cake shops and you can mix it with vanilla or vodka, it dries faster with vodka but I prefer vanilla.

I suggest making it in small batches, it is hard to say exactly how much of each you need to use.  Pearl dust isn't really something you measure.  But you want it to be on the thicker side.

If you are using vanilla just give them long enough to dry and you are good to go.  They will catch a little light on a cake and add another level of faint color. 

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MMMM Pulled Pork Pizza

Crust:
-1.5 C Flour (I use AP and Wheat Mixed)
-up to 1 C lukewarm water
-2 TB honey
-1 tsp salt
-1/8 tsp yeast (eyeball it)
-1 TB basil

Toppings:
-Carving Board pork (it's in the lunchmeat section, or use fresh pork if you just have it)
-Favorite BBQ sauce
-Pizza sauce (go easy on it, you have BBQ too!)
-Mozzarella and Colby jack cheese
-Pineapple (no exceptions, it is delicious)

I mix up all my dough ingredients and let it rise for about 10 hours as it is a no need dough.  You just want enough water to make it a sticky dough, sometimes with wheat flour it can really alter how much you need.  So add slowly until it looks shaggy.  You can use a different pizza dough recipe if you prefer, I just use this dough for everything.

Dust a pizza pan with cornmeal, plop a little more flour on your dough and give it a few turns in the bowl, adding minimal flour as needed.

Stretch it out and put it on your pan, add your toppings, and sprinkle just a hint of garlic on the crust.  HINT.  Not very much.

Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes until the crust is golden and yummy. Pin It Now!

Sleeping in Sponge Rollers

So you like curled hair but your hair doesn't play nice with curling irons.  Welcome to my world.  My hair has plenty of body and volume, but no desire to be tamed by heat processes.  The workaround is sponge rollers.

You can find them at places like Wal-Mart and similar in the hair section, they come in a square pack usually that has pink, green, yellow, and blue rollers which range from really large to really small, respectively.

If you have a ton of hair like mine, you may consider buying two packs unless they have an extra pack of just blues.  I usually use blue and yellow to get all of the main up.

Now, sleeping in sponge rollers sounds uncomfy right? WRONG.  All you need to do is put your hair up in a high ponytail first.  Then you roll up very small sections of hair, I usually grab no more than 1/2 inch sections. 

Slightly dampen the strand of hair, keep a damp washcloth on hand or similar, and wrap the end around the roller.  Roll it up until you get to the ponytail base.  I usually start with the top of my ponytail and work my way back.

When it is all rolled up, close your eyes and take a nice sleep.  Even with this head of hair, I rarely feel it while I am sleeping.  In the morning you will just need to take all the rollers back out, separate the curls a little and fluff as desired, and then spray with quality hairspray such as Freeze It.

And then choke for the next ten minutes on the fumes.

But later realize the choking was worth it because you had fantastic hair all day long.

If it can't be done while I am sleeping, it is not a hairstyle I consider.  Haha, that is not 100% true but it is darn close.

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Fabulous Flourless Raspberry Lemon Granola Bars

Ingredients:
-1 6 oz container of Chobani Lemon Greek Yogurt
-1 C oats
-4 TB almond meal
-1/2 C freeze dried raspberries from Trader Joe's
-1/8th C honey
-Couple of drops of both vanilla and lemon extract
-Optional 1/4 C Kraft Jet Puffed Mallow Bits (if you don't want to add these, consider chopped up almonds, white chocolate chips, freeze dried blueberries, graham cracker pieces, etc.)

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Mix up all the ingredients to form a somewhat moist batter.  Get out heaping tablespoons of the batter at a time and form into relatively square pieces.  You can put it all out at once and cut it after baking, but this was much more user friendly in my opinion.

Bake for about 10 minutes or until the bars are set and starting to turn golden.  Let them cool on the pan a couple of minutes and transfer to wire racks to cool.  The recipe should make about 20 bars depending on how big you make them.

So, in as much (or little) as I know about nutritional facts, I am pretty darn certain these are packing some serious health in them.  Now, ok, the marshmallow bits maybe don't add quite the healthy pizzazz that the raspberries do, but they serve their own purpose by making your inner child happy.  And that is well worth it.  They really also don't kill the healthiness of the bar either.

The freeze dried raspberries from Trader Joe's are one of my favorite newfound products because the serving size is the ENTIRE BAG!!  What?!?! You never see those words any more.  Fantastic.  The entire bag also has about half the vitamin C you need, a good amount of iron, fiber, other healthy mumbojumbo.  Ridiculous.  Ridiculously delicious.

Chobani, as always, packs a serious punch when it comes to protein and healthy goodness.

Lemon and raspberry combined is one of my favorite flavor pairs.  The honey adds just enough sweetness to them to make these things taste like cookies.  You could put a white chocolate drizzle over them if you so desired to make them more candy-like, but in all reality it is not needed.  They have just the right amount of sweet and a perfect amount of bright fruity flavors to get devoured.

I would personally recommend refrigerating them to get the longest shelf life out of them...not that they will last that long from the standpoint of me not being able to keep away from them.  My only hope at this point is that I can stay out of these long enough to share them with my mom when I go back home in a few days, because she would really like this flavor profile as well.

Does something still count as healthy if you eat the entire batch of it....

Don't answer that.

Happy crafting!


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