Origami Heart

I was first taught how to make this heart by a good friend, and I've made hundreds of them since- they make sweet cards if you're in a rush or an extra touch to a little note. 

Start out with a rectangular piece of paper. I just took an 8.5x11" sheet of printer paper and quartered it.

We're going to call the bottom part of this the 'square' and the other part the 'rectangle' of this piece of paper. 

Diagonally fold the square

And then the other way

For some reason, blogspot rotates some of my photos. If you have any idea how to fix this, please tell me!

Anyway...

Flip your paper over.

Fold the square in half.

And unfold

Flip it over.

Start squeezing the edges of the fold you just made in toward the center...

...Until you get this....

...and then squish it down flat.

Fold the rectangle in half down to the square

Fold the upper triangle down to the center.

And the other one.

Flip it over.

Fold the entire paper in half...

...so you get a center line!

Now fold the edge in to that handy dandy center line.

And the other one.

Now fold only the upper triangle down.

Because the lower triangle tabs will be folded down at an angle. These will be the two round shapes at the top of the heart.

Tuck them into the big triangle.

Fold the bottom corners up now...

And stick them into the slot too.

You're done! This is what the back should look like.

And the front

You can write a little message in them too. Just unfold it like this...

...Write your message on the inside...

...And re-fold it. Make sure you write instructions for anyone who doesn't know how these are folded!

Father's Day Baking

Father's day is allllmost here! I got together with my friend today, and, inspired by Bakerella's fast food fun, we made our own with a few modifications. Behold:

Burger with a patty, ketchup, mustard, and lettuce; french fries; and heart shaped chocolate peanut butter cake.
Let's start with the hamburger:True to Bakerella's instructions, we made the bun from yellow cupcakes cut in half. However, we made our cupcakes without sugar, since the rest of the burger would be so sweet. It turned out pretty well in sweetness! We just filled the cupcake papers about halfway so the top would be flat, and sprinkled them with sugar to give it a more bun-like appearance. 
We baked a whole sheet of moist chocolate cake that we used for the patties. We crumbed up the entire cake and then added some chocolate syrup....

...and squished patty shapes with the mixture, just like you would with ground beef. 

Finally, the condiments are made with cream cheese colored with food coloring. Just stick globs of each color on the patty with your finger and squish the entire burger a bit when you put the top of the bun on so the colors peek out from the sides. 

From a distance, they actually look like the real thing ;D
Now the fries:We had some yellow cake mix that we turned into cookie dough with the following:1 box cake mix1/3 cup vegetable oil2 eggs2 tbs milkJust mix it all together and voila! Cookie dough!Of course, you also just could use any cookie dough recipe you have. 
For the fries, we covered the bottom of a flat pan with sugar and then laid a rectangular sheet of cookie dough on it. Bake at 350F until they turn golden around the edges and then flip the whole thing over and bake for another 5 minutes. Then we cut them into french-fry-like strips. 

The hearts were a bit of an afterthought: we had lots of chocolate cake left over and some peanut butter, so we mixed the PB into the crumbled cake and pressed it into heart-shaped baking tins. 

Origami Gift Box

Mother's Day is just around the corner, guys!

I just had little gifts, and didn't want to shell out $5 a box, so I made my own, bows and all!

Tutorial time!

First, you'll need 2 sheets of computer paper. 

Make a large square out of each of them, but hold on to the rectangle left over-- we'll be making our bows out of them!

Now follow my folds!

(unfold)

(fold the other corners)

(unfold again)

(See that square of four squares that my thumb and index finger are outlining? That's going to be the bottom of the box)

(make sure you tear exactly along that line, and only to the four square where the bottom of the box will be)

(Make sure you tear ONLY the lines shown here. If you do this to the other side, your box will fall apart)

You're done!

Rinse and repeat to make the top of the box. 

Now what to do with those leftover rectangles....

(Tear into four strips)

(This is a basic universal shape that I used in all of my decorations)

Pretty?

 The decorating possibilities are endless!

P.S. plantable roses inside the boxes are from How Does She?. Check out the awesome tutorial there too!