Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

• 1 box yellow cake mix or French Vanilla cke mix
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs

mix all ingredients and bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes

makes 24 cupcakes

Yummy Cream Cheese Icing:

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 stick butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-3 tablespoons milk
• 1 box (might need more to thicken frosting) confectioners sugar

beat with electric mixture until light and fluffy (add more confectioners sugar if too runny)

More Crafting on "Craft Day"

All day today my daughter and I spent the day doing arts and crafts and cooking.  We spent the afternoon doing more crafts.  We made a spider and haunted house from Michaels.  Then we made Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing......yummy!

I will post the recipe....

Don't forget to decorate with cool sprinkles and always display your works of art creatively!!!!!

Craft Day

Special family days are worth the planning!

Today I was inspired by another blog, "Flip Flops and Applesauce"...This is a great inspirational blog. Their motto is "simple ideas for family togetherness"....check it out.

Flipflopsandapplesauce.blogspot.com

I try to make everyday a party, and somedays we party harder!

Today's "party day" did take a little bit of planning but it was worth the memories!

First we made a "Countdown to Halloween" advent calendar.

It is made from Halloween papers from "K and Company" that I laminated with magnet paper using my zyron machine. I used a mini muffin tin as the base and filled each spot with little treats and started the countdown to Halloween.

Next we worked on table settings, this is from the Flipflops and Applesauce blog.  I printed the table setting from the blog and explained how to set a table...

My daughter learned that the Fork is the "pretty princess", the plate is the moat with the alligators the Knife  (blade is toward the alligator)is the "mean sharp bad guy", and the spoon is the "big headed Prince".

Then we made "Shrinky Dinks", Another idea from FlipFlops and applesauce, I loved their idea to make labels for her toys...what fun watching them shrink!

You'll FLIP over this Party!

I have been meaning to add more info about this party.....

This party was a huge success, it is easy, inexpensive and so much fun!

Take your time planning this one out and you can do most everything ahead of time.

I would suggest limiting the number of girls so everyone will have time to enjoy themselves (even you!)

Ingredients for Flip Flop party:

cheap flip flops (I bought ours at Old Navy)

decorations for decorating flip flops (Michaels)

nail polish

simple food

cut up fruit for fruit kabobs

various flip flop items for goody bags

I made invitations that looked like a flip flop and said "You'll flip over this Party"

We invited 5 girls (they were all between 6-8 years old)

I bought cute paper plates and napkins from Party City...

I had everything planned out prior on a sheet of paper...

Pedicures, Decorate Flip Flops,crafts,Pizza, Swimming, games, make fruit kabobs and flip flop cake

the games we played were:

musical towels (same as chairs but used beach towels)

and we had ducky races in the pool (had 5 little ducks that they had to push across pool with their noses!)

directions for Flip Flop cake:

I used 2 store bought pound cakes (cut rounded top off with seregated knife and cut cake out around sides to look like a flip flop)

store bought icing

sour patch fruit stripes 

and large round sprinkles on sides

place on platter and put graham cracker crumbs around decorated cakes (beach sand!)

 

Art Party

This party was so much fun, easy, and very inexpensive!

ingredients:

brown craft paper

jars

markers

paper

cupcakes/sprinkles/small mini plastic paint pallets

This is another example how to celebrate "family time"...

Make an everyday dinner fun, surprise your family with a theme night.

I decorated ahead of time with brown craft paper on the table like a table cloth, put sharpie markers in glass jars (placed fresh flowers in center)

we also had some clay that we played with after dinner.

I made tacos (the colors of taco toppings seem to go with the theme), and a great surprise  was cupcakes...I found little plastic paint pallets at Michaels for $.99 each, bought a multi color sprinkle pack (Wilton cake sprinkles)

we all got to decorate our own cupcakes with the sprinkles....

be creative and draw!

You'll FLIP over this Party!

Party Like A Rock Star