S'mores cheesecake

This is a recipe we used a school once, and it was SO good, I just had to share it. The recipe is intended to be used with a cheesecake pan, but I was taking it to a party, so I made mine in individual cupcake tins. You can find the original recipe and directions here.

What you'll need:

Crust:

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (made from 9 whole crackers finely ground in processor; 1 packet)
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, melted

Filling:

• 9 ounces milk chocolate (I like to use Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips)
• 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 large eggs

Topping:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 12 large marshmallows
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. To make your graham cracker crust, throw your graham crackers in the food processor. Melt your butter in the microwave, and mix with the crumbs and sugar.
Press your graham cracker mixture into the bottom of your lined cupcake tins. 

Place them in your preheated oven for about 8-12 minutes. When they're done baking, lower your oven temperature to 325 degrees.
Melt your chocolate chips in the microwave (microwaving in 30 second intervals and stirring until it's completely melted) and set aside.

Throw your softened cream cheese, sugar, and salt in the food processor.  

Blend together, and start slowly adding the whipping cream while the processor is still running. 

Add the chocolate, and blend again.

Make sure you scrape down the sides of the processor to get everything blended nicely. 

Add your eggs, one at a time, and blend completely after each addition. 

Spoon your batter into your cupcake tins. The recipe should make 24, depending on how full you fill them.

Bake until cheesecake is set in the center, and puffs up. Since these are a lot smaller than a cheesecake tin, they'll bake a lot faster. I baked mine for about 30-40 minutes. Watch them closely. Once they're set in the center, they puff up and crack within minutes, and you don't want to over-bake them.

In a metal bowl, mix sugar, egg whites, water, cream of tarter, and salt. Set this over a pot of boiling water, but make sure the bottom doesn't touch the water.

Use your hand mixer to wisk the egg mixture for about 3 minutes, or until hot. Set aside. Microwave your marshmallows for about 30 seconds, just to get them softened. Add your marshmallows to the hot egg mixture, and put back on the pot of boiling water. 

Using your mixer, beat until you get stiff peaks (3-4 minutes). Add your vanilla and blend.  
Spoon marshmallow topping onto your cooled cheesecakes.

Using a torch, brown the tops. I do NOT suggest using a broiler for this part if you're making them in your cupcake tins, because the papers WILL catch on fire. When you use a torch, you can lightly brown one at a time, and blow out the flame as soon as it catches. 

Let these chill completely, and serve! I used Hershey's bars as a garnish. 

Ruffle Butt Tutorial

This tutorial is good for adding ruffles to anything really, but in this case, I was adding ruffles to a diaper I was sewing. It would look really cute on the butt of a onsie, too!

Take your ribbon and cut it to be almost twice as wide as the area you're covering.

I used 5 strips of ribbon, all the same length.

Heat the ends of the ribbon to seal them using a lighter.

Using a loose stitch, sew right down the middle of the ribbon. When you cut your thread, leave about an inch at the end. 

Pull the bottom piece of thread while pulling the ribbon in the opposite direction. This will make the ribbon scrunch up. Do this for all 5 pieces of ribbon, trying to make them all about the same length. 

Pin your ribbon to the butt of the onsie. 

You'll want to switch your machine to a tighter stitch for sewing on the ribbon.

Sew on each piece of ruffled ribbon, right on tip of the original stitch. You'll need to lift up the foot of the machine to straighten the ruffle every few centimeters. 

Trim your spare strings, and you're done!

Pumpkin Spice Latte

What you'll need:

Caramel espresso

Steamed milk (or just hot milk)

Caramel ice cream topping (1-2 tbsp)

Pumpkin pie spice (Just a pinch!)

Calorie free sweetener

Whipped cream

Prepare your espresso or coffee in your espresso maker. Add your caramel, sweetener, and spices to the espresso, and stir to dissolve. Add the espresso mix to your steamed milk and top with whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel.

My most recent diapers

Wow, looking through pictures I've taken of these diapers I'm making, I can see some major progress! Looking back at my first 2 diapers, it's embarrassing! But the good thing is, I'm getting better at it! I think I'm doing pretty well, I only started 2 weeks ago. Here are some pictures!

This is a pink Minky diaper cover. It was my first experience with FOE (fold over elastic). Remember the first diaper cover I made? I tried substituting regular elastic. WAY different. Since I'd never seen FOE, I had no idea what it actually was. But it was a good lesson to learn! So anyway, this was the first diaper I made with FOE. My stitching was a little bit off, and I had lots of problems with the FOE slipping. 

This is a matching diaper I made a few days later (I needed my daughter and my friends daughter to have matching fluff!). You can see that the stitching is a LOT better, and I got my issues figured out with the FOE slipping. It turned out waaay better this time, so the second one is the one I'll be giving to my friend! lol

I used pink Minky on the outside, PUL on the inside, and FOE to bind it. LaDiDa pattern.

This is a pocket diaper I made for my niece. It's made with PUL on the outside, and floral pattern flannel on the inside. If you look closely, you can see my elastic is uneven in the legs, woops! It should still fit pretty nicely, but it's not the most attractive thing. I used the Sprout Snap pattern for this one. I was pretty happy with the pattern, until I tried the LaDiDa pattern!

This is the most recent diaper I've made (just finished it tonight!). It's a pocket diaper made with the LaDiDa pattern. PUL on the outside, flannel on the inside, and I used a satin ribbon to do the ruffle butt. I'm loving this diaper pattern!! I love how the elastic is sewn between the legs to make it narrower, and still able to fit an insert without a problem. With the skull diaper I posted a while ago, I tried making it narrower between the legs, but because of the way I sewed the elastic, it's too narrow to fit an insert! Lucky for me, I still have some newborn inserts sitting around here, but it's just not ideal. I'm learning new stuff every day! I think this diaper would have looked a little better without the ruffles, but I just wanted to do something a little fun! Oh, and I got kind of spacey while working on this diaper, and accidentally forgot to put on the snaps before sewing it together. I decided just to put them all the way though, the inserts still fit alright (as long as I use a newborn.. lol, good thing Emma is a light wetter!) If you look closely, you can see my stitches have improved a TON! I'm loving the practice I'm getting, and I can't wait to start making my newborn stash for the new baby! These next diapers need to look really nice, because I'll most likely be selling them when I'm done. I'm thinking of doing a few size smalls for covers, and a few mediums for pockets, and making them adjustable rise. I can't wait to get started! I got Spiderman flannel, just for Ben. I know he'll be proud that his son has Spiderman on his butt.

Creative Dry Erase Board

I needed somewhere to write down all my craft projects. I've seen some pretty cute dry erase boards, so I decided to get to work on one of my own.

What you'll need:

An old picture frame with the glass still intact

Fabric or scrapbooking paper

Duct tape or hot glue (or some other kind of bonding agent)

Spray paint

Ribbon (optional)

I started off with THIS.

Yeah, not so pretty to look at. I took it all apart and got it cleaned up. It had been sitting in my parent's linen closet for who knows how long, and it was really dusty. But it's perfect for what I need! I cleaned the glass up nicely, and wiped down the frame. Then I grabbed my primer and spray paint, and headed outside.

I gave it a quick coat of primer, which took about 3 minutes to dry in the sun. 

Next came a coat of white spray paint. Oooh, yeah, starting to look better already. While that dries, head inside to work on the next part. 

Take the picture and lay it face down on your fabric. If you don't still have the picture from the frame, cut out a piece of cardboard, making it slightly smaller than the inside of the frame. This will leave enough room to wrap the fabric around and still have it fit into the frame.

Cut the fabric to wrap around the board. You only need it to hang over about 2 inches or so on each side.

To secure it, I used duct tape. Probably not the best thing to use, but no one will see it, and it'll hold.

Just for the fun of it, I wrapped some ribbon around it, too. 

Since this will be hanging in my craft area, I used wooden letters to spell out "crafts" across the top.

Once the stray paint was dry, I brought the frame back inside and put it back together. I used ribbon to hang it, and viola!