Glitter-Palooza!

Happy Monday everyone!  I'm so excited that it is a short week and that Thanksgiving is almost here.  I've done my grocery shopping and I am ready to cook.  How about you?

Today I've got not one but TWO fun glitter projects to show you!  The first one is glittered clothespins: a quick, easy, cheap, and fun project brought to you by my friend Kari.  She came up with this project for our girls (10 year-olds) to do together for teacher's gifts for Christmas.  All you need are some clothespins from the dollar store, an assortment of glitters, some glue, and you are good to go!

 Just brush on the glue (to one side of the clothespins only), glitter, and let dry.

Kari cut strips of cute paper and clipped the finished clothespins onto the paper, and then put then into bunches in plastic gift bags.

I just need to add ribbons and tags and we are done!  How easy is that?  The girls had a great time doing these, and I think it's great that Chloe can give her teachers something that she made herself.

The second glitter project was also very easy and fun.  I found these large plain snowflakes at Target:

I was excited about the idea of making them into glitter snowflakes.  I found this cool tinsel glitter at Michael's:

(Thank you, Martha, for yet another cool glitter product!)  Anyway, after that this project was pretty standard: cover snowflakes with glue, cover with glitter:

And ta da!  Glitter snowflake!

Just as a note: I found that the glue/glitter did not stick very well to these snowflakes.  I did 2 (and even 3) layers of glue and glitter to get the coverage I wanted.  I do love this tinsel glitter -- it has a very cool effect and is super shiny!

I did 3 of these, 2 in blue and 1 in white.  When I was done, I hung them in my kitchen window.

[See that lovely -- not -- blue square tile in the picture?  If I'm a really lucky girl, that blue tile is going to be going bye-bye in January.  Fingers crossed!]

Anyway, once the glitter snowflakes were hung I thought, why not go ahead and start decorating for Christmas?  So I did.  I'm rushing the season a bit, but that's okay.  :)

Cupcakes!

I've been busy making cupcakes for a classroom birthday celebration today, so I thought I'd share.  Chloe asked for chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting.  So, I went with a butter fudge mix, and made a vanilla buttercream frosting from scratch.

When planning these, I found two new things in the baking aisle that I wanted to share.  First: edible glitter!  How did I not know about this before??  Here's how it looks in the package:

I was excited about this glitter -- VERY excited.  Honestly, I didn't love it on the cupcakes as much as I thought I would.  I like the way the white glitter looks on the white icing, but the pink.... not as much.  Still, what  a fun idea!  I'm wondering what else I can use this for.  [ADDED NOTE: now that we've actually eaten the cupcakes, I have to pass along that I don't like the way the glitter tastes.  I thought it would taste like sugar sprinkles, but it tastes kind of like, well, paper.  Not yummy.  So, if you're going to use it, I'd use it on something you're decorating for show, not on something you're planning to eat.  Maybe it's just me, but I wanted to let you know.]

My other discovery was in the candy-making section: molds for candy cupcake picks!  I bought a crown mold, and whipped up these:

I made them a solid color and then "painted" on a contrasting color with a toothpick.  That worked okay, but I think I need some more practice.  These are so darling, they're fine in just one color, I think!

Anyway, here's how they came out.  Hope the kids like 'em!  :)