Halloween Cupcakes

The girls made these cute cupcakes last week. I thought they were so cute and not so hard that I would show them. Make your favorite cupcake recipe. The basic frosting needs to be white but you can make different colors to accent if you want.



They used paint brushes with food coloring for the eye dots. For the eyes, you can use regular colored frosting, mini marshmallows or fondant. For the spider web, just use the paintbrush to make circles around like a target on the cupcake and then take a toothpick and start in the center and pull toward the outer edge. This will make it look like a web. Once the web look is finished, you can top it off with a plastic spider ring in the center which will give everyone something to take home.



The fondant ghost is made over a tootsie pop sucker. Roll it out and drape it over. Put the eyes on with a paint brush using food coloring or you can use a toothpick.



The tongue is fondant but you can use gummy parts they sell for Halloween if you can find them. The mummy is made by using a flat tip cake decorating tip.



They are fun and I thought they would be fun for a class to decorate. You could use the decorating tubes that you can buy already ready with tips included if you wanted to do them for a class. They could use the cake decorating markers for the eyes making it easier for kids.



Happy Haunting!

You Light Up my Life....

I am big into emergency preparedness. I have gotten many types of flashlights over the years. My favorite are going to be shared so you can get in on the deal.

I bought 9 or 12 LED bulb flashlights for each of my kids emergency backpacks a few years ago. I think I paid almost $10 for each of the lights and I found these lights a few months ago at Home Depot for half that for two lights with batteries included. They have metal cases and strong magnets on the side to stick on metal. They are WONDERFUL. I like that they are magnetic so if I needed to use them on my car or on a project, I can stick them where the light will shine on the project.

I bought one for each child and several for around the house. They have magnets on them so I keep one on the fridge, one on the garage door, and one in each car. I sent one with my daughter that is serving a mission in the Philippines and one with my daughter in college.

Recently I have seen these lights for twice the price at the local grocery store and found one just this week at a discount store for the same price for one light without the magnets and metal casing. Definitely not the same quality.

They are selling a larger bag of flashlights ( a ten pack I think) also with rubber/plastic flashlights at a cheap price. The one's I bought were $4.99 with batteries included. I like the metal case and magnets but my sister and brother opted for the larger bag with more lights having smaller children that like to run off with them. Either way, it is a great deal!

A great idea for a fun family game is "Hide and seek in the dark." Each person gets a flashlight and the game is played in the same way but just in the dark. We have done this on occasion but one time my daughter got scared and kicked the door she was hiding behind giving me a huge black eye. So, if you opt for this game, you may want to wear protective gear!

I hope you feel en"lightened!"

Easy Paint Touch Ups

I have loved painting my home different colors over the years. When I was married, my spouse was worried about resale (not that we planned to move) but he read somewhere that white walls sell better when you are planning on selling so we could never paint any color on walls or doors for that reason.

Since becoming single over the past 8 plus years, I have really enjoyed painting the walls many different colors and textures. However, with kids, dings, scrapes and chips will happen. Every year or so I would pull out the paint cans denting lids trying to get them open and then having a hard time getting them closed again when I wanted to do some touch up painting.

After I had so many colors on the wall, the dings would show up very clearly so it needed to be done more often to keep it looking nice. So, a few years ago, I started pouring a small amount of paint into film containers so I could have them handy for quick touch up jobs. When we stopped using film, I went to other small containers. Some from Play Dough or small Tupperware containers. (You all know how much I love Tupperware!)

I then use a Sharpie (by now, you know I love Sharpies also!)to label the container and I keep them all handy so that when we get a ding, I can quickly pull out the container to fix it right then. I also use a rubber glove to do the touch up. If I used a brush, it would leave brush marks so I just dip in a gloved finger and cover the chip and smooth the edges with the finger. It is quick and easy with no mess.

I have also used black Sharpies for years on dings on my black furniture and on my black shoes to fill in the chips or scratches. I laughed when my friend called and told me to watch "Pretty Woman" on TV because she thought of me when she saw Julia Roberts using a marker on her boots at the beginning of the movie. That was so me!

I have also used colored marker on furniture that has stain on it and has gotten scratched or chipped. I have also used them on walls that have chipped but I have no paint left in that color. I bought a marker set with about 30 colors and I find the color or mix colors to match the color I need to patch the chip or scratch. It has worked wonders for years. Today I spent time filling in my black benches at the table which often get scratched along with a few spots on my desk.

Not a life changing post but one that may make keeping your home pleasant and easier to manage!

Happy painting!

What to do now?

I spent much of my time yesterday and all night working on trying to get one of the three web domain host featured software packages to work setting up the home page for my web page.

I spent hours pulling over the blog posts using a highly recommended software only to find I had them in the dashboard but couldn't view them on the pages and no one could see them.

The second lovely software was VERY hard to use. I spent hours posting and figuring it out only to have most of the page delete with nothing saved. I tried to pull in some cute web page templates from other sites and they wouldn't post.

Finally, I pulled up the most user friendly software which is very similar to blogger only to find they have very few templates and only host six pages total before you have to "upgrade" and if you take a look at the web page, it looks horrible. I got one hour sleep before getting up and taking two friends out of town for the day.

So, forgive me for this lame post today. I did catch a very interrupted nap for a few hours but had at least 4 calls, and kids waking me every few minutes for daily stuff. I was ready to give up the blog today. I figure not many are reading it and being so tired I thought the web page isn't worth it but I can see it being a blessing for many if I can get it up and working as a tapping and gratitude site.

I also ask for you to pray for my oldest daughter who is serving as a missionary in the Philippines. She is going for an MRI on her knees this week. She is coming home in less than two months and they aren't sure until after the MRI what they want to do.
She has no insurance so if she needs surgery... I don't know.

To end on a wonderful and happy note, my youngest won the "Hot Can" contest for the whole school today! I really want to explain about foam clothes and how they can save your life. I'll save it for another day. Foam clothing is what gave us the idea to use foam as an insulator for her can!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

I am Moving to thesecretisgratitude.com!

Hi everyone,

I am working on moving my blog to my own domain. I hope this works but if not, please forgive any inconvenience while I am learning how to host my own domain!

Thanks for following me. I am hoping that this move will allow for everyone to post their "gratitude moments" on the site and allow me to add more to the site. I am working on adding videos of tapping in action and other helpful items such as being able to purchase some of the health items I list in my pages right from the site.

Pray for me to be able to figure out all the different things needed to make this work! If I mess it up, I hope I can come back and make it work here again!

Here is the link to my site: thesecretisgratitude.com See you on the flip side!

Hot, Hot, Hot - Insulation

My youngest brought home an assignment for school the other day looking into what material would be the best insulator. The test was to put a soda can in insulation 3 cm thick and see whose insulator kept the water hottest the longest. Through my studies for emergency preparedness, I learned that certain types of foam are the best insulator for bodies. (I will post that information another day.) Here is the assignment on paper.

Armed with that information, I told her she should try foam. I had some foam from a fruit box that was given as a gift. She took an old yogurt container and off she went, making her foam insulated soda can.

First, she took the yogurt container and made three rings as it could be 3 cm thick and the foam was 1 cm thick. She put them in the bottom of the yogurt container. Then, she traced the length of the can onto the foam and cut enough strips to wrap it around three times. Then made three circles large enough to fit on the top.

She used duct tape to keep the foam in place and over the top of the can. We couldn't find a thermometer that went high enough to test the water temperature so we made the water hotter than touch and after five minutes in the insulated can, it was still too hot to touch.

I think this would be a great science fair project for someone. Here are the results of some of the things they tested at school.

We sent the can in to be tested with the rest of the kids. Friday, they did the test and she is quite sure, she won. I will update this through the day when she arrives home. It really makes me want to post about our foam clothes for tomorrow!


She won the class competition getting a large "Symphony" bar as a prize. They will have the class winners face off this week. Hers only lost a few degrees in ten minutes. Big Congrats to the winner!

UPDATE: October 10th, she won the school competition with her foam thermos! She came home very excited to day. I still think this would be a great science fair project even if the foam was wet going in, the heat pushes the water out of the foam!

Boutineer For The Dance

My daughter went to Homecoming dance this week as her first date. Trying to be frugal, I decided to make the boutineer. I watched my mom make one for my first date and figured it couldn't be that hard. I went to Wal-Mart and lucked out as they had three roses at half price in the color I needed. I already had floral tape and I always keep the pins from corsages so I had plenty of those handy.

I took the most tight rose bud, cut it off about an inch down from the base of the flower. I took one of the leaves off the rose stem and placed it behind the rosebud. If there are any dark leaves, loose or damaged leaves on the outside, you can pull those off. I then took a piece of the fern type leaves that they always sell with roses. If you have baby's breath, you can add a sprig of that near the bottom. I then started wrapping the floral tape around the stems of all three until it reached the base of the rose bud itself. Then, turn and go back down ending the tape at the back so it doesn't show in the front.

If you moisten some paper towels and wrap the boutineer in them, it will remain wonderful even up to a day without wilting much. The same goes for corsages.

Wal-Mart here sells corsage kits with all the items needed to make your own for just over $4. If you already have ribbon, all you need is flowers and floral tape. Floral tape is sold in craft stores. It comes in many colors. I have burgundy, brown, white, pink and several shades of green. Try it out with flowers from home! Save even more!

Try making your own and saving some money. This is how to make a boutineer!