Here are a few ideas for some gifts for the people you love in your life.

Homemade Treats

–        Check out the beautiful cookies on Martha Stewart’s website

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Cupcakes

Valentine's Day Cupcakes- Tutorial on making chocolate decorations

Here is a tutorial I did last year for making easy and delicious chocolate cupcakes with a fun technique for creating the chocolate decorations.

It’s so much fun to make squiggles and words with chocolate!

If you need edible decorations for your treats, check out Fancy Flours.

Valentine Cupcakes from Fancy Flours.com

Here is a link to their recipe for simple yet sweet Valentine Day cupcakes.

Fancy Flours Edible decorations.  It’s a feast for the eyes.

Delightful Dinner at Home

Making a thoughtful and delicious dinner with some of your loved ones favorite dishes is always appreciated.

Maybe add a few special touches to the table setting.  It could be as simple as cutting out a few paper hearts and writing what you love about them.

or a few fun garnishes to set this dinner apart from day to day dining.

Take Out Dinner at Home

If you don’t like to cook, you can still use the ideas from above and just pick up their favorite take outs or try something new.

Put the food in attractive dishes or on the plate instead of just setting out the cartons.

Jewelry from the Heart

Here are a few heart themed earrings along with other handmade jewelry that I’ve made with love.

Set up a Fun Outing

How about setting up a hike, or picnic (indoors if it’s too cold), a day of snow shoeing, or renting a few favorite movies?

Check out some galleries that offer First Fridays, open in the evening the first Friday of the month.

A day trip to a nearby town that feels like you are on vacation whether you live near the mountains or ocean or the country.

What are some ideas you have?

This is a story of having fun with your creative project even when things are going wrong.  Really wrong.

I started cooking with my son, Parker, at a young age.  For his 18th birthday, (how did that happen so fast?), I asked if he would like me to make his cake or if he wanted to help.

Lucky for me he wanted to make it together.  He chose a Penguin cake when he saw the picture of these cute penguin cupcakes on the back of my Hello Cupcake book.

We wanted to make some changes to make them even better, or so we thought. We have a hard time following directions just as they are and like to add our own touches.

Instead of the canned frosting recommended to glue the doughnut hole head to the half mini donut and the cupcake body, we decided to use marshmallow crème.  Instead of the thinned and warmed frosting to dip the penguin, we wanted to use dark chocolate ganache.

Who knew that ganache does not stick to marshmallow crème?  After dipping the cupcakes, it was starting to crack like old, chipped paint.

penguin-cupcake-chocolate-doesn't-stick

We made a mess!  We kept dipping in an attempt to cover the marshmallow and make a solid black head and body.  We were covered in chocolate.

penguin-cupcake-its-a-blob

But we were laughing and having fun.  Sometimes when I’m making something and it’s not turning out, I get frustrated and mad but I loved that we were still having a good time with our ridiculous our lumps of cake.

I thought maybe if we left the chocolate ganache to set up a bit, we could try to cover things up.

The next day, we began again.  I thought we were going to have to change the theme of the cake to aliens have landed or the big blob.

We used the thickened ganache to repair the cracks and even things out a bit.

penguin-cupcake-its-getting-better

We added the beaks which are starburst candy cut on the diagonal, wings from chocolate cookie wafers cut in half, and white bellies from sliced marshmallow ends.  The eyes were made from a dab of white frosting piped on with mini chocolate chips.

We perched them in black and white cupcake holders which help make them look a little neater.

Lo and behold, it was a miracle.  They started to look like penguins.  They weren’t perfect but they were kind of cute.  They each had their own personality.

penguin-cupcake-it-looks-like-a-penguin-now

They also had a few balance issues from falling over before so we let them stay a bit tipsy.

penguin-cupcake-on-a-tilt

I even let one just go to sleep, lying on his back.  I added some starburst feet.

penguin-cupcake-reclining

Parker’s friends had already started to arrive for his party, so I finished things up by making an iceberg cut from the rest of the cake baked in a 13 x 9 pan.

I made what was supposed to be a quicker and more stable version of 7 minute boiled white icing.  It is basically a marshmallow type white icing.  It took way longer than 7 minutes and wouldn’t thicken up properly but it still tasted good.

So, going with the same attitude that it will taste good even if it doesn’t look good, I cut the cake at angles and stacked it up, spread some of the extra chocolate ganache on top and added the marshmallow icing.

The icing was more like a glaze but it smoothed out and was shiny, just like ice.  Good enough!

I perched our wonky penguins around the ice berg and added some gummy fish.  They looked like they had too much fish to eat, so I went with it.

penguin-cupcake-and-cake-completed

Considering all the problems, it came out pretty cute.  And it tasted good which is very important!

But the main thing I was most happy about was that we really did enjoy the process, despite things not working out as planned.  And the best part was I got to make a few more memories with my son.

Here is my son Parker (on the left) celebrating with his good friends

Do you always have more projects and ideas that you want to do than time to do them?

I know I do!  In my attempt to simplify things so that I can enjoy them more, I am experimenting with keeping a Project Wish List.

When I would see ALL my ideas as things I HAD to do, it was overwhelming.  When I look at it as a Wish list and a way to choose what I want most right now, it becomes empowering.

It is basically a way to capture the ideas of things I might want to do and to give me a way to choose.

Here is what I have right at the top to remind me to keep it simple!

You can pick ANYTHING you want!

You just can’t do it all at once.

Choose 3 projects to work on and only replace a project when one is finished or you feel it is not worth completing.

Release Resistance.   Let it be Easy and Enjoyable. 

My plan is to keep the number of projects down to a minimum so that I can finish them before I go on to the next one.

I am keeping a running list on a word document, and have a shortcut on my desktop.  I also have 3 file folders in my action files in the kitchen.  This way, I can get it out of my head and in a place for safe keeping.

I have it broken down into 3 areas – Business, Home, and Creative.

And for me, those categories do cross over because I might have a creative project like a piece of jewelry or art that will be sold through my business.

But just as a way to keep it easier to choose, I wanted a few categories.

Here is how I am using them.

Business – Any kind of marketing idea, anything to do with the website, blog, or accounting or any other business project.

Home – Any project that has to do with organizing or maintenance.

Creative – Any kind of creative project or idea, whether it is for business or just for me personally, that’s where it goes.  These are mainly things I want to make.

Periodically I will take the notes out the folders and add them to the computer file.

How do you keep track of all the things you want or need to do?