DIY Red, White, and Blue Yarn Wreath

While perusing the interwebs to try and find something easy, AND cheap, AND patriotic to put on my front door for the upcoming 4th of July, I came across this Etsy listing. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you can spend $30 on a wreath OR... you can make it yourself and spend a heckuva lot less. My stars were made of paper, not wood, however paper is a lot more accessible for folks than wooden stars AND you can have them be any size you want! The best part? You can remove all of this for the next holiday wreath instead of having to buy another!

So here's what you'll need to make your own Independence Day wreath:

* Red, white, and blue yarn (you can either buy skeins at your craft store or do what I did and find a cheap sweater at Goodwill and pull it apart!)
* A wreath (mine was made of styrofoam but you could make one out of cardboard -- it's going to be covered up anyway!)
* Scissors
* Tape or hot glue (I used tape because I want to reuse this wreath for other holidays)
* White card stock paper

Start by taping or gluing your yarn to the back of the wreath. Then, just wrap it around and around and around and...

Once you've wrapped about 2" worth, glue or tape it down and do the same thing to the next color - tape or glue it to the back and wrap around and around and around. The thicker the yarn, the faster and easier it will be. Thin yarn works too but you spend more time wrapping.

I decided to do the 13 red and white stripes, like the flag, and yes, the red stripe is on top (I'm a little picky when it comes to details!)

Next, the yarn from the Goodwill sweater. Here's a tip: go with a sweater that was handknit, not one that was made by a machine. It's a lot harder to pull a string from a machine-made sweater because the stitches are so tight. I ended up pulling multiple strings and tying them all together which, to be honest, I kinda liked. Gave it a more rustic look.

Once your red, white, and blue yarn is on the wreath, it's time to make the stars. Cut out however many you want and secure them with either glue or tape (I thought about doing 50 but since I'm taping them, I figured they'd blow away if they were that small).

Hang on your door with yarn (if you don't have a hook) and voila! Now while it might take longer to make this vs. spending 5 minutes buying one in the store or online, it's homemade, it's unique, and gosh darn it, makin' something with your two hands is just plain 'Murican! 

TOTAL COSTS: Depends on materials

$6.99 for wreath from Michael's (but as I said, you could use cut out cardboard)

$3 for sweater from Goodwill

$6.99/skein of yarn from Michael's (there's cheaper yarn online but you have to pay for shipping)

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 6 hours

Keep in mind, I had to untangle all my white yarn, pull out all of my blue yarn from the sweater, then tie all the ends together... needless to say, this will go a lot faster for you if you a.) buy thick skeins of yarn (like the red stripes only took 3 minutes each to wrap!) or b.) if you want to rip apart a sweater, use a handmade sweater, not one made by a machine.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

After a while, my left hand started to cramp when I was wrapping the thin white yarn but that was after doing it for a few hours straight. Other than that, it's a very easy project to do and one that would be a great time-suck for your kids (if they're into crafts).

Apple Pie Baked Inside an Apple!

We're coming up on the 4th of July and nothing is more 'Murican than apple pie, right? Well, when I saw this post by DomesticDilettante, I thought these apple pies baked in apples were too good to be true. Look how perfect they are! Ahhh but there's a catch... wanna know what they forgot to mention? I'm not saying these aren't good but you might want to know the whole story before venturing to the apple orchards...


To make these mini apple pies, you'll need:

* 5 Granny Apples (4 whole apples and 1 to chop up for the filling)
* 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
* 1/4 cup of sugar
* 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
* Pie Crust (mine was store-bought and you only need 1)





To start off, preheat your oven to 375 degrees and cut off the top of an apple.

Using a knife and/or a spoon, core out the inside of the apple. If you're able to save any of the insides, keep them in a bowl for later. Chances are, though, you'll mainly be pulling out the core and a bunch of seeds, which aren't worth saving.

Do this for all four apples. Do not puncture a hole in the side or the bottom or you will have juices running everywhere. Trust me on this one.

Once your apples are hollowed out, it's time to make the filling. Peel and chop up your extra apple (which will fill almost 4 apples perfectly). Place the pieces in a bowl.

Next, add your cinnamon, brown sugar, and sugar and stir together until your apple pieces are coated in yummy deliciousness.... mmmm... yummy deliciousness...

Spoon your filling into each of your apples without overflowing.

Next, the "crust". Take your pie crust and cut it into slices. Now mine were pretty thin - about 1/4" thick - so you might want to make yours thicker but it's totally up to you. Fold each row and column under and over so as to make your woven lattice pie crust.

If you have an 8"x8" pan, place the apples in there, pour enough water to cover the bottom, wrap foil on top and stick in the oven for 20 minutes. If you don't have an 8"x8" pan and you just skipped the last sentence entirely, two 5"x8" bread pans work and just put two apples in each pan, pour in water to fill the bottom, cover with foil, and stick in the oven.

After the 20 minutes are up, take off the foil and stick the pans back in the oven. Be very careful, as hot steam will come up from under the foil and bad words you didn't know existed will flow from your mouth. So... be careful.

Now you can either let them bake another 20 minutes and they'll look like the ones on the right or 25 minutes and you get the ones on the left. As long as the apple filling is soft, you're good to go.

And now, ladies and gentleman, the part you've all been waiting for... what did the original post forget to mention or show? How the apples look from the side.

Warning: might not be appropriate for people who like their applies to be perky, green, and perfect.

Aiiiiiiiee!!! What IS that?! Well folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but any photo you see of these will always from the top and never from the sides because of this exact reason. It ain't pretty. The apples kind of collapse on themselves. However, the filling inside is delicious, the crust tastes good, and the lining of the apples taste like applesauce so what's a little wrinkle here and there, right?

TOTAL COSTS: About $15 to make 4 apple "pies" (prices from Vons)
$1.99/lb for Granny Smith apples
$4.79 for cinnamon
$2.69 for sugar
$2.70 for pie crust
Made my own homemade brown sugar

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 1 hour, 35-40 minutes
20 minutes to cut and hollow out apples
20 minutes to make the filling
15 minutes to make the lattice crust on all 4 apples
20 minutes to bake with foil
20-25 minutes to bake without foil

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
Trying to make sure the filling is done while not burning the top is easier than it sounds. Just keep an eye on the oven and you'll do just fine!

DIY No-Bake Candy Buttons!

If you were a child of the 90's (heck, if you were a child of the 1930s!) you're familiar with candy buttons, or candy dots. They're drops of colored sugar on a piece of paper. While they're a classic of everyone's childhood (ok, most people), they did have a couple of disadvantages:

1. You always had paper stuck to the bottom of them and you subjected yourself to eating paper.
2. You were stuck with the three flavors made - cherry, lime (the blue ones), and lemon.

But did you know you can make your own? With the help of some Jello and wax paper, you can pick any flavors you want (grape, orange, berry blue - you name it) and not have to deal with eating paper anymore!

Here's what you'll need to make your own candy buttons:

1. White card stock paper
2. Wax paper
3. Jello (I chose cherry, orange, and lemon)
4. Powdered sugar
5. An egg white
6. Scissors
7. Double-sided tape
8. Plastic bags (for however many flavors you're making. 3 flavors = 3 bags)


Start by cutting your paper into 2"x11" strips (1 sheet of paper should get you 4 strips).

Do the same for the wax paper - cut four strips of 2"x11" wax paper.

Use double sided tape to attach the wax paper to the card stock.

Mix together 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar with 1 egg white in a mixer for 3-4 minutes.

Divide the mixture into as many bowls as you have flavors. Add 1/4 tsp. of Jello powder to each bowl.

Put each mixture into it's own plastic bag, cut off a bit of the corner, and squeeze the filling through the bag onto the wax paper. I did four rows of each color but however you want to divide it up is totally up to you.

Let them harden overnight and that's it! Your homemade candy buttons are ready to be eaten! The great thing about choosing the flavors you want is that you can color-coordinate with whatever holiday is nearby (red/white/blue for 4th of July, green/red for Christmas, and the ones I made look ideal for Valentine's Day).

Be warned: you'll have enough to make quite a lot! I made 8 paper strips and probably could have made 9!

TOTAL COSTS: About $12 to make 288 buttons, or 8 strips of 36 buttons

$.99/box of Jello
$2.49 for powdered sugar
$2.49 for a dozen eggs (but you only need 1 egg white)
$4.09 for double-sided tape
$2.09 for box of sandwich bags
Wax paper, card stock, and scissors already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 40 minutes + overnight to harden

15 minutes to cut out the paper and wax paper strips (though I used a ruler and was very exact, which took time)

15 minutes to whip up the powdered sugar and egg white and to add the Jello powder

10 minutes to pipe on four sheets

Overnight to harden

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

The only "difficult" part might be getting even-sized dots, if you're not used to piping. However, the more you do it, the easier it'll be and this project certainly gives you enough to practice with!

Pinata Cookies for Memorial Day or 4th of July!

Ok, you're probably wondering, "What the heck is a pinata cookie?" Well, you know what a pinata is, right? It's something that's decorated and filled with candy that once hit in the air with a stick, candy falls out for children to collect. Well, similar idea... it's a cookie with candy inside that falls out once cracked open! Tablespoon came up with this recipe but I added a few of my own recommendations.

First, gather your ingredients:

1. The original post used 3 tubes of 16.5oz of Pillsbury Sugar Cookie Dough but I found it was cheaper to buy 2 containers of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix and have the eggs and butter for them. It'll come out to 24 cookies total.
2. Mini M&Ms
3. Powdered sugar & milk for the frosting in between the cookies (unless you have cake frosting on hand)
4. Cookie cutters
5. Food coloring
6. (optional) Flour

Start by preheating your oven to 350 and making your dough (or taking the tubes) and splitting them evenly into three bowls.

Color one bowl with red and the other bowl with blue food coloring (so they can be patriotic cookies!)

I recommend adding 1/4 cup of flour into each bowl, otherwise the dough won't have a great consistency for rolling out.

Now there are many ways you could combine these. You could take a little bit from each bowl, ball them up together, and roll it out to make a pretty marble (NOTE: if you do this too much, your dough will just taste like food coloring and come out purple!)

Another way is to take all three colors, set them next to each other, and roll them out.

Take your big cookie cutter, cut out your stars, and lay the cookies out on cookie sheets with parchment paper. You'll need 3 big cookies to equal 1 pinata cookie (so there's a top, a middle, and a bottom). For the middle cookie, cut out a piece where the M&M's will eventually be housed. I only had stars so I just cut out a little star but it could be any shape, since no one will see it. The flatter/thinner you can make the cookies, the better!

While these are baking, separate out your blue and red mini M&M's from the rest of the batch.

To assemble the cookies, start by laying out your top, middle and bottom cookies.

Next, flip over the bottom layer cookie so the bottom is facing you.

Add your frosting around the edges (I used 2 cups of powdered sugar with 8 teaspoons of milk which equalled WAY too much frosting so you might want to just use 1 cup of powdered sugar with 4 teaspoons of milk).

 Lay the middle layer cookie on top of the frosting.

Add frosting around the edges again and add your M&Ms to the center.

Place the top layer cookie on top and voila! Your pinata cookie is complete!

Now keep in mind... this is three cookies in one. It's a lot 'o cookie. And you won't be able to get many M&M's in one cookie (the photo below is for presentation only so don't let photos like this fool you!). Still, they're moist and there's candy and really, what more could you want?

TOTAL COSTS: About $13 (if you don't have any of the ingredients - prices from Vons)
$5 for 2 packages of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
$3.99 for mini M&Ms
$2.49 for powdered sugar
$2.29 for milk
Cookie cutter and food coloring already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 3 hours, 15 minutes to make all 72 cookies or 24 pinata cookies
50 minutes to prep the dough
15 minutes to separate out the M&Ms
1 hour, 50 minutes to bake
20 minutes to assemble them all

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
They take a long time to make, between the mixing of the colors, the separating of M&Ms, the cutting out the stars and the middles... it's only worth it when you see the look on people's faces when they realize they're getting three cookies in one!