Crafty babes Tara, me, and Holly. Holly even took second place in the best-dressed contest:

Standing alongside the winner, my little cousin.

There was dessert and tea, of course:

And — surprise surprise — crafty gifts:

A handmade terrarium from Holly and an awesome crochet book from Tara.

It was a truly eclectic, almost-vegan, vintage, handmade tea party fit for a room full of ladies and one totally great guy. If you’d like to read the full rundown (including how we made fresh lemonade look like iced tea), please pop over to my brand-new Vegging out in T-Town blog to see the post, or see the same update on my craft blog.

If you wanted to set up a shop on etsy, would you know where to start?  I do!  That’s why I’ll be teaching a class at Tulsa Community College called Etsy: Entrepreneur Resource.  It’s not just for beginners though, I am designing the class so that ANYONE who’s interested in learning the tips and tricks to having an etsy shop will benefit.

The class will take place on Tuesday, September 28th and Thursday, September 30th from 5:30 til 9:25 pm.  And in case you’re worried that you might end up sitting through a total of 8 hours worth of powerpoint presentations, let me ease your mind right now by saying that’s not the way I roll.  I recently graduated with a degree in education, and I’ll be putting it to good use for this class.  You can expect to participate in discussions, hands-on activities, an Etsy scavenger hunt, and step-by-step instructions for building, maintaining, and promoting your shop.  Most importantly, this class will be FUN!  So click right here and scroll to page 10 if you’d like more information on how to enroll. See you in September!!

-Holly (www.Hollyrocks.etsy.com)

Hi it’s Erin here!

I just wanted to let you know that I’m having a giveaway on my blog right now. I’m giving away some shoe clips, headband, mixed CD of my favorite songs, nail polish, gocco printed cards, etc. Please check out the sunshine and carousels blog to find out how to enter.

I decided to experiment with ‘cake pops’, this weekend. Let me share with you some of the delicious successes and failures of this project:

To start, you need to bake a cake. The lovely thing about cake pops is that it doesn’t matter if your cake is uneven, falls flat or suffers from any other aesthetic maladies.  In fact, you can use leftover cake (that someone else baked!).  Crush up your cake with a fork.  I did this right in the pan, after letting the cake cool for 5-10 minutes.  Once you have a pan full of fluffy cake crumbs, stir in some icing (I added cream cheese icing to pineapple cake).  I added just enough that it blended into the cake to create a soft dough.

Now it’s time to make the balls.  I’ve read that you should refrigerate the “dough” before forming the balls, I’ve also read that you should make the balls and then refrigerate before dipping.  This is my experience:  1) I made balls and attempted to dip without ANY refrigeration.  DID NOT WORK OUT.  2) I refrigerated the “dough” for 15-20 minutes and then made balls to dip. WORKED OUT BETTER.  I would recommend refrigerating for a while before moving on to the next step.

So, now you’ll roll up little balls and place onto a candy/sucker stick. Be forewarned that large balls don’t fare well when dipped into the candy coating.  Melt a cup of “candy melts” (or chocolate or other dip).  Dip the balls and place on a prepared surface/stand to set.  You’ll fare better if you prepare a block of foam or other box/surface with sucker stick holes.    *Candy pops can get heavy, so if you are placing them in/on a container, make sure that you space  and balance them in a way that your block/surface does not tip over. This may have happened to me.

You can also add-on sprinkles at this point.  Fancier decorations (icing/fondant/etc.) should probably go on after the coating has hardened.

You (and your children/spouse/friends/pets) will be tempted to try these before the coating cools.  They’re super good, but definitely not as good as refrigerated pops.  We let ours refrigerate overnight.

The result is a yummy and super-sweet treat! Next time, I’ll enlist an extra set of hands to make the process a bit smoother.

Now that you know how it’s done,  take those 4th of July cupcakes, smoosh them into cake pops and share your results with us!

I’m a twenty something wife and mother of one who loves art and anything crafty.  I enjoy cooking, baking, crocheting, sewing, reading, coffee and finding new music.  My first love is painting, from there I grew to love crafts and handmade goods.  I am the creator of Sunshine and Carousels Designs and my dreams and goals seem to get bigger every day.  I love anything pretty and colorful which is pretty easy to guess.

I want to share this quick any easy way to tweak a boxed cupcake mix.  I make cupcakes a lot, even though I’m not a cake fan…but I do enjoy finding fun recipes.  I’m a firm believer in cooking from scratch and from fresh foods, but sometimes you just need to make something in a jiffy.  I think you can easily take the tricks I’m sharing here and make your own yummy recipe from scratch as well.

Raspberry Almond Cupcakes

- French Vanilla Cake Mix
- 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
- Raspberry Preserves
- 1 can of cream cheese icing

Prepare the boxed cake mix as directed and add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. When the cake has been baked and cooled, take a knife and cut out a small cone like shape from the center. Spoon a little raspberry preserve in the middle and then place the top part of your cupcake back in the hole. (I tore off the middle piece so the cap wasn’t sticking too high). Ice them with some cream cheese icing and you’re done. Pretty easy…and pretty delicious.

Here’s a little peek of some lovelies that I make.  I make hair accessories, jewelry, statement pieces, sashes, shoe clips and so much more to come.  You can see more at my shop.

To find out more about me and enter my blog giveaway go check out this.

p.s.  The Tulsa Craft Mafia girls will be at the etsy craft party this Friday.  You won’t want to miss it.

xoxo,

Erin

I’ve been making these for a while now, but only recently have I run out of room to store them in my home (they’re EVERYWHERE!). So now I suppose I’ll just have to part with some of my beloved terrariums. If you’d like to buy one, you can visit the Tulsa Craft Mafia at Alliday on June 26th, where I will be selling these little ecosystems in our booth. But one lucky reader won’t have to worry about buying a terrarium, because I’m GIVING one away! And it’s not just any terrarium, it’s a baby!

These itty bitty terrariums contain real living moss and require very little care. The glass jars measure just 1 inch in length, and they are complete with a cork stopper and a loop so that you can hang them from a chain or cord and wear them!

How would you like to have one of these little guys delivered to your doorstep? To claim your chance to win, head on over to this blog post and enter! It’s easy!

-Holly (www.Hollyrocks.etsy.com)

Come get your art on in downtown Tulsa this weekend with the Tulsa Craft Mafia! This Friday, Saturday and Sunday is festival heavy with a trio of opportunities to worship at the altar of creativity. The foxy Mafiosa chicks will be set up with goodies for you to buy at the Blue Dome Arts Festival, steeped in a decade’s worth of local artists’ handmade lovin’. Mayfest is the bigger name, but most of the vendors there will not be from Green Country. Support the local economy with your hard-earned money by shopping for art and crafts at the festival in Tulsa’s coolest district (though we won’t blame you for buying a cinnamon roll the size of your head from that other festival). Blue Dome will also have great local bands playing, including the Mafia’s friend Wheat Penny. Come find us on Elgin, somewhere between 1st and 2nd streets.

New this year is the weekend’s third shindig, the Brady Arts Festival, now home to Living Arts of Tulsa’s totally amazing Art Car parade. It, too, will be full of local art. Make sure to check it out.

Here are Blue Dome’s festival hours:

• Friday, May 14th from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Saturday, May 15th from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 
• Sunday, May 16th from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

You don’t want to miss this truly fantastic weekend. Ignore the forecast, and come see us!

First off, you’ll need to preheat the oven to 350 and grease a muffin pan. Then you’ll need to peel and chop 1.5 cups of fresh apple. This ended up being one large-ish apple for me, but the yield will depend on the kind you use. If you don’t have pre-chopped pecans, chop ‘em up yourself, anywhere from 1/2 to 1 cup. Set all that aside.

Now, in a large bowl, combine 1.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

In a smaller bowl, beat 1 tablespoon of Ener-G egg replacer with 4 tablespoons of water. (Or, you know, you could use two actual eggs, but I don’t play that way.)

Once that’s all combined and fluffy, add in 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/3 cup canola oil, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Now beat it, just beat it . . .until it’s smooth and creamy. Then add it into the flour mixture.

This is very important. Now you will take a gigantic spoon and stir just until the two are combined. It might be a little lumpy, but that’s OK. You never want to beat muffin batter into submission. The end result will be dense instead of fluffy. Just so you know, this batter gets incredibly thick. If you just can’t stand it, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water, but it’s totally not necessary. Alrighty, once all that is just barely combined, fold in your nuts and apple chunks.

Now spoon it into the prepared muffin tins. Fill them about 3/4 of the way full. Throw them in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick (*coughoraforkcough*) inserted into the middle comes out clean. Makes 12 drops of muffiny goodness.

This recipe comes from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.

Speaking of crafty gals . . . how would YOU like to be one?  We’ll be accepting applications now through March 1st. Download and email to tara.mason.harris@gmail.com.

Have a great Valentine’s Day weekend.  Want to make a gift for your sweetie? Take a look at our tutorials from Valentine’s Day 2009.

– Tara (http://masondesigns.etsy.com)

Make sure to check out her gift guide tag to see more wonderful ways to shop locally this holiday season.