Hostess Apple Cinnamon Donettes Reindeer Pops

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hostess Cakes for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

The holiday season is in full swing now and my kids are so excited. When I was asked to sample the new Hostess Apple Cinnamon Donettes, I thought it was the perfect excuse to throw a mini welcome to the holidays party for my kiddos. So I made a batch of my Slow Cooker Caramel Apple Cider and made a few of the Apple Cinnamon Donettes into these cute little reindeer pops and surprised them after school.  
Though not nearly as cute, these were inspired by Bakerella's Reindeer Cake Pops. Mine look slightly more concerned than hers do, but I love that you can use just a few things to create a special memory. 
If you want to make something similar, here is what you will need. 
Supplies needed:
Paper Straws or lollipop sticks
Candy Eyes
Square Pretzels
Red Peanut Candies
Royal Icing
Wooden skewer or toothpick
Hostess Apple Cinnamon Donettes




Step 1: Prepare royal icing according to directions and fill a plastic storage bag. Snip one small corner off the bag. 
Step 2: Insert straw into Donette. Leave Donette laying flat while you work.
Step 3: Use skewer to poke holes for eyes. Fill holes with royal icing and stick candy eyes on.
Step 3: Fill center of Donette with royal icing and place red candy inside. 
Step 4: Carefully cut pretzels in half with serrated knife and push into sides of Donette to create antlers. 
Step 5: Let icing dry and serve. 



Hostess has also been nice enough to offer one of my readers a free bag of Apple Cinnamon Donettes. Just leave a comment telling me about your small celebrations with your family. The winner will be chosen at random on November 30th, 2012. Please make sure you leave your email address so you can be contacted if you win! 

Twice Baked Potatoes - Two Ways

In our family, Thanksgiving means a big variety of food. Everyone's favorites are included. Potatoes are pretty high on my list of favorites, so I thought it would be fun to include twice baked potatoes, made two different ways. A fluffy twice baked russet potato and a tender twice baked sweet potato, a twist on traditional mashed potatoes. 

The really great thing about both of these recipes is that they can be made a day or two ahead of time, and then popped in the oven on Thanksgiving Day. 

Twice Baked Potatoes

Serves 4-8

Ingredients

4 large russet potatoes
4 tablespoons of Country Crock Spread 
2 oz of softened cream cheese
1/2 cup of half and half
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon of white pepper
Sour cream and green onions for garnish

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash and dry potatoes. Prick potato several times with a fork and bake for about one hour, or until tender. Remove from oven and once potato is cool enough to handle, use a serrated knife to cut potato in half long ways. 

Scoop potatoes out and into a medium size bowl. Leave a thin layer of potato in the shell, enough so the potato skins can still stand on their own. 

Use a potato masher to combine potatoes, Country Crock Spread, softened cream cheese, salt and pepper. Mash until smooth. Stir in half and half. 

Lay potato shells on a foil lined baking sheet and spoon mashed potatoes into shells. If making ahead, wrap baking sheet and potatoes in plastic wrap and refrigerate. 

Bake potatoes, uncovered for 20-25 minutes or until heated through and golden brown.

Top with sour cream and green onions. 

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

serves 4-8

Ingredients

4 large sweet potatoes
4 tablespoons of Country Crock Spread
2 tablespoons of firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
1/4 cup of toasted pecans, roughly chopped
1/2 cup of miniature marshmallows 
Additional pecans and marshmallows for garnish

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash and dry potatoes. Prick potato several times with a fork and bake on a foil lined baking sheet for 45 minutes, or until tender. Remove from oven and once potato is cool enough to handle, use a serrated knife to cut potato in half long ways. 

Scoop sweet potatoes out and into a medium size bowl. Leave a thin layer of sweet potato in the shell, enough so the sweet potato skins can still stand on their own. 

Use a potato masher to combine potatoes, Country Crock Spread, brown sugar, and salt. Mash until smooth. Stir in pecans and marshmallows. 

Lay potato shells on a foil lined baking sheet and spoon mashed potatoes into shells. If making ahead, wrap baking sheet and potatoes in plastic wrap and refrigerate. 

Bake potatoes, uncovered for 15 minutes or until heated through. Keep on eye on the marshmallows as they will brown quickly.

Garnish with additional pecans and marshmallows. 

I'd love for you to keep up on my new posts and recipes by clicking on these cute buttons below, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find me on Pinterest, that's my favorite place to hang out and I'd love to see you there!

Thanks for reading! Melissa

Linking up with: Tatertots & Jello

Thank you to Good to Know & Unilever Spreads for being a sponsor. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own.

DIY Painted Ceramic Mugs with Martha Stewart Glass Paint and Stencils

I'm so excited to share this fun project today. I painted these ceramic mugs with supplies from the new Martha Stewart Glass Paint line. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to test drive some of the new products last month, and I had a million ideas for projects. But when I opened the letter stencils and saw all the punctuation, I was immediately inspired to make these sweet little emoticon coffee cups. Grab one, and let your coworkers or family know what kind of mood you are in that morning.  

Here is a peek at some of the fun products in the line. The paints work on glass or ceramic, and the accessories include a big variety of stencils and silk screen prints. Of course, everything is gorgeous and tasteful, like all Martha products!

Supplies for this project: 

Ceramic Coffee Cups

Martha Stewart Crafts Glass Paint in Opaque Finish

Martha Stewart Crafts Adhesive Stencils

Martha Stewart Glass Paint Stenciling Tools

Soap and Water

Rubbing Alcohol

Step One: Grab a glass or ceramic surface. I found these big mugs on clearance at Target. Wash them well with hot soapy water, then prep surface by cleaning with alcohol to make sure there are no residues from soap or stickers. This is very important because the paint needs a clean surface to adhere properly. 

Step Two: Organize the supplies. I used the letter stencils, the smallest pouncer and dauber in the tool kit, and the Glass paint in Glossy Opaque and Metallic Opaque. 

Step Three: I placed the adhesive stencils on the clean dry cup. You only need a tiny bit of paint, so I squeezed some out onto a paper plate. Initially, I used the foam pouncer shown in the picture, but then switched to the small dauber tool also included in the package. It has a firmer spongy texture that gave me better control on the small surface. 

Step Four: Pick up a small amount of paint on the dauber and off-load the excess onto a paper towel. Carefully apply the paint with a light tapping motion until the stencil is filled in. 

Step Five: Carefully remove the stencil while the paint is still wet. Since I was taking pictures as I worked and the paint dries so quickly, a little bit of the edge of the nose lifted up. I touched it up with one of the very small paint brushes in the Martha Stewart line. Wash the stencil while the paint is still wet and return it to the backing sheet. 

Step Six: Make as many emoticon friends as you want! The gold one is for the mornings you are feeling a little sassy, and the red one is for those meh mornings, before you have had your coffee. 

Step Seven: Allow the paint to cure by letting it air dry for 21 days, or, to cure quickly, bake the item in an oven. To cure in an oven, place the glass or ceramic item in a cold oven, then set it to 350 degrees. Turn the oven off after 30 minutes and let the item cool in the oven. Wait 72 hours before using. They do not recommend oven curing the glitter paints. 

Once they are fully cured, they are top rack dishwasher safe. You can use these fun little guys every morning! So which one fits your morning personality?

Be sure to check out all the fun ideas using Martha Stewart glass paint on the Plaid site. So much inspiration! 

You can find even more inspiration by following Plaid:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/InspiredByPlaid

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PlaidCrafts

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/PlaidCrafts

I'd love for you to keep up on my new posts and recipes by clicking on these cute buttons below, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find me on Pinterest, that's my favorite place to hang out and I'd love to see you there!

Thanks for reading! Melissa

Disclosure: I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Plaid Crafts and Blueprint Social. The opinions in this post are my own.

LeapFrog Touch Magic Learning Bus

LeapFrog was kind enough to send us a new Touch Magic Learning Bus to have some fun with. My little girl loves it. Sadie is almost three, and all of a sudden she is making that huge leap with counting and letter recognition. So the Touch Magic Learning Bus could not have come at a better time. Of course, anything that incorporates music is a winner in her book...and mine. 

Like the Touch Magic Rockin' Guitar I posted about last week, the Learning Bus uses LeapFrog's new touch technology to recognize and respond to touches and swipes from little fingers. This makes it completely intuitive for kids. Sadie sat down and was using it right away. I didn't have to show her what to do, or explain anything to her. 

I love the smooth Touch Magic interface. I can easily give it a quick wipe down without having to worry about mystery nooks and crannies. With school starting for us next week, germs are going to be a issue. Not to gross anybody out or anything, but let me just say two words: Stomach flu. It's not pretty, but it's out there, and it reeks havoc on toys and blankets. It's nice to have a smooth wipeable toy, right?

Sadie loves that she can play with the letters, the piano keys, or the cute animals in the top window. Even the wheels add a drum sound.

Our favorite thing to do is sit down and play with it together. She likes to show me what everything does. Learning through teaching, it's the best way! Plus I get to have some snuggle time, while she gets some play time. It's been great for early morning couch time in our PJs!

My not so little guy Max, who is going into first grade, likes to play with it too. He likes the game mode. It asks him specific questions, or tells him to touch a certain letter, and he loves getting it right.

In fact, the other day they were using it to play school together. They had it set up on the vintage school desk in Max's room and were taking turns being the teacher. Those stinkers wouldn't let me get a picture though. But that's ok, I just sat back and took a mental snapshot of them playing together so sweetly. 

We are big fans of LeapFrog in our house, and we definitely love this new line of toys. They keep the kids engaged, and playtime smoothly transitions into learning time. 

Check out more about the Touch Magic Learning Bus here. 

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and was given free product by LeapFrog.  The content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

LeapFrog Touch Magic Rockin' Guitar

Recently, my little girl had the opportunity to take the LeapFrog Touch Magic Rockin' Guitar for a test drive. 

As you can see, she loves it! I was totally thrilled as well. I had completely forgotten that my little guy was absolutely crazy for guitars when he was her age. Seeing her enjoy this guitar was so fun, she reminded me so much of big brother. 

Touch Magic is a super cool new line from LeapFrog that utilizes touch technology. Kids just tap, touch or swipe the front of the toy to start playing. Sadie loves this little guitar, she hopped right into to using with out any instruction. It's really intuitive and that makes mom happy. There is nothing more frustrating than when your child gets frustrated trying to learn to play with a toy, when all they want to do is play with the new toy!

The best part of this guitar is that it allows her to be interactive with it, by utilizing the 10 built-in songs, and be creative by pretending to be on stage. She keeps asking to put her special dress-up skirt on when she plays with it. I think, she thinks it makes her look like a rockstar! I think it does too!

One of her favorite things about the guitar is that she can run her fingers over the strings really quickly and speed the songs up. Plus, she can add some applause after, which would make anyone happy! 

It's the perfect size for Sadie, but that hasn't stopped big brother from playing with it too. I love the colorful design that doesn't scream boy or girl toy. It's just bright, colorful and fun. Something both kids can enjoy. 

I'm thrilled we got a chance to play with this cool new line, and my kids are even more excited. LeapFrog also sent us a Touch Magic Learning Bus, and I can't wait to share about that one next week!


So LeapFrog is doing something else really fun, they are have a contest. For your chance to win a $500 gift card, submit a video of your child playing with his or her Touch Magic Rockin' Guitar, or a guitar they have made to LeapFrog. Then get your friends and family to vote! Each  video  will  be  judged  by  the  following  criteria: based  50%  on  the  highest  number  of  votes  from  viewers  on  the  website,  30%  originality/creativity,  and  20%-‐relevance to theme. So fun and cute! More details can be found here: Touch Magic Contest



You can also learn more about this product here:  LeapFrog Touch Magic Rockin' Guitar 


I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and was given free product by LeapFrog.  The content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Thanks for reading!
Melissa