Create. Birthday Cupcakes

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Another blog post about food. I’ve either had allergies or sickness for the last month so I don’t have any crafty projects right now.

Today is my birthday and I wanted cupcakes. I made these dairy and egg free cupcakes this morning.   They literally took about 1 hour from start to finish.  Oh and those liners….I love them.  They are from Wilton and are called ColorCups.  They are foil lined so they stay the color even after baking.  They are $2.99 for 36 so a bit pricey but I wanted to try them.

I used these recipes, though I may find a different dairy free chocolate cake recipe.  The frosting is awesome.

Whacky Cake

Dairy Free Chocolate Frosting

-Rachel

 

Create.Dairy Free Ranch Dressing

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Seven months ago I was diagnosed with a severe dairy intolerance.  Well, it still has not gotten better even after avoiding all forms of whey and dairy.  Lately I have been craving ranch dressing for chips or vegetables or even a taco salad.

I found a few recipes on the internet to try but none of them came out quite right.  Finally I took a recipe from Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom and adapted it to fit what I wanted.

Ingredients:

1 cup mayo

3/4 tsp dried parsley

1 1/4 tsp dried chives

1 tsp dried dill

1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup dairy free buttermilk*

*Add 1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice to a measuring cup.  Next add enough dairy free milk to equal 1/4 cup.  Stir and let it sit for about 10 minutes.  (I used rice milk and it tasted fine)

Combine all ingredients except buttermilk in a bowl.   Slowly whisk in buttermilk mixture until desired consistency is achieved.  For dip I use a little less of the mixture but for dressing I use it all.

I find that it lasts for a bit longer than a week in the refrigerator before it starts to separate.

 -Rachel

Create.Lego Organization

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In our house we have TONS of legos. I have lost track of how many different organization systems we have done but I think we finally found the one that will last.  Excuse the cruddy cell phone photo. These are the sets we had still organized with manuals.

I also built a lego table the Christmas before last that got lots of love but my son needs a desk so we had to come up with another solution, as space is limited.

I started with an idea that I got from I Heart Organizing. She used IKEA Trofast Organizers and modge podged the labels onto the bins.

With how many legos we have I knew we would need at least 3 of the organizers and I wanted a more streamlined look.  So off I went to Google Sketchup and made some plans and went shopping. This was built with one complete sheet of 3/4″ sanded plywood, 1/2 sheet of 1/4″ plywood, 2 1×3′s and 10 3 ft 3/4″ dowels.

While I was building in the garage the kids helped sort the legos. They managed to help with about 1/3 of it before getting bored so I finished it up.

I then cut out all of the letters with my Silhouette Machine and then modge podged them onto the bins with 3 coats of modge podge.

After multiple sanding passes on each surface so it was nice and smooth I applied Rustoleum Early American stain and 3 coats of polyurethane. Here it is finished and in his room. The final size is 54″ x 12.25″ x 36″.

It has been about 2 weeks since it has been in his room and so far it is all organized correctly. It makes cleanup much faster as you aren’t searching all over for which set the piece goes in.

-Rachel

Create.Dining Room Table

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We badly needed a bigger dining room table as our old one was 48″ x 29″, almost 10 years old and from Ikea. It could seat the 4 of us fine but was not ideal for company.

I got the base idea for this table from Ana White but altered it to fit what I wanted in a table. I ended up using 1×8 boards for the top and 1×4′s for the rails with turned legs from lowes. The legs are removable so we can get it in and out of the house when we move out of our rental. The final size is 36″ x 84″.


It is finished with Rustoleum Kona stain and 3 coats of polyurethane.

Now here is where I have learned a bit about how to deal with wood especially when I do not have a heated garage. The top was perfect in the garage but after bringing it into the house it started shrinking. Now there are some gaps between the boards. What I am going to do is take the top off on and reassemble. From here on out each project I will bring the wood into the house to acclimate to the temperature before building. Not the best or prettiest solution but I would rather have some lumber laying around then have to redo my projects.

-Rachel