Taking Care Wine Charms and Cupcake

Kick off your next book group get-together with a great conversation starter—A set of 12 wine charms that celebrate Deborah Lacy’s short story, "Taking Care" in the May/June edition of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Lorraine Masonheimer created these fabulous charms that include key elements in the story. To inspire your very own design, select a set of charms that impressed you most about the story. Serve the wine alongside cupcakes tucked into a broken heart wrapper with an edible wine glass top rising from the broken heart. Frost the cupcake using the grass tip and green frosting for the story’s garden setting. 

Supplies

Twelve Hinged ear hoops ¾” to 1”

Swarovski beads (12 blue, 12 green, 24 clear)

Silver round beads (48)

Twelve charms listed above

Round nose pliers

Jump rings 6mm

Self-adhesive rhinestones

Scissors

Cupcake mix

Green frosting

Decorating bag and tip 233

Knife

Premade pie crust

Wrapper, heart and wine glass template

Patterned and red paper and glue dots

Step One: Organize Beads & Prep Charms

Create piles of beads in the order of stringing. Some charms have the jump ring attached. Add jump ring to charms that do not have a ring. Type, cut and glue the word "Mother" to the inside of the frame charm and seat the protective cover. Add rhinestones to the U.S. shape to mark Los Angeles, CA and Raleigh, NC. Add a red rhinestone to the inside of the teacup. Take care when washing the charms and reapply rhinestones as needed.

Step Two: String Beads and Charms

Open the ear hoops and slide a clear crystal bead onto the hoop. Next, slide a silver round bead, a green bead, a silver bead, a charm, a silver bead, a blue bead, a silver bead and a clear crystal bead onto the hoop and close

Step Three: Repeat & Attach

Repeat until all 12 wine charms are completed. Open the hoop, slide the completed ring onto the stem of the wine glass, close the hoop and pour the wine. A nice Chardonnay is a great place to start while whipping up a batch of cupcakes!

Step Four: Print & Cut Templates

Place your cursor over this image, right click, scroll to Save Image As and place it onto your computer desktop. Open a word document, draw a text box and insert the image into the box. Size the templates to the sizes marked on the templates, print and cut out the images.

Step Five: Create Cupcake Wrap

Trace the cupcake wrap and heart templates onto the patterned and red paper and cut out the shapes. Roll the wrapper into a circle to fit the cupcake and glue together. Cut the heart into two broken pieces and glue to the wrapper. If desired, add a drop of blood at the bottom of the heart.

Step Six: Create Edible Wine Glass Top

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take the wine glass template and place onto the pie crust. Using a sharp knife, cut around the wine glass to equal the number of cupcakes plus a few extra in case some break. Carefully place the glasses onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and brush with egg whites. Bake for 10-12 minutes until light golden brown. Lay the glasses flat to cool for a minimum of 15-20 minutes.

Step Seven: Bake & Frost Cupcakes

Bake your favorite cupcakes according to package directions and cool. Mix your favorite medium consistency icing recipe and add green food paste to create the color of grass. Fit the decorating bag with decorating tip 233 and fill the bag ½ full with the icing. Squeeze the bag to form grass. Pull up and away when icing strand is long enough (1/2”) to stop pressure and pull tip away. Grass will form only if you stop squeezing before pulling the tip away. Keep clusters close together so the cake doesn’t show through.

Insert the cupcakes into the broken heart wrappers. Carefully place the wine glass into the center of the cupcake so the glass appears to rise from the center of the broken heart.

Step Eight: Set Up & Party

Set out the wine glasses with charms and the cupcakes. Open the wine and let the conversation begin! You can read the story in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. 

For a fun party idea, have the book group vote on a favorite book read that year and have everyone create one wine charm from the book. Draw a name and the wine charms go to the winner.

Mistletoe Kisses Holiday Card

Lorraine Masonheimer has been making wonderful cards again for Crafty Thursday. This time she's got you all set for Christmas. 


CONCEPT: Sporting a snowy background and traditional red and green color scheme, this holiday card is casually elegant. The bewitching snowlady, nestled into her bed of snow, has dropped her mistletoe over her favorite book with a flirty play on words. The three charms laugh, create and imagine dangle from the card and can be recycled into a bracelet or necklace. ‘Tis the season to play, laugh, spend time with loved ones — and give. Creating this handmade card is a great way to kick off the giving season.

Supplies:

8½” x 11” cream cardstock

Color coordinated papers (two snow-like patterns—red and green, four solid colors—one red, three greens light, medium, and dark)

6” x 9” envelope

Stampotique.com Snowy Fran 6127 and Tools Cube 6145 stamps

Black Ink Pad

Pine punch

2” circle punch

Twine

Green rhinestones

Red enamel dot

Markers—red, green and blue

Small round punch

Three 6mm jump rings

Round nose pliers

3 small flat charms

Flower soft ivory (stampscrapnmore.com)

Wet glue, glue dots, pop-up dots

Black pen, Gelly Roll sparkle pen

Scissors and x-acto blade

Step One: Card Base

Fold an 8½” x 11” cardstock in half for a 5½” x 8½” card base. Cut the red pattern paper to 5” x 8”, the green patterned paper to 4½” x 6”, the solid red to 4 ¼” x5 ½” and the medium solid green to 2” x 4 ¾.”

 

Step Two: Stamp, Draw & Cut

Stamp, cut and color the snowlady and book onto a piece of cream cardstock using a charcoal ink pad. Draw a squiggly-lined mistletoe from her hand as shown. Take the red paper and punch out a 2” circle 1 ¾” from the top right corner and 1/8” from the right side. Punch 2 each of dark, medium and light green sprigs of pine. Punch 3 small round holes in the bottom right corner about ½” apart depending upon the charms you have chosen. Using the round nose pliers gently twist open the jump rings, slip the charms onto each ring, carefully thread the ring through the holes in the paper and close the ring.

Step Three: Text, Assemble & Embellish

To create the sentiment, type “Merry Kiss Mas” into a 3” x 3” text box. This example centers the text and uses AR Christy at 28 points. Be sure to leave enough space between “Kiss” and “Mas” to place the red embellishment. Cut and glue the sentiment to fit behind the 2” circle centered. Glue the red patterned paper to the card base centering to create a cream border.

Glue the green patterned paper to the card base ½” below the top of the red paper. Glue the solid green paper to the upper left corner of the red paper as shown. Wrap the twine over the solid red and green paper and glue to the back of the paper. Then glue to card base.

Using a throwaway paintbrush, paint wet glue that dries clear onto the bottom of the red and green patterned paper. Sprinkle with flower soft ivory ‘snow’ and let dry. Place pop-up dots onto the snowlady and book and glue into the position as shown. Nestle the snowlady into the snow. Glue the pine sprigs over the top of the twine placing the darkest color on the bottom and the lightest on top. Glue 3 red embellishments into the center bottom of the sprigs. Place a red embellishment between the words “Kiss” and “Mas.” Place two green rhinestones for her sparkling holiday eyes.

Step Four: Interior and Envelope

Using the computer, create a text box about 4” x 6” and type “Twinkling lights, cookie and cocoa nights, a cozy mystery or two, happy holiday to you!” The example shown uses the type face Comic Sans at 16 pts centered. Print and cut the sentiment into a 4” x 6” rectangle. Adhere the sentiment to the card as shown. Use scraps to form modern shaped Christmas trees with star and circle toppers glued to the left side. If desired, add a few pine sprigs and three berries glued to the envelope flap and send out your happy holiday wishes.

Merry Christmas everyone!