Flower Headband

I decided to make this flower headband for one of my friends as a birthday present. The flower and leaves are made out of felt that was recycled from two wool sweaters. The green sweater I found already felted in a box of old clothes and the pink one my mom found at a thrift store and felted it. Before I knew my mom had the pink sweater I attempted to find some wool sweaters on my own in a couple of local thrift stores but was dreadfully unsuccessful. Of the few sweaters I did find (probably because its summer)none of them would have worked, they were all either cotton or a combination of cotton and acrylic. In order to felt fabric it has to be wool or mostly wool so that it can be cut.

I cut the green fabric into leaves and then with a lighter green thread embroidered the leaves so that there looked to be veins on the leaves. Next, I cut the pink fabric into the shape of petals and sewed them together. You know all of those extra buttons that come with sweaters and dresses and stuff? Well for some reason I have kept all of these buttons even though I have never actually used one to replace a lost button. Well, I finally found a use for one of those, I used it as the center of the flower. For the headband part I knitted a thin brown strip and then bound it together. Once I had all of the pieces I sewed them all together!!

Strawberries!!!

I can't remember a year where my family and I haven't gone strawberry picking. Ever since we were little, my family has always gone out to Pungo, the countryside of Virginia Beach, to pick strawberries. This year I decided to make a Strawberry Chiffon cake. The chiffon was made with strawberries, sugar, gelatin, and cool whip, then edged with lady fingers. This dessert was very light and great for the summer, but personally I didn't think it was strawberry-y enough.

Gel Electrophoresis Cookies

More science cookies for my IB Bio teacher! These are gel electrophoresis runs, the bands are the different DNA, which separates out according to size. The smaller, lighter segments of DNA travel the farthest away from the wells when connected to electricity and the larger ones travel the shortest distance. These were fun to make, but a little challenging. In order for the bands to be flush with the background I had to make sure I added the pink bands immediately after I put the blue background on. These cookies were really fun to make and they were also really messy to make, especially trying to separate out all of the icing to make it the different colors.

Bacteria Culture Cookies

Embracing my inner nerd, I decided to make bacteria culture cookies. I cut the cookies into circles and then decorated them with royal icing. I used correct streaking techniques, but that proved to be a little harder with royal icing. I made these cookies as a congratulation gift for my IB Biology teacher who received her PhD this year!

Flower Power

When my friends and I went down to Nags Head for a week once school was over we had a couple of rainy days so decided to make cupcakes! These were really easy to make, we just made regular vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing and then cut mini marshmallows in half and coated them with sprinkles to make the petals!

Halloween Cookie Bouquet

Ok, so these pictures aren't really current, but I found the pictures on my mom's computer and thought I would post them. This is a cookie bouquet that my mom, sister, and I put together a couple Halloweens ago. There used to be this really cute store down near the oceanfront that sold tons of baking supplies and cookie cutters and I'm pretty sure thats where we got all of these cookie cutters. My family has suitcases full of cookie cutters (literally, we keep our cookie cutters in these old fashion suitcases my mom got somewhere) and we have a good cookie recipe that allows the cookies to keep their shape while baking.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

These lemon meringue cupcakes are one of my favorites! They are just the right combination of sweet and tangy. These are lemon cupcakes topped with lemon curd and a 7-minute frosting, all courtesy of Martha Stewart. After frosting the cupcakes, I took a kitchen torch and toasted them lightly to give them that nice toasted taste. Martha Stewart's website and magezine is one of my favorite places to get recipes and ideas. The website is always changing and the directions are usually pretty straight forward and clear.