Wonder Wednesday

I have really enjoyed meeting bloggers and finding new blogs through blog hops. I really enjoy this one at Mama.Mommy.Mom

This is a great way to share your different Social Media Links and share your blog and contacts with others.

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**A Day In Motherhood**

{Allergy Free Cake and Icing}

I found this cake recipe that I decided to try with my son who has dairy, egg, corn, and nut allergies. Yep all that, plus a few others...YIKEs. His birthday is coming up and I needed to find something he could eat, and wanted to do a trial run of it to see how it would come out.
 
So she has a blog I have been following because of the allergy issue and she has great recipes (Milk Allergy Mom ) So I went here first looking to see if she had shared a cake, and this is one she makes for her dairy and egg and nut allergy boys. It even has flavor variations!!! Thank you so much Jamie for sharing your allergy journey and this cake recipe. Keep reading, pictures below.

Cake recipe and variations:

This is the chocolate cake recipe:

1.5 c flour

1 c sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder (for chocolate cake)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup oil

1 c cold water

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients and pour into greased 8" or 9" square pan. Bake in oven until done. Check at about 20 minutes.

Substitutions:

VANILLA CAKE: omit cocoa, double vanilla, add 1/4 cup of more flour

SPICE CAKE: omit cocoa, add 1 Tb pumpkin spice, add 1/4 cup of more flour...and try Pillsbury dairy and egg free cream cheese icing!

ORANGE CAKE: omit cocoa & vinegar, use orange juice for the water, add 1/4 cup of more flour

LEMON CAKE: omit cocoa, use lemon juice for vinegar, can add some lemon extract, add 1/4 cup of more flour

 NOTE; when greasing cake pan- use NON DAIRY spray!! we usually use OLIVE OIL and just rub it on the pan with a flour sack cloth.

Icing Recipe

(From mom2sweetpea in a comment to the above cake)

My son is allergic to eggs, nuts & dairy. Because of him I've started taking cake decorating classes. I make my own buttercream frosting, and it is allergy-free for him too. This recipe is good if you want to do designs on your cakes because it will dry a bit and hold shapes. It is:

1 cup solid white vegetable shortening (I use Crisco-not the butter one!)

1 tsp of vanilla (use clear if you want the frosting to stay white-you can use other flavorings too)

7-8 tsp of water

1 lb pure can confectioner's sugar

Pinch of salt (this keeps it from being super sweet from all that sugar!)

Blend on medium until thoroughly mixed

I also add 3/4 cup cocoa sometimes to make it chocolate!

SO we were all a bit skeptical about how this would taste and turn out. Which is the main reason we wanted to check it out first.

 So they turned out pretty darn yummy. They were very moist, like melt in your mouth moist and we all enjoyed several of them. I will probably cook it a bit longer because they were almost too moist.maybe only 5 minutes or so extra.

As you can tell my girl thought they were really  yummy and had several that she herself decorated.

So yes I am pretty excited to have these to look forward to at my son's birthday party. I am so glad that he will have food that he can eat that is also yummy. I am excited that we will have a chance to make ONE cake or one batter for everyone without worrying someone won't like it or that some food could get contaminated and he could end up with a food he can't have.

{Tiny Prints Event}

Ok I am super excited to tell you about this awesome Blogger event I was invited to by Mommy B (aka Jennifer) at www.mommybknowsbest.com. It was hosted at Fran's Filling Station off Park Rd in Charlotte. It was my first visit to Fran's and it was sure yummy. First off the appetizers- we got the bacon wrapped tater tots, the corn nuggets, and they were so good. But I will have to jump ahead to tell you about dessert. I got their peanut butter pie. Oh dear, that was sure good. I was torn though because the lemon marscapone cake sounded divine as well.  Back to the event, I met some great other bloggers that Mommy B will be sharing in pics on her site so I won't share everything right yet, but be sure to check out her blog for more details of that. We had Chris Garner of TPS Photography share with us some great tips on photography for bloggers and using the camera properly. He was very entertaining and is sending his power point and notes to us via email to make it simpler. He is having a special event with an awesome deal for your Christmas cards, so it also totally worked with our Tiny Prints event. Chris is an internationally certified professional photographer, only one of 42 in the state of NC. He also completely guarantees you will love your pictures or your money will be refunded. I will list more of his contact info at the bottom of this post.

So now I want to tell you about Tiny Prints

I had always known of Tiny Prints but mainly seen them as baby announcements. And therefore figured they also did many other types of cards. What I didn't know was that they also do gifts, favors, and photo books. One of the ones on display at our event was a Holiday cookbook that also showed these awesome ways to package things into gifts. I honestly could have swiped that book and brought it home with me.


I really fell in love with the planners they have available. They have weekly, monthly and wedding planners that you can personalize. see the details of it here

Be sure to check out their holiday line. There are some great ideas.

We had an swag bag ( eeeekkkk my first swag bag) and it looked like this.

We had samples of several card types, a set of Thank you notes, and a Free Photo book. Hmmm now what to use that for.......I can't decide.

 Thank you Tiny Prints and Jennifer!



But get this, I found an awesome idea that I am in LOVE with, and can just imagine several uses in decor and great ways/reasons to save some cards long term. You ready?

A Christmas card that is an ornament!! How sweet is that! You know what I pictured immediately? A 4 foot tree full of ornament photo Christmas cards! I can save ones of family and close friends over the years and even cut them into ornaments and put them up to show the kids growth over the years! I am definitely doing that this year!




Thanks for sticking with me through this post and I hope you found some things on Tiny Prints that you didn't know existed. I was very surprised at some of the options!

Some helpful links for you to check out by our wonderful hosts:

Tiny Prints: http://www.tinyprints.com/, Facebook, Twitter

MommyB Knows Best: http://www.mommybknowsbest.com, Facebook, Twitter (and http://www.thecharlottemoms.com)

TPS Photography (Chris Garner): http://tpsphotography.com/, Facebook

Fran's Filling Station: http://fransfillingstation.com/, Facebook,Twitter

And some of the cool bloggers I met:

Maricris G: ZensibleMama.com, Zensiblelife.com, Zensiblereviews.com

Jamie R: Mamamommymom.com

Susan K: Reallifetravels.com

Kelley C: http://foreverslikeadream.com

Lisa F: http://www.adailypinch.com

{Birthday shirts}

              

 Ok so I finally finished my sons birthday shirt. I shared the first part of making it Here.

Well I took pictures of the front and back of the  Heat and Bond that I used.It was the Ultrahold. It was very simple to use and I will go into more pictures below this quick "1" as I decided to make another shirt while I was at it. You need to read the directions since it tells you which side to use first.

Applique in place and ready to iron on.

 Iron on, following the directions.

And Done

Well, it was so quick and easy, I decided to make another shirt. Following the same basic steps as above, just with more pictures lol. I will add commentary where needed, otherwise its pretty self explanatory via the pictures.

I used this clearance T-shirt from Walmart- $2.50. It had a pocket on it that I didn't want but it was so cheap and removing a pocket is as simple as using a seam ripper.

see here you go, no pocket. I also don't worry that it is short-sleeve since you just add a long sleeve shirt under it.

 So I didn't have this pattern on my cricut, and to save cutting it twice I fused the fabric to the heat and bond first.

 it was quick and looked like this once done.

 I laid out my pattern, turning the knot part to the side so it changes the pattern a bit to look more like a real tie knot.

I traced it out first, can you see the white chalk lines? Then cut it with my rotary cutter. Do you see how the knot part being a different direction in the cut makes it look better now cut out?

 peel the paper off the back

 line it up on the shirt and iron it on.

And ta-da! just had to stitch it down with a zig-zag stitch- but don't worry- that's not required.

And here are both shirts completed.

See just having an applique shirt is not as difficult as you once imagined!

{Pinterest challenge project}

My Challenge project is the Laundry curtain cover

Found here: http://pinterest.com/pin/188085607/

So I wanted to do this for the space above my utility sink. It contains a hanging bar for clothes that cannot go in the dryer so they can drip dry over the sink. It just doesn't look very pretty.

 So it was a pretty simple process. I just measured the space across and how far down I wanted it to hang. Grabbed up a tension rod from Walmart for $2.67 and hemmed 3 sides. The top, I folded over 3/4 of an inch and sewed it to create the pocket for the rod. 

 Then it was done. I used fabric I already had on hand and that would fit the space and add some color and personality. I put the fabric on the rod and put it up. Nice and easy.  This is a shot from the back door. There are 2 sets of cabinets like the one you see. Next plan is probably to paint it and clean off the area above the cabinets.

I like how it turned out, really cute, and you can't beat projects that make things look nice for under $5.

{What I Love Online lately}

Well its been a bit of a crazy couple weeks. My work has been odd and I have been home with the kids more, which actually means less crafting time because my son is a mamas boy and I can't get anything done when he is awake. I did get a few projects done on Friday when my hunny was home too, but I have to finish writing up the posts. I took LOTs and LOTS of pictures so that I Have a great step by step tutorial.


I also have several reviews of different products and stores I have been working on for the upcoming gift season that I hope helps you determine some gift ideas and narrow down which way to go for some things. I am gearing up for my first blogger event this Friday night thanks to Jennifer @MommyBknowsBest. You should totally check out her blog. Great review blog for mom and kid products and places. I have also written up a Media Kit and working on collecting sponsorship for 2 Blog Conferences coming up in 2012. See I have been busy! :-)



So for now, I had to share with you some quick, cute things that I have found and LOVE online in the last couple weeks. Hopefully get started on some of these soon!

DIY Wrap and Scarf

This is NO Sew, so Anyone, ANYONE can do this!

Thanks to Behind the seam for this easy post!

Simple Ribbon Tree Shirt

This is another No sew project- craft glue works perfect! see her easy to follow directions

Find this tutorial at BJaneBrewing

Silhouette Tutorial

I love the look of silhouettes and would see this as a great idea for Christmas presents

Jones Design Company does a great picture tutorial on how to do this yourself.

Find it here

Great Craft room decor and organization

I Will be making this and out it in my craft room that is currently being Redone.

This has such a cool look to it and you can easily access your threads and see your colors!

LOVE!

Find the tute here

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