About Tricia

I am Tricia. Momma of nine, homeschooler, artist, foodie and maker of all kinds of things. It's a pleasure to share here our family homesteading adventures, the things we make, and what inspires our days. Read more about my family and work here. Thanks for visiting!

Author Archive | Tricia

Marshmallow Pops tutorial

By Tricia on March 18, 2011 in Recipes, Tutorial

Happy Saint Patricks Day to everyone. One of the tutorials I have promised all my bloggy friends is the marshmallow pop tutorial from the marshmallow pops I made for Livie’s second birthday party.

Since today is Saint Patrick’s Day (also my feast day since my given name is Patricia…wink, wink) and who doesn’t love a treat on Saint Pattys day, I decided to do the tutorial today.

What you will need:

Candy melts or white bark chocolate
Marshmallow (the big kind not the tiny ones)
Sprinkles, candies or decorations for the top
Lollipop sticks
Styrofoam board to keep the pops standing on
Small cups to keep chocolate and toppings in for dipping

First thing you want to do is get your pops board ready. You do not want to be pushing pops into a board when they are not yet set up and mushy. Make holes for your pops by pushing the ends of the lollipop sticks into the styrofoam in rows across and down the board.

Put enough candy melts in your microwaveable cup (this is pretty much all that I use my microwave for) to almost fill the cup. Melt in your micorwave for about 15 seconds at a time, take out and mix. If not melted, put it back in and do another 15 seconds. If you do not watch it and it goes too long you will burn the candy melts and it will be un-useable.

Push a lollipop stick in the bottom of a marshmallow until it is in the middle, don’t push it all the way through. Holding the lollipop stick, dip the marshmallow into the melted chocolate until half covered.

Turn the pop slightly while pulling it up to get a nice covered top.

Now that you have dipped it in the chocolate, you are going to dip it in your sprinkles or top it with whatever you like. For the birthday party pops, I just put a cute m&m on top and done.

done and done.

Now, wasn’t that easy? I made all of them in about 20 minutes while painting the livingroom for our big makeover (more on this in a few weeks for my big reveal), getting ready for a Saint Patricks party tonight and making 2 trays of roasted potatoes for the party.

To decorate your pops board, you could cover the top with some nice scrap booking paper or fabric before you poke the holes but white worked with my color scheme so I just added some ribbon around the base.

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Tissue paper flower pom-poms tutorial

By Tricia on March 15, 2011 in Tutorials and Patterns

As promised, here is the first of the party decoration tutorials. Once you make a few you will want to make more. They are super simple to make and pack a big punch. I can imagine a room (I put mine up in the trees which are so big that they kind of dissapeared) full of these in really beautiful vibrant colors.

What you will need:
20 x 30 sheets of tissue paper 8 sheets per flower
Wire
Fishing line to hang them

Take 8 sheets of your tissue paper and stack them neatly.

doing an accordian pleat, pleat the stack of papers

fold it in half to find the center

cut a 12 inch piece of wire and put it around the center twisting the wire to secure it, next you are going to cut the edges to either a point or round them off, if you cut a point on each end you will get spiky flowers, if you round off the edge you get a puffier looking flower, its up to you.

next, open up your pleated papers as shown on the picture

here comes the fun part, seperate the layers, pulling each paper to the center one by one. Note- Don’t pull too hard or you will tear a petal of your flower off.