Fourth of July Fun

This year for 4th of July I decided to do some fun things with food.  Since I love doing creative things and had to make food for the party I figured I could combine the two activities to get the best of both worlds.  I made a red white and blue fruit salad. For the red I used watermelon, cherries, strawberries, & raspberries. For the blue, I used blueberries and for the white I used Asian pears and Crenshaw melon.  I found an image on Pinterest for inspiration. http://witandwhistle.com/2011/07/05/cookie-cutter-fruit-salad/   Cindy helped me cut out all the watermelon stars with small cookie cutters and I cut tiny stars out of the Crenshaw melon with the inside cutter from a Lintzer cookie cutter. I have to say I think it came out pretty cute! Then to top it off I found a cute idea on Pinterest for making watermelon and blueberry wands http://weelicious.com/2012/06/29/magical-fruits-wands-for-your-fourth-of-july-celebration/, so I added 3 wands to try and make it look like fireworks. When I do it again I'll have to put some small white stars in between all the blueberries on the wands.

Since our family loves jello I found a cute idea for cut glass jello stars at http://gimmesomeoven.com/stained-glass-jello/.  Everyone loved them.  Next time I have to find a blue or red plate to put them on. All the extra pieces left over from the cut outs I put in a side bowl and called jello confetti. ;o)

Whit's Anteater Graduation Cake

Our friends Cindy and Dave's daughter Whitney just graduated from UC Irvine. She enjoys going to the beach and surfing so Cindy and I made a beach cake with Anteaters. It was a lot of fun although we have to admit that making anteaters was a bit more difficult than we expected! It was a lot of fun making ants, chocolate chip cookies, grapes, & a turkey sandwich as well as shells and sand dollars to scatter on the beach along with a cute crab!