This post will cover the Muffin Tin Method and Sheet Pan Method.

Within this post, you will find step-by-step instructions and a video tutorial on how to dye eggs with Cool Whip or whipped cream. Cool Whip Easter Eggs are a food-safe alternative to dying eggs with shaving cream. Because eggshells are porous, you want whatever you use to dye Easter eggs to be safe to consume.

Cool Whip Easter Eggs

Making Cool Whip Easter Eggs is easy for kids of all ages. The dyed eggs have a marbled effect when finished. You can combine many colors to make a tie-dyed Easter egg or stick to one color for a solid, swirled design. The added benefit is that you will not need to buy a special egg dye kit yearly.

Cool Whip Dyed Eggs Ingredients

• Hard-boiled eggs
• White vinegar
• Cool Whip topping (or whipped cream if you choose)
• Food coloring (we suggest gel food color)
• Muffin tin, small bowls, or a rimmed baking sheet
• Disposable gloves, optional

We make Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs because you can stuff your steamer basket full of as many eggs as you want. We follow the 5-5-5 rule for making Instant Pot hard-boiled eggs: 5 minutes at high pressure, natural release for 5 minutes (followed by a quick release), and then 5 minutes in an ice bath.

How to Make Cool Whip Easter Eggs- 2 Methods

Muffin Tin Method for Cool Whip Eggs

This method is best if you want distinct and varying colors of eggs because you can choose which colors go into each individual muffin tin.

1. Soak hard-boiled eggs in white vinegar for 5-10 minutes for a more vibrant finished product. Dry the eggs with a paper towel.
2. Place a spoonful of Cool Whip into each muffin tin.
3. Add food coloring and swirl with a toothpick or wooden skewer. Avoid over-mixing, especially if using many colors, or the result may be brown.
4. Insert hard-boiled eggs and cover them with the colored Cool Whip. Let sit for at least 10 minutes for the most vibrant swirls. You can let the eggs sit even longer, but for food safety reasons, you may want to place the muffin tin with eggs into the refrigerator.
5. Remove eggs and plunge into a bowl of cold water. Wipe off any excess Cool Whip.

Cookie Sheet Method for Cool Whip Eggs

This method is best if you have many eggs and don’t mind if the colors mix.

1. Soak hard-boiled eggs in vinegar for 5-10 minutes for a more vibrant finished product. Dry eggs with a paper towel.
2. Using a large tub of Cool Whip, spread it onto the cookie sheet.
3. Add food coloring and swirl with a toothpick or wooden skewer. Avoid over-mixing, especially if using many colors, or the result may be brown.
4. Insert hard-boiled eggs and roll each egg around in the colored Cool Whip. Let sit for at least 10 minutes for the most vibrant swirls. You can let the eggs sit even longer, but you may want to place the cookie sheet with eggs into the refrigerator for food safety reasons.
5. Remove eggs and plunge into a bowl of cold water. Wipe off any excess Cool Whip.

Whipped Cream or Cool Whip Eggs?

You can use fresh whipped cream or whipped cream from a can instead of Cool Whip. We like to save our homemade whipped cream for when we are going to be eating it!

As previously stated, we do not suggest dying eggs with shaving cream.

Best Food Coloring for Dyed Eggs

Gel food color provides the most vibrant colors. You can find gel food coloring at craft supply stores like Michael’s and JoAnne Fabrics. Some grocery stores carry gel food coloring near the baking supplies.

You can use traditional liquid food coloring for Cool Whip Easter Eggs. Be mindful not to use too much liquid with the whipped topping. The result may be pastel, but that’s perfectly fine!

Print

Cool Whip Easter Eggs

Cool Whip Easter Eggs are quick, easy, and require minimal clean-up. You will love our mess-free way to dye eggs with kids this Easter!

Course Brunch

Cuisine American

Keyword Easter, eggs

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 12 eggs

Calories 85kcal

Author Katrina Bahl

Ingredients

• 12 Hard boiled eggs
• 2 cups Vinegar
• 16 oz Cool Whip Topping
• Gel food coloring

Instructions

Muffin Tin Method

• Soak hard-boiled eggs in vinegar for 5-10 minutes for a more vibrant finished product. This step can be skipped, but the eggs will be pastel rather than vibrant colors. Dry eggs with a towel.
• Place a spoonful of Cool Whip into each muffin tin. Add food coloring and swirl with a toothpick. Avoid over-mixing especially if using many colors, or the end result may be brown.
• Insert hard-boiled eggs and cover with the colored Cool Whip. Let sit for at least 10 minutes for the most vibrant swirls. You can let the eggs sit even longer, but you may want to place the muffin tin with eggs into the refrigerator for food safety reasons.
• Remove eggs and plunge into a bowl of water. Wipe off any excess Cool Whip.

Cookie Sheet Method

• Soak hard-boiled eggs in vinegar for 5-10 minutes for a more vibrant finished product. This step can be skipped, but the eggs will be pastel rather than vibrant colors. Dry eggs with a towel.
• Using a large tub of Cool Whip, spread it onto the cookie sheet.
• Insert hard-boiled eggs and cover with the colored Cool Whip. Let sit for at least 10 minutes for the most vibrant swirls. You can let the eggs sit even longer, but you may want to place the cookie sheet with eggs into the refrigerator for food safety reasons.
• Remove eggs and plunge into a bowl of water. Wipe off any excess Cool Whip.

Video

Notes

Some people have had trouble with food dye adhering to eggs.

It is important not to skip the vinegar bath. The acid in vinegar reacts with the calcium in the eggshell to ensure the dye adheres to the shell. Also, coloring may adhere better if your hard-boiled eggs are still warm (not hot). 

Nutrition

Calories: 85kcal | Protein: 6g | Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 187mg

Egg Safety Information

This is not a sponsored post. We find all our egg safety information at OhioEggs.com and are happy to share some of our most-asked reader questions and answers.

• How long are hard-boiled eggs safe to eat? Hard-boiled eggs spoil faster than fresh eggs, so be sure to refrigerate hard-boiled Easter eggs within 2 hours and enjoy within one week of cooking. Hard-boiled eggs should be eaten the same day they’re peeled.
• How long are eggs safe to eat? When properly refrigerated at 45 °F or lower, eggs can be safely eaten 4-5 weeks beyond the carton’s Julian date, which is a 3-digit code found on the side of a carton that indicates the day of the year when the eggs were packed.
• Are colored Easter eggs safe to eat? If you used food-safe dye and materials to decorate Easter eggs, then they’re safe to eat! Easter eggs should only be eaten if they have not been left out of refrigeration longer than two hours.
• Are there any tricks for making easy-peel hard-boiled eggs? Hard-boiled eggs are easiest to peel right after they’ve finished cooling. Cooling causes the egg to contract slightly in its shell. Try this easy recipe to make perfect easy-peel hard-boiled eggs, every time! Also, eggs that are 7-10 days old are easier to peel, while fresh eggs are often more difficult. Giving eggs time to breathe and take in air helps separate the membranes from the shell, making them easier to peel.

gel food color

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wooden skewer

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Quick and Easy Easter Recipes for Kids

Before our children dyed eggs, they made Cereal Treat Easter Eggs.

We love Easter cupcakes, like these PEEPS Peek-a-Boo Cupcakes and Easter Egg Hunt Cupcakes.

Finally, our one-of-a-kind Homemade Cadbury Cream Cookie Cups are an Easter showstopper!

We keep track of some of our favorite Easter Desserts on our I EAT EASTER Pinterest Board. Come pin with us!

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It’s much easier than you think to make rainbow swirl frosting at home. Switch out the colors in any combination to make a unique rainbow cake or cookie design. Our helpful step-by-step tutorial will show you the easy DIY technique to get that bakery buttercream frosting for your next birthday party desserts.

How to Make Unicorn Rainbow Frosting

We have been using this multi-colored icing method on cupcakes for years, but you may be surprised that you can use this simple technique to make impressive rainbow cookies and unicorn swirled frosting.

You will need:

• Buttercream frosting
• Gel food coloring
• Plastic wrap
• Small piping bags
• Large piping bag
• Open star piping tip

Rainbow Swirl Icing Method

1. Divide frosting between 3-7 bowls depending on how many colors you are using, and color the frosting using gel food coloring for the most vibrant colors.
2. Transfer each color of frosting to its own small piping bag.
3. Pipe long rows of each color onto a piece of plastic wrap.
4. Roll up the plastic wrap into a log shape and snip off the excess.
5. Place the plastic wrap log into a larger piping bag fitted with an open star tip (such as 1M).

How to Use Rainbow Swirl Icing

You can use this rainbow buttercream on top of:

Cupcakes (try our Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes)

Cut Out Cookies (try our Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER)

Best Chocolate Cut Out Cookies

Your favorite homemade or boxed cake recipe.

Rainbow Desserts

These cookies can be made for birthday parties, holidays (such as St. Patrick’s Day), and to celebrate PRIDE month.

Be sure to check out all of our rainbow desserts, like our popular Rainbow Chocolate Chip Cookies and our festive Tie Dyed Rice Krispie Treats.

Frosting Recipes

For the flat flood icing (shown in white and green), I used Small Batch Royal Icing. If you do not wish to make another frosting, you can use store-bought cookie icing such as Wilton.

We do not suggest using canned frosting for the rainbow swirl buttercream. Frosting in a can will droop after you pipe it and will not hold up very well.

For this American Buttercream, you can use full butter or half butter and half shortening, such as Crisco.

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Sometimes homemade freezer jam can be too runny. If your homemade jam turned out more like syrup rather than jam, then follow these instructions for how to fix freezer jam that didn’t set.

What is the difference between jam and jelly?

Jellies are made from the fruit juice squeezed from the fruit. Jams are made from crushed or cut-up fruit.

Jams are thick but not firm like jellies.

I love the small chunks of fruit in homemade freezer jam.

Remaking runny freezer jam can seem like a pain, but it it worth the results. You have probably have already invested a good amount of money into fresh ingredients.

We prefer using Certo Liquid Fruit Pectin when fixing runny freezer jam.

Three Steps on How to Fix Freezer Jam

1. Sanitize containers
2. Set aside a trial batch
3. Prepare the remainder of batch

Looking for a Freezer Jam Recipe?

This is the recipe for our favorite Strawberry Freezer Jam.

Freezer Jam is a perfect recipe for beginners because the fruit doesn’t need to be cooked and you can prepare a whole batch in 30 minutes or less. (more…)

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My husband’s favorite dessert is pie- and can you believe that it’s the one thing in the kitchen that I am intimidated to bake?! It’s true! Oh how I get nervous even thinking about being asked to bake a pie. When I do summon up the courage to bake a pie I almost always reach for store-bought pie dough. Can we still be friends?! Actually there is no shame in that but I’m excited to show you really how quick and simple it is to make your own Homemade Pie Crust at home.

When I received the call asking to be a Crisco Pie Partner I just knew I had to accept. I am ready to challenge myself and get past this silly irrational fear of pie crust! Why is pie crust so intimidating? It is only 4 ingredients. FOR THE LOVE OF PIE we can do this!

Having said there are only 4 ingredients (Crisco, flour, salt, and ice water) I know there are plenty of opinions about the best method for making homemade pie crust. This all shortening Classic Crisco Pie Crust is flaky and flavorful and it comes together quickly. I used butter flavored Crisco for this particular batch.

It’s important to keep everything very cold when preparing a homemade pie crust. I put my Crisco in the freezer for 10 minutes before beginning to make this recipe. It is also helpful to chill your mixer bowl or pastry cutter if you are not using a food processor.

The method is pretty straightforward. After mixing your flour and salt together you want to pulse in your cubed, chilled shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some small pea-sized pieces remaining. Sprinkle half the maximum recommended amount of ice-cold water over the flour mixture and pulse 10-12 times (about 10 seconds if using a mixer, or 20 seconds if using a hand-held pastry blender). Test dough for proper moistness by squeezing a marble-sized ball of dough in your hand. If it holds together firmly, do not add any additional water. If the dough crumbles, add more water by the tablespoonful, until the dough is moist enough to form a smooth ball when pressed together.

After chilling the dough for 30 minutes (or up to 2 days) roll dough on a lightly floured surface about 1 inch larger than your pie pan. Transfer the dough to the pie plate by loosely rolling around your rolling pin. Center the rolling pin over the pie plate, and then unroll, easing the dough into the pie plate.

I told you we can do this. The good news is that if you have a pie emergency you can call the Crisco Pie Hotline for holiday pie baking help! During the harried holiday season when pie baking is at its peak, live pie experts are on-call during extended hours, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET from November 18 – 27, and 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET from December 16 – 23.  Additionally, recorded tips and tricks can be accessed 24 hours a day.

Speaking of winning you’re going to want to keep scrolling to enter to win an In Katrina’s Kitchen $200 Crisco Prize Pack including a Pie Pop Maker and Breville Personal Pie Maker!

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Classic Crisco Pie Crust

Perfectly flaky and flavorful Homemade Pie Crust recipe made with only 4 ingredients- you can do this!

Ingredients

• For a SINGLE CRUST:
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup well-chilled Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
• 3 to 6 tablespoons ice cold water
• For a DOUBLE CRUST:
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup well-chilledCrisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
• 4 to 8 tablespoons ice cold water
• For a DEEP DISH DOUBLE CRUST:
• 2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup well-chilledCrisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
• 6 to 10 tablespoons ice cold water

Instructions

• BLEND flour and salt in medium mixing bowl.
• CUT chilled shortening into 1/2-inch cubes. Cut in chilled shortening cubes into flour mixture, using a pastry blender, in an up and down chopping motion, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some small pea-sized pieces remaining.
• SPRINKLE half the maximum recommended amount of ice cold water over the flour mixture. Using a fork, stir and draw flour from bottom of bowl to the top, distributing moisture evenly into flour. Press chunks down to bottom of bowl with fork. Add more water by the tablespoon, until dough is moist enough to hold together when pressed together.
• SHAPE dough into a ball for single pie crust. Divide dough in two for double crust or double deep dish crust, one ball slightly larger than the other. Flatten ball(s) into 1/2-inch thick round disk(s).
• ROLL dough (larger ball of dough for double crust pie) from center outward with steady pressure on a lightly floured work surface (or between two sheets of wax or parchment paper) into a circle 2-inches wider than pie plate for the bottom crust. Transfer dough to pie plate by loosely rolling around rolling pin. Center the rolling pin over the pie plate, and then unroll, easing dough into pie plate.
• For a SINGLE pie crust, trim edges of dough leaving a 3/4-inch overhang. Fold edge under. Flute dough as desired. Bake according to specific recipe directions.
• For a DOUBLE pie crust, roll larger disk for bottom crust, trimming edges of dough even with outer edge of pie plate. Fill unbaked pie crust according to recipe directions. Roll out smaller dough disk. Transfer dough carefully onto filled pie. Trim edges of dough leaving a 3/4-inch overhang. Fold top edge under bottom crust. Press edges together to seal and flute as desired. Cut slits in top crust or prick with fork to vent steam. Bake according to specific recipe directions.
• Two Methods for Pre-baking Pie Crusts (Cream Pies):
• Pre-baking without weights: Thoroughly prick bottom and sides of unbaked pie dough with fork (50 times) to prevent it from blistering or rising. Bake crust in lower third of oven, at 425°F, 10-12 minutes or until edges and bottom are golden brown.
• Pre-baking with weights: Thoroughly prick bottom and sides of unbaked pie dough with fork (50 times) to prevent it from blistering or rising. Chill or freeze for 30 minutes. Line pie dough snugly with foil or parchment paper. Fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake at 375°F for 20 minutes. Remove foil and weights. Reduce oven to 350°F. Bake 5-10 minutes or until edges and bottom are golden brown.

Please use the giveaway entry form and leave a comment on this post to be entered. You will have the opportunity to earn bonus entries after you leave a comment. By entering this giveaway you are agreeing to the Official Rules. This giveaway is a sweepstakes. Open to continental USA residents over age 18. Winner(s) will be chosen by random, announced here, and will be contacted by email. Winner(s) must respond within 48 hours to claim the prize. This prize is sponsored by Crisco. I was compensated for my time; all opinions are 100% my own.

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Have you ever tried decorating cupcakes (or cookies, or cake, or ANYthing crafty) with kids? As a new mom I couldn’t wait for my little guy to help out in the kitchen.

“I’m making cookies!! Do you want to come help mommy crack the eggs?”

“Well this recipe calls for 2 eggs and since you dropped 6 of them let’s just run to the grocery store and grab a few more.”

“Don’t eat the flour…”

“Coloring Easter eggs will be SO much fun! Aren’t you excited?”

“Let’s make a gingerbread house! It will take hours to make and days to dry. Yaaaaaay!”

Six years and 2 kids later I set my boys up with a movie and tiptoe into the kitchen praying that the TV drowns the sound of the mixer turning on. Let’s be honest- baking with kids is hard! We expect it to go off like a Martha Stewart segment with everyone laughing and having a great time. We also expect Martha’s minions to come and magically clear the mess in-between stages. Wouldn’t that be nice?

The fact is there are usually eggs all over the floor and frosting and flour covering every surface. People are crying (not necessarily the kids), there are tantrums (again adults are not immune), your kitchen looks like a crime scene, and you are cursing the person who invented Pinterest.

My 6 and 3-year-old boys decorated these cupcakes almost entirely independent from me. I gave them frosted cupcakes, cupcake wrappers, crayons, paper straws, and lollipops and let them work together on a design. The key to kid-friendly cupcake decorating is having everything done beforehand. Small children may not be interested in working for more than 10 minutes.

Here I set up a station (a small table off to the side) with the craft materials- crayons to decorate the wrappers and scissors for my 6 year old to cut the paper straws. I put down a large piece of cardboard so they didn’t get have to worry about coloring outside the lines…since there were no lines.

At the food table, I had frosted cupcakes and lollipops. Since my toddler was not terribly interested in coloring I set him to work unwrapping the lollipops. I always lay out a plastic bag for trash scraps because you don’t want kids handling the trash bin while decorating cupcakes and cookies.

The key is to have everything prepared and set out beforehand. They may only sit at the table for 5 minutes and you want to be sitting there with them not gathering ingredients. Let them be messy and creative. Nothing is wrong. I had thought we were putting one lollipop in each cupcake but my son did the math and saw we had enough to put 3 on each cupcake. I love the final look!

While their task was to create cupcake wrappers that matched the straws I also let them do whatever they wanted on a few wrappers. There’s nothing wrong with a cupcake served in a Megatron wrapper or a toddler-doodled wrapper! While we were decorating we talked about their favorite cupcakes flavors (chocolate and ALL of them). We also talked about our favorite memories from this summer. My oldest really loved all the swimming he got to do this summer. Our youngest enjoyed our few stays at hotels. The kid loves pushing elevator buttons.

My oldest son went back to school last week and is enjoying the life of a first-grader. His brother misses him terribly and we’re all happy to see that smile when he gets off of the bus. Sometimes we even run inside and decorate cupcakes and eat them before dinner! 😉

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Lollipop Cupcakes

Have fun decorating cupcakes with kids with these whimsical and easy lollipop toppers.

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 1 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

• 12 cupcakes frosted
• 12 paper straws
• 36 lollipops

Instructions

• Cut each paper straw into 3 pieces.
• Unwrap lollipops and place them in the paper straws.
• Arrange lollipops on top of cupcakes.

This Giveaway is CLOSED. A winner has been chosen and the prize(s) have been fulfilled.

To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below. Contest opens August 27, 2013 at 7am PST and closes September 2, 2013 at Midnight PST. One winner will be chosen and announced within 48 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email by carrie@bellacupcakecouture.com and will have 48 hours to claim their prize. If they do not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. This contest is open to residents worldwide. By entering this giveaway you are agreeing to the Official Rules.

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So I guess you’ve figured out by now that I’m not a trendy person. I don’t own any chevron paper straws, my laundry room is not teal and coral, and I don’t own a chalkboard or a bubble necklace. I do have some cute baker’s twine, and I am all caught up on Parenthood and Downton Abbey so I have that going for me at least. I don’t quite understand the chevron craze. It’s cute and all, don’t get me wrong. I think the first time I saw it or knew what the word “chevron” was referring to was on those Target dresses that everyone went INSANE over. Are people still going crazy over those? I don’t even know.

One thing I do understand is chocolate. And these Chevron Chocolate Overload Rice Krispie Treats are something I can relate to. Cocoa Krispies cereal, chocolate marshmallows, chocolate frosting, topped with M&Ms. And can we talk about this new M&M color mix? I am kind of in love with it. Pink, Teal, Green, Purple, Red, and Blue ♥ {I found it at Target FYI.}

Let me just say here that even my attempt to be trendy and hop on the chevron train was completely overlooked in my house full of boys. My husband walked in the room and said, “Oh! A Mexican blanket.”

Really? The plus side is that Cinco de Mayo is coming up so you can totally make these for all of your May 5th celebrations. Surely krispie treats are a popular Mexican dish, yes? Mmmmmmkay.

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Here we are at the end of our 4-part PicMonkey series. Today we are covering how to create a graphic or printable from scratch- totally free and 100% custom made to your fit your needs!

First you will need to create a Blank White Starter Image. If creating graphics is something that you will be doing with any regularity I suggest creating this image and saving it to your computer instead of recreating it every time you need to make a graphic. You are basically going to use a white Overlay to cover up a picture. This will become your Blank White Starter Image. You can use any photo but I would suggest that you start with a picture with a high resolution so that your final image isn’t blurry when you try to upload the graphic to your blog or website.

Open up PicMonkey and select “Edit a Photo.”

Upload any image you want. I snapped a picture of my son’s room and used that. Go to the 5th tier down on the left sidebar and select the Overlay menu (it looks like 3 stickers/badges).

Choose the “Geometric” Overlay.

Select the rectangle.

Drag the corner of the rectangle to cover up your entire photo.

Click on the Overlay and change the color to white (either by dragging the color selector to the upper left corner or by typing FFFFFF in the upper right box).

Save your Basic White Starter image to your computer! Check the dimentions and be sure the quality is high. Or save as a PNG file.

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Okay so you know how to use PicMonkey to insert text onto photos, and you are are creating custom collages from standard templates. Moving right along this week we’re going to talk about how to use Overlays to enhance your design. In this tutorial we will also cover how to use your own Overlay as a custom watermark.  First you will want to open up PicMonkey and select “Edit a Photo.”

Along the left sidebar you want to click the 5th tab down (it looks like a cluster of 3 stickers/badges).

This brings up the Overlay menu options.

There are many Overlays available so be sure to go take a peek for yourself. You will find everything from basic shapes and symbols to arrows, labels, and comic bubbles. Scroll further down for fun Overlays like facial hair, pushpins, emoticons, lips, and more. Just remember that when you see the crown symbol that means the effect is not included in the free service. If you see something that you absolutely need to have you can purchase a 1 month membership for $4.99. Here are just a few of the Overlays to get you started.

Each Overlay can be manipulated; you can change the color and size, rotate it, fade it, flip it, duplicate it, layer it, etc. Today I’m showing you how I used Overlays to add a background to my text on these Nutella Oat Breakfast Cookies. I selected the Banner Overlay menu and added the first banner:

Move your Overlay into place.

Stretch the overlay to enlarge.

INSIDER TIP: Think outside the box (or picture) literally! As you can see I enlarged this banner and half of it hung outside the picture frame. I liked the final look so I kept it that way.

Adjust the color and fade.

I won’t take you through step-by-step for the rest of the photo. You can see how I then added text and another Overlay + text to the bottom of the photo. Here I want to point out the “Your Own” option at the very top of the Overlay menu. Use this to grab any image previously saved to your computer. This option is very helpful when creating your own graphics (which we’ll discuss in depth next week).

If you have a PNG file of your header or your blog name saved to your computer you can insert your own custom watermark. Adjust the color and fade and you’re all set. As an alternative you can of course just type your blog name and insert your watermark as text like we talked about in week 1.

Here you can see the final image. I actually put all three weeks of tutorials into play here: Inserting Text, Creating a Custom Collage, and Using Overlays.

There are so many things you can do with Overlays. I thought it might be fun to see some Overlays in action! These images are being used with permission as examples. Please follow the links if you get hungry and want to grab these fabulous recipes!

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So last week we talked baout how to use PicMonkey to insert text onto a photo– you’re a rock star! Now it’s time to make a collage. There is really no limit when it comes to using PicMonkey to make a collage. I struggled with this tutorial because there is just so much you can do and so much I want to show you. Making a collage is all about the creative process so no 2 people are going to look at the same set of pictures and come up with the identical results

I hope by the end of this tutorial that you will feel comfortable using any template to create any customized collage that you may need. Everything –EVERYTHING– is able to be manipulated; no more boring 3×3 grids for you! Below you can see the template I started with looks nothing like the final product.

Start at PicMonkey.com and select Create a Collage.

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I may be a little bit fascinated by the simplicity of layered drinks. All it takes is a little bit of patience and a whole lot of ice. I’m usually pretty good in the ice department but I figure I’m kind of exempt from the patience thing at least while my kids are young. I don’t have time to dilly dally.

Don’t get me wrong; I usually have patience enough for them to pick up 17 things off of the sidewalk and try to communicate with the neighbor’s dog while we go to the mailbox. But if my boys are occupied with a whoopee cushion and a plastic colander for 10 minutes in the other room I need to jump on that. Throw down a piece of fabric, grab the stemless wine glasses, and pour some non-alcoholic, Valentine Good Times for my pretend Internet friends. As soon as my boys figured I was up to something the photo shoot was over and the 3 of us were using curly straws to sip up the last of it.

They went over well in my house full of boys because they weren’t completely girly (even though I really wanted to add a pink layer). This Valentine version has been on my mind since this past summer when I made Fourth of July Layered Drinks.The method is simple- fill your glass with ice then layer your drinks with the heaviest sugar content on the bottom. I used CranApple juice (which has 40g of sugar) for the bottom, and SoBe Pina Colada flavored drink (which has 25g of sugar) for the top.

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