Carrot Cupcakes

Easter is nearly here- one of my favourite times of the year!

My boys and I had so much fun making some carrot cake cupcakes, complete with handmade wrappers.



Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Cake:
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups grated carrot

To decorate:
2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon hot water
50g plain chocolate biscuits (approximately four biscuits)
12 dried apricots
12 mint leaf lollies

Line or grease a 12 cup muffin tray. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Place the sugar, eggs and oil in a large mixing bowl and whisk together.

Sift the flour, baking soda and cinnamon into the egg mixture and combine. Fold in the grated carrot.

Spoon the mixture evenly between the 12 muffin cases. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.



Now it is time to decorate! In a bowl, mix together the icing sugar, orange juice and hot water to form a smooth, thick icing.

Crush the chocolate biscuits in a plastic bag with a rolling pin, or pulse in the food processor. Place in a shallow bowl.



Ice each cupcake and then roll in the crushed biscuits.



To assemble the carrots, cut a slit in the top of each dried apricot. Cut the mint leaf at the widest point, and push the top half into the dried apricot.



Use a small knife to make a hole in each cupcake, and then gently push the dried apricot into the cupcake. You can serve these as is or use some pretty Easter paper wrappers.



I cut these wrappers using the Cricut. For detailed instructions please click here to visit my Close To My Heart craft blog!



Here are the finished cupcakes nestled in their grass wrappers. These were a great treat at my scrapbook workshop over the weekend, and they would make a cute centerpiece for your next Easter themed event!

Batman Birthday Party

My son celebrated his 5th birthday party recently with a Batman themed birthday party. Originally Lucas wanted a generic superheroes theme, but we narrowed it down to just Batman in order to keep my stress levels down!


First up was creating the Batman invitations. You can read the full process for making these invitations here.


My cupcakes were going to be decorated with bat sprinkles, but unfortunately these were out of stock so I had to make do with plain black sprinkles. I made the cupcake wrappers myself using black cardstock and the Cricut- they say Happy Birthday.

The food consisted of these cupcakes, fresh pineapple, ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, yellow jellybeans (purchased in bulk from The Lolly Shop), peanut butter truffles rolled in yellow sprinkles, batman cookies (using this cookie cutter) and Cheerio sausages, because my husband tells me it isn't a party without Cheerios.


For the tableware I went with yellow and black, as a lot of the specific Batman items were the new grey and blue style and Lucas really wanted lots of black. I used a plain black tablecloth, yellow paper cups, yellow plates, black napkins and some black treat cups.


We even had a special appearance from Batman himself! My Dad is always dressing up in costumes so this was brilliant, and all of the little boys were so excited.


We played a fun game outside to get the kids moving called Musical Superhero Sounds. I printed these printable comic bubbles to A4 size and laminated them, then laid them out on the ground. We played some music, and when the music ended each child had to jump on one of the sounds. I removed a sound each time, and so a child would get "out" each round. The game ended when only one child jumped on the remaining comic bubble.


It wouldn't be a birthday without a cake! I used my tried and true chocolate cake recipe, and spread the cake with yellow icing. I made the topper at a Superhero Themed workshop, which worked out perfectly!

Lucas was very excited to see his Batman cake, and blew out his back candles.

All in all, we had a great Batman themed birthday party and Lucas really enjoyed the games, food and cake. Now to think about next year's birthday theme!

Linking up with Pin Me Party and Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons!

Pinterest Resolutions Jan-April 2015

My Pinterest Resolutions so far have been mostly successful, so I think it is time to choose a few more to attempt!

If you are new to my blog, each six months I have been choosing some items that I have pinned on my Pinterest Boards, and will complete the idea, creation or activity.

Instead of six monthly, I will now break these down into four month goals. I feel like I forget about some of the things I want to do during a six month time period, so four months gives me a good amount of time but not too much.

As far as blogging goes, I like to plan ahead and so this way of planning a year of blog posts is definitely something I need to do!

We are heading on holiday soon, and I need to pack light. This guide on a capsule wardrobe for a beach vacation will be perfect for me to get a variety of outfits with minimal space.

All of the males in my family are big on quality time, so for my 2 and 5 year old I will have to make up these Valentines Day coupons for them to take advantage of some special activities with me, Dad and as a family.

I love making cards, and this video showing how to make 12 cards in less than 20 minutes is something I need to try once I get the Wishes book!


My boys love bananas, peanut butter and frozen yoghurt, so making our own peanut butter and banana frozen yoghurt will be something we can all do together and enjoy.

My boys also love treasure hunts, and Easter is a perfect time to do them. How cute is this active Easter Egg hunt? Great to get the kids up and moving.

These should all have been put into place by the end of April- make sure to check back to see how I am doing!

Batman Birthday Invitations

My son's 5th birthday is coming up, and he requested a superhero party with an emphasis on Batman. I knew I wanted to keep with a black and yellow theme, and set the tone with the birthday invitations.

I cut some bat cards on the Cricut- these are a Halloween based item but worked well for the Batman theme! These were cut using the Artiste Cartridge with Black cardstock at 5.25 real dial size.



I then created an insert on Honey cardstock and printed the wording using the Batman Forever font. As a finishing touch, I stamped a row of bats on the bottom of the cardstock using Black ink and my Halloween Greetings stamp set. I have blurred out address and phone number for privacy reasons.



The card folds up as a bat- excuse fingers!



And then opens to reveal the party invitation.



Lucas was so excited to see the finished invitations, and I am really pleased with the end result. I can't wait to share some more Batman themed creations closer to the time!

Linking up with Wow me Wednesday and Show and Tell.