Feast on This

I hosted a wine tasting party for some of my preschool mom friends last night.  It was a follow-up from our night out at the piano bar in February that I apparently never blogged about.  The volunteers who help out at Cutie Pie’s preschool are amazing and it is so nice to chat with them in a relaxed kid-free setting.  J took our kids over to his parents house for the night.  The weather was so lovely that I was able to open up the sliding glass doors for us to enjoy the evening poolside.  Everyone brought a bottle (or two) to share and I provided the munchies and dessert.

My friends became my guinea pigs for my first ever attempt at cake pops.  Oh, dear!  They were so yummy!

I decided to make strawberry cake pops so I baked a box strawberry cake mix in two round cake pans since my 9×13 was being used for something else.  When the cake cooled I crumbled it into a big mixing bowl.  I added about 3/4 of a can of strawberry icing and stirred it up.  When the cake and icing formed a dough-like consistency, I used a small cookie scoop to measure out enough dough to form into a ball.  I placed the balls on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and placed them in the freezer to cool for an hour.  When they were sufficiently cool, I melted a bag of pink Wilton melting chocolate in a double boiler (my version is a glass bowl on a pan of water).  I dipped a lollipop stick into the melted chocolate first then pierced a cake ball then coated the cake ball in the chocolate.  I decorated some with spring sprinkles, others I left plain.  I stuck the pops into a piece of Styrofoam to display at the party.

The cake pops were a hit!  Many moms took a couple home to share.  I’m totally making them for Wildman’s bake sale next month.

I made a bunch of chocolate-covered strawberries as well.

I tried to keep most of the appetizers pretty healthy.  There were cups of cashews and almonds, fruit skewers, pineapple salsa, crackers, several kinds of cheese, olives, marinara meatballs and edamame.  We had all sorts of different wines to sample- cabernets, merlots, a sauvignon blanc, a chianti and even champagne.  Conversation was lively and flowed easily.  It was a relaxing evening.

Just what we needed!

Advertisement

Prelude to Spring Cleaning

While the boys busied themselves creating tempera paint masterpieces with their Young Artist’s Toolbox this afternoon, I took a few moments to photograph some new household accessories I’ve recently acquired.  I’ve been on a rearranging/redecorating kick lately which I totally blame on the new television and bar that we received at Christmas.  We’re waiting on our new television console to arrive so everything is pretty disorganized in our living room.  It’s given me the opportunity to throw out some old stuff, re-purpose some other things and add a few new treasures to our decor.  My inspiration has, of course, extended beyond just the living room…

I found these darling bud vases in the Dollar Spot at Target.  They were not a dollar, however.  They were $2.50 🙂  I picked up a half dozen of those gorgeous roses at Publix last night to fill the vases.  The color of the flowers is “circus”.  I just love how they look so happy.  Their riotous color brightened the gray, dreary weather we had today.

I found this cute throw pillow at Target as well.  Our beautiful brown club chair was looking a bit empty with the Christmas pillows put away.  Not anymore!

I added this pretty turquoise vase to the kids’ bathroom vanity.

At the opposite end of the vanity, I added a cute bird cage.  I put a towel in it because it looked a little weird empty.

I replaced the sad, dusty flower arrangement on our DVD cabinet with these new accessories.  I like how light and beachy they look.  I’m not sure I’ll keep them there because I actually bought them with the new television console in mind.  We’ll see if I change my mind when it arrives tomorrow.

I’ve got a list of other things I want to buy for the house but must remember to pace myself!  I’ll share photos as I add new things but right now, I’m off to clean up the paint mess that the boys left me on the porch bar…  Yikes!  I’m afraid to look!

Craft Fair Success

I would consider Saturday’s craft fair to be a success- we earned 5 times the registration fee.  It wasn’t a huge sum of money but it made giving up a whole day worth it.  We still have some inventory left that we’re not sure what to with though.

We had a 10′ x 10′ area in the recreation center’s gymnasium.  I was just enough room for us to set up all of our folding tables to display our things.

We sold a little bit of everything and managed to completely sell out our snowman soup kits!  A woman even asked us to make a custom dinosaur tin for her grandson.  It was a fun day spent with a great friend.  I’m so glad we did this together.

Sadly, some of the vendors were not quite as fortunate.  Some did not have a single sale.  Yikes!  That really breaks my heart because a lot of them had some really cool things for sale.  The economy is quite bad here and many of the people who came to the craft fair were just there to look.  So many in our area are having a hard time making ends meet.  I just wish that things would finally begin to turn around but I’m not so sure that’s going to happen any time soon…  It’s depressing to think about so many families struggling.