Thanksgiving Turkey Pear Decorations

Was tasked with providing the decorations at this year’s Thanksgiving, so I went on Pinterest to look for inspiration and what I found was the following: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/455285843564782516/

So armed with this vision I found on Pinterest I went to the grocery store … and I started searching … and searching … and searching for anything ‘dried’ to create the tail portion of this cute little decoration … finding dried mango, dried cherries, dried anything is tricky in Texas grocery stores (unless it’s outside).  So I found myself improvising on some of the items – for starters my pears are not green, but rather brown, which I was good with – because after all, who has ever really seen a green turkey (as was in the Pinterest example)?!

Once I found the baking aisle I started sifting through all the dried fruit options and thinking through what I could use that would fit in with this … I settled on dried cranberries, dried pineapple and raisins … less cutting and easier to thread on a toothpick … and note to anyone who tries this – get the GOOD toothpicks!  Don’t get the flimsy ones I did without thinking … they are impossible to stick into the pears without breaking – fortunately my sister-in-law had some good sturdy toothpicks I was able to use instead.

I couldn’t find any of these ‘candy eyes’ that the other person used, so I got some white candy pearls and used those as eyes a black frosting gel for the dot which made up the eyes.

Kids love to help! And my sister-in-law was really grateful that I had a project that kept her 7 yr old daughter busy … my niece and I had a blast making these little guys and she was quick to create the toothpicks with the fruit that created the tail on the pears.

These little guys added to the fun and were a cute addition to the kids table.  Fun holiday project and easy to do!

Materials:

$25.00  Pears, dried fruit, toothpicks, baby carrots, candy pearls  & black frosting gel

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$25.00  Total

Tractor Birthday Cake

Our 3 year old REALLY wanted a tractor birthday cake for his birthday … so after flipping through a number of examples on Pinterest he highlighted a few that he really liked (e.g.: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/306878162086295009/) … which opened the way for a huge number of options and great theme for a birthday party!

We had to hide the cake from our little guy – and all he wanted to do was run the tractors up and down the cake!   The cake did not turn out as I had envisioned it, but little boys didn’t care – they saw tractors and just got excited.

I’m not very experienced working in fondant – and that stuff gets sticky when it’s humid outside!  Not good when your little guys birthday is at the end of summer.  Anyway – struggled through it and did my best.  Not pleased with the out come … but it could have been worse.

It was fun to make and took a few hours, but was worth it.  Learned a lot in the process, like how to use the frosting tips to make grass and sprinkle crushed Oreos to make the dirt road. As long as I kept the cake a specific angle, the crazy lopsidedness of the cake layers looks like it added to the cake’s design (until you turned it around … then the truth came out!)   Besides the lopsided cake and the melting fondant – the little guys ate the whole thing and so did the parents … and every cake looks the same after it’s been hacked away at by the end of a party – a hot mess!

Materials:

$25.00  Square Cake Pans x3 (Amazon)

$25.00  Cake Mix, Fondant, food coloring, frosting & tips, Oreo cookies (dirt road)

$ 3.00  Construction Candles (Amazon)

$10.00  Construction Trucks (pack of 20) (Amazon)

$ 0.00  Road signs (printed off and glued to skewer sticks)

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$63.00  Total