Dora Birthday Cake and Party!

Me: "What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?"

The Mess Maker: "Dora."

Me: "What kind of Dora cake?"

The Mess Maker: "PRINCESS!!!"

Can I tell you how HARD it is to find Princess Dora birthday party supplies?????  Luckily, it wasn't hard to make a Princess Dora cake which I think made the Mess Maker not notice the fact that all of the princess-themed decor wasn't actually Dora!

To make this cake, I used the Pampered Chef Batter Bowl.  One cake mix is baked directly in the bowl and then inverted.  I baked another cake mix in two 9" round cake pans.  I stacked the round layers, placed the dome layer on top and placed a Dora doll on the top. 

I iced it in pink (it HAD to be pink!) and then added fondant flowers I cut with some flower-shaped cookie cutters and sprayed with edible food coloring spray.  Super-simple and yummy!  Oh, and the cake was PINK (of course!)...strawberry.  Mmmmmmm....

BLOG CANDY WINNER!!!

Wow, we had a FANTABULOUS Crawl over at FCCB and we thank everyone for "crawling" along with us and entering your own projects in the challenge!

I apologize this post is a "little" late...okay, a LOT late!  With the holidays and traveling, etc. I completely forgot to post my winner!

Using Random.org, my winner is.....

#39 Joanne!!!

Joanne said, "What an adorable way to showcase your family! So cute! Oh, and I can't wait to try your cookie recipe, they look so yummy!"

Thanks, Joanne!  Please contact me at the email address below with your mailing address so I can send you your CTMH Felicity Kit!  You have two weeks to claim your prize!

TheHouseholdCEO (at) live (dot) com

Fantabulous Cricut Deck The Halls Crawl!

Welcome to Organized Chaos and the third Fantabulous Cricut Crawl...Fantabulous Cricut's version of a blog hop!

In honor of the approaching Christmas holiday, we're having a
"Deck The Halls" Crawl!

Each Design Team member will be featuring an original Christmas/Holiday-themed project to decorate and spruce up their homes for the Holiday Season!

If you've come from visiting Leinad at Scrap-Stickle-Pop, you're in the right place! If you've just happened across my blog and would like to play along with our Fantabulous Cricut Crawl, start HERE.

Make sure to check out each DT member's blog for some awesome inspiration! There will be PRIZES along the way at our DT members' blogs, AND there will be a Grand Prize up for grabs at FCCB for one participant that submits a "Deck The Halls" project at FCCB!

How fun is that?  :)

For my project...I made a sign for the wreath on my front door:

I recently got the new Car Decals cartridge and I've been wanting to make a little family sign for our house.  Since it's Christmas time, I decided to make a Winter-themed sign for my Winter wreath, to jazz it up a little!  The red sign came from Hobby Lobby last year in the Christmas section.  It was 50% of $5.00 at the time.  I used Cricut white vinyl to cut the winter characters (using the "Athlete" feature) from Car Decals at 2 1/2" and 3".  The snowflakes came from Joys of the Season, cut at 1".  The lettering is from Lyrical Letters, cut at 1/2".  It was super-simple to do and I just love the result!

Okie dokie, now for the details of the prize I'm giving away...

CTMH's "Felicity" Collection!

This set is valued over $30 and is no longer available!  It includes 3 color schemes, 6 pieces of double-sided decorative die cut papers, 6 pieces of double-sided beautiful patterned paper and an exclusive, and a full-size stamp set that includes flourishes, flowers, birds and an entire alphabet!

To be eligible to win this prize, you must:
1.  Be a follower of my blog, Organized Chaos.
2.  Leave a comment on this post telling me your MOST favorite cartridge (only one!) and why it's your "must have" cartridge!

That's it!  Easy peasy!  Now it's your turn! Let's see your Christmas/Holiday-Themed Decor projects! Make sure to include a Cricut cut somewhere on your project!  And make sure to link up your project to FCCB no later than Sunday at midnight for chance to win the Grand Prize!

Next stop...Melin's blog, Cooking With Cricut. Go see what she has in store for you today... it's sure to knock your "stockings" off.  HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Happy Crawling!

Yummy, Yummy, To My Tummy...COOKIES!!!

I made these super-yummy Chocolate Andes Cookies for a cookie exchange party last night with the girls...soooo fun!  They turned out really good and were really simple to make, so I'm sharing the recipe for anyone interested. 

The recipe originally came from Jackie Schmidt at AllRecipes.com:

Chocolate Andes Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 C butter

1 1/2 C brown sugar

2 T water

2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 eggs

1 1/2 C flour

1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 (4.5 oz.) packages of Andes mints

Directions:

1.  In a saucepan, cook sugar, butter and water until melted.  Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until melted.  Remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes.

2.  Pour chocolate mixture into large bowl and beat in eggs, one at a time.  Combine flour, baking soda and salt and stir into chocolate.  Cover and refrigerate dough at least 1 hour.

3.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease cookie sheets.  Roll cookie dough into walnut sized balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.

4.  Bake for 8 minutes in the oven.  When cookies come out of oven, press one Andes mint into the top of each cookie and let sit 1 minute.  When mint is soft, swirl with the back of a spoon to make a pattern with the green filling of the candy.

5.  Let cool.  Makes approx. 40 cookies.

Enjoy!  :)

Custom Christmas Gift Tags!

My friend Tommie, "The Seriously Sweet Party Expert" at OhMyGluestick! designs adorable party circles for any occasion or holiday you can think of...including Christmas.  I would normally use these as cupcake toppers attached to candy sticks, but since I'm not making cupcakes for the holidays, I decided to make gift tags out of them.

Now I don't know about you, but I think some of the stick-on type labels are kind-of tacky (not all, but most!).  Unless I shell out the bucks for them, they're usually cheapo and have somewhat of a glossy surface, which then makes my ink smear and look awful!  Unfortunately, they are absolutely necessary to keep the gifts going to right recipients!  :)

So here's the perfect solution:  use printed party circles and attach them to bows to make your own custom, perfectly-coordinating gift tags!  The set I used for these projects are from the Red & Green Holiday Set:

Aren't these super-cute?  There are several other holiday options available at the OhMyGluestick Etsy shop as well.

I used a 1 3/4" circle punch to punch out the circles, leaving a bit of the printed border surrounding the circles.  Then I used my Cricut (Storybook cartridge) to cut 2" scallop circles to mat the printed circles.  I used a cardstock from my scrap stash and made these little cuties for nearly nothing!  And the best part is that my writing (on the back of each tag) didn't smear a bit because I was able to write on mat cardstock!  :)

I also added tags to these little gift bags (20 for $1.00 in the $1 bins at Target) which hold The Mess Maker's handmade Christmas ornaments to give to family this Christmas:

Thanks for looking and have a creative day!

Sock Cupcake: FCCB Challenge #39 "Gifts Galore"!

I first made sock cupcakes almost a year ago...and I posted some of my first sock cupcakes in an earlier post back in February.  Well, I've been at it again!  This time I made them for Fantabulous Cricut's Challenge this week: "Gifts Galore": Create a handmade gift or gift package!  This has to be one of my most favorite gifts to give...and I made this one in Chrismas colors, just in time for the holiday!!!

For the cupcake wrapper, I have a Design Studio file graciously shared by Rach1Fun from the Cricut Messageboard.  You can find her blog HERE.  It uses the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and cuts this lovely scallop-edge wrapper!  The socks are from the Michael's Dollar Spot and the cherries (which look almost black in the photo, but are really a dark red) are from Target.

To turn this cutie into a gift, I placed it in a cello bag, tied a red ribbon around it, and stamped a sentiment (CTMH) on a circle cut with George and attached to a circle tag to embellish.

Hope you'll hop over to FCCB and enter your own handmade gift/gift package for your chance to win this week's prize!

Happy Crafting!!!  :)

Looking For Help With A "Helmet Therapy" Insurance Appeal?

The Mess Maker and the Noise Maker were both born with Torticollis, a tightening in the neck muscles on one side, which made it difficult for them to fully rotate their heads.  Both went through rounds of Physical Therapy to treat the disorder, but the Mess Maker (above) ended up having to wear a special helmet for several months to correct the abnormal head shape that resulted from sleeping mainly on one spot of her head (see below).

This process was ubelievably difficult, stressful, time-consuming and heart-breaking...especially the casting part of the experience (which probably upset me more than her!):

And the worst part of the whole ordeal was fighting with our insurance company.  They wouldn't cover the costs of Helmet Therapy, claiming it was only "cosmetic" in nature.  We were out $3,000 for this much needed device.

I spent months researching and gathering information for an appeal.  A lot of people I came in contact with in similar situations had been denied coverage by their insurance companies as well.  I was determined to get coverage, and was able to compile an unbelievable amount of resources supporting the medical necessity of Helmet Therapy, which I turned into a 250-page successful appeal packet.  I would be happy to share this information with anyone interested.

1.  My 10-page appeal letter (entire document can be found HERE).


2.  If you would like a copy of my appeal resources and information, please email me your mailing address and I'll mail you a CD with all of the information I used.

TheHouseholdCEO(at)live(dot)com

If you have been denied coverage for a Star Band, DOC Band, Hanger Band or any other type of Helmet Therapy by your insurance company, don't give up!