FAIL: Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

This is my first food post and it's going to be about how I failed at making cupcakes. Great.....I hope ya'll (like my Texas accent?) don't get the impression that I can't cook because I can. Like I said before my niece and nephew is staying with me for a week in the summer, so I thought it would be fun to make cupcakes with/for them. They wanted chocolate cupcakes, so I pulled up the Hostess Cupcake recipe (w/ pictures) to show them and they screamed "YES, THAT ONE!" This is the recipe I kind of followed to make these Hostess Cupcakes - Brown Eyed Baker. In the end, the cupcakes still tasted very good, so all was not lost.

All the recipes for the Hostess Cupcakes used chocolate cake made from scratch and I wasn't about to do that, so I replaced with a box of chocolate cake mix. First, I made the cupcake from the directions on the box (easy peasy) and preheated the oven.

First DIY Project: Crayola Melting Art

So these Crayola melting art can be found all over Pinterest and my niece has been dying to do one of these projects. Since she will be staying with me for about a week over the summer, I decided to do this with her. I haven't done an arts and craft project in years, so I didn't have any material to even began. Our first step was to make a trip to Hobby Lobby and ended up spending hours there going through each aisle (especially the 80-90% section - more on that later). Below is a list of what we ultimately got for this project:

Material List (from Hobby Lobby)
- High Temp Hot Glue Gun (I didn't own one) $2.99
- 50-pack of Glue Sticks $4.99
- 2-pack of Canvas $7.99
- A Box of 94 Crayola Crayons $8.99

When we got home, I immediately made my niece sort out all the crayons and had her begin by picking out all the colors she liked. Meanwhile, I looked for tutorials online and decided to use this blog's tutorial for this project - 52 Kitchen Adventures.

Wasically Wabbits

Cottontail Rabbits roam in our neighborhood and there's a lot of them. They're quiet cute until they eat all your landscaping and dig holes in your backyard for their babies. Back in May I noticed one rabbit just hanging out in our yard a lot, so finally I went to check out the patch of dead grass with a little burrow. To my surprise were these tiny little bunnies and I grew attached to them fairly quickly. After some research, I learned that the mama bunny only comes once a day to feed them and won't reject them after human contact. I found another nest in June and I was extremely ecstatic because I missed the bunnies from the first nest. Total bunnies found = 8.

 It's not every day you find tiny cuteness in your yard.

Nest 2 - June 2013

Among the Millions

EEEKS!! My first blog post! 

So I've wanted to start a blog for as long as I can remember.  So what was holding me back? Myself. I love browsing through all the pretty DIY, food and financial blogs out there on the World Wide Web and thought I would love to be part of that. I just never did it because I was lazy and was scared of all the hard work that would come from blogging.

This all changed when I realized that I was turning 29 this year. I decided to start not one but two blogs, one for whatever is on my mind and one to document the Twenty-Nine Challenges for my 29th year. In preparation of starting my "whatever is on my mind" blog, I started reading up on tips and "how to's" about blogging. I must say it's quite over whelming and it does take A LOT of work to make your blog look pretty. Kudos to all bloggers out there! As I take my first steps into the world of blogging, I will have lots to learn and lots of trial and error. Wish me luck on this journey.

Below are a few sites that I've been browsing to get tips and how to's: (list will be updated from time to time)

1. The SITS Girls - Blog Community for Women about the Blogging Industry
2. My Favourite Things Blog - How to Add Social Media Icons to Blogger
3. Craftivity Designs - How to Create a Project Gallery on Blogger 
4. Sunshine and Sippy Cups - Blogging Tips and How to Monetize Your Blog
5. Something Swanky - How to Create Social Media Icons
6. Leelou Blogs - Free and custom digital stuff