Kitchenaid Makeover - Vinyl Decals

I recently painted my kitchen.  We changed from a light spring green, to a beautiful aqua color called "Hawaiian Sky".  I absolutely LOVE it.  It's so peaceful and calming.  

"Hawaiian Sky" paint color is a Dutch Boy paint color, and I found it at Fred Meyer

Of course, as home improvement chain reactions go, I am now on the lookout for a few teal accent pieces to help tie the colors in the kitchen together and give some pop to the room.  Most everything in the kitchen is white (cupboards, appliances), including my Kitchenaid Mixer.  I thought, hey, maybe I can gussy this thing up!

Plain, white, kitchenaid mixer. I'll now call this "the before"

I have long admired some of the Food Network gals and their fancy hand-painted mixers, but the lofty price tag kept me at bay.  I went over to Etsy just to see what was available, and found some gals that make vinyl decals specifically for your Kitchenaid... and I decided I would TRY IT!  There were many styles to choose from, but since I like swirly, and filigree designs, I went for a shop called "Good Golly Graphics" because they could do the cool design I really liked, in the exact turquoise color that would go with my kitchen.

Fast forward a few days later, and I was so excited to get this little package in the mail.  It contained tons of decals, a page of detailed instructions on how to do this project, and bonus - some links to some YouTube videos for the visual learners like me.

Vinyl decals for my kitchenaid by Good Golly Graphics

I decided to lay the designs all out to see what I had:  The nerdy symmetrical side of me was immediately giddy to see that each design had a matching set on another page, only the opposite direction, which would end up giving you more variety in the long run on which way you wanted the design to go.

There were a ton of decals in the pack.  Very nice!

The first step was to clean your kitchenaid mixer.  Let's just say it had been a while. Who knew flour could get way back there?? I got out my trusty degreaser spray and scrubbed that baby until she shone like the top of the of the Chrysler building (random Annie reference for your amusement).  After you have a clean, smooth surface, you can begin to place the decals on the mixer.  Being a perfectionist, and nervous, I watch the link to the YouTube instructional a few times to get the gist of things.  I waited til the kids went to bed (no interruptions) , and then I excitedly started my project with the perfect amount of peace and quiet to think about my masterpiece! The first step is to cut out the designs, very close to the decal.

Individual vinyl decals for the kitchenaid

The trick with the kitchenaid, is that it is curvy in spots.  Okay, all spots.  Let's just say I don't think there is a truly flat, flat spot on the whole thing. Not only should you cut the designs out close to the vinyl, but if there are any leaves or swirls that go into the design itself, to clip down between the shapes (white sections of the design) and make some snips so that your design would be able to bend around curves.

The next step is to get some blue painter's tape (hey, I JUST happened to have that, I just painted my kitchen, how did you KNOW!?) and tape your selected shape at the top and press firmly a few times, making a flap of sorts.

My first decal.  I was so nervous and wanted to get it right the FIRST time.

So now that the tape is at the top, it will act like a "hinge".  Flip up the design and take off the stiff backing while basically holding it upside down.  The vinyl will stay on the bendable top layer.  Once the backing is totally off, the painter tape has kept your design exactly where you want it without shifting. 

The painter tape acts as a "hinge" so your decal stays in place while it's all sticky and vulnerable

Then you slowly roll the vinyl shape down over the mixer's curved surface, smoothing as you go down (no picture of this, I need both hands on the decal). Once in place, rub gently over the whole shape to help seal it to the mixer.  Then take the blue tape off (it comes right off, I used the same piece again and again).  Now you can pull off the top backing layer of the vinyl decal.  The trick is to pull steadily at a 45º angle with even pressure.

The more flexible backing side comes right off and the design is now firmly on your mixer

This works out pretty fabulously!  Once you get the hang of it, this painter tape hinge thing is awesome for the bigger pieces with many small curls and swirls. Matter of fact, I thought for sure that the tiny little end pieces of the intricate designs might rip up when I removed the final backing, but to my surprise, even the smallest of tiny swirls stayed in place.  Moving up the side of the mixer, every time I picked a decal, I would find it's opposite design on the other sheet, cut it out, and set it aside for the other side of the mixer (so both would match and also so I wouldn't accidentally use that piece somewhere else)

Four pieces down - no turning back now!

I felt it was logical to do some of the largest pieces first, to make sure they would fit, especially up the sides and over the top, then I would go back and fill in with some of the smaller swirls.  I'm not gonna lie, I was a little stressed at making sure the design wasn't going to be too busy, that it had enough visual white space, and that the pieces looked like they went together. Taking your time and planning ahead are key. Luckily, the decals are kind of see through, so you could lay them out and see how they would fit with the one next to it.  The hardest part I think was the back rounded end of the mixer at the top. It was the most curvy and the trickiest to make sure the vinyl went down flat.

Holy cow, it's turning out so cute!!!

When I was totally done, I stood back and admired my handiwork. Hey, that turned out even better than I thought it would! I went paparazzi mode and took pictures from each angle. First side:

 Other side:

 Top:

Front:

Back:

 
I decided to put the Kitchenaid back on the counter, with the silver bowl back in place for the full effect.  You can see that I decided to leave the center part where the bowl sits white (I thought that gave it a nice contrast) and I can't believe how NICE it looks with my new aqua walls!  My hubby came home and was actually impressed.  He said it gave it "personality".

A designer look at a bargain price!

By they way, they have easier designs that you don't have to think too much about.  I saw a leopard print that had larger pieces that covered larger areas of the mixer all at once.  I think mine took longer to do because there were so many ways the pieces could go together, and it was all up to ME on how they looked...

So if you have an older mixer (before all the snazzy colors came out), or even if you have one of those newfangled colors, you can get some awesome decals for under $20 and try out a cool design that matches your kitchen.  Check out Good Golly Graphics because, not only can she customize the shown design into a ton of specialized colors (even silver and white), I found out she's an Army wife and doing this as home business while her hubby is deployed and she's keeping down the fort at home, so it's a great way to support the troops too. By the way, the exact design I picked is called "Flourish kitchen mixer swirl decal" and you can find it by clicking here.  She had a ton of colors to choose from.

Before                                                                                        After

I just love how it went from plain Jane to designer awesome in one evening.  The best part is, if I ever change my mind, the vinyl is removable and I can go back to plain white, or change it up with a new masterpiece if I wish. Plus, you don't have to go girly or swirly.  I saw designs on Etsy for every taste.  There were flame decals, nerd decals like turning your kitchenaid into a tribute to R2D2 or the TARDUS, fruits, tropical flowers, cherry blossoms, polka dots, Disney fun, animal prints - really you are only limited by imagination. Now get out there and gussy up your Kitchenaid mixer, stat!

Poo Emoji Cupcakes

Ever have one of those weeks at work?  Nothing is going right and entire systems crash?  That's what happened to us at work two weeks ago, as we ended up having a catastrophic server crash -  lost a ton of emails, and a ton of needed information.  We were having a rare group meeting the following week and I wanted to bring something to lighten everyone's spirits.  I just happened to see these float past on Pinterest and thought, not only were these the perfect hilarious treat, but they should become the new temporary company mascot. I give you: Poo Emoji cupcakes.

Poo Emoji cupcake stares back at you in silence

What's not to love about these adorable faces?  (however disturbing)

Poo Emoji cupcakes - What you lookin' at?

To start off, I simply made a bevy of devil's food cupcakes.  I was pleased that although the batter was a lighter brown, they baked up a nice darker "realistic" color.

Devil's food seems to be a perfect base for these particularly "naughty" treats

After letting them cool I found my Wilton round 2A tip.

Gotta love Wilton

Due to time, we ended up using store bought frosting for this, but you are free to use whatever frosting you wish.  {Side note: This led to a very interesting conversation I had with my 11-year-old at the store. As we were perusing the different frosting types, I leaned close and whispered "which one of these looks most like a poo color".  Ha.  Well she picked the darker of the two, if you want to know the answer.}  Also, I had to shush my 8-year-old for asking REALLY loudly... "MOM, are you going to make extra poop cupcakes for US?!", which got me a couple of side glances from some moms standing near by.

Frosting in the piping bag, ready to go.  The round tip will help make the rounded-edged piles we need.

 
I filled up the larger piping bag with some frosting and away we went.  

Can you believe this was my first one?  It went down hill a tiny bit after this, then I started improving again.

It took a couple of tries to get the frosting to sit up in a little mound like I wanted.  A few YouTube videos helped in that area.  I was able to buy these little candy eyes, which saved a lot of time!

The "eyes" have it

 I tried to place eyes as soon as the frosting was down.

 
It's crazy how two little eyes add so much expression to these piles of frosting!!

Soon I had a small army of poo emojis.

No one is safe - from the poo emoji army!

This particular one cracked me up the most.  I didn't quite get the formation right, plus his eyes were off.  I call this one "Derpy Poo".

Hi, I'm Derpy Poo.  Nice to meet ya!

After that I needed to get them to my location at the office meeting so I put them in my cupcake carrier.  This would make a nice laptop wallpaper, no?

Poo Emoji Cupcakes: They get cuter, the longer you look at them

So one of the funniest things that happened is on the 10 min drive to the office.  The frosting piles started to slide around a bit, towards the edge of the cupcake.  Not all of them mind you, just a few - and it made them look, how shall we say, even MORE realistic?  

After arriving at the office, I had placed them on a special tower in the center of the goodie table for full effect.  Don't they look majestic this way?

Poo emojis need their own theme song I think

You can see a close up of a few of the poo skids below... but thankfully, my emoji warrior at the top of the tower stood firm!

The poo emoji tower of justice

Needless to say, they were a big hit at the office meeting!  A few co-workers screamed with glee as they came around the corner and seeing the emoji poos for the first time.   Here one is now, nestled amongst the "regular" offerings:

Don't mind me.  Fruit n' poo cakes go together!

I thought today (April 1st) of ALL days, would be the perfect day to celebrate a wacky treat that made a BIG impact on those who got to see them first hand. I can definitely see these might be a big hit with boys for some reason, an emoji birthday party would work too. Teenagers, kids, and yes, even grown ups found these hysterical.  Whip up a batch for someone you love soon.  Enjoy!

Paper Towel Stained Glass

I have to admit, my 8-year-old just came up with a great idea.  She's my little artist, and is always doodling, coloring, and writing any chance she gets.  She was in the kitchen being so quiet, so I peeked around the corner and was shocked (and awed) to find she was finishing up on this:

Paper towel Stained glass art - by my 8-year-old

It's beautiful!

I was pretty impressed.  She had found an extra piece of paper towel that was lying on the island and started tracing the absorption pattern on the towel with colorful sharpies.  I couldn't believe how she stuck to a pattern with the colors, and she made it such a lovely mosaic.

My 11-year-old like to leave more negative white space with her stained glass art attempt

My other two girls immediately wanted to make their own stained glass art, so off they went and this is what they came up with.

A work in progress.  Picking the colors for the different shapes was the fun part.

This craft is pretty self explanatory, but might make for a nice little artsy time killer over a rainy weekend or spring break.  All you need is white paper towels that have an interesting texture or pattern on them, a handful of sharpies, and something under your artwork (more paper towels, extra printer paper) to protect the sharpies from bleeding through to any surface beneath. Then have your artist trace the patterns with whichever color they want.

Paper towel stained glass looks nice no matter what part of the drawing you are at

After they were finished, we decided to hang them up on the back window for a while, and they really did look like bits of pretty stained glass.They also looked nice on the fridge.  (Note: If you are interested in exactly what kind of paper towels we used, these were the 12 pack of Kirkland Signature "create-a- size" towels from Costco).  They almost made my fridge look like a patchwork quilt!  So pretty.

Stained glass paper towel art - they just couldn't stop making these

Today was their cousin Gabe's birthday party and so my youngest made him a lovely birthday card because she knew he liked "art".  So sweet of her.  

Even though he was 14, he made her feel nice about it and hung it on their fridge, and she was beaming from ear to ear.  Anyway, it's a great little artsy time killer, and I have to admit, I didn't even think if it, my kid did! She was so pleased when I told her I was going to make a blog post featuring her art invention.  She was so excited!  Not to mention they really did turn out just beautiful! Enjoy!

Stained Glass Rainbow Cake

With Saint Patrick's day around the corner, my thoughts always seem to turn to rainbows.  A few years back we had a rainbow birthday party in the middle of winter, and I was able to make a very cool cake with a surprise rainbow center that the kids went gaga over.  Then two years ago, my 10 year old wanted a sleeping bag cake, and she wanted another rainbow inside.  Instead of doing the concentric circles like we did the first time, we layered in the colors quite randomly, and what we ended up with, was nothing short of the most amazing "stained glass" rainbow cake!

The Stain glass rainbow cake up close

Now isn't that pretty?  If you want to take a peek at how we did it I will give you the play by play below.  First, for a reminder, if you want to see the original rainbow cake technique, this is how it turned out.  (Note, if you want to make the larger, color patched rainbow cake pictured below, the full tutorial is here).

The original rainbow cake - using concentric circles

The technique used here was to pour 1/2 cups of cake batter in concentric circles (each pan the opposite color order as the first one) to get the above chunky rainbow look.  Here's what they looked like baking:

See how each pan we layered the colors in opposite rainbow order, so when we stacked them on top of each other later, each color would have it's own share of the color scheme.

For our new and improved attempt to make a stained glass rainbow cake, we were trying something completely new.  Luckily, it starts out pretty much the same as the original rainbow cake by separating the batter into 6 bowls, and giving each it's own color.

This is the equivalent of two boxes of cake mix, split into six bowls

We drizzled the different colored batters, and spooned in or layered in the different colors randomly as we went along.

Pan #1 of the stained glass rainbow cake - pre baked

Then we did the same thing to the next pan, trying to do different colors than we did the first time.  Almost a drizzling effect.

Pan #2 of the stained glass rainbow cake

Here they are baking, and we were just hoping and praying the colors would not blend too much during the baking time.  We were surprised when the colors held strong, even if they had been created with very thin lines.  I was impressed!  We baked these by the way for the regular recommend time on the box for two 9x13 pans, as we are making a double-layer cake.

Stained glass cake.  I have no idea why those rectangles appeared, but they are cool!

I tend to let cakes cool, remove from the pan, and let them sit in the freezer so they are easier to work with.  We stacked them on top of each other with a layer of strawberry jelly in between.

A layer of strawberry jelly between the stained glass rainbow cake

After that, I frosted them to look like a cozy sleeping bag (It was her first official sleep over, and all her friends were bringing their sleeping bags too).

It's a sleeping bag cake with a secret rainbow surprise inside!

When we finally cut it open, there were plenty of Ooo's and Ahh's to be had

Stained glass rainbow cake - a very special treat

The colors were amazing!

Stained glass rainbow cake - WOW!

Let's just say the birthday girl was pretty happy.

Why yes, there were rainbow plates too!

So if you need a fun new way to celebrate St. Patrick's day, or I have inspired you to do a future birthday theme party decorated entirely with rainbows, or if you need a cool Wizard of Oz cake, or you want to switch up the colors to your favorite team or school colors, it's all good.  Well, delicious actually.  Enjoy!

Upside Down Chicken Pot Pie

Need an easy family meal everyone will love?  Well I have one that I wanted to pass it along. Not to mention it has a snappy name that just might make your kids want to eat it! It started when a friend posted a picture on Facebook of a chicken n' dumpling recipe.  It looked delicious, only I've never been a fan of how slimy biscuit dough can get when you cook it in a hot liquid. I mean, come on now, the BEST part of a biscuit is it's golden flaky brown crust, am I right?  So if you're gonna have carbs, you might as well do them up right. So I did some modifications of my own and came up with: Upside Down Chicken Pot Pie.

The best part of this meal is that most of it can cook all day in a crock pot and be all smelling fantastic and waiting for you to come waltzing in your door after your busy day.  Pop in some refrigerated biscuits in the oven (or from scratch if you are so inclined), and by the time the table is set, dinner is ready.  Ingredients you will need for your recipe are as follows:

4 Chicken breasts (thawed - frozen would work too with longer cooking time)
1 diced onion (or bag of frozen chopped onions)
2 celery stalks chopped
2-3 carrots cut in rounds
1 15 oz can corn
1 large (23 oz) family sized can of cream of chicken soup
1 32 oz box chicken broth (I used Rachael Ray)
Salt, pepper, and dried parsley to taste

(full printable recipe at the end of the post)


Pour the large cream of chicken soup in chopped onion, celery, carrots and the can of corn in the bottom of the crock pot.
 

You can tailor the veggies to your liking.  Add frozen peas the last hour of cooking if you wish.

Next, pour in about half the box of Rachel Ray chicken stock and stir everything around.  (Note: I did not use the whole box for four chicken breasts.  If you have more chicken to add (or a larger family), you can add as much or as little stock liquid as you would like for the consistency you want.  The end result is the sauce should be about the thickness of a stew, not a soup)

 Drop in the chicken breasts and make sure they are covered in the "sauce"

Adding the chicken in.  I pushed them down after this picture was taken.

Cook on low in the crock pot for six hours.  After six hours, pull chicken out of the pot and chop up into bite sized chunks on a plate.

Add the chopped chicken back into the pot, stir, and let all the flavors meld and incorporate. Add salt, pepper, or dried parsley at this time.

Now bake up a quick pan of your favorite biscuits until they are fluffy and golden brown.

By now your house should smell like heaven.

While the biscuits are still warm, split them open on a plate and top with a pat of butter.

Mmmm melted butter on a hot bun.  Hello comfort food.

After that, lovingly spoon over a heapin' helpin' of the chicken pot pie mixture.  Serve with fruit, a green salad, and you've got an easy winner winner chicken dinner.

Upside Down Chicken Pot Pie

I'm not gonna lie here people. This was so so SO good. The kids ate it up.  It made for great left overs too.  I stored the extra pot pie filling by itself in microwave-safe container, and wrapped the biscuits separately.  I sent hubby to work with an "upside down chicken pot pie" kit and he could heat and assemble at work at will.

I was trying to figure out the differences between chicken n dumplings, chicken n' biscuits, and my new and improved upside down chicken pot pie.  In my research to make the first two, I kept reading comments about the dumplings being "raw" or soggy in the middle. In the case of chicken n biscuits, (in which you cook the biscuit dough on top of the pot pie sauce), the number one complaint was soggy biscuit bottoms.  Well have soggy bottoms no more!

Upside down chicken pot pie... it's a win win for flavor town!

I think we've found the perfect solution on how to add those delicious, home-style chicken pot pie flavors, with those fully cooked golden buttery flaky biscuits that every one loves.  All we had to do was flip everything upside down!!  Full printable recipe can be found by clicking here.

Enjoy!