Carrot Cake Muffin Recipe, A Free Cookbook, and a Link to Bottlecap Jewelry Making! Summer Fun!

Hopefully this kinda unappetizing photo of a Carrot Cake Muffin will give you a smile, for this Smile Power Day! Recipe follows.

It's time for summer fun, so let's start out with what to take on a picnic. These muffins are gluten, soy, egg and dairy free and delicious, I promise! They also travel and freeze well.

Gluten Free, Egg Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free Carrot Cake Muffins

Crusty outside, moist inside

Makes 6 good sized muffins

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups gluten free flour mix (consistency will differ a little depending on mix)

¼ cup dark brown sugar or molasses (muffins will not be very sweet, can add more sugar if you prefer, molasses will make a bit sticky)

2 teas bicarbonate of soda

2 teas baking powder

2-3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¾  to 1 cup food processed until fine carrots

½ cup sultana raisins (may be omitted, I always omit these because I don’t like raisins in food)

1 cup nuts, walnuts or pecans (may be omitted)

¼ cup vegetable oil (coconut oil works best)

 2 teas apple cider vinegar or white vinegar

1 cup applesauce plus ¼ cup coconut, almond, cashew or rice milk

2-3 teas vanilla

Directions:

Add the ingredients into a mixing bowl in the same order as listed.

Mix well. Mixture will not be terribly thin, if it is add flour

Place muffin papers in a large muffin pan.

Scoop mixture into papers until well filled. Gently tap down until you have a imperfect “muffin top.”

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

More easy, cheap and "regular" dessert recipes can be found in The Mall Fairies Sweet Tooth Recipes, along with short stories of the fairies from my Mall Fairies  series FREE today only here.

Bottle Cap Jewelry are fast, cheap and easy to make gifts, here are a few ideas for Christmas ones.

Visit my post on Lois Winston's blog Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers for how to make cheap, easy bottle cap jewelry, great for summer fun for kids and adults alike! Lois is the editor of Bake, Love, Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing. On page 99, you'll find my recipe for Soda Cracker Pie, another easy recipe and cool and delicious for those long hot summer nights!

Enjoy! Celebrate! And what's your favorite thing about summer?
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How to Make Bottle Cap Pin Jewelry. Easy, cheap, and fun!

(I hope to see you all at my FREE bottle cap workshop this Monday, July 14, at the Ada Victory Library at 4:30 pm to make bottle caps! Everyone takes a bottle cap pin home!)

 A selection of Christmas bottle cap pins, some with just the image, others with Christmas items. The trees, holly, gingerbread men, stars and snowflakes are in the scrapbook section of any craft store and inexpensive. The images are free downloads. Take a bottle cap with you to store for size. Next year, different images and inserts!

Bottle cap items can be wonderful as gifts for all sorts of occasions. A baby shower? Give a bottle cap pin with the photo of the new mom as a baby! Maybe pins for all the attendees! How about making a bunch of Christmas bottle cap ornaments? Give out a bottle cap magnet for a Halloween treat! A project for your child's class? The limit is your imagination.

It's possible to do bottle caps the old fashioned way, cut out the image with a pair of scissors, recycle used bottle caps if not bent, glue and then use clear varnish on the top, but most of these supplies are inexpensive and if you're like me you'll keep coming up with new uses.

Materials (check Beadaholique or Amazon, links are to Amazon, the punch and Glue Dots are available in office and craft stores too):

50Mixed Color Bottle Caps (or collect your own throughout the year and it's FREE)

CraftScrapbook Jewelry 1" Circle Epoxy Stickers For Bottle Cap Pendants 

EK Success Papers Shapers Nesting Punch 1" (or any brand, as long as 1")

Glue Dots Super Strength Multi-Use 1/2" dots (or use super glue, but you have to wait longer, however, sometimes the glue dots "let go" after a couple of years)

Images: use photos, images from magazines and greeting cards, draw your own, stencil, use stamps, stickers, glue small objects that fit within the 1" circle, there are inexpensive bottle cap images for sale, or use your imagination!

How to:

Take your 1" paper circle image and press it against a Glue Dot. Press the circle into the bottle cap. Place a 1" Circle Epoxy Sticker on top. DONE Then attach whatever to the back, whether it be a pin back, or hanger for pendants, or magnet. DONE.

Here's how to attach a pin back (so that the pin is on correctly): Take a piece of paper and line up your bottle caps on the paper with arrows pointing which way the image is up, like this:

Then flip over the bottle caps and glue the pins to the back--easy!

Do you have an idea for bottle caps to share?

Bottle Cap Celebration of St. Paddy's!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

In honor of this fun day, here's my new bottle cap pin, for everyone to have a lotta of good luck today. These pins are easy to make! Here's my link to my blog post on how to make these.

BOTTLE CAP PINS! EASY! FUN! CHEAP!

One of my first bottle cap pins with the title of my mystery novel.

Bottle cap jewelry is a blast to make. I discovered quite by accident, while researching what to do at my craft sessions at the Bouchercon conference this year. What could up to 30 people make in less than an hour? Answer: see above. Then I realized that bottle cap pieces could be wonderful as gifts for all sorts of occasions. Each unique. A baby shower? Give a bottle cap pin with the photo of the new mom as a baby! Maybe pins for all the attendees! How about making a bunch of Christmas bottle cap ornaments? Give out a bottle cap magnet for a Halloween treat! A project for your child's class? The limit is your imagination.

This post is a quick and dirty primer to making these.

First, the materials: I would suggest going to either Beadaholique or Amazon for these supplies:
50 Mixed Color Bottle Caps Craft Scrapbook Jewelry
1" Circle Epoxy Stickers For Bottle Cap Pendants 
EK Success Papers Shapers Nesting Punch 1" (or any other brand, as long as 1")
Glue Dots Super Strength Multi-Use 1/2" dots

Images:
use photos, images from magazines and greeting cards, draw your own, stencil, use stamps, stickers, glue small objects that fit within the one inch circle, there are inexpensive bottle cap images for sale, or a combo of, well, whatever you want!

Yes, it is possible to do bottle caps the old fashioned way, cut out the image with a pair of scissors, recycle used bottle caps if not bent, glue and then use clear varnish on the top, but most of these supplies are inexpensive and if you're like me you'll keep coming up with new ideas for these things. And it makes it much faster and easier.

How to:
Take your 1" paper circle image and press it against a Glue Dot. Press the circle into the bottle cap. Holding by the edges, place a 1" Circle Epoxy Sticker on top. DONE Now you need to attach whatever to the back, whether it be a pin back, or hanger for pendants, or magnet. DONE.

Here's how I made a demi-parure of a pin and earrings using part of the cover image from The Mall Fairies: Exile (artist Kaytalin Platt, great cover art, so pretty!):

The arrows are for knowing how the images face because ...

...it's impossible to tell when they are face down!

Then I glued the pin back and earring pieces on and here I am wearing the finished product:

So simple and easy! Doing these at the craft sessions is going to be a blast!

And dear readers, do you have any craft projects like this? Would love to know!