20th Birthday Gift Basket!

This is a cute little gift basket I made for a friend who's birthday is tonight. I love to make gifts, it's so much fun plus it makes the gift you're giving that much more personal. Oh and by the way, in Norway when you turn 20 you're finally legal!  

What it contains: 

• Bottle of Exotic Fruit drink mix. (Mango, Grape Fruit, Lime)
• Margarita glass
• Non Stop (aka Norwegian M&Ms)
• Mini Absolute Grape Fruit Vodka

I Filled a little baggy up with "Non Stop", then tied the top together attaching the Vodka along with it and placed both things inside the margarita glass. I  wanted to give her just regular vodka but there wasn't any mini ones, so since the drink mix had grapefruit I thought the Grapefruit Vodka was my next best option.

Find some cute colorful ribbon to tie off the gift with!

Also remember to make a little car to go along with it.

Love Letter

  So today I decided I had some extra time on my hand and I needed to fill it with something, so instead of watching tv or something I made a love letter for my Boyfriend, (who is thousands of miles away from me, all the way in US and I'm here in Norway). But anyway who doesn't love getting a little something in the mail every now and then, just to let that special someone know you love them.
  To begin, this is what I used ;

Scissors, glue, pen and pencil, red and black ink pad, stencil, heart cut out, matches and a candle, White and black cardboard paper.

  First I cut out three squares of white paper, and a bigger square of black paper. On the white piece of paper I laid the decorative stencil on top and tapped it down so it wouldn't move while I was filling it in. Then I used the black ink pad to color in the stencil. I would think a smaller ink pad like had would work best, it would be easier to work with and to fill in the small areas.

I bought this stencil at Michael's. It's really made to be used on the wall but I got creative and found another great use for it.

  After stamping the stencil I let it sit a little to dry. (P.S. the ink I used got all over my fingers and kind of smudged a little on the paper, so be careful). Then I took one of the white pieces of paper and smeared/stomped it with the red ink. After I was happy with the color, I took a cut out of a heart and traced it onto the redness, and then cut out the the red heart. The color wasn't even but it only made it look better.

  Now that the black ink had settled onto the white paper I decided to burn the edges to give it a different look. This was however the first time i've ever tried this technique, but it was easy to do and I had no problems with it, just be sure you can open a window in whatever room you are in, it will stink.

 Burning the edges was fun! And it came out like I hoped it would.

  After burning the edges it was time to glue the pieces I had together. First the white on top of the black, and then the heart on top of the with. I'm usually really picky about everything being really even, but with the edges burned I couldn't go too wrong so I didn't stress to much about perfection.

  I dont have any pictures really on the back, but thats where the third piece of paper comes in handy because on that paper is where I wrote my love note. I kept it simple and didn't add any design except for three dots in the opposite corners to kind of match the row of three dots on the front.

  And as you glue your note onto the back of the card you are finished. Place it into a envelope and send it on its way, OH and don't forget to add your scent to the card, I know how much my man likes to receive a card that smells just like me, especially since we aren't able to have each other near.

Moist Chocolate Cupcakes with Almond Buttercream

This is one of my favorite cupcake recipes so far. It's simple and easy, and turns out to be so moist and delicious. I used the recipe from yourcupofcake.com, but replace some ingredients, like using butter instead of oil, and plain yogurt instead of sour cream.
For the icing I used a recipe from that website as well but tweaked it to have almond flavor. Ill probably be using this icing from now on because I was so happy with the out come, but maybe next time try adding some whipping cream.

My first batch of cupcakes. I added a little to much batter so they over filled a little, but didn't really matter, just bigger cupcakes! And over to the right you can see a half eaten cupcake, I couldn't help my self, I had to have a taste.

This was my first try at piping, I think I did pretty good.

I went with blue icing for two reasons, one because it matched my cupcake wrappers and second because the flavor almond can relate to the color blue, right..?

Chocolate Cupcakes:

1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix

3 eggs

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing:

1/2 cup butter, softened

8 oz cream cheese, softened

2-3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon Almond extract

Directions for Cupcakes

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

-Melt butter, and let it cool. Once it's cool add butter, vanilla and eggs into a large mixing bowl.

-Sift in Cake mix, then add buttermilk and stir.

-Then stir in the plain yogurt, be carful not to stir more than necessary.

-Fill liners 3/4 full and bake for 18-22 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Directions for Buttercream:

 Beat butter, cream cheese until its creamy. Scrape the bowl as needed. Add powdered sugar and almond extract and beat. If your buttercream is too thin, continue to add more powdered sugar.