Edible Easter Egg Paint And Tip For Easy Peel Eggs

I don't think we will dye eggs ever again with vinegar. We had so much fun painting and licking fingers as we went.  When my kids saw me lick paint from my fingers for the first time, they were a little surprised. Then I let them in on my secret edible paint. They had a blast decorating eggs this year, and eating a little edible paint.  I couldn't resist taking some pics as we went. To keep from making a mess inside, we had fun decorating out in the rain, on our covered sidewalk.  After painting, the eggs need to sit over night in the fridge, to allow the food coloring to absorb. It takes longer since you are not using any vinegar. No one wants to lick vinegar off their fingers. The next day you will rinse off your eggs in cool water, and enjoy your art work. 

Halloween Pizza Party Recipes

It's Wednesday, and it's my final day writing menu planning articles for Busy Mom's Tips.  No worries, I will still be sharing fun recipes with you all, I just can't commit to do several recipes every week anymore.    Today I am sharing two easy mini pizza recipes the kids will love for Halloween.  To find my recipe for these ghosts and jack-o-lantern pizzas head HERE.

Check out my Linky Love Page to see where I party!

Halloween FINGER Food

Well it's Wednesday and that means I am sharing menu planning ideas at Busy Mom's Tips. Next week will be my last week writing guest posts over there.  It has been a lot of fun, but I have been spreading  myself a little thin, and just can't commit to do it each week anymore.  No worries, I love to cook, and will still share fun recipes with you all each month.

This week I am sharing some fun FINGER food,  sweet and savory, for Halloween.  If you would like these easy recipes head HERE.

Halloween Cake, Cookies, and Cocktails

It's that time of the week when I am sharing menu planning ideas over at Busy Mom's Tips.  Head on over here to find these Halloween recipes and more.

Angry Bird Cupcakes Tackle It Tuesday Tutorial

These are by far the easiest cupcakes I have made for a birthday in a long time.  My son loved how they turned out too!  He just turned 9, and wanted to have cupcakes that looked like his favorite black Angry Bird from the Angry Birds app. 

Tackle It Tuesday Tutorial DIY Gumball Jars Guest Post

I am so thrilled to have Nicole the blogger of Crafty Soccer Mom here today.  She is super sweet, has an incredible blog with lots of great tutorials, just like this fabulous one she has for us today!  Take it away Nicole...

 

Hi Everyone!

I am so honored to be on Bacon Time..Mindie is awesome!  I mean the girl loves bacon and pigs, need I say more? No..but I will!  Seriously, Mindies blog is so much fun, there is always something going on, and her linky party's are fantastic, and the fact that she loves piglets makes my heart melt, cause I too love me some pigs!  Mindie has been so kind and helpful to me, and always so supportive.  I can't thank her enough..Thank you Mindie!  Ok..enough about her geesh lol :)

Here is a little about me...My name is Nicole and I am a 30 something SAHM of two awesome boys.  I LOVE to craft and try to make something new every chance I get.  Using recycled products is always my favorite..I love turning trash to treasure.  My blog is only a couple months old, so I'm a newbie, but thanks to people like Mindie, I'm getting the hang of things.

So today I would like to show you my DIY Gumball Jars.  I have been making them for YEARs, but I have noticed they have become pretty popular these days.  When I first started out making these, I used Baby Food Jars....Like in the picture below..

These are cute, and fun, plus you can recycle all those empty baby food jars! 

Let's get started on the tutorial of my updated version of these Gumball Jars.

Here are my supplies:

Red Acrylic Paint

E600

Small Terracotta Pot

Small Terracotta Pot Saucer

Small Glass Bowl

Acorn Dowel Cap

GUMBALLS!

All these supplies can be found at your local craft store..except possibly the gumballs.  

This is a glance at what the set up for this will look like...but first you need to paint your pot and saucer Red.

Or any other color you prefer..you can color coordinate these with up coming holidays or what ever color matches your decor or tickles your fancy :)

After the paint is dry, add your E600 to the bottom of the pot, not quite all the way to the outer edge because it will spread when you place the glass bowl on top.  

See here, I put it almost to the edge

Next I glued the Acorn Dowel to the upside down saucer (your lid)

Now you take your little bag of Gumballs and pour them into the glass bowl..this is my youngest son's favorite part..he always gets right in there when this project is done!

And here's your Gumball Jar!  SO STINK'N CUTE!  I painted the top piece silver..just to spice it up.  These are so much fun, I have made them for a ton of people.  My husband has a big one at his office and customers LOVE it.  The fun part is that there are options..different sizes, colors, and you can fill them up with any sort of candy you like.  I filled my Mother-in-Law's up with Hershey Kisses and it was so cute.

When people want a Gumball..and trust me they will want one..they just lift up the lid and grab one!

I realize that there are different skill levels of crafters out there, so if you have ANY questions please feel free to ask, I'd love to help you through it.

I really hope you enjoyed my tutorial..and I hope to see you over at my my blog sometime, and thank you again Mindie for this awesome opportunity..you rock sister!

Well I am still blushing over here.  Thanks Nicole for your kind words and great tutorial. Seriously folks check out Nicole's blog, I promise you will be happy you did, I know I am.

Easy Easter Egg Chicks

So this was the first year that we made all of our eggs look the same for Easter.  I love how they turned out.  My eight year old did a great job.  I helped our little Lucas make one too.  Well all you need is hard boiled eggs.  For perfect hard boiled eggs this is what I do.

Place eggs in a large pot.  Cover eggs completely with water, about an inch over the tops of eggs works well.  Place on stove top over high heat.  Bring to a boil, when they start boiling, continue to boil uncovered for 1 minute.  Then cover with a tight lid and remove from heat.  Let set for 7 minutes for medium size eggs, 8 minutes for large. 

I didn't measure my yellow dye.  After I cooled eggs in cold water.  I drained out the water from the pot until only half of the egg was covered.  Then I poured vinegar in until the eggs were completely covered with liquid and added a bunch of yellow food coloring.  We probably didn't need this much vinegar but I didn't want this part to take long. Then we patted eggs dry and used red and yellow color snaps to make the beaks, and blue for the eyes.  To complete our project we placed the eggs back in the egg carton filled with green Easter grass.

These color snaps are only a dollar at Walmart.  Coloring the eggs all at the same time in one pot was so much easier then how we usually do it. Next year I think we will leave the eggs white and make Easter Bunny Eggs using the color snaps.

Tweet Tweet, Happy Easter!

To see where I party check out my Linky Love page.

Easy Bunny Bread & Spaghetti Nest with Meatball Eggs

Easy bunny bread, just slice your favorite sandwich roll half way down the middle, butter
and sprinkle with garlic and herbs. Toast under broiler for a minute or two until toasted.

After you boil spaghetti, drain and mix with mozzarella, then bake in ramekins, at 425 F
degrees for 10 minutes.  You can use a small measuring spoon to push center in after
baking to make your nest have plenty of room for meatballs.

Creamy Meatballs In A Spaghetti Nest

I was Springing for Dinner with this one! I decided to use the incredibly versatile and tasty  Kraft Philadelphia Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme to prepare a super special Spring inspired dinner. Creamy meatballs resembling our eggs will be served in a gooey cheesy spaghetti nest. Served with some easy bunny bread. This one is sure to make everyone young and old smile. My two boys just couldn't get enough.

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 25 minutes
• Total time: 35 minutes
• Servings: 4

• 10 ounce(s) of Philadelphia Italian Cheese & Herb
• 24 Count of Mini Italian Fully Cooked Frozen Meatballs
• 8 ounce(s) of Dry Spaghetti
• 2 cup(s) of Kraft Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Steps

1. Bring to a boil over high heat, about 4 quarts of water, on the stove top in a large pot, and preheat oven to 425 F degrees.
2. Place meatballs in a medium/large non stick saute pan and add cooking creme. Stir to coat. Simmer for 15 minutes or until heated through, covered, stirring occasionally. If cooking creme gets to thick for your liking, you can add a little pasta water to it, and stir.
3. Add pasta to boiling water and prepare as directed on the spaghetti package. Mine took 6 minutes until it was al dente.
4. Drain water from spaghetti and return pasta to your pot. Add shredded cheese and toss to coat.
5. Spray four (7 ounce) ramekins with non stick butter or olive oil flavored spray on bottom and sides. Fill each one with spaghetti. And bake in the center of your preheated oven for 10 minutes.
6. When spaghetti is done baking you can use a small measuring cup to push in center, making the spaghetti resemble a nest. Fill each spaghetti nest with your cooking creme coated meatballs.
7. Optional serve with bunny bread, as I did, and garnish with fresh chopped parsley or basil.

We enjoyed this so much, and since it is such an easy dinner, I made it again and used a red marinara to change it up.  The preparation is the same as above.  Here are those pics.

This time I let my son draw a face on the bread with edible markers.

I hope you cook up some fun Spring memories in your own home.   If you would like to watch the cooking video for this recipe you can at the RWOP.  The link is on my left side bar.