Creating and Cake-ing for Choir ♫

Firstly, here's a big oops for only just writing this blog post!  It is Monday afternoon, which means this post definitely didn't go live on either Saturday or Sunday this weekend.  My bad!  Everything went a little crazy and busy and I'm finally getting a chance to write it before I dash out to teach this afternoon.

Today I'm going to tell you about a couple of musical things I have put together recently for my choir.  I'm a piano and music teacher primarily, but I sing with a really great chamber choir - the Cantabile Chamber Singers here in Toronto and we started back at rehearsals a few weeks ago.

I did a quick bake on a Tuesday morning so that we would have some sweet snacks for our first rehearsal break.  Why?... Because chats and catch ups are better over cake of course!  Anddd, well, with the morning off work I could think of nothing more fun than doing a spot of baking :)

I made some mini cupcakes and decorated them with some leftover cola buttercream from the Back to School cupcakes I made earlier in September - click here to see them and to find the recipe!  I used the same amounts as I did for the 12 regular sized cupcakes, and then following the same recipe it also made the 24 mini cupcakes.

To decorate I used this amazing design of rice paper cupcake toppers my little sister bought for me last year for my birthday!  I'm a weirdo and hate using up things, so I save them and save them until I can bear to be apart from them once they're all used up!  Funny story.. I only used 1 package of these, using a second pack of small blue ♫s for the rest (with a little water icing once the buttercream had run out!)... so GOOD NEWS I still have one pack left!

Thanks Livi and Simply Topps for these.  They were the perfect size for these mini cupcakes sat on a buttercream swirl (Wilton piping tip #12).  And the designs were fabulous, especially for this musical occasion.  Check out their website, they have some great cupcake toppers that make those quick baking projects nice and easy :)

Batter made and prepped, scooped out and ready to go in the oven!...

Slightly less time than in this recipe as they're smaller, 10 - 12 minutes will probably do it but do keep an eye on them.

I chose these black and white polka dots to go along with the colour scheme of the music notes toppers.  And here they are, piped and decorated, ready to be eaten at rehearsal :-)

And the second part of this post starts now!  Just a little crafty make I put together this weekend for our annual choir meeting which this year involved the usual business meeting and pot luck but also some super fun lawn bowling, and board games evening!  A lot of fun, and great to spend time with the choir away from rehearsal.

I made a bundt cake for the occasion, but well you'll have to wait another week or so for that post!  But you do get a little sneak preview of what it looks like when I show you the music cake bunting I made for it!  It was a kind of party and get-together after all so why not celebrate :-)

To make this cute little music bunting you need some really basic supplies you might even already have at home!  

Sadly I was on a time crunch and didn't get a chance to take photos as I created this bunting, but here's a run down of the steps and hopefully you can picture it!

To create the pennants I used black cardstock and a sheet of music scrapbook paper (thank you Michaels of course!)... They were 3cm across the top and 4 cm long.  I find it nice and easy to cut these out by marking the 3cm marks along the card, and then the 1.5cm points alternately which means using a paper cutter (or scissors) you can just angle the cutter from a 3cm mark to the opposite 1.5cm mark and then back creating the triangles as you cut!

As I had made a bundt cake I wanted the poles holding up the bunting to stand up quite a bit from the cake.  I used white lollipop sticks I already had from this project for my piano students!

But how to connect the flags to the poles!?  I was thinking about baker's twine, but the colours I had weren't matching enough for me... and then I had some music tape to fold over and attach that way, but I didn't like that either.

So, needle and thread to the rescue I used some black and white embroidery thread and threaded both pieces through a wide needle.  I tied one end to one stick and then threaded through each of the two top corners of the pennants, choosing to thread from the back and across the front so you could see the two-coloured thread against the card flags.  Finishing the 7 flags I tied it off at the other end, loose enough to have a little dip but not so much so it would drag on the cake!  

It really added just a little something to the cake, and everybody knew what contribution to the potluck mine was.  After all, I'm the strange one wanting to add decorations to a bundt cake just because! Hehe ♫

This little bunting was easy to put together, and you can chang up the flag designs SO easily with different patterns of scrapbook paper - and there are endless possibilities.  And, so long as the cake wasn't too messy or sticky inside these are reusable too!  Added bonus :)

I'll for sure be making many more of these now I have tried it so watch this space!  Have a great week everyone!

♧ A Crafty St. Patrick's Day ♧

Happy March Break and pre-St. Patrick's Day everyone!!

I got a little crafty this week preparing for the new season of home decor and had a lot of fun making everything.

May I present, the second in my 'Pocket Sneaker' series - Lucky Pocket Sneakers (...I just made that name up, what do you all think!?)  Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, these shamrocks can be slipped somewhere special to wish somebody a little extra luck.  Maybe your little one has a test at school - send a little luck their way with a Lucky Pocket Sneaker in their lunchbox!! Or perhaps somebody is nervous to present a speech, or give a talk - how good would it feel if they found a little lucky charm in their pocket, or briefcase :-)

Similar to my Valentine's Day Heart Pocket Sneakers, they are felt, machine sewn and stuffed with polyester fill.  For the hearts I used a cookie cutter to make the shape, this time I used a foam shamrock I had bought for my other St. Patrick's Day project (...see below) and made it a little larger, just using the shamrock as a template and marking around it on the felt.  I used pinking shears to cut them out (just 6 this time as there was no game of hide and seek to play... not yet anyway!), sewed them together, stuffed and sewed shut.  And there you go, all done with lots of time for some St. Patrick's Day baking later this week.

My second crafty project for this season (and really, where would all of us crafty lovers be without holidays and seasons to make for?!) was some bunting to hang.  My 'Happy Birthday' banner I had made last year for Jonathan (see his 2012 birthday post here) had finally come down, only a month later so it was time to replace it!

I am super excited for how this turned out, and also how inexpensive it was to make!  A recent Walmart trip meant an excuse to pick up some green paint chips, pretending that our next wall would be coloured Emerald Green hehe... Last year I had seen this idea on Pinterest (where else of course!) and tried it for Spring bunting at Easter time (check it out here) so used the same scalloped punch to cut out all different shades.  A single hole punch cut out two holes at the top of each circle ready for the string.

Bunting displayed with original watercolours - painted by my
Granny who lives in Dublin, Ireland... how appropriate :-P

I decided against ribbon this time and thought I would try something different and got some Mason's twine, obviously because it was green and found some great foam shamrocks, both from the local Dollarama.  So, a total of $2.50 with countless metres of twine leftover - this was a very very cheap bunting project!!

For 10 feet of space I wanted to decorate, I used about 11 feet of twine, 28 circles of paint chip colours (so only around 15 paint chips, depending on the size of your punch of course) and 14 foam shamrocks.

Have a fantastic week getting crafty for St. Patrick's Day, especially if it's a week off work/school for you too.  I'm excited to get going on some crafty projects I've been saving up... oh and some tidying/sorting too... Less exciting.

Anyhow, enjoy!!  I'm looking forward to seeing all of your March projects too - leave me a comment and send me a link to your blog :-)