8 days until Mardi Gras!

I am in the middle of filling a big hair clip order and trying to get ready for Mardi Gras. No real post today but I wanted to show you some a cute mask I found. It was only $1.99 at a local discount fabric store here called SAS. SCORE! I have some masks I am sprucing up for everyone else too. Can't wait to show you those.

For those of you want to get in on the Mardi Gras festivities, Southern Living has some great recipes.

All the recipes I am going to be using are coming from Zatarain's. The link will take you to their recipes. I am making jambalaya, red beans and rice dip, king cupcakes, and a few other things.

Let the Good Times Roll and 'see' you soon!

My 1st Blogiversary!

My first year of blogging is almost done. March 8 is the big day. I think it would be a fun to get a few giveaways or promos lined up. If you would be interested in participating or know of someone who might be, send me an email: CuteAsaFoxCreations@gmail.com

Swagbucks Special Sign-up Code

I have mentioned this before, but I am a Swagbucks fanatic. I love getting free stuff for doing internet searches, playing games, and watching videos.

Here is a brief introduction to Swagbucks for anyone who has not heard of it before.

Swagbucks it is a search engine where you can earn "bucks" for your everyday internet searches. Then you can trade in those bucks for prizes or gift cards on their website. They have tons of gifts to choose from, but my favorite is the Amazon $5 gift card. What can't you find on Amazon? We bought a large percentage of Christmas gifts using our Swagbucks on Amazon. I even bought my husband's Valentines present and my Mom's Birthday present. I know some people use their Swagbucks to buy Toilet Paper and essential items on Amazon as well.

I do want to interject that I am one of the most skeptical people in the world when it comes to stuff like this. Before I was willing to sign up I talked to other people and did lots of research. SwagBucks really is legitimate. You won't get rich quick, but it is a great way to get a little extra something for things you do on the internet anyway.

In addition to doing your regular internet searching there are a lot of other ways you can earn Swagbucks.They are:
- Swagbucks TV - watch videos and earn bucks

- Games

- Swagbucks Toolbar

- Facebook

- Twitter

- Swagbucks Blog

- Daily Polls

- Swag Code "hunts" - these are usually announced on their blog

- Referrals - when you get your friends and family to sign up, you get some bucks too.

- Special offers - If you buy from Daily Deal Sites like Groupon and Living Social you can get swagbucks too!

Right now Swagbucks is getting ready to have a birthday extravaganza. If you sign up before February 28 and put in the code BirthdayFun while you are signing up, you will receive an extra 25 bucks(They start you out with 30 anytime you sign up.) Now is a great time to

I have linked up the word swagbucks all throughout the post to sign up. You can also follow this link to sign up!
http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/CuteAsAFox

Happy Swagging!

PS - Please ask me if you have any questions. I can also give you tips and answer any questions you have after you sign up. I really do love Swagbucks and I hope you do too!

My Take Tuesday: Get Dressed Doll

Through blogging I have met some really great people, both in person and online. Today's project was created by Vanessa of The Sew-er, The Caker, The Copycat Maker who happens to fall into both of those catergories. (Well technically I haven't made her in person yet, but we have plans to) She is amazing! She is equally talented with a sewing machine and a saw.

Back in October, she made these super cute get dressed mannequins for her kids.

Recently it came to my attention that my niece has some troubles in the getting dressed department. I immediately thought of this project. My niece saw a picture and was very excited to have one of her own.

My Dad actually did all the wood work for this project, I was just called in to make the head. Don't mind the pictures, I forgot my camera and she may or not have still been drying at the time. My parents worked up until the last minute getting her done before my nieces birthday.

I can't speak for the body, but I really enjoyed making the head. Vanessa has great step by step instructions that were easy to follow. You can't see it in my pictures, but the hair has a part sewn into it, and some hair "lines" to really give it dimension.

Just in case you thought I was kidding about amazing Vanessa is, here are a few of my favorite projects she has done.

She made campfires as centerpieces for the Blue and Gold Banquet. She did a lot more than that too. Click on the picture to see the full post.

Love these cupcake towels.

Look at all these felt food treats. She created them for part of the RS Super Saturday activity.

Last but not least, she is a whiz with miniatures. She has a hair clip business and she cranks out miniatures like there is no tomorrow. She asked me to help design some clips for her customers, and it is a tall order. Check out this strawberry cake!

Please go check out Vanessa at The Sew-er, The Caker, The Copy-cat Maker and give her some comment love. I would follow her while you are there too. I only showed you 4 of her great projects and she has tons!

Kids Consignment Sale in Phoenix

Hope everyone is having a good President's Day. The hubs had the day off, so we went out on a fun movie and lunch date. Yay!

I just heard about a kids consignment sale this weekend in Phoenix, so I wanted to pass it along for my local readers.

What: Just Between Friends Consignment Sale

When: Feb 24-26 (Thursday - Saturday)
Postal Workers Social Club
3720 W Greenway Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85053

I have never been to a consignment sale, but I hear they are a great way to buy and sell kids stuff. I am not endorsing this particular sale, just letting everyone know about it. Let me know if you go, I would love to hear about it.

I'm on Hoosier Homemade!

I got the best email this morning. Google Alerts told me Cute as a Fox was mentioned over at Hoosier Homemade in her Cupcake Corner! My Garden Party Cupcakes are featured as part of her inspiration for Spring.

I feel compelled to mention, that I made those pre-blog and so the photography is worse than usual. I'm no master, but that picture is proof I have improved!

Head on over there and get some great inspiration. There are some jellybean cupcakes that are so awesome!

Mardi Gras - Let the Good Times "Roll"

Ever heard of HouseParty.com? It's a website that connects people with companies wanting to promote their products. You fill out a profile and then apply to host parties for companies that fit your interests. On a designated day people all over the country have parties for that product/company. I was chosen to host a Mardi Gras party by Zatarain's. They are sending me a bunch of their products, coupons, and some party decorations.

As it so happens, Mardi Gras falls on Bunco night. I traded months so that I can host a Mardi Gras Bunco night. However, I need some ideas. Zatarain's laid out the menu, so I have some great food planned. They are also sending some masks and beads. I want to have some special touches, but I have never thrown or been to anything remotely Mardi Gras.

I know the colors are gold, purple, and green. I got a baby to put in a cake, but that's about it. As you can tell from the title of this post, I have put together that the Mardi Gras motto of "Let the Good Times Roll" will perfectly match up for a Bunco night.

Enough rambling. I'd love to hear your ideas or inspiration for all things Mardi Gras.

Please and Thank you!!!

PS - Do a google image search of "Mardi Gras" at your own discretion. That warning is brought to you by "Things you can't unsee."

Refashion gone too far?

I love upcycling and refashions. However when I saw this one on failblog, I did have to cringe.

High marks for creativity though. That is a pair of brief turned sports bra. Ha ha!

My Take Tuesday: Cakeberries

First I need to go a little Fan Girl over the Edible Crafts section of CraftGossip.com. The editor Meaghan posts some of the most awesome food projects ever. I must have similar taste to her because I love all the projects she features. She is also the author of a cookie book, Cookie Sensations, which I think is so awesome. Meaghan featured these Chocolate dipped "cakeberries" from Dollhouse Bake Shoppe and I knew I must make them.

Essentially they are cake-pops formed into strawberries and dipped to look like a strawberry. I have never made a cake-pop before, so why not start out with a bang. Go big or go home, that's my motto!

I deviated from the original a little bit:

• I used Strawberry cake and icing. The red velvet looks more like a strawberry but I liked the idea of keeping strawberry flavor.
• I used airheads for the strawberry tops. I only had two green airheads for 25 cake pops, so some of them were lacking in that department. I need to bite the bullet and get some fondant skills!
• I couldn't find my food coloring so I tried to tint the toothpicks with gel writing frosting. Kind of a fail, it was sorta tinted green but the gel stuff never really hardens.
• One box of cake mix made 25 strawberries. Some of my strawberries were really big, so I could say 30-32 is probably an appropriate number to count on.

Here are mine looking all delicious on the tray.

I found these cute treat boxes at the Dollar store back in January so I put his teacher's treats in them. I love the little window. My only regret is only buying two. The rest of my boxes didn't have a fun little window. I took the cardstock my son stamped and made them a backing for his teacher valentines. All his hard work didn't have to go to waste!

I took them to 6 different people. I snagged one from my Mom when I delivered hers. They were pretty tasty. I think I am hooked on cake-pops now!

Origami Heart Pencil Toppers

Valentine's 2011

Way back in the middle of January I decided I wanted to make these candy airplanes for Valentine's Day from the Giver's log.

Photo from The Givers Log

Well life happened and I got all distracted with other things and suddenly Valentine's Day was very soon and I hadn't purchased any of the supplies. When I saw these heart origami suckers at Zakka Life, I was super excited to try these instead.

Photo from Zakka Life

The new plan was to have my son stamp paper with Valentine's stamps and I would fold the hearts. Long story, longer, you can't fold cardstock into origami(duh!)

I remembered back in HS I used to fold notebook paper into hearts to pass notes in the hallway. Do kids still do that, by the way? Or is it all texting and Facebook? Let's not even talk about how old I feel having to ask a question like that.

I prayed for my muscle memory to be better than my real memory and got to folding.

The way these fold together, you can't really fit a sucker in the back so we opted for pencil toppers. After I bought a bag of 80 dum-dums, of course. They don't have the more rounded edge of the Zakka Life hearts, but I think you can tell it's a heart okay.

I had my five year old stamp each heart after I was done folding it. I also put loose dum-dums in the bag for him to hand out too. I'm pretty sure the kids weren't going to get enough sugar. ;)

When he brought home his bag of loot another boy had given him a candy airplane. Phew, we dodged a bullet there. Duplicate valentine airplanes? That has preschool faux pas written all over it.

I found the instructions for folding the heart the same way as I do. E-how to the rescue!

http://www.ehow.com/how_2061320_fold-origami-heart.html

Soon I will be posting a fun little treat I made for some of my friends. It's yummy and definitely doesn't have to be just for Valentine's Day.

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!

Signature Stamp

We are finishing up on Valentines for preschool tomorrow. I hope you are already done! My son is not very proficient yet in the handwriting department so I was not looking forward to having him write his name 24 times. Good practice to be sure, but we are working on a bit of a time crunch here. I also didn't want to do it myself. He is getting to that age where I am really trying to have him take more ownership of things. So I came up with a compromise of sorts. I had him write his name once and then I made a stamp out of it.

(Stamp is face down)

Here is the sheet I scanned into the computer of his handwriting.

I had to manipulate the spacing a little bit, but that is his handwriting. I used my laser engraving machine to engrave the stamp onto an acrylic material. It doesn't stick to the acrylic stamp blocks, but I just taped mine on. I have self inking stamp pads and all that good stuff, but it didn't seem necessary for this little project.

I actually love the stamp for it's keepsake potential. He is going to register for kindergarten in a few days and I am already feeling very nostalgic for his "little" boy days.

I will show you his finished valentines tomorrow. I was planning to use a tutorial I found online, but had lots of problem and had to come up with something on my own.

Have a happy Valentine's Day!

Red Carpet Event

Last Thursday I helped put on a really fun Red Carpet Event for our ladies group at Church. I will start out with a few definitions because I don't want to lose anyone if I throw out an unfamiliar term. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or LDS, or Mormon. Our women's group is called Relief Society. The Relief Society has an activities committee in charge of organizing activities for the women. I am on that committee. I am super lucky because Jax of Aly and Ash is the head of that committee, and we get to have lots of fun planning and executing activities.

Back to last Thursday. We had a red carpet event to celebrate the goals we achieved during 2010. Some of the goals were completing your Visiting Teaching 100%, attending the Temple, and reading the Old Testament in its entirety.

Here is the red carpet. Ladies walked the Carpet to receive the awards. It was so fun to see everyone strut their stuff. Oh and to keep it real, you can see the basketball hoop hanging in the top of the picture. We were in the gym or cultural hall.
Here were some of the awards people earned. The vinyl for the plates came from Choose the Writing, you may also know her as Marni of Sassy Sites. The idea for the soap bottles came from the Idea Room.

We also felt like everyone should get an award just for making it through the year. I designed some kit kat wrappers and wrapped all those babies up. If anyone is interested, I can make the design available without the words. Leave me a comment or send me an email.

We even had the paparazzi there to snap away while the ladies walked the carpet. Here are our paparazzi members loading up the yummy treats onto the serving trays.

Each table had a tiered serving tray filled with goodies to munch on during the awards. I actually made this one below. I am going to do a separate post on it, because I used a great tutorial and I want to give you all the details.


Here are some of the goodies. I dipped the marshmallows. The white ones with the red sprinkles were a peppermint chocolate, SO delicious! I kept all the marshmallows in the same container so the regular chocolate marshmallows picked up some of the peppermint flavor too. Those pinwheels came from Sam's Club and they were delicious! I need to talk someone with a Sam's membership into buying me some.
Here are some more of the goodies. I made the brownies with the cream cheese frosting. I made those little fleurs-de-lis out of candy melts. I anticipate a tutorial on those too.

Here is a wide view of one of the tables. You can see the paparazzi area in the background. We roped them off so it would be just like a real red carpet.

This was one of my first major activities since being called to the committee. It really was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a really great time!

Roundabouts Cupcake Sleeves Winner

Oops, looks like I forgot to announce the winner yesterday! Congrats to entry #3 from Jennifer.
She said, "Way too cute! I would get the Gumball Machine Roundabouts!"
Congrats Jennifer, I will be sending you an email shortly!

I also wanted to let everyone know about a fun event going on over at Lori's Story. She is having a scavenger hunt contest and giving away prizes every day. Go on and check it out!

I have lots of fun stuff I want to post, I just need to get cracking. It's just so chilly, I want to curl up on the couch with some blankets and watch TV! I'm working on it though!