So frankly, these are just as delicious as they look. It all started with getting this delicious Hawaiian Sun Guava Jelly as a gift from my co-worker. She bought it at this local Hawaiian market in San Mateo called the Takahashi Market. 

Next I found some Green Tea Matcha Powder at our local Trader Joes. This can be purchased at almost any grocery store, just look in the tea or coffee section. If your Safeway or large brand grocer doesn't have it, check your local Whole Foods or equivalent store, they should have something very close. 

The rest is essentially following the typical French Macaron recipe:

Electric mixer (hand/stand mixer will do as long as you have a whisk and regular beater attachments)

Good heavy/thick baking sheets that won't warp in the oven

2-3 Silicone macaron baking sheets (I got these ones from Amazon and love them!)

Silicone spatula

Hand whisk

Kitchen scale

Set of mixing bowls

Sieve or flour sifter

Pastry bag and round tip with attachment

Shells Baking ingredients: 

100g Almond flour (I prefer Mama's Almond Flour Blend. It's much finer than other almond flour/meal)

200g Powdered/confectioner's sugar

40g plain sugar

2 tablespoons Green Tea Matcha Powder

3 egg whites at room temperature (approximately 100g)

Green Food coloring gel (optional)

After sifting the measured almond flour and powdered sugar together, I whisked in the green tea powder. Set the powder mix aside and you can separate the egg whites, add the pinch of salt, and whip the whites into a meringue. Just before they're reached their stiff peaks, I added a drop of green food coloring.  

Next you can start what is called the "macaronage" phase. To incorporate the dry mix into the meringue, you can put away your electric mixer, you will only need your silicone spatula. Add about 1/4 - 1/3 of the dry mix into your meringue bowl and begin to fold in the mixture. Scrape around the bowl and then press down, but be sure to make sweeping scrapes from the bottom up. You don't want to end up with a big dry glob on the bottom. Keep adding increments of the dry mixture and folding in between each addition. In the end, you should have a batter the texture of lava. **Again in this step it's important not to under-mix or over-mix the batter. It should be smooth with slow flowing ribbons when you pick up the spatula**

This is what your batter should look like when you've reached the ideal "lava" texture.

Next you can get to piping!

I also found this fun flower/star mold on Amazon as well! Fair warning, it's a little more tricky to pipe these ones, so if you're a beginning just stick to the rounds.

Let them rest at room temperature in the molds for 30 minutes. When the 30 min are close to up, start pre-heating your oven to 325 deg F. While it's pre-heating, you can whip together the filling!

Guava Buttercream Filling:

1 stick unsalted butter (softened/room temp)

250g powdered sugar

1/2 jar of Guava Jam (or your favorite jam to taste!)

1 drop of pink gel food coloring (optional)

Beat the soft or room temperature butter with your mixer until it's creamy and then you can start to add in gradual amounts of the powdered sugar. Once it's all incorporated, you can start adding in increments of the jam. I kept adding in heaping spatulas full of it until about half of it was mixed in. I added a single drop of pink gel food coloring to really enhance the flavor. 

Here's the final product before I spatulaed it into a piping bag and keeping it in the fridge before the shells were ready. Of course the final steps are the same as my Cookie Dough French Macaron post when you wait until they're completely cool, remove them from the silicone mats, and put them together with some yummy buttercream filling. 

 If you decide to give my recipe a try, leave a comment below or you can use #blissfullyevercrafter so I can follow along! Thanks for reading!

Blissfullly Ever Crafting,

Jennifer Lynn

DIY Kimono Cardigan from Infinity Scarf

I don't know about you, but whenever there's one of those new fashion trends that looks so cute on everyone else, I immediately want to jump on the banwagon and buy one. The problem with trends is that they always come and then they always go. So buying into every single "it" trend of the moment can really end up being expensive! I'd like to show you that with a little bit of time and a few materials, you can make your own trendy Kimono cardigan from an infinity scarf!

 

I have had this beautifully soft infinity scarf for a few years now. I bought it at H&M for probably around $10-$15 and used it a ton over the years, honestly haven't worn it much since last spring and the whole infinity scarf trend has kind of faded. I started looking at it's beautiful floral print in the colors that I love so much for spring (yellow and pink pastels) and decided to re-construct it into my own custom Kimono cardigan. 

To make your own Kimono cardigan, you will need the following:

15 minutes of free time

Large Infinity Scarf

Good fabric Shears/Scissors

Sewing machine and thread (or you could do this by hand but it may take a while)

Measuring tape/ruler

To start, I first needed to decide if I wanted my finished cardigan to be long or shorter since my scarf was a rectangle. I made my decision just by holding it up to myself in the mirror so I could tell if I was going to make it work horizontally or vertically (see photo below) 

Also since I am starting with an infinity scarf, it is already sewed into a tube and I needed to take this into consideration before deciding on the fabric's orientation for the project. (Also, be warry of where the tag is on your scarf. I made sure mine was going to stay on the inside, which meant turning the whole scarf inside out before sewing.)

Next, I measured the "open" sides and divded that length by 3 and marked the opening at the 2/3 point with a sewing pin. I then sewed 2/3 of the opening shut with my machine, leaving 1/3 open to be the arm hole. I repeated this on the other open side as well. **Since my fabric was very thin and somewhat delicate, I found that using the "zigzag" stich on my machine worked best. The straight stitch caused the fabric to bunch and ruffle** 

Then, I cut open what was the to be "bottom" of the cardigan. I used my husband's helpful hand for this step [thanks babe!]. 

Then I folded the cardigan in half so I could mark the middle with a sewing pin. I took out my good scissors again and cut from the bottom to the top to create the cardigan's front opening. Once at the top, I measured 8 inches horizontally (4 inches to the left and 4 inches to the right of the line you just cut) and cut here to create the neck opening. Then I folded this fabric open (a bit like a lapel on a blazer) to have more of a drapped neck opening. I just eyeballed the look of this and tried to make it as symetrical as possible, but if you're really Type A you could measure this out and iron it down as well. 

Aften pinning the lapel down, I cut them off and voila! 

All I had to do was finish all the edges with a quick hem by running it through my sewing machine... and that's literally it!!! Super easy right?! I mean, for no cost of materials (assuming you already have a scarf you can use) you can have a brand new on trend Kimono Cardigan for FREE! I don't know about you, but I am in love with the look of this flowy bohemian cardiagn and I can't wait to get tons of use out of it this Spring and Summer. 

Thanks Hubby for all your photo skillz

I hope you all get to try making one yourself and if you do please show me your creations in the comments below! 

Thanks for reading!

Blissfully Ever Crafting,

Jennifer Lynn