Tales of a Crafty Mommy

A few days ago, my baby boy turned ONE.  Happy Birthday, Sweet Guy! We celebrated his birthday with a Jungle Themed Party. So lots of green, brown, and yellow! We had giraffes, hippos, and elephants. For this occasion I wanted the birthday table to look like was in the jungle, so I went to JoAnn's (perfect excuse to go!) and found fabrics that would match my theme.  The backdrop, green and white leaves, complimented the banner really well. It looked like the banner was in between all the leaves. For the table, I used a giraffe print flannel fabric also from the Nursery Prints section at JoAnn's. Then I used some wrinkled paper and put some more hippos around the table. As far as food, we had Monkey Bread, sugar cookies, chips, hamburgers, and cake. You could also make Jungle Cakes, Muddy Cakes (Brownies),  and have animal crackers. Gotta have Monkey Bred! Cake Toppers made with Create-a-Critter A special note to my baby: We have been so bl...

This Strawberry Chocolate Napoleon dessert has got to be one of my favorites. MMm chocolates, strawberries, and cream. Perfect. Combination!  The best part is that I get to share this recipe with you! Ingredients: Mascarpone Fresh Strawberries Puff Pastry Sheets Heavy Whipping Cream Confectioner's Sugar Fresh Vanilla Beans Steps: Prepare puff pastry according to instructions on the box. Rinse and slice strawberries Make a mixture of mascarpone, heavy whipping cream, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla beans. Once the pastry sheets have cooled,  prepare the napoleon in layers.  Each layer consists of puff pastry, with sliced strawberries, and cream mixture. Then start a new layer following the same steps.  Drizzle some chocolate sauce.  Enjoy! 

Crescent Rolls, such versatile dough! Great for salty and sweet treats and snacks for just about everyone.  This time, I made Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Crescent Rolls.  So easy. So tasty. So simple.   Only three ingredients. Have you got them at home? (very possible!)  Ingredients : 1 can of Pillsbury's Crescent Rolls Miniature Marshmallows Creamy Peanut Butter  Steps : (this treat can be made by your little ones too!)  Preheat the oven according to instructions on the can.  Spread the rolls in a pan.  Spread peanut butter (pb) on the rolls with a spatula.  Put marshmallows on top of peanut butter.  Roll up the crescent rolls.  Bake for 7 minutes or until dough looks golden brown. Mmm so gooey!  

Mmmmm Chocolate! I absolutely love anything chocolaty, and how could I say no to a warm chocolate dessert that is smoother than mousse and tasty tastier than brownies, yet flourless!?! I have to tell you that this is the perfect dessert when needing a chocolate fix and you only have chocolate and butter at home! That's right, save your brownie mix and flour for another time! Just make sure you've got eggs and chocolate chips!  I was really happy to have the best assistant in the world help me out with the very first step to make chocolate souffles. My 2-year old daughter did an excellent job coating the ramekins with butter. She looked like quite the expert! Recipe: The recipe was adapted from Emeril found  here . *Chocolate Souffle is meant to be served in ramekins so the chocolate stays warm. Ingredients: 2 teaspoons butter, room temperature 1/2 cup sugar 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped 4 large egg whites 3 large egg yolks Steps: Pre...

My Hubby's favorite dessert is Cheesecake. I never thought it would be possible to make it at home, but when I saw this recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake....it seemed like the dish was calling his name!  I had been wanting to make something special for him (since he is the one who bakes for me quite often!) and knew this would be the right dessert! In my Hubby's words: "The cheesecake was similar to pumpkin pie, slightly richer. It was the perfect blend between the traditional pumpkin pie and cheesecake . "  I ended up making two pies from the ingredients listed below. One pie was made in a store-bought crust and the other one was a homemade crust. I strongly recommend making your own crust because the cinnamon flavor from the Graham Crackers and brown sugar will add an additional pumpkini, fall-ish flavor to the cheesecake. This recipe is courtesy of Paula Deen found at the Food Network.  Ingredients:   cream che...