Check Out the Holiday Craft Along

Happy, happy Friday friends! Three nifty, fellow blog-and-craft-lovin' girls have organized 30 days of sewing, baking and holiday craft ideas for the month of September. The girls are Kelly at According to Kelly, Cindy at Skip to my Lou and Rachel at A Southern Fairytale. They are trying hard to inspire the rest of us to get thinking about Christmas gift giving! I can vouch for the fact that it's never too early to start gathering ideas for those handmade gifts. Make your list...and check it twice!

And...I am pleased as punch to say that we gals at Seven Sisters were kindly asked to guest post for the Holiday Bake, Craft & Sew Along! (Who? Little old us? Oh, yeah we are blogging with the big girls!)

So, without further ado, here's where to go and a preview of what you will find (it's good stuff!)...

Jaime, our decorating super-star sister, is posting over at According to Kelly. Check out her holiday wreath fashioned out of tags. It has a lovely vintage look to it and is like a piece of art for you door. Jaime used paper and embellishments to create a beautiful, one-of-kind wreath.

Mar, our super-motivated-sister-with-a-sewing machine is posting an awesome sewing project over at Skip to my Lou. She shows you step by step how to make a beautiful fabric Kindle cover. It would be a stylish gift for anyone with an e-reader. This makes me want a Kindle just so I can carry it in this beautiful cover!

For some holiday baking inspiration, hop over to A Southern Fairytale to read my (Janel) post. I share a recipe for Christmas cut-out cookies with an anise glaze and a cute idea to package one cookie with a coffee drink. It would make a sweet gift for a teacher or co-worker.

This is our first time guest posting! Hugs to our faithful followers and if anyone is visiting Seven Sisters for the first time...welcome! Take a look around! We are seven friends who follow God and love to spend time together. We get together for "craft nights" at each others homes but really, it is an excuse to talk and eat! Occasionally a craft or two gets completed! Thanks for spending a moment with us..have a great weekend!

Lulu's Sizzlin' Saturday... Flower Power Cupcakes

Lately I've been on a cupcake kick and this week I have decided to add some flower power!

First I frosted vanilla cupcakes with white frosting. Then I cut a bunch of mini marshmallows in half along the diagonal and dipped the sticky side in colored decorating sugar. Then starting from the outside lined the marshmallow halves up in rings on the top of the cupcake. Finally I finished the cupcake off with three colored, chocolate - covered sun flower seads sticking up in the middle.

And the best way to display cupcakes... (well... anything!) rainbow order!!!!

These cupcakes are beautiful but very easy to make!!

For more cute cupcake ideas check out my Cutie Pie Cupcakes!!

Have a super, sizzlin' Saturday!!

    

Lulu's Sizzlin' Saturday... Cutie Pie Cupcakes

I love everything about cupcakes! I love making them, decorating them and eating them! It amazes me that you can pretty much turn a cupcake into anything you want! A dog, a penguin, corn on the cob or... mini pies!! I have books of different ways you can decorate cupcakes and I just love looking through them! I found this idea on an I Heart Cupcake Calendar! I made 24 vanilla cupcakes and got to work! To get the light brown frosting I tinted white frosting with cocoa powder. I lightly frosted the cupcakes, placed the M&M'S on and then piped the pie lines and edging on! This was my first time making these and I think they came out pretty cute!!

Best served by the pool on a beautiful, summer day!!!

Enjoy!☺

Linking To...

   

la la la lavender!

Summer is like Christmas sometimes with all the birthdays, grad parties and weddings that typically occur around this time, except instead of how on Christmas you get to give everything out on one day, it's spread out onto three months!  I'm not complaining, I find it a real confidence booster to find the *perfect* gift for someone.  It really IS so much better to give than to receive!

Ok, so a few weeks ago I talked about the fun grad gift I made.  This week, we're on to a summer birthday, namely my sister in law.  She's into lavender.  I found a great etsy shop called Simply Lavender that sells lavender syrup!!  I know, I never would have thought of lavender in a syrup, but apparently it's quite delicious in lemonade and over crepes. I purchased the lavender and lemon lavender flavors for the gift. 

Secondly, it dawned on me that I had planted some English Lavender in our garden this year!  I didn't have enough to make a bouquet as I had hoped for her, so I went a-looking around the old world wide web for some baking ideas and found this recipe for Lavender Scented Sugar Cookies.  It calls for one tablespoon of dried lavender leaves, so I cut off the few lavender stems I had and turned them upside down to dry!  I also took the tip from the review to make the simple sugar cookie icing recipe flavored with lemon.  To make these gluten free, I substituted the 2 cups flour for 2 cups of Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour plus a half teaspoon of xanthan gum. They turned out beautiful! (And tasted good too!)

What summer gift ideas do you have?

How to make a Hungry Hungry Caterpillar Cake...

A few weeks ago on a rainy day the girls were going crazy in the house. I had to think of something to do with them FAST...if you know what I mean. Recently Little L has been captivated by the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar book and so I decided to make a hungry hungry caterpillar cake with little L. I took out a Christmas gift that I had been given a few months before. Its a great kit with all sorts of cupcake shapes that you can form/fit together to make any shape you want, it is called "Puzzle Cakes" and you can find them at Michael's craft store. I know little L and I made wonderful memories working on this cake together.

1. First you arrange your baking cups in the shape that you want them.

2. Then make your cake batter and fill the baking cups.

3. Be sure to fill them to the specified line on the baking cup. This ensures that the batter will "spill" over just enough so that the cake becomes one piece.

4. TaDa!

Next make your favorite frosting, and frost your delicious masterpiece! I colored ours like the hungry hungry caterpillar. With a red face and a few different shades of green for the body.

Then I used more frosting to detail the face and outlined the cake in yellow frosting. He's really beginning to look like the real thing!

Lastly I used some straws that I cut for the legs and antenna's. This was so much fun, but even better was eating him in the end!

P.S. The Seven Sisters went on a garage sale hunt this weekend and just look at my awesome find! I couldn't believe it! A wooden RED Radio Flyer wagon still in great shape. (And I only paid 10 bucks for it!) With a little TLC and a new coat of paint...I can't wait till I'm finished!

Linking to:

 

Strawberry Woes

Oh, Strawberry...you were so handsome in your red, seedy suit. I had such big plans for you and I this week. You were on sale! Two pounds for just $3.49... irresistible. You were to be the star of my blog post...but oh, how you disappoint! You should have warned me that you were far to juicy to fulfill my recipe needs! I have learned the hard way, Strawberry, from now on I will find company with your cousin, Blueberry.

It was a hard week, culinary speaking. I tried making strawberry scones...and failed. The flavor was good, the texture...not so good...bad actually. They were really dough-y and tasted undercooked even after extending the baking time. We ate them anyway.

I decided to give Strawberry a second chance...a pie.

I have made this fresh fruit pie a million times (okay, maybe not a million, but lots) but, always with blueberries. It goes like this...mash enough fruit to make one cup. Mix one cup sugar and 3 tablespoons corn starch and 1/2 cup orange juice and the mashed fruit in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir continuously until mixture boils and thickens. Let cool.

Gently fold in sliced or whole fruit (about 4 cups). Fill a graham cracker crust or baked shell and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Shall we just say that this would have been an excellent dessert to serve to extremely close friends, as in, you all grab a spoon and eat it right out of the pie plate because this sure didn't look like a slice of pie when I tried to serve it!!

It tasted quite yummy but I am afraid I'm not getting any points for curb appeal. I will stick to something fool proof like strawberry shortcake or maybe strawberry milk...you know, pour the milk, add the syrup, stir. ☺ It was not a good recipe week.

As for the best thing we've eaten this week...I don't think I've eaten it yet! Haha!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Happy, happy birthday Sister S!!!

Spring Time Carrot Cake

 So I'm having a little spring time fever over here and needed to make something "springy"! One of my favorite deserts of all time is carrot cake. I absolutely LOVE it, but I never had an awesome recipe for it until now! I was always forced to buy it at a bakery because I never thought I could make it just right. Well ..forget that sisters!! This recipe for carrot cake is the yummiest yet! (It's really really good..and the frosting...to die for!!)

So in honor of one of the seven sisters who doesn't get a chance to post all the time because she's an awesome full time working...full time mom...(aka M.J.) I am sharing this with you today. When M.J. found out that I loved carrot cake she was like.."Mar...I have an awesome recipe for carrot cake..and its to die for!!" So I had to try it and sure enough..it lived up to just that.

Carrot Cake
* 2 Cups flour

* 2 Cups sugar

* 1 tsp baking powder

*1 tsp baking soda

* 1 tsp cinnamon

* 1 tsp salt

* 3 cups finely shredded carrot

* 1 Cup cooking oil

* 4 eggs

* 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

* 1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and soda, cinnamon and salt. Add carrot, oil and eggs. Mix until moistened and beat at medium speed of electric mixer for two minutes. Pour into greased and floured 13x9x2 inch or 2 small spring form pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes. Cool thoroughly.

Frosting for Carrot Cake

* 1/3 cup margarine or butter softened

* 1 tsp vanilla
* 4 cups confectioners sugar
* approximately 4 tbs milk
Cream butter, add vanilla, 1 tbs milk and 1 cup sugar. Beat with electric mixer until smooth. Add 1 tbs milk and 1 cup sugar. Beat smooth again. Repeat one more time. Add remaining cup of sugar and beat in. Add milk 1 tsp at a time until spreading consistency desired.


This is how mine turned out:

Ingredients:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3: Bake
Tip: Once cooled if cake is made is 2 round spring form pans for the bottom layer of the cake cut off the rounded top of the cake to level it out. Spread a layer of frosting on top and place second cake on top of that. Then spread frosting around the entire cake. One fine layer of frosting to start, refrigerate for about 20 minutes (this will keep the crumbs at bay!!). Then top with remaining thicker layer of frosting.

 Step 4: Make Frosting

Step 5: Frost cake

 Step 6: Eat your delicious carrot cake!!

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