Personalized Picture Bean Bags

If you haven't checked out Infarranty Creative, you have GOT TO!  She is great!  When she posted about the "Issac Bags" that she made her son I knew this was something I was going to have to do for my daughter.  So for her birthday I made 2 bean bags for each child as a party favor!

The only thing that I would add to her tutorial is that when I tried to feed the fabric through my printer it wouldn't recongize it and then it started curling at the end so I attached it to a plain sheet of paper with a very small piece of scotch tape, leaving a very small piece of tape on the fabric so it wouldn't interfere with printing.  Also, the fabric was a bit dusty after drying and when some of the "dust" came off it looks like some of my picture lost a bit of it's color but I liked the "worn" look that it ended up with.

Ice Cream Cupcakes

For my daughter's 3rd birthday I decided to make ice cream cupcakes.  Do you remember these from when you were little?  The thought of them brings me back to the days when all you had to worry about was what you were going to have for lunch!  Anyways, since she is getting to an age of independance, where she wants to do everything herself I thought these would be perfect for her party!

Things you will need:

Cake Mix

Ice Cream Cups (with a flat bottom)

Applesauce

After much research I decided to replace the 1/3 cup vegetable oil that was needed for the cake mix with just about 1/3 cup of apple sauce.  I used Mott's All Natural (no sugar added).  I mixed the cake mix according to the directions on the box, with the applesauce substitue.

I remember my mom making the ice cream cupcakes standing up in the over but when I went to Betty Crocker and SHE suggested that you invert the ice cream cone upside down. So I did a test and here is my scientific experiment for you to review!

Betty's Way

Next, I prepared 3 ice cream cone cupcakes Betty's way.  This called for placing cupcake liner in a muffin  baking pan.  I took an ice cream scoop and filled the liner about 2/3 of the way full.  Place the ice cream cone gently on top.  Don't push the cake batter up into the cone (like I did on 2 of them) because it will make a not-so-pretty cake mark on the rim of your cone.  Just gently place the cone on top.

Sara's Way

Place an ice cream cone in the muffin tin.  Using the ice cream scoop, fill the cone about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. 
 

 I baked these for about 18 minutes (iniitally set the timer for 15 minutes) and keep adding time until I could stick with a toothpick and it came out clean.


The RESULTS

Appearance
When grading these on appearance I will have to say my way produced a cleaner finished product.  In my cones I filled them about 2/3 of the way full, next time I will add a little more batter to each cone so that it will rise to the top of the cone.  Betty's way left the top of the ice cream cone with a harden brown crust (similar to what you would see on the bottom of a cup cake.  From some of the reviews on her site people commented that the cones were top heavy due to the way these were cooked but I didn't find that at all.  I found them to be about the same as my way.  However when I removed the cupcake liner from Betty's way some of the cake actually came off too, making it a difficult surface to apply the icing.

Betty's Way

 Sara's Way

Taste & Texture

With an unanimous vote, my way won again.  These cupcakes were far more moist and delicate, as opposed to Betty's way where the cupcakes were tougher at the top due to the harden crust-like finish.

The Verdict

It looks like I might have a one up on good ol' Betty Crocker!  But you know, my testers and I may just have been a little biased so you try your own experiement and let me know which way you prefer!



Facebook: Like Box

Have you been to blogs or websites that have that cute little box from Facebook where you can "Like" them and see how many others like them too?  Well now you can have your own!

Simply follow these quick instructions:

1. Go to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box
2. Facebook Page URL (web address)....If you don't know it open FB and go to your page, then copy the address in the address bar or if you haven't already set up your FB username {see my quick tutorial here}.
3. Width-Choose the width of your box (in pixels).  If you are adding it to the side bar in a blog you want about 200-250 pixels.
4. Connections-Enter the # of people who like you that you would like to appear in your box.  The default is 10; which means that 10 profile pics of people who like your page will randomly appear in your box.  You can decrease this number to reduce the length of your box or increase the number to increase the length of your box.
5. Show Stream- This feature allows you to show your most recent status update or profile stream or "What's on your mind" piece from your Facebook Page.
6. Header- Allows you to have the option of adding the header "Find us on Facebook" to the top of your Like Box.
7. Get Code- Click this box to get the code that you will copy and paste into your webpage or blog.  If you are entering this on your blog you will need to add and "HTML/JavaScript" gadget and paste the code in there with NO TITLE.

My settings for my Like Box:

Width-200
Connections-6
No Stream
No Header