DIY Wreath

I am one of those people. I had my Christmas wreath up until just yesterday. I know, super tacky. It's not like I left it up there on purpose I just never thought about it until I was walking out the door. I had a whole evening to myself yesterday so I finally decided to do something about that wreath. I don't have a lot of experience making them so I decided to browse Pinterest for a bit of inspiration. I ended up blending things from several different ones that I liked and now I want to pass along that inspiration.

I got everything from Michaels craft store.

-A simple brown picture frame - $4.00













- Roll of hemp - $3.00
- 2 pieces of felt (To make flowers out of. Link to tutorial) - $.20 each
- Big monogram letter - $4.00
- Choice of paint color to paint your Monogram letter - $.60
- Needle and thread and hot glue gun from home



I just simply started by hot gluing an end piece of hemp to the back side of my frame and then wrapped it all the way around. I cut and glued once I got to each corner.

Arrange your felt flowers (I found a great tutorial here) however you like with a hot glue gun and then hot glue your monogram letter on! Simple as that!

{Almost} Vegan Applesauce Cupcakes with Vegan Vanilla Frosting

I am not vegan but I do love vegan baked goods, so this morning when I wanted to make cupcakes but didn't have any eggs I decided it was a vegan kind of day. For these cupcakes to truely be vegan you need Organic Unbleached Sugar. I only had white sugar on hand so that is why I named this post {Almost} vegan cupcakes. If you use the unbleached sugar, you are good to go.

These vegan applesauce cupcakes are SO YUMMY! There is a perfect mix of spices and apples. I was afraid I would really be able to taste the applesauce and it would be an odd flavor but they turned out perfect! The icing is REALLY sweet but since the cupcakes are not very sweet it is a good pairing. I was not thrilled with the texture of the icing so I'm still on the hunt for the perfect vegan icing, but until then this one will work.

Cupcake Ingredients:

1/2 c margarine (80% fat is best)
1/4 c Organic Unbleached Sugar (** I used white sugar but technically white sugar is not vegan but that was all I had on hand.)
1 1/2 c. Flour
1 t Baking soda
1/4 t Salt
1 t Cinnamon
1 1/2 t Nutmeg
1 1/4 c Unsweetened applesauce
1 t Vanilla

** The original recipe called for 1/4 cup of walnuts, I did not have any but I'm sure that would taste AMAZING in this recipe.

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375 F.
Step 2: Cream margarine until fluffy.
Step 3: Add sugar
Step 4: Sift together dry ingredients.
Step 5: Add to margarine mixture alternately with applesauce, mixing well after each addition.
Step 6: Stir in vanilla and nuts.
Step 7: Spoon into 12 cupcake pans sprayed with vegetable pan spray or use paper baking cups.
Bake 15-20 min.

Frosting:
3/4 cup powdered sugar (**Must be vegan powdered sugar to truly be vegan)
3/4 cup margarine
1/8 cup vanilla soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

This is pretty much a one step frosting. Just go ahead and put all your ingrediants in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer or your stand mixture. Play around with it until you get the results you want.

Like I said I was not thrilled with this texture and was really sweet. I doubled the recipe and then ended up tripling the amount of sugar (VERY IMPORTANT) and that helped some with the texture.




Let me know if you know any really great vegan icing recipes!