Sometimes I have to remind myself that simple turns out to be the most beautiful. All this patriotic wreath is a $5 grapevine wreath with some red, white, and blue hydrangeas glued on. I didn't feel the need to add ribbon or even a flag to it. These colors are all that was needed to show the American spirit because as they say these colors don't run.

​I hope everyone has a very happy and safe Fourth of July and God Bless America!

Happy Veteran’s Day! I am very proud of being an American and I know that is only possible because of all of the amazing men and women who fought for this country. This is a World Ward One memorial not too far from where my in-laws live where the American forces would enter into France. After the German’s destroyed it in the second war it was rebuilt and now includes WWII.

​God Bless all of the men and women who has, who is, or who will serve this country. 

It hot where we leave during the summer time and the best way to cool down is with some homemade ice cream pie! Normally I make my Fourth of July Trifle, but this year since we are keeping it small I decided to make an ice cream version this year. I got a graham cracker crush and layered sliced strawberries along the bottom. I think poured some melted strawberry ice cream. I put another later of strawberries and added some blueberries before topping it off with more ice cream. I placed it in the freezer until the ice cream re-froze and then finished it some whipped cream and decorated with more strawberries and blueberries. This is going to be such a nice cool treat while we watch the fireworks! 

Something that Amber and I started a few years ago was creating Fourth of July shirts for our annual barbeque. Last year we tried the classic way of doing tied dyed shirts, but they looked more like purple and pink instead of blue and white. Thankfully the guys didn’t mind the colors and were willing to let us try tie dying again this year. Last month when I was at Target getting the birthday bag for memory board I found some tie dying kits on sale and picked a few up. Each kit came with three bottles filled navy, turquoise, and red dye and all I needed to do was add water, seemed easy enough! I did a little research on the best way to tie dye and decided on what pattern we wanted. This year, since we are nerdy after all, decided to make Captain American tie dye shirts. The most important part of this design was the shield so we needed to make sure the colors didn’t bleed together. To get the best seal we read that we should use zip ties, who knew?! We zipped tied each shirt with four zip ties in the pattern of the shield.  Next we damped each shirt since apparently wet shirts helps the dye to get to all of the areas of the shirt.  We started with the red dye, following the instructions on the package and dyed only the designated red areas of the shield, once the red was finished we repeated the process with the blue. However, since the blue looked purple we mixed the blue and turquoise to get more of a royal blue color. We covered the shirts and let them seat for at least six hours like we had read to let the dye set. 

Two years ago the idea of this adorable apron came to me and I finally made it! The first year I couldn’t find the right star fabric and last year I was able to finally find the correct fabric, but didn’t have enough time to make it. I have tons of tubs full of projects that I just never got to, so lately I have been trying really hard to get to them. I decided to finally make this apron and enter it into the fair later this fall. I started by cutting out a regular shaped apron bodice and skirt. I ended up making the neck a little more sweetheart shaped to make it look more like a dress. I cut out two half circles for the skirt side panel and a white panel for the bodice. To create the bodice, I pinned the red ribbon in place and sewed the white panel to the blue pieces. I darted the sides of the bodice to give it more shape and added the white lace. For the skirt I pinned the sewed blue panels to the bodice, creating plenty of ruffles. Once all pinned I sewed on the red skirt and finishing it with white lace. Lastly I added I sewed red ribbon for the neck and the ties, making sure to melt the ends of the ribbon to prevent unraveling. The apron came out better than I thought it would two years ago! Now I am all ready for the 4th of July in my red, white, and blue!

Fourth of July is tomorrow and we are busy here preparing for our festivities. I recently shared my Patriotic Trifle, and today I wanted to share some cupcakes I made for work.

To recreate these designs follow these steps:

Divide a batch of frosting into threes and color one red and another blue. The third needs to remain white.

Firework Cupcakes – Using a piping bag with a “grass” tip (#233), pipe a ring of blue frosting on the outer side of the cupcake. Repeat with white frosting just inside of the blue frosting. Lastly, pipe the red frosting into the center of the white ring.

Red, White and Blue Cupcakes – In a piping bag place a 1M tip, fill one side of the bag with white frosting, then on another side fill with red frosting and on the last side fill with blue frosting. Start on the outer side of the cupcake and move towards the center, stop squeezing the back and twist up. Sprinkle with Patriotic sprinkles if desired.

Flag Cupcakes – Using a piping bag with a #3 tip, make a triangle on ¼ of the cupcake with the blue frosting and fill in. Next rotate the red and white frosting using the same #3 tip. Add white star sprinkles or pipe white stars using a #1 tip on the blue area.

Patriotic and Delicious!!!

Nothing is more American than a barbeque and fireworks on the Fourth of July. Every year Amber host our annual Independence Day gathering, it’s filled with family, friends, water fights and great food! As the certified baker I get to bring a tasty dessert. My favorite dessert to bring is a patriotic trifle, it’s sweet, fresh and every bite reminds me summer.

Instructions:
Prep time 30 minutes, Chill Time 1 hour, Make 16 servings  

Ingredients:
1 pkg (3.4 oz) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Fat Free Sugar Free Instant Pudding
1 ½ cup Fat Free Milk
1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip Lite, Whipped Topping
1 pkg (13 oz) Angel food cake, cut into ½ inch cubes
2 cups Fresh Strawberries, sliced
1 cup Blueberries   

Directions:
Beat pudding mix and milk in medium bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in 1-1/2 cups Cool Whip. Layer half each of the cake and berries in large serving bowl; cover with pudding mixture. Top with layers of remaining cake, berries and Cool Whip. Refrigerate 1 hour.