Cute framed collage

My brother just recently got married and for their wedding presents I wanted to do something that would be cute and unique. So after looking around, I decided on something I thought they would both like that would sort of match.

I unfortunately did not think of taking any pictures during the process of making either, because hers I finished making at like 1:00 AM after working on it for several hours and his I just forgot to take photos of because I was in a hurry to finish it.

His:

Hers:

But for the most part it's a pretty straightforward project just from seeing the finished project (hopefully at least). It's a pretty easy and cheap to make. I got the frames at Goodwill and the rest of the supplies can be bought from either Walmart or Hobby Lobby.

Supplies:
Black (or whatever color you're wanting to use) sheet of heavy paper ( I bought some for about 78 cents at Walmart in the craft area) or you can buy the wooden letters or pre-cut out ones if you can find them.
 poster paper (Again cheap at Walmart)
mod podge (I made my own just using water and cheap glue)
a cheap paint brush or a sponge brush (Hobby Lobby or Walmart)
The decorative paper you are using for the collage (I used newspaper but I wanted to use old books from Goodwill but I forgot to buy some before we left and for his I just copied different eras of Batman comics and cut them out).
Backs for hanging the pictures if your frame doesn't come with one (neither of mine did. I got them at Hobby Lobby in a pack in the frame section).
a hot glue gun or strong glue (I used Elmer's strong glue)
scissors

Step 1: measure out your poster paper so that it does not show behind your frame.
Step 2: If you are cutting out the letter, measure it out so it fits so it fits neatly in the middle. As you can see I did not do the greatest job of cutting out the letters but since it was sort of a last minute gift idea I had to make do. I would suggest either using a stencil or buying pre-done letters and just painting them the color you want if you get the wooden ones.
Step 3: Cut out your background pieces. I liked to get a lot of different sizes to give it variety and I would have liked to get it from different books to give it some contrast in colors and font sizes.
Step 4: Arrange your paper how you like on the and glue them down. I liked to layer them and put them at different angles, but you can do as you like.
Step 5: Cover the background with a layer of mod podge using either the cheap paint brush or the sponge brush, being careful not to get it too thick on it. Then glue the letter down and do the same to it.
Step 6: Once everything dries, put a layer of the strong glue down on the back of the frame put down your background. To dry put it right side up and leave it on a flat surface otherwise I found that the glue doesn't dry right unless it has a little pressure (then again it might be because I was trying to let it dry in the car on the way to their house)
STep 7: If you are using a frame that does not have a hook or anything to hang with I got a pack at Hobby Lobby that don't require screws and you just have to put them in with a hammer (or as we did, with a meat cleaver since my brother has yet to buy a hammer).

This would be fun to do as kid's wall decoration too or really anything. There's a lot of fun ways you could do this. I'd love to know if anyone does it and see the results!

Strawberry vanilla cupcake recipe

Hi all! Sorry that this is kind of a weird post. I'm sort of out of whack thanks to being sort of "on vacation" you could say so my schedule is kind of weird with driving up and down everywhere to visit my brothers who happen to be in different directions of the state. Fun times. But seriously I will try to at least post once a week, if not twice a week when I can. I have a few things I've been wanting to try out now that I'm here, and have access to an actual art store and places to buy different ingredients I can't get at home. 

Anyways, back to the post at hand! On the 12th we left for the states, which also happened to be one of my best friend's birthday unfortunately. So to make up for the lack of me being there on her birthday, I decided to bake some cupcakes for her and her family the day before I had to leave. Now, I've recently gotten into this thing of baking, but I don't like baking normal people things. I don't want to just make a vanilla cupcake. I want to make a vanilla cupcake with homemade blackberry jam filling and homemade blackberry frosting. I don't just make chocolate cupcakes. I make chocolate blackberry cupcakes. I don't just do a chocolate cake. It has to be a Swedish chocolate cake (which I found out is delicious when you first get it out of the oven, but if you let it cool off too long, which i waited until much later to actually serve it, the cake becomes about as hard as a rock.). So you get the general idea. I like baking things (mostly cupcakes) with a bit of a twist. 

And that is why I got so excited when I accidentally stumbled on this recipe for a cupcake base. Basically all you have to do is make this base up and then add your flare to it. And that's when I had a light bulb moment! I wanted to make strawberry vanilla cupcakes. The unfortunate thing is that this recipe is only in grams for the dry ingredients. Why? I don't really know. It probably has something to do with being more precise or something. So that's a tad bit of a pain, but with a little digging I found a site that you can figure out how many grams (or whatever) it takes for cups (or whatever you're wanting) and this website has different calculators for sugar, flour, and butter. So that's pretty nifty if you need to convert things like that.

For this batch I was only making six cupcakes so I had to mess with the recipe and decided to just borrow my dad's electric weighing thing (very technical term right there.) instead.

Ingredients (if you're doing the full batch): 

• 125g butter, softened (a little over a stick)
• 125g caster sugar (a little over half a cup)
• 2 medium eggs
• 125g self-raising flour (1 cup)
• 2 tbsp milk

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 F/190 C

Step 2: Beat your eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy

Step 3: Add the eggs, flour, and milk and beat until smooth. 

All right now for the yummy part! 
Step 4: Add in about 1/2 a cup of strawberry pureed (thrown in the blender) and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Mix in.

 Step 5: place into cupcake tins and in oven for 12-15 minutes or until risen and the center is firm to the touch. 

Step 6: Wait until cool and then ice. I used a simple vanilla icing from scratch but there are some really amazing strawberry icing recipes (I might experiment and put one up sometime). I ha planned to place  strawberry on top of them, but i used all I had in the actual batter so that didn't work. 

The birthday girl's cupcake!

And the lovely birthday girl!

Please let me know how this went if you try it! From the batter I tasted it turned out pretty well, but unfortunately I forgot to make any extra for me to actually try (yeah, I know, that's kind of bad). So hopefully this recipe is correct and turns out well for all y'all!