Top Your Cake With These Easy Recycled Newspaper Pinwheels!

Top Your Cake With These Easy Recycled Newspaper Pinwheels!

I made these paper pinwheel for today's New York Times, perfect for topping a cake or cupcakes! This is part of the series of crafts I've been contributing to the incredible At Home section of the Times where the newspaper itself is the starring art supply!

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Easy Two-Step Coffee Filter Flowers for Spring Decorations!

Easy Two-Step Coffee Filter Flowers for Spring Decorations!

Yesterday, I did a really fun Instagram Live for @CountryLivingMag and showed how to make these easy coffee filter flowers, and a few ways to use them to create spring decorations for your table and home. I have made a LOT of paper flowers in my life and the are THE EASIEST...and fastest!! They take only a few second to make each once the filters are dyed and dried. The bigger step here is dyeing the coffee filters which also really easy (and fun!) but allow a few hours to overnight to let the filters dry. Dye as many as you can and use them for lots of flower projects! (We have a whole chapter of coffee filter projects in our book!) By the way, I used food coloring to dye these flowers since they will be coming into contact with drinks. If you're not using these near food or drink, you could use thinned out craft paint to dye them instead.

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Something to Make, Something to Bring, Something to Give...on Dinner: A Love Story

Something to Make, Something to Bring, Something to Give...on Dinner: A Love Story

I am thrilled to have contributed a few crafty holiday food ideas to one of my favorite blogs, Jenny Rosenstratch's Dinner: A Love Story ! I'm a longtime fan of both her blog and books. Have you seen her newest, How to Celebrate Everything? If I hadn't bought it the minute it came out it would be at the top of my holiday wish list! Anyway, these marshmallow tree-topped cupcakes, above, are "something to bring to a holiday party" and you can find instructions for them on DALS here.

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Friendly DIY Marshmallow Ghost Cake Toppers

Friendly DIY Marshmallow Ghost Cake Toppers

A marshmallow ghost I made many years ago forMartha Stewart Living magazine, which were twisted to get their peaked shape, inspired this simplified version. These get their shape from one diagonal cut, making them fast and easy treats to put together for a crowd of trick-or-treaters.

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Easy Cake Pop Flowers for Mother's Day!

Easy Cake Pop Flowers for Mother's Day!

Time for a Mother's Day treat! This year, I made cake pops and turned them into flowers with leaves and blooms that I snipped from cupcake papers (an idea from our book, Paper Goods Projects). I used this Foodstirs kit to make the cake pops. I like that these pops can double as a centerpiece, until it's time to eat dessert, of course!

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Fruit Stripe Gum Letter Cake Topper

Fruit Stripe Gum Letter Cake Topper

Many years ago, when Amy and I were working on our first book, Candy Aisle Crafts, we shot a few ideas using Fruit Stripe Gum. We both love the colors (and the stripes)! I remember pining for it as a child! One idea was to use the gum to make letters to top a cake inspired by paper letters in one of my all-time favorite craft books, Creating With Paper. We loved how they came out but then we happened upon these really cool gumpaste letters and thought they looked way too similar so we pulled the idea from the book. Unfortunately I don't see the gumpaste letters for sale anymore but figured that I'd finally share our Fruit Stripe gum letters here.
If you want to try making them, make sure to use fresh gum if possible (not that you can really tell when you buy it)! 

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Last-Minute Christmas Candy Crafts

Last-Minute Christmas Candy Crafts

Just a few days until Christmas! I'm sharing some quick ideas from our book, Candy Aisle Crafts, that utilize the candy canes and peppermint candy that we have around at this time of year. This HO HO HO cake topper can also be used on top of frosted brownies or cupcakes. 

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DIY Lollipop Ideas...for Celebrating National Lollipop Day!

DIY Lollipop Ideas...for Celebrating National Lollipop Day!

This Monday, July 20th, is National Lollipop Day! Yeah! To celebrate, we are sharing a roundup of our easy-to-make lollipops. They all involve melting store-bought candy which means they are easier than "from-scratch" candy-making. 

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Our New Book!

Our New Book!

Amy and I are thrilled to announce that our second book, Paper Goods Projects, is coming out on August 11th and is available right now for pre-order on AmazonBarnes and Noble, and Indiebound! We are honored that our foreword was written by the brilliant Jordan Ferney, founder of the gorgeous blog Oh Happy Day and her fantastic party shop!

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Boo Cake on Dinner: A Love Story!

Boo Cake on Dinner: A Love Story!

We are so honored that our BOO cake was featured on Dinner: A Love Story! I'm guessing that, like me,  you guys are already big fans of Jenny Rosenstrach's excellent blog about mastering the family meal. I bought her first book, Dinner: A Love Story and flagged almost every page! The recipes are all excellent but I have to admit that I didn't cook as many of the recipes that I had hoped. I just don't quite have the weeknight dinner routine down. That said, I feel like her new book Dinner: The Playbook, was written just for me!

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Marshmallow Birds

Marshmallow Birds

These marshmallow birds are one of the projects in the marshmallow chapter in our book. I had created many marshmallow crafts over the years and when I started on the marshmallow chapter I was afraid I had already made everything there was to be made out of marshmallows. After I started playing I realized that the possibilities were endless. I would have been happy to do a whole book of marshmallow crafts!

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