Fall Fiesta Shower

Happy Friday!!

 

 

Here's the final wrap-up of the Fiesta Shower, enjoy all the pics!

 

Does this banner look familiar?

 Party invitations were created at Wedding Paper Divas.

 

 

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

 

 



Tissue Paper Fiesta Flowers

 

 

Homemade Sangria

 

 

The Happy Couple!!

Congrats to Laura & James on their upcoming wedding!

 



 

Enjoy the weekend! 

~Elizabeth

 

 

 

 

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla/Cinnamon Buttercream

Morning!

Here's part II of the Fiesta Shower I shared with you on Monday.

 

I was responsible for dessert for my friend's Fall Fiesta Shower.  I wanted to make something that stuck with the fiesta theme, so I created Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with a Vanilla & Cinnamon Buttercream.

 

 

 

 

I cheated and used a box of Devil's Food cake mix.  Make the mix according to the box directions.  To add some kick I added cayenne pepper (a little less than 1/2 tsp) and 2 tsps. of cinnamon.  Mix these spices into the cake mix.

 

Spoon in your cake mix into the muffin tin.  I wanted bite size desserts so I used a mini muffin tin, this recipe made over 60 cupcakes.  Bake the cupcakes per the instructions on the back of the box.

 



Once cooked, allow your cupcakes to completely cool.  I cooled mine over night.  To keep them from drying out, I wrapped the pan in saran wrap.



 

For the buttercream, you'll need:

1/2 cup (or 1 stick) or butter

3-4 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 c. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix the butter until it's smoothe, about 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla, cinnamon, powdered sugar and milk. You want your frosting to be the consistency of creamy peanut butter. To get this consistency you may or may not need to add all the milk. Slowly add the milk until you get the right consistency.

Note: if the frosting gets too liquidy, add more powdered sugar.

 

 Pipe the frosting onto your cupcakes. I used a large zip-loc bag and cut off the tip to do this. If you're baking alone, stuff the zip-loc bag in a large cup and wrap the "zip-loc" part around the top of the cup, scope in the frosting.

 



 

And there you go - delicious Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes with Vanilla / Cinnamon Buttercream!

 

For dessert we had my cupcakes, plus cinnamon churros.  To dress up the desserts, I added party flags.  I created a design in PicMonkey, printed them on Avery labels, and stuck them on tooth picks.   I love the finished product!

 

What is your favorite cupcake & frosting flavor?

 

~Elizabeth

 

 

Tailgate Tuesday: House Divided

Morning!  How did everyone's team do last weekend?

UGA beat Vanderbilt, 48 to 3

Go Dawgs!

This weekend we're playing the University of Tennessee.  It will definitely be a fun time in Athens, anyone have extra tickets they want to give me?!?

If you are not going to the game, where do you watch your team play?

Here's a list from Yelp of what team these Atlanta bars/restaurants root for:

UGA bar = The Ivy

Auburn bar = Bucket Shop in Buckhead

Florida State bar = Tin Lizzy's Buckhead

Tennessee bar = Tin Lizzy's Midtown

Kentucky bar = Stout at East Andrews

UNC bar = Whitehall Tavern

Georgia Tech bar = Cypress Street Pint

Clemson bar = Deadwood Saloon Midtown

If you're a "House Divided" like me, which team takes precedence over the other if they are playing at the same time??

The BF is usually pretty good about switching back & forth.  But it all depends on who Clemson is playing and if it'll be a good game or not.



Go Dawgs!

~Elizabeth

DIY Tissue Paper Fiesta Flowers

Good morning! How was everyone's weekend?

Mine was great! You know its fall in Georgia when one day its warm enough to go to the pool and the next day you're wearing boots & a scarf!  (true story)

The other Friday I mentioned that I was working on crafts for my friends wedding shower.  Well, the party was this past Saturday and it was a huge success!  Check back later this week for a full post on the Fall Fiesta Shower. 

Today I am going to share with you DIY Tissue Paper Fiesta Flowers!  This is an inexpensive project with a lot of impact.  In total it cost me about $12 for 60 flowers.

Step 1:

Lay out 4 sheets of tissue paper on top of each other.  Fold in half and then cut down the center.  Now you have a total of 8 sheets.

Step 2:

Stack the 8 sheets on top of each other.   You can now choose to cut out a design on the edges of your flower - for me it was easier to do now since the paper gets really thick.  If you do cut a design, do it on the longest side.

Now fold your tissue paper like a fan in about 1 inch sections.

Step 3:

Once the paper is folded up, tie a pipe cleaner around the center.  I plan to hang my flowers from twine, so I went ahead and tied a loop at the end so that I could easily string the twine through.

Now start pulling out the paper.  Do one layer on the front side, then one layer on the back side and repeat until all the paper is fluffed.

Step 4:

Once you pulled out all the sheets of tissue paper, you'll end up with the side looking kind of flat.  Just fluff the tissue paper until it forms a round shape.

This process gives you a larger flower, the one on the right.  Next I'll show you how to create a smaller flower (on the left).

To make the smaller flower you will need one sheet of tissue paper.  You are going to cut this into 6 smaller rectangles.

Fold in half, then fold in 1/3. Unfold the sheet and cut into 6 pieces.

Stack the 6 pieces on top of each other and follow Steps 2 & 3 from above.

And there you go, that's how to make tissue paper flowers! 

For the smaller flowers, I used a wood skewer as the flower stem.  Secure the skewer by wrapping the pipe cleaner tightly around the end and secure with packing tape.

I am so happy with how the project turned out! 

Check back later in the week for a full Fall Fiesta Shower post!

~Elizabeth



High Five for Friday | Fall Subway Art

Happy Friday!!

Atlanta is starting to feel like fall, the temps have been in the 70's this week, brr! 

 

So, today we're sharing with you our Fall Subway Art.  You can print it and put in a pretty frame to display in your home :)

Download Here

Fall makes me think of pumpkin everything, right now I'm craving Sweet Tooth Sweet Life's pumpkin spice rice krispie treats, mmmm!!

This ecard cracks me up!

I hope y'all have a nice weekend! 
I'll be enjoying some football, making cupcakes, and hosting a fall fiesta shower for my old roomies upcoming wedding :)

High Five for Friday!
~Elizabeth




DIY Race Bib Display

Morning!  It's Thursday, the weekend is near!

Last night I tested out my apartment's workout center for the first time.  It's pretty nice with 3 treadmills, 3 elipticals, 4 bikes, a few weight machines and free weights.  I ran on the treadmill for 3.1 miles - but boy was it HOT!!  The treadmills face a wall of windows with no blinds or curtains, the sun was shining straight in.  I was dripping in sweat after!  After my workout, the BF and I joined friends for some mexican at Tacos & Tequila, yummy!  It was great to catch up with friends during the work week and I'm always in the mood for tacos ;)

Lately I've been seeing Race Bib Display Racks on Pinterest and Etsy.  I think they are so cute and a great way to display your hard earned medals and race bibs.  Today I'm going to share with you the DIY version.  My rack cost $0 since I had everything, but I bet you could easily make this for under $20.

And this is the perfect way to display my race bib & medal from the Mud Crusade race :)
 

 

To start, you will need a thin piece of wood cut to size.  You can find this at your local hardware store and ask them to cut it down for you.  Or you can do what I did, go over to your parents house and search in your Dad's workshop for the perfect sized piece of wood :)

 

 

Create a stencil using our method or with your fancy Silhouette!  I created my stencil in Word and turned the paper landscape.  This is a good size.

 

 

Paint your board your desired color, I used black arcylic paint.  And allow the board to dry before stenciling.  Center the stencil on the board - you want to make sure there is enough space on either side to allow for your medals to hang without covering up the words.

 

I touched up my words after stenciling just to make the lines looked cleaner.

 

Now you need to add hooks to your board so that you can hang your race bibs & medals.  I used nails and painted them black.  I did one nail on either side of the wording and then 2 nails below the wording for the bibs to hang on.  The distance of the 2 nails below will be determined from your race bibs.  Lay your smallest bib in the center and mark where the holes are.  Now you will need to go through your larger bibs and punch holes in them so that they can all hang. 

 

 

 

Next step, how to hang it on the wall.  I nailed in 2 nails to the back then stringed twine around them.   If you have picture wire, use that.  Be careful that your nails do NOT go through the front of the board.

 

 

Hang on the wall & enjoy!

 

One thing to note - the metals add a lot of weight to the display board.  And if you have un-even weight of medals, it may cause the board to tilt in one direction. 

 

If you have a suggestions on how to fix this, please let me know!

 

 

Have you re-created any Etsy or Pinterest crafts lately? 

 

~Elizabeth