Oh, Christmas (Cupcake) Tree

 

 

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Oh, Christmas (Cupcake) Tree

via Quick Dish Recipes by girlwhoateeverything on 12/20/12

A pretty Christmas tree snuggles on a snowy cupcake. A sweet holiday vision, indeed.

A Christmas tree that you can eat? Who knew I was an herbivore?!

These Christmas Tree Cupcakes are a super cute holiday treat that are easy enough for the kids to help make, and they're sure to bring on some ooo's and ahhh's from those who receive them.

 

They start with some baked cupcakes and some sugar cones, which are going to be the base of your tree.

 

I love Betty Crocker's frosting because it's super creamy, but when you're piping frosting you want a little stiffer consistency so I added some powdered sugar to thicken it up.

 

Frost your cupcakes generously with white frosting. This is going to be your fluffy white snow on the ground.

Press a sugar cone on top. I was surprised how much the cupcake actually traveled up the sugar cone almost giving the illusion that the cupcake was actually baked in the cone.

And yes, that's a toy plane in the background. Keeping it real, people…keeping it real.

 

Next, add some green food coloring to your frosting for your tree. I like to add just a little bit of brown or black food coloring to it to give it more of an earthy green tone.

 

Fill a pastry bag or resealable plastic bag fitted with a small star tip with your green frosting and start piping away.

The beauty of this is that you don't want your pattern or stars to be perfect. When's the last time you saw a perfectly groomed tree? Random is good here.

 

While the frosting is still wet, throw some sprinkles on for decoration.

 

My son pointed out that I didn't have a star and carefully topped my tree with a large yellow sprinkle.

 

I let my kids each decorate their own tree for an after school, after homework activity. My older son was able to pipe the frosting, but the younger ones just used a plastic knife and their fingers, I'm pretty sure.

They were soooo proud of their creations! Notice the green mouth. I think someone was taste testing along the way.

[recipe]

More Cakes to Celebrate the Season

• North Pole Cupcakes Recipe
• Mini Reindeer Cupcakes Recipe
• Cake Batter Cookie Stackers Recipe
• Gingerbread Poke Cake Recipe
• Yule Log Recipe

Christy joined the Tablespoon team to share her recipes and inspire family food fun. Watch her Tablespoon member profile for great new recipes!

 

 

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Mini Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups

 

 

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Mini Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups

via Quick Dish Recipes by girlwhoateeverything on 12/30/12

Lasagna all dressed up with somewhere to go…

I know we all love lasagna but it doesn't necessarily have the best presentation. We like that it has a comfortable gooeyness that can be slopped on a plate to devour.

New Year's Eve is a night that's all about the appetizers. But since New Year's Eve a night that a lot of us put on our fancy outfits and hit the town, lasagna doesn't really seem appropriate.

 

These Mini Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups are tiny little upscale versions of the classic comfort dish filled with this cheesy spinach ricotta mixture.

 

Start with cooked lasagna noodles. Since we're going for the mini version here, I cut noodles in half first, and then filled them up with the ricotta mixture. You want to leave a little on the edge without any filling so that it doesn't spill out.

 

I wanted to make these bite size, so I then cut each roll in half again.

 

Place them with the beautiful curly edge of the noodle out. Look how elegant and fancy they look.

 

Add a dab of pizza sauce on top even though we'll be dipping them later. We want to make sure every bite has all of the lasagna flavors.

 

I sprinkled just a tiny bit of mozzarella on top of the pizza sauce to give it a finished look.

 

Pop them in the oven until the cheese inside gets all nice and bubbly. Forget the forks; just skewer each mini roll with a toothpick so your guests can dip away.

 

This is how it's done.

The best part is that these can totally be made ahead of time and frozen until you need them. Rock your New Year's Eve party with Mini Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups!

 

[recipe]

More Pasta Pleasers

Pasta recipes don't have to come in big ol' dishes. Sometimes your favorite pasta tastes best in individually portioned size!

• Lasagna Cupcakes Recipe
• Mac and Cheese Cups Recipe
• Mini Penne Casseroles Recipe
• Healthified Three-Cheese Manicotti Recipe
• Individual Baked Rigatoni Cakes Recipe

Christy joined the Tablespoon team to share her recipes and inspire family food fun. Watch her Tablespoon member profile for great new recipes!

 

 

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Discarded spray can bouquets and orchids

 

 

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Discarded spray can bouquets and orchids

via Recyclart by Neodim on 12/26/12

Experimenting with different parts of spray cans.

++ Here

Related posts:

1. Spray cans armchair and pouf
2. Light spray cans
3. Spray can lamps "Kanterns"

 

 

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13 DIY Pallet Projects To Load Your House With Charm

 

 

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13 DIY Pallet Projects To Load Your House With Charm

via WebUrbanist by Marc on 12/28/12

[ By Marc in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

Pallets have become all the rage as eco-friendliness, and DIY crafting are becoming the spearhead of a new movement that utilizes pallets as the building blocks for creative weekend projects. Social media sites like Pinterest make sharing off-the-wall ideas as easy as a click, so the mind boggling variety of uses for used pallets are out there for everyone to see.

Pallet Coffee Tables

(Images via palletfurniturecollection, craftynester, etsy)

Pallet coffee tables have a great advantage in that they're designed to bear weight and stack, making it easy to form them into any shape you'd like. They also have natural gaps that make for an awesome storage space to hide the pile of coffee table stuff (remotes, magazines, etc.) that love to build up. The top left example easily rolls across the floor, and is topped with classy panes of glass to separate the storage space from the usable top of the table. Craftynester came up with an awesome design, and posted it along with step by step progress photos to show others how to copy them. They achieved the perfect coffee table height by using several pallets, and in the process they were able to create a cubby system for storage. Etsy seller GeckosHyde came up with this classy design that forgoes storage for a rustic look.

Pallet Porch Swings

(Images via homedit, pargasjunkyard, woodenpalletfurniture)

Swinging seats are a lot of fun, and the perfect way to hang out on a gorgeous Spring day. The top left chair is definitely unique – as a one-seater was created by cannibalizing the boards from a full pallet and carefully attaching them with rope. The second example maintains the original form of two pallets and creates a comfortable looking two seater using some stain, paint, and really soft cushions. The final example is more like an adventurer's hammock, utilizing the pallet structure to allow for the perfect outside nap.

DIY Home Theater

(Images via inspirationgreen)

The site Inspiration Green has some excellent pallet inspiration images, including these two that display an incredibly unique and comfortable way to set up a home theater. Imagine the cost of six leather armchairs, versus three tiers of stadium seating made out of pallet stacks.

Pallet Outdoor Furniture

(Images via brightnest, sassy-sparrow, shelterness)

The top image depicts one of the most natural pallet transformations out there, as an entire pallet was placed on top of four table legs to create the perfect rustic seating area. The rugged wood matches perfectly with the decor and keeps it looking super trendy. Sassy Sparrow has a fantastic step by step guide to creating the perfect patio furniture set out of pallets. You can see it here, and the final result is displayed above. Notice the versatility of the pallets, as they can be used in different ways to craft every type of furniture. Last but not least, Shelterness shows these two super easy to make pallet lounge chairs. It might be good to add some cushions to the design, but they certainly look amazing.

Home Garden

(Images via apartmenttherapy, brightnest)

Don't have much room on the porch, but want a full garden? This is by far the easiest pallet project. Simply secure a pallet against the wall, and use its natural shape to house a variety of flowers and herbs into a mini vertical garden. It's possible to line up a bunch of these in a row if vegetables are on the menu year round.

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Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

What Are Pallets? 19 DIY Creations That Really Stack Up

A surging DIY movement is bringing wooden pallets out of obscurity and into people's homes as popular do it yourself foundations. Click Here to Read More »»

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10 Pieces of Unusually Awesome Furniture for Kids: Part Six in an Eight-Part Unusual Furniture Series

While much of it can be boring, some designers are putting the fun back into kids' furnitures. These pieces are a delight not only for kids, but for their hip parents, too. Click Here to Read More »»

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[ By Marc in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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Lyft and its pink-mustache ride sharing service is now sniffing around Seattle

 

 

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Lyft and its pink-mustache ride sharing service is now sniffing around Seattle

via GeekWire by John Cook on 12/30/12

A Lyft vehicle. (Photo via the Lyft blog)

You might start seeing a few more pink mustaches on the streets of Seattle in 2013.

Lyft, the San Francisco ride sharing service known for the pink mustaches attached to participating vehicles, is eyeing Seattle and L.A. as its next cities, TechCrunch reports.

Lyft is a bit like Uber, but without the sleek black Town Cars, the professional drivers or the higher prices. At Lyft, car owners actually sign up to provide transportation to neighbors, co-workers, friends, other acquaintances and, even, strangers.

In other words, anyone who passes a criminal background check, boasts a clean driving record and owns a vehicle made after the year 2000 can join the ride-sharing program as an eligible driver.

"Safety is our top priority. All drivers and their cars are screened and continually evaluated," Lyft writes on its Web site. "We also created a first-of-its-kind $1M excess liability insurance policy to provide everyone peace of mind."

An offshoot of five-year-old ride sharing service Zimride, Lyft is currently advertising for city managers in Seattle, LA, Portland, Boston, Austin and other locations. Zimride COO John Zimmer tells TechCrunch that Seattle and LA are in the top 10 cities where it would like to expand, noting that they plan to open just one city in January.

Lyft isn't the only ride-sharing service targeting Seattle. Last month, SideCar unveiled its community-powered taxi service here, the first new market for the San Francisco company. It also recently landed $10 million from Google Ventures and Lightspeed.

"There are lots of similarities to San Francisco: the weather, people's attitudes, the eco-consciousness, the early tech adopters — we love that aspect of Seattle," SideCar CEO Sunil Paul told GeekWire. Paul described  SideCar as "more like a ride with a friend than a cab or limo driver."

With both SideCar and Lyft, passengers use smartphones to locate and request drivers.

The new services have met with some roadblocks. The California Public Utilities Commission issued "cease and desist" letters to both SideCar and Lyft for potentially operating without the proper charter party carrier permits. Those permits are issued in order to make sure that drivers are properly insured and screened.

Meanwhile, the City of Seattle just started experimenting with a new car-sharing service called Car2Go. Similar to ZipCar, the new service allows residents to rent a SmartCar — more than 300 of which will be strategically positioned around the city — for 38 cents per minute.

"Car2go will soon be one of many ways that people can get around our city," Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said in a press release earlier this month. "We welcome this new, innovative transportation choice for Seattle residents and visitors."

And Car2Go isn't the only new way to get around the city.

Uber, which is backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, started connecting passengers to drivers in Seattle in the summer of 2011.

Given all of the developments, this much is certain: Seattleites will certainly have plenty of new options for transportation in the new year.

 

 

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Jeans store uses QR codes to make shopping easier for men

 

 

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Jeans store uses QR codes to make shopping easier for men

via Springwise by Springwise on 12/28/12

We recently wrote about QThru, a system using QR codes to speed up the check-out process. Aimed at men who don't like shopping, Hointer also uses the technology to break down the traditional retail model and help make clothes shopping pain-free.

Located in Seattle, customers walking into the store are greeted by a floor that contains only one pair of each model of jeans available. The jeans are tagged with a QR code that – when scanned using the store's bespoke app – delivers a pair in the chosen size to a fitting room in the store and alerts the customer which room to go to. Once the jeans have been tried, customers can either send the jeans back into the system or swipe their card using a machine in each fitting room to make a purchase. The GeekWire video below shows the system in action:

Rather than forcing shoppers to contend with piles of clothes hoping to find the right size, Hointer simplifies the process using technology and makes buying a pair of jeans less stressful. How else can the retail experience be tailored to those who would otherwise avoid it?

Website: www.hointer.com
Contact: hointer@hointer.com

Spotted by: Murray Orange

 

 

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