hitting the sales

I decided to venture into Michael's last night, while hunting down some fabric stock for my store https://www.etsy.com/shop/brambleboutique. I was really checking out some jewelry bits and bobs for my daughter's upcoming 6th birthday, but couldn't help myself with the holiday sale stuff. They had all the Valentine's finds at 75% off - how could I resist! The thing is if you are smart you can buy the items in the sales that you would use anytime, not just that holiday. Michael's has a bad habit of putting hearts on the packaging of the funniest things.. same with holly at Christmas, Spring Chicks at Easter and so on. Most of the items I bought can be used year round so also could be bought year round had they just thought not to add their silly packaging! 

My finds:

Red and white straws - 16pc ea for just 59c ea these can usually be found in there for $4!

Rubber stamps - the doilies can be used anytime! Cost just $2 each - usually $10

Red ramekins.. just 59c each! I can use these for ingredients, crafts.. so many things! 

I also bought some red glitter ribbon for 50c usually $4. Perfect for Christmas time bows for the girls. Oh and I bought a big pad of Valentine cardstock for $5 usually $20. The items are displayed on some of the pages which are a bit "lovey" - but for the most part it is flowers and chevron patterns - so can definitely be used anytime. Bargains! Love it.

Cake Pops - the perfect pickerupper..!

What can I say - these were the best things to come out of the cupcake revival search for small portion big wow desserts. Easy to make and stunning to look at, they are the new cheese on a stick.. ok nothing beats cheese on a stick but these come close.

The best thing is you can decorate them in so many ways and they have that cute small appeal that larger cakes often lack. All you need to do is bake your favorite cake in a tray or however you feel comfortable doing it.

Break it up into crumbs, add a dollop of icing and form into balls. Place the balls on sticks and use melted candy melts to coat. Then you can decorate them however you want to. 

Hell, you can even do amazing cutest dog in the world Boo pops! A very satisfying treat and with a tiny amount of calories if we're comparing to a hunk of chocolate cake. What's not to love! I got a box of Valentine's decorating treats at Michael's last night - so albeit a bit late we are getting in the spirit of the love season today with Valentine Pops!