Chocolate Orange Butterfly Cakes

Yep, you read that right. This weekend, Logan & I made chocolate orange cupcakes, and boy they were delicious! This recipe was just what my future mother-in-law ordered for her 29-again birthday! They're simple and delicious!

Let's start out with the actual cupcake.

To save some time, we used store-bought cake mix. Some home-made mixes are too crumbly, and be careful about the "Super Moist" store-boughts. We got a Hershey's chocolate cake mix with fudge filling! No changes made in this step, just bake them as per the directions.

While your cupcakes are in the oven, go ahead and whip up the icing. 

The following recipe I doubled and was able to ice 12 cupcakes with it. I ended up making an extra batch of icing to finish off the following 6, with a bit extra to eat! 

Orange Sugar Icing

6 tbs softened butter

1 1/3 cups powdered sugar

zest from 1/2 an orange

juice (about 2 tbs) from 1/2 an orange

Directions

Whip the butter until fluffy in a medium sized bowl.

Gradually add in the powdered sugar, whipping until it's all folded together. 

Whip in the zest and orange juice.

You can also use the recipe for lemon icing!

Now, when your cupcakes come out of the oven, be sure to let them cool all the way before you start cutting or icing. I popped ours in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

Once they come out, take a bread knife and cut the tops off of each cupcake. 

There is no set amount to cut off the top, but know that the more you cut off, the bigger the butterfly is going to be!

Now to add the icing that takes the cake (or cupcake!)

Use an icing pump or icing bag. The inside of the cupcake is exposed, so spreading the icing will only make it crumble.

The piece that we cut off is going to make the butterfly wings. Cut it in half down the middle, then put them top side up and together, flat side out. Place them in the icing straight up and down, and when you let go, they will fall to the "butterfly-position."

When all your cupcakes are nice and butterfly kissed, sift just a little bit of powdered sugar over the batch. 

Voila!

Enjoy!!

Fantastic Fathers

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

Psalm 103:13

According to Google, the definition of father is "a man in relation to his natural child or children." Now isn't that far from accurate? From this verse, I see more in the word father. I see the word compassion, and a love that is comparable to that of our Father in heaven. That's a lot of love!

So to that, I say Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers out there! I know I'm a day late, but we should appreciate our dads (and moms) everyday of the year! 

My Dad essentially lives out of our basement (a.k.a. the Man Cave). Being a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan and a former Buckeye (even though we are now eat-sleep-breathe-Mountaineers), the main part of his dwelling is decorated with those two football teams. I decided to give him a proper greeter when he walks down the stairs into his grotto.

I painted him a double sided pallet piece. One side read "how 'bout them COWBOYS", a tip of the hat to George Strait's "How 'bout Them Cowgirls". I did my best to freehand the Cowboys writing logo (I think I did halfway decent) and then on the other side....

a tribute to being another "nutty" Buckeye fan! (Pun totally intended) 

I don't really think this project requires instructions for anything, but I will say that if you're in a hurry, use acrylic paint and a blow dryer. I did the bases first and then painted on the lettering with a thin brush for the outlines and filled them in. 

As far as cards go, my pop is a big Superman fan- his 1925 Model T is done in Superman! So I made him a card using my Cricut Explore and some extra scrapbook paper to reflect his other hobby. 

Unfortunately, Cricut Design Space doesn't have a Superman emblem to purchase, so I made my own by welding together a triangle, a rectangle, and a couple more triangles for the edges.

Then I copy and pasted the solid emblem outline to make a hole in the center. Be sure to make the one in the center smaller. Unlock the dimensions (bottom left corner) to make it fit perfectly. The shape is a little different in order to get the sides even. Take your time!

After slicing the outline, I inserted the letter "S" with my choice of font that best fit the original emblem. There are many that look similar to the original, it's your choice! 

Then I welded the S to the inside of the outline. And, ta-da! Your own Superman Cricut emblem. Use the smaller cut border piece to fill in the background color of the logo.

The card shirt outside involved folding the two edges of a regular piece of scrapbook paper to meet in the middle. I cut it down to the desired height, and then folded the top corners down to create a collar. I cut the tie by hand and glued it to only one of the pieces that were folded in. 

Easy as that! Enjoy!

Easy Elastics

If you're anything like me, you lose more hair ties than you use. And with that, you spend more money on them than you'd like. Well, I've seen people wearing these knot-ties, and I can't believe people actually pay $10 for a pack of 10! (Seriously! Look on Etsy!)

Well, here's something that's much cheaper and much easier.

The elastic cord can be found at any Walmart in the sewing section, Michael's, JoAnn Fabrics, etc. A pack of 4 different elastics was under $5.

Before you make the first cut, wrap the elastic around your wrist to where it's "too big" if it were to be end to end (I  left about 1 1/2 in on each side). It's easier to cut off elastic on a tie that's too long than to fit a tiny one around your wrist and your hair!

When you cut the first, don't tie it yet! Use it to measure out all the others, then tie them all. Again, use your own wrist to make sure they're not too tight. Cut any excess off and burn the ends so they don't unravel!! 

I end up with about 30 hair ties after I'm done. That's 3 times the hair ties and half the cost of the others!

Problematic People

But I say to you who hear, 

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, 

and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.

Give to everyone who begs from you, 

and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 

Luke 6:27-36

So, we all have at least one person in our lives, whether it's past or present, who is "difficult" to deal with. (And if you don't, please tell me how you do it, because I would love to know how to please everyone!) But especially these past couple weeks, I feel as if I've run into a trap of negative energy.

Do you ever find yourself wondering, "What on God's green Earth did I do to them!?"

And maybe, juuuuust maybe, something did happen. And maybe they're having a hard time forgiving you or seeing past it. And maybe it's the other way around! Forgiveness is not something that is easy, by any means, but it is something that is necessary.

I read a Bible study (link at the bottom of the page) that discussed some of the things we can do when having to deal with these Problematic People. Here's some of the things I learned.

Photo from: Sullivan Perkins

Chalkboard Coasters

How often do you hear people say "I love my job"? Well, I love my job!

The other day, I got to take a client to Michael's for a community outing. We got some crafts, came back to PACE, and that's what we spent our day doing!

Anywho, I've had this pinned forever, so I finally decided to try it out. Here's what I discovered.

Spice Things Up

One thing about me: I love antiques. If you know me, you know I'm all about cheap, old stuff (and the occasional old-to-you-new-to-me kind of thing). This past weekend, Logan and I found a cute little spice rack for a whopping $4. My wallet and I were both extremely excited.

New Friends

Two's Company

So I guess this is the first real post for me! Yay! Here goes nothin'.

One of the big things I hope to talk about on here is ways for us girls who have that man in our lives that makes us happy to return the favor. Being in a serious relationship can be hard at 20 when we're young and lively and adventurous and most importantly...broke.

Even though my boyfriend and I both have big kid jobs, with all our other expenses (especially our fur-child, Tucker), our piggy bank is always a little hungry. Of course we want to spend our hard-earned money on steak dinners, but what's more important is simply each other's company.

Once Upon a Time...

  

"Once upon a time..." That's the appropriate way to begin a fairy tale, right? Not that I think of myself as being a Princess but- ah, who am I kidding? Of course I'm a princess! We all have a little bit of princess in us! And this blog is for all the princesses of Pinterest (the most obvious) and those who love to create and shop and organize and live and love and pray and cook and, well, you get the point!! So pretty much, my goal for this blog is to provide a safe haven and inspiration for us gals who are versatile and complicated and have a 40 different, unrelated Pinterest boards.

First of all, allow me to introduce myself. I'm a 20 year old Pinterest-addicted-thrift-shop-lovin'-think-I'm-crafty gal based out of northern West Virginia. I attend West Virginia University where I study Music Therapy and cheer for football and men's basketball. I have 2 different jobs, one where I work with adults with I/DD and I'm a waitress. I love to crochet, paint poorly, wear "old lady clothes" as my boyfriend calls them, hike, explore, organize, clean, and the list goes on!

As ya'll can see, I'm pretty scattered (both mentally and physically), but I bet I'm not the only one. I look forward to posting tips, tricks, ideas, and inspiration with you, and I hope I can help someone along in their search for finding a happy ending!