KT Made It: A Few Thanksgiving Decorations

Only two days until Thanksgiving and the official kick-off of the Holiday Season! Excited this year to be hosting a few friends for dinner which gives me the opportunity to try some new recipes and decorate the apartment. Unfortunately time got away from me a little bit with regards to getting some new decorations, so in a pinch I made a few with items I had in the house (surprise, surprise!)

The first things that I made was a yarn wreath. These are all over my Pinterest feed, and they really are lovely. I used left over yarn that I've had from three Christmas' ago when I made a pair of fingerless gloves. I wrapped the yarn tightly around the wreath, reinforcing with hot glue occasionally along the way.

Next, I made flowers out of felt in various autumn colors (brown, tan, red, orange and yellow).

Finally, I used satin ribbon to hang the wreath on the front door!

Lucky for me I still had some leftover yarn. I decided to make a letter B out of cardboard, similar to the number 1 that I made for my daughter's birthday. I used cardboard from a box of diapers and then I took the cardboard inside of a few toilet paper rolls to put between the two sides to make the B three dimensional (my husband has not realized that there are missing parts of those toilet paper rolls yet!). I wrapped the B with yarn and decorated it with a few artificial leaves, then set it on the book shelf in our living room.

Last, but not least, I used water color and ballpoint black ink pen to make a little festive artwork to put on the book shelf.

KT Baked It: Cherry Cheesecake Pie

Another birthday at work means another dessert to bake! This month's cake came with a special request for cherry pie or cherry cheesecake. Luckily I found a recipe to do both justice. This recipe came from Woman's Day, and it was very easy to make with few ingredients.

What you need:
1 box of premade pie dough (comes with two packages)
Two 8 oz. blocks of cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup of sugar
1 Tbl corn starch
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 can of cherry pie filling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Unwrap one package of pie dough and line a 9 inch pie dish with the dough.

Next, make the cream cheese filling. In a mixing bowl, combine the corn starch and sugar. Beat in the cream cheese using an electric mixer. Then add in one egg and the vanilla.

Pour the cream cheese batter into the pie dish.

Top with the can of cherry pie filling.

Next, I made a lattice on top of the pie filling by cutting strips of pie dough on a sheet of wax paper.

I had about 1/3 of the remaining pie dough left which I cut into strips and braided.

I put the braid around the rim of the pie. I used an egg white and brushed the strips of dough over the top as directed in the recipe.

Bake the pie in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the pie filling is bubbling.

Voila! This was delicious. I think it would also be good with a pumpkin filling or maybe blueberry. Great for a Thanksgiving dessert too...

KT Made It: Satin Ribbon Flower Clip

After a year and a half of living in our apartment, I finally made the opportunity to go through my craft desk (i.e. the pile of all of my craft and art supplies piled in an entirely organized way onto, beneath and around my desk in our study.) In doing so, I realized that I have a lot of supplies that have been sitting around unused with no craft to call a home. Ribbon, felt, fabric, watercolor paint, ink, beads all collecting dust. Around the same time I started going through my boards on Pinterest where I had over 1000 pins of ideas and projects that I have never attempted. Well that ends today! I set a new goal to make one craft a month (yes, we aren't being overly ambitious) using my craft supply stock to attempt to make one of my Pinned projects.





This month's craft is from my Ribbon and Bows board. I made this board thinking I was going to make Rachel a bunch of cute headbands and hair bows when she was a newborn. Needless to say, she is still waiting for those hair accessories! Well, wait no more, Rachel! This satin flower was easy to make.

What you need:
1 1/2inch satin ribbon
Matching thread, sewing needle
Felt
Hairclip
Hot glue

Cut seven pieces of ribbon, each 5 inches long. I used a lighter to set the edges to prevent them from fraying.

Take one piece of ribbon and fold like so. I pinned the bottom together to prevent it from unfolding. Do this for all seven pieces of ribbon. These are the petals.

Next, use a long strand of thread and your needle to gather the petals onto the same strand of thread. Make sure to knot the end of the thread so that you don't pull it through! After you have finished the stitches through all of the petals, gather the stiches by pulling the petals together on the strand of thread. Sew the sides of the end petals together to create a circle of ribbon petals.

I made a second flower that was smaller using 3 inch long pieces of ribbon. I put the second, smaller flower onto the first. I then glued a pearl bead into the middle of the flower. Finally, I attached the flower to a hair clip using hot glue and a felt circle.

KT Made It: Ombre Bridal Shower Cake

I have been wanting to make an ombré cake for quite some time. In fact, I intended to make one for Rachel's first birthday, but I was in a time crunch by the time I actually made the cake and I knew it was going to be a little time consuming so I opted not to. Luckily for me, the opportunity finally presented itself when our office threw a bridal shower for one of our coworkers in October!

So what is an ombré cake? Ombré cakes are colorful cakes in which the colors used are graduated from light to dark; this may refer to the colors frosting the outside of the cake and/or the layers of the cake. The frosting can be decorated in various ways as well. Here are a few examples.


From the Hungry Housewife with a great tutorial.

This fancy one I found on Best Friends For Frosting

And my personal favorite - the ombré rose cake. This one is by BS in the Kitchen.

Aren't these so pretty? So I decided to make a purple cake for the Bridal Shower, as the bride's wedding palate was purple and gray. Since I was in a time crunch (there's a trend here), I used white cake mixes by Betty Crocker for the cakes. I made four 6 inch cakes, each cake was a different gradient - the first was white, the second light purple, then a little darker...then a little darker.

I made a buttercream frosting using unsalted butter, confectioners sugar, a small amount of heavy whipping cream and a little vanilla extract.

I frosted the top of the white cake first, then placed the light purple cake as the next layer, frosted the top, then the next cake, etc. Once stacked, I frosted the outside of the cake with the white buttercream.

Then it was time for frosting! I used a large star shaped frosting decorating tip for the swirls, starting with white buttercream swirls around the bottom layer of cake. I slowly added a little bit of purple food coloring to slowing increase the gradient of the frosting swirls going up the cake. Finally, I topped the cake with a cake topper that I made using purple cardstock and tooth picks. Voila!

The cake was delicious and the bride-to-be was thrilled!

Congratulations, Morgan - may God bless your marriage with love, laughter and a lifetime of happiness!