Christmas Update

Got the Christmas Cards done for UTSA Head Football Coach and they contacted me about doing the cards for the entire athletic department! Their other "design girl" was taking her sweet time and not returning email. Two days later mine were done and they LOVED them! So, with OTED logos on the back, 500 Cards went out from the Football Coach and 700 went out from the Athletic Dept. AND they sent the front image out by email to even more people! I received one of those and checked out their mailing list. It included people like Sea World officials and Jesse James Leyha (?SP) If you're from around here you know he's a professional boxer! WOW!
This makes my first official project that has gone out with my logo!!!! Not only those, but I worked with my husband on another project for someone in his office this week and we put the logo on the back of that one, too! Woo Hoo!

Christmas is almost here! I got those Cake Balls done (came to 280!) and made 24 homemade Christmas ornaments. Got them all boxed and tied with pretty gold bows. We delivered the last of them last night! My shopping is done and I am all ready to make cookies for Santa with my kids and hang out.

Our family was blessed 3 days ago (Dec. 19) with the birth of my niece, Katie! I've been up and down the highway going "home" and back again, but worth it to be there, with my brother and Sister-in-Law.

Hoping you have a wonderful Christmas Season and a Happy New Year!

Another Christmas Card

Here's the card I designed for my mom from the same photo sitting. Both cards are designed inside, front, and back, but I thought I would just share the fronts.

Finally!

We got our Christmas Family Photos in yesterday so my cards are finally ready to be printed today! Are yours ready? I hope so! Making 250 cake balls today and tomorrow for gifts and a bunch of home made ornaments are coming up later today. Whew! Christmas is so much fun!!! Here's my card for this year. I cheated b/c I ran out of time and used graphics I purchased last year before I started designing!!! Don't judge - I'm only one person! So, artwork credits go to Goldern Girls Digital Designs.

Confession

Time to get real. I, Lisa Edgington, one who bugs you constantly to order your Christmas Cards and not delay.....have not done my Christmas Cards yet. AAAHHH!!!!
I'm the Cobbler whose children have no shoes! :o)

UTSA just hit me with 3 more projects and the material to finish the 5 they have me working on already (whew!). But, we got our family portraits previewed this week and I will have a copy to put on my cards very soon. Now I just have to make the cards!!!

So, I am busy, busy, busy - and blessed, blessed, blessed. :o)

It's December!

It's December, Have you ordered your Christmas Cards yet? How about personalized gift tags for those cake balls?! Don't wait - order today and don't forget to check out other project ideas in the archives for great teacher gifts!

Cake Balls!

You probably know that when I'm not designing or doing things with my kids I am BAKING! I LOVE it! One of my newest fascinations is Cake Balls! I've been playing with them for a while now and have had many requests for the recipe so I thought I would post it here where everyone could see it! There are dozens of ways to create and decorate cake balls so I will post the basic recipe and some ideas that have worked for me. You can take it from there! Have Fun!

- Bake any flavor of box cake mix according to the directions and leave out overnight to dry out a bit.
- Cut the cake into 1/4ths. Remove 1/4 section at a time and place into large mixing bowl. Use 2 forks to crumble the cake into fine pieces (like good dirt!. When you are done with each section, add another one to the bowl and keep going until all the cake is crumbled finely.
- Add 2/3 of a tub of frosting (avoid the "whipped" variety, but any brand will do). Mix combinations that seem good to you. I will say that while chocolate cake and chocolate frosting are yummy, they're hard to use b/c you can't tell when they are mixed well!
- Using a large spoon, mix the frosting and cake until you can't see the frosting anymore.
- Scoop out a small amount of dough (I use a cookie dough scoop) and roll into walnut sized balls. Place on a cookie sheet. You will need to clean your hands after 7-8 balls. Be sure to dry them throroughly so as not to add any extra moisture to your cake balls. You should get approximately 48 balls.
- Put trays in the refridgerator for 1 hr. 30. until they are firm.

That's the basic recipe. Here are some suggestions for what to do next:

Basic cake ball:

- In microwave or double boiler, melt chocolate almond bark or candy melts (available in the cake decorating section of craft stores). The most important trick to these is not getting ANY water in them. They are oil based, so steam or water of any amount will thicken the candy and make for messy cake balls! Also note that vanilla almond bark is thicker than chocolate, if you want white - use candy melts! AND, white coating on dark cake balls may require double dipping for complete coverage.
- Remove a few cake balls at a time from the fridge. Drop one into your candy and coat with a large spoon. Scoop out the ball from the candy and tap on the side of the bowl to remove as much excess as possible. Place onto wax paper (use a toothpick to help get it off the spoon if needed). Watch for pooling of the candy under the ball. Because the ball is cold, the candy will harden on it faster than on the dripped section. Watch for it to harden and move the ball to another section before the dripped part hardens for a prettier look.
- while the coating is wet, sprinkle with any topping: finely crushed nuts, sprinkles, etc. OR wait until it dries then drizzle another color coating over the top. Note: whatever you sprinkle needs to be very finely chopped or it will weigh down your coating and slide right off!

Cupcake Bites: (My favorite)

- Use candy mold trays for this one. You need the ones that are fluted and look like you would make mini Reese's Cups with them.
- Fill the candy mold 1/2 full of your desired candy coating.
- Place a cake ball into the mold so that it sits in the coating. You want the coating to rise to the top of the mold without spilling over as much as possible.
- Put molds in refridgerator to harden. Note: the cake ball is still exposed at this point!
- After about 15 minutes, remove mold from fridge and pop the balls out onto your surface. Repeat this process until all your balls are done.
- Prepare another candy coating color as described above.
- Holding on to the fluted coating that just came out of the mold, dip the exposed cake ball into your topping just until coated completely. Invert, and set on work surface hardened side down.
- If you want to put toppings (see ideas below) do so now before they dry.
- repeat for all the balls!

** To make a true "cupcake bite" you want the ball to look like a miniature cupcake. Your molded part is the "paper wrapping" part of the cupcake and the remaining "bump" is the cupcake sticking out. Make sense? So, use an m&m candy (put the M side down) on top like a cherry and sprinkle some little candy sprinkles on top to decorate these. Make them in fun color combos!

^ For those inquiring about my "truffle-esque" cake bites I made recently for a party: I used Chocolate Fudge cake mix with Cream Cheese Frosting. Chocolate Almond Bark was put in the molded trays and I dipped the ball in light chocolate candy melts. The topping was crushed Heath's Toffee bits. Just chop the toffee very, very finely - mine dripped a lot! :o)

Check out www.bakerella.com for more ideas (she invented them) OR go to www.thepioneerwoman.com and search "cake balls". This is where I learned from!

Thanks to everyone for your kind words about my cake balls and I hope you have as much fun making them as I do!