Monday, September 29, 2008

Diya Cupcakes for Diwali




Diwali the festival of lights is nearly here.As my daughters grow older, I feel the need to make it
a special celebration for them, so as they grow up they can value and cherish the festival as I do.
Its hard for them to feel the excitement, as most other children around them dont share the celebrations. I have made it a point to have a Diwali party every year were we do a gift exchange with other children(which they really enjoy).
We love baking cupcakes. Here are some Diya cupcakes we baked over the weekend.
I made the Flame with fondant and a leaf shaped cookie cutter & orange food coloring.
The gold cupcake liners give the cupcakes a diya look.




Wednesday, August 27, 2008

A Sleepover Spa party.


If you have a Pre teen, or teenage daughter you are bound to have had a few sleepovers.

Here's a fun theme for a sleepover to make the lil ladies feel very special & have tons of fun.

A Spa theme Sleepover Party is easy to organize and girls of all ages love to be pampered.
First decide on the spa treatments to be offered manicures, face masks.
Look around the house for creams & facepacks to be used or go for homemade treatments.

Easy Manicures

Bowl of warm water

Liquid soap

Hydrogen peroxide

Nail polish remover

Nail buffer

Hand cream

Cotton balls

Nail polish

Nail stickers

Face Treatments


Face Masks

Buy from a store

or use home made ones

Yougurt face Mask

ingredients:
1 tbsp natural yogurt, room temperature (not lowfat or non-fat)
1 tsp runny honey (microwave for a few minutes to soften hardened honey)
Preparation:Combine mixture, then apply to face. Let sit for 15 minutes. Wash face with steaming washcloth. For dry skin, use an extra tsp of honey. Oily skin? Add a few drops of fresh lime juice.

Papaya Mask

Ingredients:
Papaya
Instructions:
Peel and remove seeds. Chop into pieces and drop into food processor. Puree until papaya is the consistancy of baby food. Use 1/2 a tablespoon for each facial. Research shows that it is one of the best non-abrasive masks that you can use. It contains a strong enzyme called papain which dissolves oil and dead skin cells.

Face scrub

Brown Suger scrub

Take one cup of fine ground salt (Dead Sea salt would be the best but you can also use a regular sea salt), two table spoons of dry milk powder, 1/3 cup of virgin olive oil. Mix all the ingredients together and apply to moist skin with your finger tips, then wipe it off with a wet towel. Store the left over mixture in a tightly closed container in the fridge.

Oat meal face scrub

Take a bag of plain Oatmeal. Grind the Oatmeal in a coffee grinder or blender. You can store ground oatmeal in a jar. Once you are ready to scrub your skin mix some of the ground oatmeal with cold water until it reaches even consistency (not runny, you will need to use it as a scrub!). Now your scrub is ready, gently massage it into your skin. Oatmeal will absorber and clean away all of the toxins that your skin have collected during the day.
Second scrub can be used for both face and body skin. This scrub contains a lot of honey so do not use it if you are allergic to it!

Last but not the least dont forget cucumber slices for eyes

Keep refrigerated for 1/2 hrs

After all the relaxing treatments snacks & a girly movies should

be a perfect way to put them all to sleep.

favors ideas for the party.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

King of the Castle theme party for the man of the house.


Cupcakes with swords & a crown cupcake on top of the cupcake tree.




Sunday, August 3, 2008

Home made Cup cake stand

I love cupcakes, who dosen't ? So I made a easy cupcake stand for our "King Of the Castle"
Themed B'day party for my husband








Three Cake boards (one smaller than the other two)



Golden Doilies (2 Sizes to fit the cake boards)



ribbon



Glue



Two Cardboard ribbon spools







Heres how its going to look with the cupcakes

Friday, August 1, 2008

A Special Birthday Gift.

My Sister-in-law's birthday is coming up. Its 15 Aug actually, but since my parents were heading over there. We decided to send her gift early.I usually stick to gift cards as it does away with having to recycle gifts & being fake polite.How many bath & body sets does a person need!!!

But earlier this year we had bought these beautiful pair of earrings from zihuatanejo.



The girls kinda felt left out, they wanted to send something too. So we baked a batch of our fav cupcakes

Rhea had fun icing it.

Rhea's gift was ready.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ISHITA

Monday, July 28, 2008

The Cupcake stand.



So when my 8 yr old wanted to set up a lemonade stand in our neighborhood.A bulb flashed in my head!! Why not a cupcake stand? Every one loves cupcakes. So I suggested,she set up a cupcake stand at the Induz Open house & picnic & donate part of her earnings to charity,she was all for it.
The cupcakes were a big hit & my daughter had a blast selling them,
she made $ 50 in one afternoon. Half of the amount, she donated to Induz
www.induz.org


Sunday, July 27, 2008

Tea with Daddy

We moms work very hard, and ever so often we get appreciation from kids and others around us, there are magazines,TV shows, internet sites and so much more that reaffirm the importance of what we do.Dare I say that the dads on the other hand do not get as much acknowledgment for what they do for their family?? So My first post is about celebrating dad. My three old hosted a tea party for dad after he came home from work(He has a cup of tea, every evening & we just made it a special celebration).We started with a hand made card and flowers(from our backyard for dad.

The Tea menu consisted of simple snacks available in the pantry.Cookies,caramel popcorn,crackers,fruit trifle,egg sandwiches,cucumber & hummus sandwiches,tea & juice.




The Fruit trifle was very easy to put together.

Pound cake,Tapioca pudding or any other kind of pudding,Your choice of fruits( jello,& whipping cream can also be added).
We had two kinds of sandwiches- egg sandwiches,cucumber & hummus sandwiches.


Tea ofcourse!!!and juice

A nice table cloth, flowers and napkins with dads initials( I picked them up at Micheal's) and the table was set for a special celebration just for dad.