Tag Archives: Independence Day

How to Decorate With Used CDs

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Creating crafts from CDS is a great way to get rid of all of those shiny free disks you get in the mail. It’s also a great way to reduce, reuse and recycle those tunes and programs that you know you will never lay your eyes on again.

Perhaps one of the most famous CD crafts project tat exists is a sleeveless knee length cocktail shift, created entirely from CD’s and small gold jewelry hooks. Talk about a great way to create a futuristic outfit for New Year’s.

CD disks look really attractive in any project that has a dangling element to it. Some of the kinds of cd crafts that you can make include Christmas decorations and dangling door hangers. You could even make a chandelier out of it.

All you need to do to personalize a CD is cut an image out of a newspaper (or find one on the Internet that suits your theme or purposes) and glue it or decoupage it over the original record label. For instance if you were making a Christmas decoration, you would use an image such as a snowflake, snowman or Christmas tree. You can use hearts for Valentine’s days and pumpkins for dangling Halloween crafts. These types of CD projects can be dangled from a front door to celebrate the season.

Another way to conceal the label is to simply glue two used CDS together so that the labels of both face inwards. Some individuals hang these CD projects (called “flashers”) in trees to discourage birds and squirrels from plundering a garden.

CD crafts are easily turned into objects that can hang or “dangle” by attaching a looped ten-inch piece of ribbon to the CD with glue. Industrious types might want to try drilling holes into CDs to create attractive hanging mobiles that hang from ribbons or threads.
Decoupage suits the creation of these types CD crafts, especially if you want to try making your very own homemade shiny coaster set. You can also personalize these durable protective table coasters by pasting images over the label of the CD. For instance, an image of the U.S. flag pasted into the center of the coaster would suit a party celebrating Independence Day.

Used CDs also make great candleholders. Glue a candle onto the shiny side of a CD. Surround it with a wreath made of fake or real flowers or branches. You can also decorate the CD surface by securing beads to it with glue. The reason that candle CD crafts are so pretty is that the shiny surface of the acts as a mirror that doubly reflects the glow of the candle.

Whether you are looking to entertain your kids or simply looking for a way to recycle used discs, the Internet is a great source of inspiration for ideas about using these disks to make geometric works of art of all kinds.

Interesting Ideas for Decorating Cup Cakes

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Decorating cup cakes has become so much of an art that is it almost like fashion couture. Here are some interesting and offbeat ideas for decorating them.

Have you ever tried decorating Burger Cupcakes. These are decorated to look just like a humburger. You can putthem together using plain cupcakes yousing the ones lightly sprinkled with sesame seeds for the buns, a chocolate cupcake latyer for the meet, yellow fondaont and icing for the cheese and a bit of red and green icing for ketchup and pickles.

Cupcakes themed after cartoon characters are also very popular. You can use fondant and icing to create faces on the cakes. You can include characters like the Cookie Monster, Batman and the Smiley Face.

You can also use cupcakes to build shapes. Aligatores, snakes and caterpillars lend themselves especially well to this.

You can also make an edible cup cake tree by placing htem on cake tiers until they reach your desired shape and size.

Cupcakes are well suited to every type of holiday theme that you can imagine as well. You can decorate them in red and green for Christmas, decorate them to look like pumpkin faces for Halloween and make stars and stripes out of icing for Independence day.

It is also quite impressive to write on the cupcakes. For a wedding you can spell out the name of the happy couple on the cupcake. You can also use them for an anniversary but spelling out the date of the wedding.

Here are some tips for making cup cakes so that you have a good “canvas” to work from thm.
• Never fill your cupcake tins more than half full before baking
• Spraying the cups with non stick oil first really helps
• Mix the cupcake batter lightly to avid chewy7 cupcakes
• Make sure your ingredients are room temperature
• Use a toothpick to make sure the center of the cakes are done
• Use a piping bag to ice the cakes
• Use a flimsy rubber spatula to ice the cakes.
• Make sure the cupcakes are cool before you frost them!
• Keep a light touch with the food coloring as it can alter the taste of the cake if you use too much!

Keep in mind too that vanilla frosting can be made into any color you like. Use food coloring to make it last. To make colored sugar or coconut simply place it in a bag with a few drops of food coloring and shake it vigourously. It’s not just icing that benefits from a soak in food coloring!