Easy Chocolate Ganache Cake Filling

So yesterday I blogged about the amazing cake I made...and here's the recipe for the chocolate ganache that we used for the filling! Love it! And I've been eating the leftovers with a spoon...it's heavenly!

Yummy easy chocolate ganache. All you need is two ingredients. Chocolate and heavy whipping cream (16 ounces each). And lucky you, remember my friend Rita was helping me with this cake? So that means I was able to take lots of pictures!!

 

(I grabbed all the chocolate I could find in our house to make a total of 16 ounces- it worked great!) Now, chop up the chocolate. I used my blender. If you are using a blender I would recommend using small amounts at a time...because otherwise your chocolate might start to melt!
AND your pieces should be a little bit smaller than the large ones I have in here. It just make it easier to melt with the cream. While you are blending chopping up your chocolate, microwave the heavy cream for 2 minutes.

  

This is the fun part! Pour the hot cream into the chocolate...

  

And stir!

  

And in just a couple minutes, you will end up with this!

  

We then refrigerated the ganache for a little while so it would harden a little before we put it in between the layers. It worked perfect to fill the cake and worked just like glue!

 

 And, it got a little messy...and kinda lopsided..when putting it all together, so I was freaking out a little bit...but it all worked out! (haha, and I know this picture is crazy - but this is real life people!) 

Remember how great it looks frosted?! :)

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Celebrations - Engagement Cake and Banner

WaHoo!!! School is out for the summer and it is time for celebrations!

My favorite sister-in-law is pregnant with her baby (I'm going to be Aunt Brie - so excited!!) AND my other favorite sister-in-law just got engaged!! Seriously, see what I mean about the celebrations!? And I love it, because, right now, my life is the normal one. I get to enjoy everyone's excitement without any of the stress. LOVING it!

So, to celebrate the engagement, my friend Rita and I made a fancy little four layer engagement cake and added a fun banner. I love how it turned out! And it tasted good too! Check out the banner - it says "HE PUT A RING ON IT." I cut out the letter with my cricut machine and then poked holes on the tops on the letters and strung embroidery floss through the letters. I later realized it would have worked a lot better (and would have been a lot easier) to just glue the letters on the string.

O my, and it was delicious! The layers of cake were french vanilla and devil's food with chocolate ganache filling and covered with buttercream frosting!

Here's the newly engaged couple with their cake. They are just so cute. I also took a few pictures of them in his backyard yesterday. I'll post some of those soon too.

Tomorrow I'll share with you some of the secrets and recipes I used to make this cake turn out so well!

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Preppy Polo to Super Cute Flower Shirt!

I made this shirt a while ago when I realized I couldn't really wear my preppy little Hollister polo anymore. (Hollister just doesn't seem very professional, you know?!)

But I still thought this was a nice shirt...so I decided to cut it up! That's what everyone does with their nice shirts they don't want anymore, right?

All I used was my green Hollister polo, an old gray tank top, and a glue gun.

I cut off the collar and used that to make some flowers. I cut lace off of my tank top and put that on top of the part of the polo where it had buttoned up. I used buttons from the polo to add middles to my flowers.

 

And here's a close up of the flowers! Sorry I didn't take picture while I was making this shirt. Some I just twirled it around in a circle and stuck together with hot glue, a couple others I cut circles and placed them on top of each other.

  

 

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New Blog Look - again! :)

First, let's take a look back at my blog template/design in February:(the screen shot was taken today, I had saved my template and previewed it today so I could show you!)

I changed all the crazy background stuff last month, and just finally changed my header. It was really bothering me that it was so long and you had to scroll down a bit before you could see anything, sorry if that was annoying!

Old header:

 
 New header:
 
One problem with the new header - I used Picasa and Photobucket to create it, and neither one shows the HTML for the colors...and I can't find ones that look similar enough! So I changed a lot to gray, but that's not very fun so I'll keep trying - and any suggestions will be welcome!

And here's my blog now, but duh, you can see that already! 

 

Oh, I also just added my favorite daily deals sites on the side - I love sharing good deals! Eversave is offering $10 to new sign-ups right now, and one of their deals is 2 years of Parenting magazine for $5 - so free with this credit! :) So, if you're ever looking for good deals, check out my sidebar!

So I need you guys to be honest with me. Am I getting too boring or are these good changes?!

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Our First Dance - Wedding Picture Frame

I can't believe that it was almost a year ago (June 11) that Kevin and I were married! My mom gave me this adorable matted picture of our first dance. She had written the lyrics to the song we danced to - "Come What May." However, she admitted that it didn't turn out like she hoped and recommended that I try to fix it! :)

 

So I downloaded a fun handwriting font from Kevin&Amanda and formatted the lyrics in Word. I had to cut out a hole for the picture, and my lines weren't too straight, but I figured it was good enough for now!

  

And...I love it! And what a great way to remember our first dance together as husband and wife! :) And, if you missed it, here's the album page layout of our first dance! You can see our wedding album here.

 

What was your first dance as husband and wife? Or what will it be?

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Knotted T-shirt Headband

I am in love with t-shirt headbands! I made some previously and you can see those here.

Today I found an even easier way to make headbands out of t-shirts and I just adore this style!

Here's my knotted t-shirt headband!

O my goodness. Isn't it adorable?! I love that it is thick (holds back all my crazy fly-a-ways) and super fun with the knot!

All you need to make a beautiful headband like this is an old t-shirt, a hot glue gun, and scissors!

Oh, and this great tutorial from Love Stitched! Her tutorial is fabulous so I didn't feel the need to create another one for you guys!

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