DIY Ice Cream Cake

As I mentioned in my last post, in one long night I made 21 different cakes. One of these was an ice cream cake. My mom used to make these for parties when I was a kid so for this party, I called her and asked how to make them. Turns out it much simpler than I expected. Why spend $30 on an ice cream cake when you can make one for about $5?

What you need:

-Ice Cream (I used vanilla)

-Hostess Ho-Ho Cakes 

(Do they still exist? I'm sure you could find something similar.)

I used a bundt pan because it looks pretty and it has slots making it easy to know where to cut slices. I took the ice cream out to soften for a little while. You do not want it to be liquid but you need to be able to squish it. While the ice cream was softening I unwrapped a bunch of Ho-Hos and squished them into the pan and packed it down as best as I could. How much you use depends on what pan you are using and how much cake you want in your ice cream cake. Once I had the Ho-Hos squished into the pan, I then squished the ice cream into the pan and then made sure it was flat. I put it back in the freezer to solidify a bit and then popped it out of the pan and put it on the plate when I was ready for it. Yum!

Coolest Cake Ever

When one my bestest best friends was turning 21 (and nobody else was) we decided to throw her a party. Since we could not do anything with drinking, we did a lot of eating. I stayed up all night in our dorm's lounge and made 21 different cakes.  There were nowhere near enough people at the party to eat all of that cake. I started sending home cakes as party gifts by the end of the party. Good times...

This was by far my favorite cake that I made that long sleepless night. It is so simple to make but was sooooo good. 

What you need:

-Chocolate Cake Mix

-Vanilla or Yellow Cake Mix

-Strawberry Cake Mix

-Eggs, oil or whatever the boxes say you need

-Vanilla Frosting

-Three round cake pans

Its pretty straightforward. I did not use all of the mix from the boxes on this cake. The rest of the mix went to some of the other 20 cakes. All did was make one round of each flavor and then layered them with vanilla frosting. Ta-da!! Neapolitan Cake!

For those of you who are curious and want to know what some of the other cakes are, lets see how many I can remember. 

Ice Cream Cake shown above... hmmmm that might need its own post...

1. Neopolitan
2. Chocolate with Vanilla Frosting
3. Chocolate with Chocolate Frosting
4. Vanilla with Vanilla Frosting
5. Vanilla with Chocolate Frosting
6. Strawberry with Strawberry Frosting?
7. Strawberry with Vanilla Frosting
8. Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
9. Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting
10. Red Velvet with Vanilla Frosting
11. Devils Food Cake
12. Angel Food Cake
13. Ice Cream Cake
14. Barbie Cake
15. Some Cupcakes of Various Flavors and Frostings...
16. That is all I can remember at this point.... If I find my list from back then I will edit the post later.

Beach in a Block

When I was fourteen, my family went to NYC to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center along with some other touristy sights. I barely remember the day except for the fact that my older brother had asked if he could bring his "friend" with us. We then found out that she was his new girlfriend. Fast forward a few years, Bethany came on a family vacation with us to Aruba. We had a blast. She was already a part of our family. One night, Ryan and Bethany took a bottle of wine and two glasses and went down to the beach to look at the stars. When they came back, they were engaged. My brother married his high school sweetheart almost two years ago and I am so happy because of it. I could not have picked someone better for Ryan. 

All of that back story is to give this DIY some meaning. I like to give gifts to people that will mean something. The first Christmas that they were married, I decided to make this for them.

All I did was take a simple craft block that I bought at Michaels like this one

and filled it with sand, a few shells, a cork and a picture from that night when he proposed. It probably cost less than $20 for the whole thing and turned out beautifully. I have seen some really clever things done with craft blocks. People use them as wedding centerpieces, fish tanks, they fill them with candy, Christmas lights, cover them with paper mache and light them up... you name it. What have you done with craft blocks?

My Broken Heart

So when you have such a messy room as I did growing up, breaking things is inevitable. Fortunately I am not superstitious because with the amount of mirrors I have stepped on and broke, I would have bad luck for the next few decades. Most of the time I did not care too much. This one mirror though was pretty nice though. it was a weird squished oval shape with a handle and it was salon quality. It was a gift from my mom so of course I felt bad when I broke it... When I was cleaning out the mess I saw that some of the pieces broke in some pretty cool shapes. I played around with it for a little while and then grabbed some sticky tack and this is what I ended up with.

While it might not work out so well if I tried to duplicate it, I was really happy with how it turned out. I love having mirrors in my room. The way they reflect the light, it just makes everything brighter and lovely! I ended up taking the mirror down when I had to repaint the walls and I still miss it to this day... I did however cut my hand really badly on the sharp edge as it came down.... So yeah. If you ever try to do something like this, broken mirrors and broken glass are actually sharp and dangerous. Who would have guessed. So go make something beautiful out of a stupid mistake! Let me know if you create something awesome that you want to brag about!