My blog is currently under construction. I recently decided to set it up more like a webpage than a blog, and moving all of my content around is taking a great deal of time. With work, kids, and other obligations, it’s taking me a while to get it all sorted out. Most of the tabs at the top will not be working until I’m done. If you need to find a post, either type it into the search box to your right, or browse the categories (drop down box on the right sidebar). Thanks for being patient! I will have lots of good posts to make once this is all over with!
Author Archives: thecraftymamablog
Cupcake – Free Silhouette Download!
If anyone was interested in the cute little cupcake I used in my tutorial here, you can download the file down below. I have both the cupcake with the cute little face, and just the outline of the cupcake. Enjoy!
Download
Cupcake wrappers – Free Silhouette Download!
I realize I’ve been sitting here with all these files on my computer, and I haven’t bothered sharing them! I’ll be a little bit better about that in the future. 
Here you go, two different kinds of cupcake wrappers! They’re sized to fit standard cupcakes. If you need them for larger or smaller cupcakes, you can resize.
Download Scalloped Cupcake Liner
Download Scalloped Lacey Liner
Silhouette Cameo Tutorial: How to Trace an Image
I’ve had a few requests to make cutable files for my readers because they’re not sure how to do it themselves. Usually I just search around the internet a bit and send them whatever tutorial I can find on it, but I figured I may as well make one of my own! This is my first tutorial of this kind, so I hope it’s easy enough to follow along! If you have any suggestions for Silhouette Cameo tutorials, please let me know in the comment section so I can make one for you.
Go to Google or you favorite search engine, and search for whatever it is you’re looking for. I decided to use a cupcake for my example.
Click on “images” to do an image search.
Find the image you want to trace, right click, and save.
Open your image in Silhouette Studio.
Zoom in so it fills your screen. Depending on what size the image is when you open it, you may need to resize.
Click on the tracing tool in the upper right hand portion of the screen.
Click the button to activate the tool.
Draw a box around the item you want to trace.
You can mess with the threshold and see how it affects your image, and decide what numbers to keep it at.
Now you have two options. You can either trace around the outside of the object, or do a full trace, which will catch the detail on the inner portion of the object.
Here is an outer trace.
And here is a full trace.
And that’s how you trace an image! Next I’ll show you how to edit a traced image to clean it up, make modifications, and much more! I hope this was helpful.
If you have an tips or requests, please leave them in the comments!
Show Some Support!
Who here is from the mid-Michigan area? Can you show some support for me, and go like my new cake page? I’ve started up a from-home bakery, and I’m taking orders! Thanks!
Cakes by Katy
The big Facebook debate (and why aren’t people seeing my posts?)
Facebook is a fantastic way of monitoring blog fans, sharing posts with fans, and seeing posts from other blogs and businesses I like. Well, it used to be. Did you know that you’re not seeing tons of posts from pages that you’ve liked? How would you know that you’re not seeing them, you don’t even miss them!
Facebook has a handy little spot on each one of my pages to see who I’m reaching. The most recent post that I made on Facebook was only seen by 135 people. 135 out of the 1591 people who have liked my blog page. That’s less than 10 percent! Now what is the point of liking a page if you’re probably not going to see the posts. Most of the time that I “like” a page is when I’m reading through a blog and love it, so I click the “like” page on the side of the blog, so that I can see future posts. I then navigate away from the page, and there is a huge chance that I’m never going to see a post from them.
Now you might be wondering why Facebook is doing this. On my end, I can see it quite clearly. There is a big button that says “advertise this post”. It tells me how much I can spend, and how many people I will reach with each chunk of cash. I can advertise the post to people who haven’t like my page at all (yeah, that would be all the random businesses that show up in your newsfeed, and you think, hey, I didn’t like this page!) It seems to be about bringing in money. (A little off topic, but have you recently tried sending a message to someone not on your friends list? A notification pops up telling you that it will automatically go into their “other” folder unless you pay $1 for it to go into their inbox. Who checks their other folder?)
So far with all my googling, I haven’t found a fix for this. The best solution I have for you is this. Add my page to your “interests” list. Here’s how.
Go to my page. If you’re one of the lucky 8.5% of my readers, this post will pop up in your newsfeed and you can work from there. If not, just go to my Facebook page here. Hover over the name.
Hover over “liked” and select “new list” (unless you already have a list, in which case you can add it to an existing list)
Choose a name for your new list
And click done. This should now show up on the left side of your newsfeed, down near the bottom under “Interests”.
I have no idea if the pages you add to your interests actually show up in your newsfeed, but you can click on your list to see all the pages you add to it. I suggest going through all the pages you have liked (you can access that from your profile) and adding them to your interest list. That way on a daily or weekly basis, you can browse through all the new posts from all of your liked pages.
And if anyone has tips on getting these pages to show up in your newsfeed, PLEASE leave suggestions in the comments!
(also, whatever happened to the whole “subscribe” thing? I can’t seem to find an option to subscribe to posts from pages I already “like”)
Another way to see posts from me is to Follow me on Pinterest (the button is on the right side of my blog). I post all of my recipes to my “Crafty Mama Food” board, along with tons of other stuff! You can pick and choose which boards to follow, so that you don’t get weighed down with tons of things that you don’t want to see. Now, this is no substitute for seeing my posts in your newsfeed (especially if I’m only posting something random, like a did a few days ago, instead of a recipe that can be pinned). But I hope it helps!
Reese’s Ice cream cake
For my birthday, I had my make a special cake, something that I don’t get to have every day. While digging through numerous recipes on Pinterest, I came across this ice cream cake. When it comes down to it, I really only used it for inspiration, and used other recipes.
For the cake, I used this recipe (but used a gluten free box mix so that my daughter could have some).
For the ice cream, I used Bryer’s Reese’s ice cream.
For the icing, I used this Peanut Butter Buttercream recipe.
Instructions:
Bake 2 8-inch rounds. Let them cool, and then slice horizontally, so that you have 4 8-inch rounds.
Take your ice cream and peel the box away from it. Slice it about 1/4 inch thick.
Lay down a layer of cake onto your cake plate. Later 1/3 of the ice cream on top of it, following with the cake, until all of the cake and ice cream is gone.
Place it in the freezer while you make the icing.
This peanut butter icing recipe was awesome! But I think a nice chocolate buttercream would be pretty good, too.
Once your ice cream cake has frozen solid, ice it quickly so it doesn’t melt. Add some melted hot fudge on top and chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups, and pop it back in the freezer to chill.
Take out of the fridge 10-20 minutes before serving so it can soften enough to cut.
Kitchen reveal!
Alright, ladies (and gents)! The time has come for my big kitchen reveal! And it is long overdue. We finished the kitchen a few weeks ago, but it hasn’t been clean enough to take picture since. Our house has been in constant remodeling mode, so there has been paint, tools, and junk everywhere. I finally got around to clearing it all out (okay, so I just moved it to the dining room table temporarily) to take pictures. Are you ready?
Here’s the before.
These were taken right after moving in, so there’s stuff everywhere!)
Here’s the after.
Holy moly! It’s like 2 different kitchens.
Here’s what we did. We replaced the floors. There was carpet in the kitchen (don’t ask me why), so we replaced it with Resilient Vinyl Flooring.
We painted the walls in this gorgeous color. I think we found the perfect plum color, not too red, and not too purple. You’ll see in the photos that it looks different depending on the light.
We chose the wall color to match my favorite Ikea rug!
And we painted the cabinets using Cabinet Transformations (without the provided glaze).
You’ll also notice that we got new appliances, but I wouldn’t exactly include that in the “remodel”, that was just a necessary upgrade. The kitchen would still look awesome with the old white appliances!
Bonus picture, of my handsome little kitty!
Wash Your Hands Vinyl Decal – Free Silhouette Cameo Download!
I finally broke out my Cameo. It’s been packed up since we moved here. Right now we’re sleeping in the room that will be our office, since we’ll start remodeling the attic soon to be our bedroom. It’s driving me nuts not having an office! But I couldn’t wait that long to break out my Cameo and get it set up. Here is the first of many vinyl decals!
Download
White chocolate vanilla oatmeal cookies
Last night I was browsing Food Gawker, with no intent of baking. But then I came across these. Do I have the ingredients? Check. Okay, why am I still sitting here? They were incredibly easy to whip up (well, as easy as a basic cookie recipe, which takes a whopping 5 minutes). I used a large scoop for them (cookies seem to bake up so much better when you make them bigger!). The only change I made was leaving out the cayenne and adding about a tablespoon of cinnamon. I’m usually not a fan of white chocolate, but when it’s paired with the right flavors, it is soooo good!
