St Patricks Day: Edible Rainbows and Pots of Gold

I think this is the last St. Patty Day goodie we are making in preparation for tomorrow! Jill is going to paint a wooden person from the craft store into the Saint Patrick for the table, and we will do some trinity shamrock crafts tomorrow.

I bought these see-through cups and we made red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple jello in them - one layer at a time! It took all day of adding a new color of jello every few hours, but the kids loved it - Bill kept "checking" the jello in the fridge!

When they were completely firm, Jill sprayed some whipped cream on top to be a cloud (and because it is yum-o!). 

While we were waiting for the jello to firm up, we came up with this idea:

Little pots of gold to put on top of it all! I bought a bag of mini Reese's peanut butter cups. We put a blob of white canned frosting (because it's nice and firm) on top of each peanut butter cup, then we rolled the tops in a bowl of gold sprinkles, shaping it into a mound as we rolled it around. How cute are these!?

Then we stuck pop sticks into the bottom of the pots, and stuck the pop sticks right into the cups of jello! I love, love, love how they turned out! Let's peek one more time:

I hope everyone has a Happy Saint Patrick's Day tomorrow!

St Patricks Day: Leprechaun Hats

Lindsay at the Dollhouse Bake Shoppe blog made some leprechaun hat cake pops with fondant. Jill and I decided to make something similar with cookies and marshmallows.

We gently drilled holes into the mint-chocolate cookies with an ice pick, then we stuck pop sticks through the cookies and marshmallows to make the hat shapes.

Then we melted white chocolate, mixed in some liquid green food coloring (gel food coloring seems to thicken white chocolate too much), and coated the "hats".

We let them dry (Note to self: Self, use waxed paper to put them on next time!), then turned them over and coated the tops with the green chocolate. I filled a green take-out box (from Michael's craft store) with granulated sugar and stuck them in there to let the tops dry.

Then using a tube of black gel icing, we drew bands & buckles around the hats. 

Finally, we put plastic around each one and tied a curly green ribbon around it. I put them back in the box of sugar so the whole thing will look nice on the St. Patrick's Day table!

Okay, I am definitely not Martha Stewart (or Lindsay!), but they are a cute effort, the kids will love them, and maybe they'll inspire you to make some better ones!

Still more St. Patrick's goodies to come today!

St Patricks Day: Rainbow Favors

I had a pack of foam shamrocks and a couple packs of gold coins for St. Patrick's Day goodies, though I wasn't sure what I'd do with them yet. When I was checking out at the dollar store I saw these rainbow-colored Air Heads and an idea started to form - edible rainbow & gold coin favors!

Then while shopping at another store I found these vibrant Twizzlers and decided to try both the Air Heads and the Twizzlers in favor bags and see which ones I liked more. Here is the Air Heads bag:

I just wrote on the foam shamrock and glued it to the front of the bag. Looks cute! Then I tried the Twizzlers:

Ooh, these are better! So vibrant and each color is more distinct. So I made up a bunch of both for the kideos to give out to their friends on St. Patrick's Day!

More to come throughout today!

St Patricks Day: Beautiful Cross

While I was shopping at the dollar store for St Patrick's Day goodies, I found this cross:

Now this cross is not my style, but it was a porcelain cross for $1. So I thought to myself: "Hey self! You can buy that $1 cross, paint it green all over, and it would be beautiful for a St. Patrick's Day cross!"

So that is just what I did. The photos aren't great, but I am slapping up the before and after photos anyway. It did indeed come out beautiful:

Oh and the craft paint dried a dull green, so I sprayed it with clear gloss after the paint dried.

More to come!

St Patricks Day: Homemade Candy Buttons

While I was brainstorming ideas for St Patrick's Day goodies, I decided to try to make green candy buttons in the shape of little shamrocks. Apparently I am not good at fine details with "frosting". I also have arthritis and my hands were shaking like crazy today. So, the idea was a fail, but it was a tasty one and I went ahead and just made regular candy buttons in green, because it still goes with St Patrick's.

The recipe for homemade candy buttons is super easy. With an electric mixer, beat together 3 cups of powdered sugar, 2 egg whites, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, and food coloring.

Put the mix into an icing bag, or a ziplock bag with the corner cut a snip. Either way, be sure to use the trick in the photo: put the bag in a cup and fold it outward over the edges of the cup. This way you won't get the mix all over the bag.

When you buy candy buttons, they come on plain paper and so when you peel them off and eat them, you inevitably wind up eating some paper. Yuck. Don't really like the idea of feeding my kideos paper, so instead I cut strips of wax paper to pipe the buttons on.

Of course when you pipe the dots, sometimes it leaves a tip sticking up as you lift the bag of mix away. If you keep a little bowl of water next to you and dip your finger in it, you can push the tips right back down.

Shamrocks would have been neat, but look how cute! Yay!

Getting Ready for St Patricks Day

Went shopping today for St Patrick's Day goodies. I have lots of fun ideas that I'll be sharing with you over the next few days. Here is a photo preview . . . stay tuned!