Super Mario Party Cookies

A friend of ours decided to have a "Super Mario Party" recently.  Basically this consisted of having several T.V.'s set up to play various Mario video games.  There was "Mario Themed" food (spaghetti, bomb-omb and question mark candies, etc) and I offered to make dessert.  I looked through my "Sounds Yummy" board on Pinterest and found the following ideas to work off of:




Since I was doing this in a time-frame that didn't allow me to find and purchase actual Mario cookie cutters in time, I sort of had to improvise (much like the first Pinner who clearly used just a star and round cookie cutter).  And, unlike the last Pinner, I'm clearly not a professional.  I used my grandma's cutout cookie recipe.  I think it's pretty straightforward that just about any cutout recipe will work for this project.  The tricky part is getting the shapes and decorations right.

I'll start out with the mushrooms, since those were the most tricky.  I used an antique biscuit cutter.  It's a round cutter with a removable round center (this is so you can make donuts with it).  You could also use a circle cookie cutter and a smaller circle.  I started by removing the smaller circle and having the two pieces separate (after all, I'm not making donuts here ;) ).

After rolling out the dough, I cut out a big circle using the large circle cutter.

Next I took the smaller circle cutter and cut about 3/4 of a circle out of the bottom of the larger circle.

I removed the smaller 3/4 circle from the larger circle.

Next, I used the smaller circle cutter to remove the remaining dough from the bottom of the larger circle.  This essentially made a half circle.  For most of the mushrooms I tried to leave a little more dough on the sides so they could be rounded down as the mushroom top.

After that, it was just a matter of assembling the mushroom.  I turned the smaller "circle" around so that the flat bottom connected to the larger half circle.  Then I molded the mushroom top around the edges so it didn't look so ragged.  Here is what the mushrooms looked like before being baked.  The smaller round pieces were cut out using the same small circle cutter I used for the mushrooms and the others using a small star shaped cookie cutter.  These will be decorated as coins and stars later.

I also made some Yoshi and Fire Flower cookies.  For the Yoshi's I used a Santa hat cookie cutter.  For the Fire Flowers I used the same large circle cutter as I used for the mushrooms.  I then used a knife to cut out a small slice from the top of each circle.  I cut the slice like you would a piece of pie or pizza.  Since my red food coloring doesn't taste so great, I opted to decorate the Fire Flowers using red sprinkles.  These were sprinkled on prior to baking.  (ignore the bow-ties, I just made a couple of those for fun).

After baking all the cutouts it was time to decorate!  I used a simple powdered sugar and milk frosting and added food coloring for each of the different colors.  Use what frosting you feel most comfortable with.

I started with the Fire Flowers.  I used white frosting to make the lips and dots.

Then I added green frosting to make the leaves.

The easiest way to make lines and dots with frosting (as opposed to covering the entire cookie) is to put the frosting in a ziplock baggie (removing all the air) and then cutting a hole in one of the corners.  You then use the baggie like a pastry bag!

I used this same technique, along with several combinations of colors, to decorate the rest of the cutouts.  In many cases I put one color of frosting over another.  With the frosting I used it was easiest to do this by letting the first layer dry before adding another color.  If you don't do this the colors will run together.

I'm clearly not an expert and some of Yoshi's colors were a little off.  This was mostly because I wanted to avoid using red frosting (due to the icky taste I mentioned earlier) and had to improvise.  All in all I don't think they turned out too bad!  I got lots of complements at the party and they tasted delicious!



Here are some close ups of the finished product:

Thanks for reading!  I can't wait to share my next Pin adventure with you!

Combo of Nailpolish Pins

I found a few Pins that seemed interesting to try combined.  The Pins I went off of are from my "hair and makeup" board.

These are the Pins I used:

First there were the Pins showing the blue color I loved.  This is Essie's Aruba Blue.  I LOVE Essie.  The colors are amazing and it's super easy to apply.  A lot of times you only need one coat, even for really dark colors!


 

Then I combined it with Pins of Essie's glitter polishes used as French tips.









The products I used were  Essie's Aruba Blue, Set in Stones (this is the glitter) and Good To Go (the top coat).

First I started by painting my nails with the Aruba Blue:

Then I used the Set in Stones to make a French Tip:

This part was the most difficult.  Working with thick glitter polish is pretty tricky to begin with, but trying to make it even in a small space like a French Tip is even more tricky.  I ended up sort of blobbing it on along the tip of my nail until I got the amount of glitter I wanted.  Then I lightly ran the polish brush along the tip to smooth it out a little.  The result looked good, but the tip where the glitter was ended up being MUCH higher than the blue part of my nail.  It almost looked like a bump on the end of my nail.

Finally I put on the top coat "Good to Go". 

Note: This product is AMAZING.  I use it with ALL my nail polish.  It makes your nails dry much faster than usual, gives them a nice glossy finish and a smooth seal and even helps with removal.  I HATE removing nail polish.  It chips and picks its way off and ends up everywhere....then when I try removing it, it's suddenly stuck like glue!  "Good to Go" helps with all these problems.  It keeps the polish firm and shiny for days and protects your designs.  It seems to bind all the nail polish together in one clump so that instead of chipping off, it peels off.  Nail polish doesn't come off in tiny annoying chips, but rather large chunks that can easily be peeled away.  More than once I've been able to peel off the entire polished nail in one chunk.  SUPER nice when time for removal.

Anyway, once "Good to Go" was applied the bump at the end of my nail was less dramatic and everything was glossy.  I definitely recommend using some kind of top coat with dealing with large glitter polish.  It seals in the chunks and sharp edges of the glitter.

Here's the finished product!  Keep in mind I still have to pick off a few of the blue remnants on my skin.  Those usually remove themselves pretty easily with a good hot-water hand wash.  All in all I think it turned out rather well.  Think I nailed the combo?

Can't wait for my next Pinterest adventure!

Nail Polish Idea

Okay, so this wasn't actually a Pin I found.  But looking at all the simple pins on nailpolish application gave me the idea.  It was pretty simple really.  Just paint your nail one color all over.  Then paint only half of your nail with a second color.  Simple!  I also used Essie's top coat to finish it off and seal everything.

Ta-Dah!:

Criss-Cross Hair Bun

Not my first try doing something on Pinterest, but this is my first attempt at blogging about it.  So, I started with one of my "hair and makeup" Pins.  It's a pretty criss-cross bun with photos as instructions.  My hair is really thin so I wasn't sure if I could pull off the large bun with what I had to work with. 

Here is the Pin I was trying:

My hair is a little shorter than the girl in the pictures, so my step one looked a little different.  I simply put my hair in a low ponytail (leaving pieces on the sides like she does in the picture) and pulled the end through the rubber band halfway.  This left the ends of my ponytail poking out the bottom, but they were easily covered when I wrapped the sides in.  I clipped in a flower for some added pizzaz! 


Think I nailed it?

One thing I would mention is hairspray and bobby pins are a must.  This is especially true if you have thin and/or layered hair.  My hair is pretty even-colored, but I thing this style would be really striking on someone that has highlights or different colors in their hair.  I think the criss-cross pattern would stand out more.  Either way I really like this style and it was super easy to achieve.

Stay tuned for my next adventure!