Mini Monster Cookie Treats

It has been quite a couple of weeks. We have both been going crazy with so many end of the school year activities. We are ready to sit back and enjoy all that the summer has to offer! But, this is the last week of school and its definitely a mile stone for all of our girls! Kellie's oldest daughter will be entering junior high, what!?! And her little one and my twins will all be going into first grade! We just do not know where the time goes...we have to admit we are both a little teary eyed!
With the end of the year comes lots of thank yous for all of the special people who helped our littles grow and learn this year! Today for their last day of school, I wanted to do something fun for the girls class and teacher. So we made these little mini monster cookies! Yes, they are just a mini version of our big ones. But the minis are just so cute! We know that all of the kids will get such a kick our of these little monsters...full of chocolate chips and silly sprinkle teeth! These are so simple to make, just mini chocolate chip cookies fill them with buttercream and roll them in sprinkles! Make some silly eyes and you have a mini monster! What a fun little treat, right!?! How cute would these look on a sweet table at a 'monster bash'!?! They pair perfectly with our 'monster' paper party goods!

Pair it with our Monster mash tags and it makes they cutest little gift!! 

Cacao Sweets and Treats

We are so excited to share this next event with you. A new organic and all natural {just the way we like it} bakery opened up in our downtown area, Cacao Sweets and Treats! We are so beyond excited. This is the perfect occupation for the owner Candice, because she is simply the sweetest girl you could ever meet! We had the opportunity to attend her 'grand opening' party last week. Lets just say we tasted some of the best baked goods we have ever had! Candice prepares everything in small batches, from scratch with all natural and organic ingredients. The inside of the bakery is so amazing, every detail was designed and implemented by Candice and her husband Adam. Kellie and I actually met Candice a few years ago at a local farmer's market. We even interviewed her for our blog! So, it has been so amazing watching her long-time vision be brought to life! We hope that you will visit Cacao if you are in the area and if you are not don't worry Candice ships her delicious treats and sauces! Take our word for it you will be in confectionery heaven! {Take a peek at the window display if you pop in Katie and I decorated them for her...wish we had some better pictures but there was such a glare on the windows...I think we will have to go back a night and take some pictures.}

Winner of the Claudine Hellmuth Reto Oven Cupcake Box Giveaway

Dana Zaha is the winner of the adorable retro oven cupcake boxes!! Congratulations Dana! We will be contacting you with your prize details soon! Be sure to check out the rest of Claudine's awesome creations in her shop!! 

Jenny's Baby Sprinkle

We have a lot of fun events to share with you this week! First up a 'donut baby sprinkle' for our good friend Jenny! You may remember Jenny's shower for her first baby girl Emmalyn, it was actually the first party we ever did as Icing Designs! This shower thrown by Kellie, her sister and there friend Becky, was sweet and simple and for Jenny's second baby boy due this summer! Complete with lots of donuts, it was just perfect for a Sunday afternoon!
The color scheme was chocolate brown, white and blue. We used our donut paper goods to set the tone! As guests walked in there were 3 large white paper fans with 'b' 'o' 'y' glittered letter garland circles in the center. On the table below Kellie created a blue and white mini bunting to wrap around a whimsical wishing tree. Each guest used one of the donut tags to write a one word 'wish' for the baby! Jenny was able to take all of the tags and put them in her baby book. The tree looked so sweet with all of the glittery wishes hanging on it! We also played  a nursery rhyme game, which was so cute, but I didn't do so well with the answers...ha!
Another room was decorated with paper fans in different shades of blue and handmade paper rosettes.
A large three tiered galvanized metal pedestal held all of the delicious donuts, but not for long! We don't really like donuts but we forced ourselves to eat one, yea right!! They were amazing and lets just say we ate a few more than one! As everyone chatted and filled up their bellies Jenny and Emmalyn opened presents. We think Emmalyn had as much fun opening the presents as Jenny did, she is going to be such a great big sis!! Congratulations Jenny, Stewart & Emmalyn, we can't wait to meet that new little man!!

paper goods, styling, photos: Icing Designs 

paper fans: Sweet Lulu

Claudine Hellmuth Retro-Whimsical Art & Illustration & A Giveaway

As most of you are, we are pretty much obsessed with Pinterest! It has given us a whole new way to discover artists and projects we may have never otherwise seen. Well last week, we spotted the most adorable retro-oven cupcake boxes that we instantly fell in love with! We checked out Claudine's Etsy shop and we just overwhelmed not only with how talented she is but with how creative and whimsical the items in her shop are! We adore all of the charming little cupcake boxes and gift card holders! They are just so much fun and we are pretty sure anyone would be thrilled to receive any of these items!

Claudine is so sweet and has offered to giveaway a set of the amazing retro-oven cupcake boxes! They would be so perfect for a baking party take home favor, or how about a pregnancy announcement, "a bun in the oven"!?! The uses for these little boxes are endless! You can even see a little video on how to put them together here!

So, to win the 19 page high resolution PDF file with templates to create your Retro Ovens in 5 colors (Red, Pink, Aqua, Yellow, Green),1 cupcake tray, 8 cupcake flags with editable text, and 4 oven mitt shaped gift tags...leave us a comment on what your favorite item in Claudine's shop {and don't forget to leave us your email address so we can inform you if you win}! A winner will be chosen at random on Monday!

Also follow Claudine here: 

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Sign up for her newsletter where you will get fun goodies including, 

free downloads tutorials and more!  

Create and Celebrate: DIY Watercolor Paper Towel Ruffle Garland

Hi, this is Katie again and I am so excited to share this project with you! These gorgeous ruffle garlands are easier than they look and are made out of nothing more than paper towels dyed with food coloring. It is quite simple, but a bit time consuming. When editing the photos below for the step by step, I started laughing as I realized the photos reminded me of a paper towel commercial. Thankfully the end result is much prettier.  Enjoy!    

Materials:

Viva Paper Towels- one roll makes approximately 10ft. of garland. {I would recommend using this brand for the fabric-like quality. I would also recommend getting the full-sized sheets rather than the "choose-a-size" rolls}

Food coloring in any color. I used gel food coloring, but you can experiment with different dyes. Easter egg dye would make beautiful colors

Oven or dryer with rack attachment.  Drying in the sun on a warm day may also work

Sewing machine (optional, but much faster) or needle and thread

Mix food coloring with water and dip each end of the towel roll into the colored water

Saturate the rest of the roll with colored water.  You can also just submerge the whole roll. 

If you would like a bit more color variation on the ends, dip them again in darker colored water

Squeeze out as much of the excess water as you can

Now comes the time consuming part.  Set your oven to 200º  Place the towel roll on a baking sheet and unroll one layer at a time, stacking the layers as they dry.  The second time I made these, I remembered I have a rack that goes in my dryer to dry items that cannot tumble.  It worked great for this project and I actually found it to be a bit faster.  I set the dryer on high and unrolled the towels every 5 minutes or so.  It will take several hours to dry the entire roll.   

Your stack of towels will look something like this after it is all dried

Lastly, choose a coordinating thread color and gather and sew down the middle of the towels. Don't worry if the sheets tear apart from the roll in certain places, you won't be able to tell once they are all sewn together. You can sew sections together to make the garlands any length you would like.

What a lovely backdrop for a sweet table!

DIY Glittery Pink Vases

Oh my, it has been quite a week, well month really! May usually just fills up so fast and flies by and this May is no exception! With end of the year recitals, school activities, birthdays and family visiting and of course working with our customers, we never have a dull moment! But, we wouldn't have it any other way. As you know we have a little party coming up this weekend so we just thought it would be fun to show you some of the DIYs we are working on for it. We hope you liked the little tea cup favors! Today we are sharing our glittery pink vases that are going to be centerpieces on the little tables. Aside from the tea cups, these might be one of the simplest DIYs you can do! They really dress up the vases and definitely add a 'little sparkle to your party'!

Materials: 
Glass vase
Paint brush
Glue
Confetti glitter

Simply wash and dry your vases.
Use a paint brush to paint glue onto your vase. Be uneven with your strokes at the top so that the glitter line will not be perfectly even. {If you want the glitter to be perfectly even us a piece of tape to mark off the spot where you want the glitter to stop}
Sprinkle your glitter on, making sure all of your glue is covered.
Go back with some glue on your brush and just lightly tap it around the top of where you ended your glue/glitter. Sprinkle more glitter on. This will give the glitter a gradual diminishing look.
Stand your vases up right and let the glue dry as it will dry clear and you are done!