4th of July Cupcake Bites

Find these and more now at our new home: Young Wife's Guide

How to Make Cupcake Bites

Fun Summer Movie

This post brought to you by Monte Carlo. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

Sumer is the movie season. We have been anticipating all of spring that we would be going to many movies this summer and have saved in order to do so. 

But during the summer months it can seem like the only movies playing are the high budget action packed thrillers and action movies. Many of these are not suitable for kids and a few girls I know will be delighted to know that a new film is coming out just for them. 

Monte Carlo follows three girls who save and save for a dream trip to Paris that turns out to be less than dreamy. As their trip winds to an end, one of them is mistaken for a British heiress and whisked away to Monte Carlo for fun and adventure. {Sounds a bit like Princess Diaries. ..which I adore!!}

Check out the trailer here and let us know what you think. 

The film comes out tomorrow! And is the perfect way to kick off your Holiday weekend. check out Fandango to get your tickets early! This way you know it won't be sold out and everyone can look forward to a fun Friday night at the movies. 

For more inside scoop check out their Facebook page and "like" the movie! Who are you taking to see this girly movie? I know some girls who wouldn't mind a fun girls night out at the movies. 

Monte Carlo: Girly Summer Movie!

This post brought to you by Monte Carlo. All opinions are 100% mine.

Sumer is the movie season. We have been anticipating all of spring that we would be going to many movies this summer and have saved in order to do so. 

But during the summer months it can seem like the only movies playing are the high budget action packed thrillers and action movies. Many of these are not suitable for kids and a few girls I know will be delighted to know that a new film is coming out just for them. 

Monte Carlo follows three girls who save and save for a dream trip to Paris that turns out to be less than dreamy. As their trip winds to an end, one of them is mistaken for a British heiress and whisked away to Monte Carlo for fun and adventure. {Sounds a bit like Princess Diaries. ..which I adore!!}

Check out the trailer here and let us know what you think. 

The film comes out on Friday July 1st and is the perfect way to kick off your Holiday weekend. check out Fandango to get your tickets early! This way you know it won't be sold out and everyone can look forward to a fun Friday night at the movies. You can go onto Fandandgo this Wednesday 6/29 to order tickets early! 

For more inside scoop check out their Facebook page and "like" the movie! Who are you taking to see this girly movie? I know some girls who wouldn't mind a fun girls night out at the movies. 

4th of July Desserts

4th of July is quickly approaching. My hubby's office always has a 4th of July party where everyone brings in food. So I've been looking around for some neat things to make and some fun new things to learn.

Enjoy what I have found.

If there were more people who were going, I would totally make this:

{Source}

I am going to make some fun cookies. Similar to these

Love the flags in this one:

Love the top right cookie-Fireworks! Too cute!

{Source}

These are so cute and simple!

{Source}

Love the U.S.A.! Cute idea

{Source}

I am thinking I'll whip up some cupcakes as well:

These are so cute

{Source}

These are my favorite!! I think I will attempt something similar :)

{source}

Let me know if you know of any cute 4th of July ideas too :)

I haven't decided what I am going to make yet. 

I started a Pinterest board for this as well, if you want to check it out

2 More Days

2 more days. 

2 more days until the weekend I have been looking forward to for a year now!

The Resolved conference is coming up this weekend and I can't wait!

We went to the Resolved conference last year for the first time and have been looking forward to this year's conference ever since. 

The conference is hosted by Grace Community Church {Who have some AMAZING resources if you have never checked it out}. We used to attend Grace and it happens to be the church led by Pastor John MacArthur who in my opinion is just about one of the best pastors/teachers of our generation. {The other great teachers of our generation are also going to be at Resolved ;)}

The speakers who will be attending are

John MacArthur

Rick Holland

C.J. Mahaney

Al Mohler

Steve Lawson

If you have never hear their teaching before then go google them! They all have their sermons and teachings online and will convict you to your very core! Plus they all have at least one book published, any book by any of these pastors is highly worth reading! 

The teaching that comes from the pulpit from these men is incredible. This conference is theologically and Biblically sound teaching. There is an overwhelming trend of nominal Christianity in our culture today and what most "mainline" churches teach today is lukewarm at best and not the meat that we need to survive as dedicated Christians.

I am so thankful that God has empowered these men to unashamedly preach the Gospel with such depth and conviction. I have been slowly preparing my heart for this weekend and pray that God convicts me of my sin this weekend and shows me how to better follow after Him. 

I know my blog has been very "craft" oriented lately, and I pray that you stick with me as I shift from mostly crafts back into a little of this or that. Many of you probably don't know but my bachelor's degree is in Biblical Studies and History. Not that I am an expert or pastor! But I will be sharing more biblical theology and ideas hopefully soon. Have a wonderful weekend. 

And if EVER have the chance to be in Southern California in June, come to Resolved conference. You won't be sorry!

My First Baby Shower Cake

It seems that everyone around me is having babies. It must just be that season. My former boss is having her first baby in July and we threw a baby shower for her at work. I made the cake and there were many firsts on this cake for me.

I am still very new to learning to work with Fondant and everything I have done so far has been my own self taught experimenting. I had a lot of trouble with this cake and for some reason things kept going wrong. This cake turned out very different than I first envisioned. Oh will, I am still learning and I am *fairly* happy with the outcome. 

I made cute little gum paste shoes for the top :)

I love the idea of the clothes line. I saw someone else doing something similar and I love the look of the clothing line with the cute little grass and everything. 

Welcome soon little baby Walter :)

Matching Pink & Tiffany Blue Cakes

I made these cakes for two girls graduating high school who had a joint party. I love how fun and bright the colors turned out!

Katelyn's favorite color is Tiffany blue so for her cake I made it mostly blue with pink accents

This is a close up of the top

And for Carissa's cake we went with mostly pink with tiffany blue accents:

I wasn't sure how the color combo would look at first but I LOVE how they turned out. 

Here is the top of this one:

I love the look of the little flowers all over the cake. Cute!

It was fun being able to use cute and girly colors rather than just their graduation colors. {which one of them was green and orange. Ick! I'm glad we got to use pink and blue}

Each of the cakes had one layer of Red Velvet cake with Cream Cheese frosting, one layer of Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting, and one layer of vanilla white velvet cake with a lemony butter cream and blackberry raspberry filling. 

What I'm Loving this week

This has been a busy busy week for me so far. I have two graduation cakes that need to be done by tomorrow night and a baby shower cake for Friday. I'm having so much fun but haven't had much time for blogging. 


So today I leave you with a few things I have loving this week! 

1)Pinterest

Okay I know, I am probably the last one to jump on this band wagon {I've been in the kitchen baking!!} but I am in LOVE with Pinterest so far. I haven't done much with it yet but I'm sure I will giving updates to that soon. How have I not know about you before?!

2) My Friend Kristin's NEW website.

Check it out HERE. She's adorable :)

3) These 2 NEW Cricut Cartridges just released

Love you a Latte Cricut Cartridge 

Sweet Shop Lite Cartridge 

Theses are next on my cricut wishlist!! 

4)Angry Bird's Cake Pops!

I NEED an excuse to try these out!! How cute. These would be fun for a boy's birthday party...if anyone is interested :)

5)This Beautiful blue and white cake. Perfect for a wedding. 

This is next on my list to try out. Stunning. 

Okay I've got cakes on the brain :) Heading home to bake now. My first graduations cakes will be showing up on here in the next few days. Stay tuned :)

Blue Petal Cake

This cake was last minute. I found out about a party for one of my coworkers last minute. I found out about it yesterday and went home and made the cake and brought it today. 

It was my first time making this petal effect and I love it!

The outside is all made from Marshmallow Fondant with chocolate buttercream underneath and a rich chocolate cake. 

Happy Birthday Erika :)

Successful CVS trip

So I have been couponing now for a few months and I'm really starting to get the hang of it. I am super thrifty and the idea of getting items for free sends me over the moon! We try to save as much as possible because our future goal is that whenever God blesses us with children I will be ready to quite my job and stay at home :) {No, we are NOT trying yet...I'm just saying IF it did happen we would be ready at any time lol}


So in trying to be really frugal I hate spending money on things like toothpaste and deodorant. So yes, couponing has become a love of mine. I started a while ago playing the CVS game. But the first time I went in to stock up on a bunch of Extrabucks, I used my husbands phone number thinking it was linked to our current card. Nope:( It was linked to an old card that I don't have any more. So when I learned that you need your card to scan for coupons in the store I started slowly using the extra bucks I had gotten. 


Then we had a few really slow CVS weeks and I couldn't find any good deals. But this week I am back in the game, I used the right card, and I got some great items! I love seeing the deals that other people get so I'm sharing my couponing deals too. 


And for all you coupon experts, don't laugh. I'm still new!! :)


Total before coupons {this includes store sales}: $50.68
Total after coupons: $25.37
So I saved: $25.31

Wow! I saved 50% on my CVS trip just by using coupons! LOVE THAT!

PLUS:

I received $19.98 in extrabucks. {In case you don't know, extra bucks are used like cash. So next time I go to CVS I have essentially $19.98 to use towards my next purchase}

I am really excited about this trip. And everything I got I can totally use! I did not buy anything useless. I would have had to buy these anyway and would probably bought the cheap store brand. 

So here's what I got: {Sorry for the pictures, I went to CVS on my lunch at work and took these in my car hehe}

1) 1 Colgate Toothpaste

Regular Price: $3.49

On Sale for: $2.79

Coupon for: $1.00/1

OOP {Out of Pocket I paid}: $1.79

Recieved extrabucks: $2.00

My total for Item: -$0.21

$0.21 MoneyMaker!!!

Score!!

2) John Frieda full repair Root Lift Foam

I love root lifting products but they are always so expensive. I made $3.00 on these puppies!!!

Original price: $7.29

Sale Price: $5.00

Coupon used: $5.00/1

OOP: $0.00

Extrabucks received: $3.00 on one of them.

The extra bucks reward had a limit of one. So I got $3.00 back on one of them but because of my coupons I got all 4 for FREE. 

So in total:

$3.00 MONEYMAKER! {Total for all 4 items}

Score!!!

3)Ban Deoderant 

{I've never used Ban before but it smells pretty!}

Original Price: $3.69

Sale Price: $2.99

Coupon used: $0.75/1

OOP: $2.24

Exrabucks Received: $2.00

My total for item: $0.24

Not bad for a stick of deodorant!

4) Crest Mouth Wash

Original Price: $7.39

Sale Price: $4.50

Coupon used: $2.00/1

OOP: $2.50

Extrabucks recieved: $2.00

My total for item: FREE {each}

5)Exedrin Extra Strength

Regular price: $0.99

OOP: $0.99

Extrabucks received: $0.99

My total for item: FREE {each}

6) Colgate Pulsar Toothbrush

Original Price: $6.99

Sale Price: $6.00

Coupon used: $3.00/1

OOP: $3.00

Extrabucks received: $3.00

My total: FREE {Each}

So it was a good CVS trip this week. I also got a few other things that I used coupons for that were a good deal. 

So if you are new to couponing then the next step is to use my extrabucks. I'll wait until there are more good extrabucks deals. I will bring my extrabucks and use them for more extrabucks. So for example, with the deal today I could have used extrabucks to cover my out of pocket and then I would have paid $0 and then got $20 extrabucks. If you plan these shops very strategically then you can keep the extra bucks rolling!

I'll let you know how this next week goes. Did you find any amazing deals this week? Do share!

Sunny & BBQ filled weekend

Happy Monday! We had a nice and restful weekend. I know it was a rainy and cold weekend for many of you but it was warm and sunny for us.

We went into Home Depot to grab a couple things that hubby needed and ended up walking out with a little BBQ. We had a tiny table top one but it was hard to use on our patio. So we invested in a standing one and had some fun grilling yesterday.

Here is my master grilling hubby

Hope you all had a great weekend. 

Basket Weave Chocolate Cake

Okay  know I have been the cake lady this week but this is my last one. I made this cake last night and it is my very first cake order! Someone actually paid me to make this! Yipee!!!

It's very simple and I think it turned out great. I tried a new recipe for the cake, filling, and the frosting and they all turned out wonderfully! My husband was in heaven when I let him eat the scraps :)

This was only my second cake with the basket weave around the sides. It's not perfect but I am absolutely in love with the basket weave. Every cake I make from now on will have a basket weave. ;) 

I informed my husband last night that I am going professional and will soon make enough money to replace my salary at work so that I can work from home. He laughed but I insisted that I was serious ;) Okay...well maybe it's a dream. 

My Second Attempt at Fondant: A Success!

Yesterday I posted about my first fondant cake & my first two tiered cake.  The two tier's turned out great and I'm so glad I know how to do that now but the fondant wasn't the best looking. I had some left over cake and fondant so I experimented for the second time and my second fondant covered cake turned out much better. 

I used the homemade marshmallow fondant from the cake yesterday and worked some color into the whole thing. The fondant took the color so easily. I loved it! 

I know that it is no where near perfect but I am pretty happy with the results. 

And I used the same AMAZING blackberry filing in this cake as yesterday. I have been getting rave reviews about the filling. I will share the recipe just as soon as I can find where I found it from. I just printed it out and can't remember the source :( I'm looking for it and I'll post it soon...hopefully!

But for now here is the great fondant recipe I have been following:

The Cake Boss: Marshmallow Fondant Recipe

My First Fondant Two Tiered Cake

I have been a busy baker lately so I guess this week is Cake week here at Intentionally Living. I made two cakes this week and one last week. And I just got an order {My first official order!!!!} for a cake for Friday.

Now the cake I am about to show you was a complete experiment. And while it tasted delicious it's not the most beautiful. But that's okay...I'm learning :) I have worked with Fondant once before and it was to make two small flowers. That's it. That's my experience with fondant. So this weekend I tackled the challenge of making homemade fondant. And it was actually really easy. Using the fondant on the other hand is a bit trickier.

This was also my first two tiered cake. I have never made one or seen on made. But the Internet is a wonderful thing and I read a few tutorials and tried it out. I am very happy with the result. I now know how to make a two tiered cake :)

Here is my first fondant two tiered cake!

It's a but lumpy and may have tore in a few places...but I am learning. And last night I tackled my second fondant cake and it came out much better. I'll post pictures of that cake later. 

And the filling I made was a blackberry filling and it was Amazing! I love it. The purple filling is what inspired the purple fondant. 

Now my order for Friday is to make something Chocolaty but I'm on my own for making it. I love having creative freedom but I'm a but nervous. I will definitely post what I come up with.