If you Facebook...

... I have started a fan page under "Cruces Creations". Please look for it and add on as a fan! :-)

Rally for the Cure at Picacho Hills CC

Here are photos of the (90) Chocolate covered Oreos I made for the Rally for the Cure (Susan Komen foundation) at Picacho Hills Country Club for today.

and a close-up:

Some cards

A couple of birthday cards I made for my sister:

(above, from me; below, from my mom)

and one I made for my sister to give to a friend's daughter:

and a simple thank you card (3x3)

Super Bowl treats

SUPER BOWL XLIV

Saints 31 - Colts 17

Here are the treats I made for two different Super Bowl parties Mike and I attended.

First: Chocolate Covered Oreos with Saints and Colts logos. I could NOT find molds for the logos ANYWHERE, so decided I would try to make my own... Project foam didn't work... plexiglass didn't work... so I went free-hand (traced over a print out from the computer). I think it turned out pretty good. :-) 30 of each.

Next: some black-bottom mini cupcakes with raspberry buttercream (they've been posted before)

Finally, my newest cake mold: A stadium-shaped cake!

Our team? DA SAINTS, of course! For no other reason than Punter #6 (Thomas Morstead) who was one of my physics students and lab managers at Pearland, and one of my lifeguards!!! :-)

Wedding invitations/announcements

I had the privilege of making some wedding announcements/invitations (and favors to follow) for one of my sister's friends. Here is how they turned out:

She provided the photos, I put together everything else. There were NO red brads to be found ANYWHERE... so I made them. :-) Plain silver brads, a little glue, and some red glitter.

ETSY Announcement!!!

My etsy site is officially "up"... Hope I've set it up correctly! :-)

http://www.crucescreations.etsy.com (just in case you want to write it down somewhere)!

Please take a look and order if interested. The three listings so far are for specific quantities - if you would like a different quantity or theme or whatever, I can make a "private listing" for you if you will message me with what you would like to order!

More Valentine's fun!

Next up: Gift card holders. Again, these can be made to accommodate any occasion. Just ask! These gift card holders are specifically valentine's colors; another post to follow with several other gift card holder designs and patterns.

A tri-fold gift card holder. Closes with velcro. Space on the white part to personalize a note!

A gift card holder, and a pack of gum. :-)

On a Valentine's kick... (candy post)

So, my sister and dad went to Japan for a week, and I drove out to LA to help my mom around the house while my sis was gone. Since I drove, I made sure to pack a bunch of my scrapbooking/card-making stuff, and now I've been on a valentine's kick. Here are the projects I've made so far... Oh, and these are just the "candy" ones... And, in case you're wondering, yes, any of these can be made to a non-Valentine's theme too. I just happened to pull all the pink and valentine's-y papers. :-)

** All items to be available shortly (within the next 2 days, hopefully) in my etsy store (http://www.crucescreations.etsy.com)... Although I would gladly take individual (non-etsy) orders too! Email me: CrucesCreations@gmail.com

(L to R): M&M candy sleeves with tag,
Peppermint patty packs with tag attached to bow,
Mini milk cartons (approx 1" x 1" x 4" tall) holding 5 Starburst candies

Ghiardelli purses (holds 2 Ghirardelli chocolates! yum!)

Kit Kat (or Hershey bar or...) pull-out treat holders. Open the front and the treat slides out!

... and one more Kit Kat/Hershey bar holder:

A thank you card

This card was presented to Jane Noble, our awesome teaching pro at Picacho Hills CC for all her hard work, support, and more throughout 2009. From the ladies of the Picacho Hills Ladies Golf Association, THANKS!!!

A new camera! and Christmas projects...

I got a new camera (a little point-and-shoot) from Mike for Christmas! Add to that a table-top photo studio for my birthday (just 2 weeks earlier), and voila! I can set up and take my own photos now... and get my etsy site going... So here are a few more pictures (with more to follow).

1) The Candy Cane Marshmallow "pops". These are 2 standard marshmallows on a candy cane, dipped in chocolate, then drizzled with red and white candies. Available as singles ($2.50) or in a 2-pack with two packs of hot cocoa mix ($5.00)

2) I made several chocolate/vanilla lollipops. The "christmas tree" and "snowman with lights" are pictured here ($0.50 each). I think the other photos ended up on the other camera. Will upload those photos when I get the memory card reader working... Anyway, each lollipop is individually hand-painted, then wrapped and tied with a bow.

3) Some chocolate/vanilla covered pretzel sticks ($1.00 each). Here are two shots of the "Present" pretzels. These were done in "Christmas" colors, but could be made in any color scheme and would be great for Birthday parties, baby showers, etc. Other designs are also available, and images will be posted (hopefully) in the near future.

4) Peppermint Patty packs ($1.00 each). These are a 4-pack of Peppermint patties, decorated to any theme. In this case, Christmas (obviously). Each hand-assembled and packaged.

The one item I didn't get photos of are my chocolate-covered Oreos. For Christmas, I had 4 designs (snowman's face, santa's face, christmas tree, snowflake). I may make a few more just so I can take some photos. If not, there'll be some chocolate-covered Oreos for Valentine's Day!

Thanks for looking!

Kactus Kapers 2009

Kactus Kapers is the annual 3-day long, member-guest golf tournament that the ladies at Picacho Hills Country club host. In an earlier post I have photos from last year's KK. Below are some from this year.

1st: some shots of the cupcake tower and individual treats I made for Tuesday evening's dinner:
(need to get these off of the camera's memory card... which this laptop won't read... argh... will have to post later)

2nd: This is the "dummy" cake I made for the raffle:

The winner of the raffle was Lynn Z., who happened to be the tournament organizer... needed a cake for the post-tournament thank-you luncheon to all who helped. Her request was a cake for ~20 people - a chocolate cake with mocha buttercream. This is the result: (and btw Lynn, you still have more to your raffle winning to claim!)

The first update of many... Butterflies and weddings!

Here are some of the pictures that I was trying to get off of flickr... until I realized that they were indeed in a folder on my desktop... go figure.

So first up are the chocolates:
Butterflies

30 (thirty) 3-D, freehanded chocolate butterflies. They were made for a caterer (A Catered Affair, Las Cruces, NM) who needed a party favor for a 90 year-old lady's birthday party. Each butterfly and pedestal were individual packaged in a plastic cup and wrapped and tied.

Below is an image of the chocolate-covered (vanilla, actually) Oreo that I made and packaged as wedding favors for Kim & Mike O. With their wedding colors being pale yellow and pale blue, the hearts were shaded accordingly.

And next: their wedding cake! White & chocolate sour cream cake with Raspberry filling and Lemon Buttercream.

Lastly, since the blog title reads "Butterflies and weddings"... it would only be appropriate to include the following pictures. This cake was made for a ladies' member-guest tournament at Picacho Hills Country Club in June, with the theme... "Wedding Bells". Same cake as the wedding cake above (actually, the above wedding was in Aug., so they actually had the same cake as the one below, but anyway...) - white and chocolate sour cream cake with raspberry filling and lemon buttercream. The butterflies and tees around the bottom layer were made of candy as well.