Ruffled Scarf in 5 min and no sewing involved!!!

Cut a long piece of fleece you can use another scarf as your template. The great thing about this ruffled fleece scarf is you can't tell if you don't cut it in a straight line.

Then every 6 in. cut a small slit and run your ribbon through the slits.   Have fun with the ribbon you choose: satin, colorful, sheer......

Tie a knot at the end of the ribbon and voila it's finished.  You can wear it as loose as you want like the pic. above and it hangs down low. I personally like it tightly around my neck so the full effect of the ruffle is seen!

Conquered my fear of Croissants but didn't master them

On Monday I bought some croissants and thought I would put Nutella in them and I absolutely fell in love with it.  So I got it in my head that I could make crossaints.  When I searched for recipes all of the them warned me with words like: complicated, patience needed, methodical approach, messed up again etc....  But alas I threw caution to the wind and dove in. Heck, I just got over my fear of making foccocia bread and that is big and bulky so surely I could handle this little dainty thing called a croissant. 

A friend let me use her family recipe and it was by far the easiest one.  I looked up a video for Croissant making (I am a visual learner) b/c I didn't understand all the terminololgy of "laminating dough with the butter."  The video made it look super easy so now I had my kitchen mittens on and I was ready to fight :).  The process was long, and time consuming even with this easy one day recipe.  I saw some that were a 2 day process, not my kind of recipe! I don't make any meal that takes more than 30 minutes to prepare so I was definitely not going to make bread that took 2 days.

Results:  My dough was not light and fluffy but it was flaky and good.  My friend with the recipe said that when she has had croissants in France they weren't light and fluffy.  So I think I did okay for the first time but I will try it again and hope for a better product.

Love Bug White Chocolate Cake

Delish and Cuteness! White Chocolate Cake with strawberry sauce in the middle! The lady bugs are made from chocolate clay.  For the body I used White chocolate clay and dyed it red with food coloring and the head was chocolate clay.  Chocolate clay is my new discovery and it taste so much better than fondant and just as moldable.  My  hubbie says it taste like a tootsie roll.  I also love how I can smooth out the white chocolate frosting also almost like fondant but it taste SOOOOOO  much better.

Can't buy me LOVE: Acts of Love Coupons

The boys V-day pouches

The coupons at work.

We decided that this year for Valentines day we would start a new tradition: Acts of Love Coupons.  We made some simple Valentine felt bags to hang up.  Every day this week we will take turns giving each other Acts of Love gifts (gifts that you can't buy) and a love note telling the other person why we love them & appreciate them.  We thought it was important for us to point out to our children that Valentines day is a reminder of Love and kindness for loved ones, friends and even strangers not just a guy/girl holiday.  Please don't get caught up on not having time for the fluff and cuteness. If you don't have time for that just focus on the main point: giving gifts that don't cost, serving each other and others, reminding them of how much God LOVES them & affirming each other.

• Start by reminding your family that God loves us and that is the only way that its possible for us to love each other especially in those times when we are not very loving.
• I wrote all of our names on a piece of paper and then we drew names for who would go first and what days.  Our oldest got to go first and he was sooooo excited!  He is only 6 so we wrote what he said for him & gave him some examples of possible Acts of love gifts he could give to us. 
• The person who does the giving only gets to enjoy the act of giving to others.   
• Then the person whose turn it is makes one of each: a love note & coupon click here (for coupons & note printables) for each family member minus themselves. 
• The next day it's a different family members turn and so on.
• Since V-day lands on a Monday this year our act of service for others will happen on Sunday. We will purchase Happy Meals for street kids and pass them out.  I am so thankful to my parents who instilled in me by example and the most powerful by experience the value of helping those who are not as fortunate as us.  I hope we can do the same for our children.
• We end on V-day with a hearts trail leading to a V-day treat as simple or extravagant as you would like (ours will be simple a pk of juice boxes & a candy for the kids). .

Examples of the coupons for the adults you can give: 1hr of free time to do whatever you want, no washing dishes for a week, a massage for 20min, free pass out of waking up in the middle of the night to feed the baby :).  For the kids: eat dessert before dinner, camping in the living room, pick a family game night (even if we just had one), pick a movie of your choice and get popcorn etc....  We made these up, get as creative as you want and make them up to fit your families wishes.

Total Flop Sunday

I am so glad yesterday was such a wonderful day because todays total flop Sunday doesn't seem so bad.  We had a class picnic planned for my sons Kindergarten class.  This morning it took me a while to get out of bed so I was running behind on everything.  I was supposed to make this deliciousness of a cake to take to the picnic.  I started baking it and then realized that there was no way it would be done baking by the time we had to leave for church.  So I dropped my family off at church and headed back home to finish.  I didn't want to miss all of church so I was rushing to get everything done.  The cake I made was a Chocolate Rasberry cake with Rasberry cream.  The Rasberry cream consisted of cream cheese, rasberry sauce, whipping cream and white chocolate.  Needless, to say this was going to be AAAAh-mazing.  Or at least that was my hope.  I took the cake out of the oven and it just fell apart.  I am not sure what I did wrong but it just crumbled when I took it out of the pan.  I tried to piece it together and let it cool in hopes that miraculously it would harden back to one piece.  It didn't.  I was not going to give up so once it cooled I put the cream sandwiched in between the cake and on top.  As I tried to spread the cream on top it crumbled even more.  Oh my, not pretty.

Once church was over we headed to the picnic and just as we got there it started to pour.  Picnic cancelled. So all that effort and no one was going to eat this mess of cake.  I guess that was a good thing.  One other family showed up and yes you know it I served the cake to them.  I have no shame:).  I will try this recipe again another day in hopes to redeem myself.

Valentines for classmates

The boys are getting their class valentines ready! They had so much fun working on this project.

They made these hearts from model clay that was coiled and then shaped into a heart. We let the clay harden outside and then painted the hearts. 

They will glue each heart to the clothes pin they painted red. Once the clothes pins are ready we will attach clip them onto a white baggie with a valentines cookie inside.

Strawberry Lemon Cupcakes with White Chocolate frosting- Conversation Heart Style

This cake recipe is a bit healthier than the back of the box directions. The yogurt addition makes it very moist!

350 F, generously greased pan for 25-30 min

1 box of lemon cake mix

3/4 c water

1/3 cp veg. oil

3 egg whites

6oz of strawberry yogurt

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.  Pour into pan.

White Chocolate Frosting:

12 oz of white baking chocolate, chopped
1 c butter, soft
2 tsp vanilla
2 cps powdered sugar

In a saucepan, cook and stir the chocolate over low heat until melted. Cool. In a large bowl , beat the butter until fluffy on med. speed, beat in chocolate and vanilla and gradually add the powdered sugar.
*Frosting will harden b/c of the white chocolate in it so if it hardens before your ready for it to then just add a couple of drops of milk in it and put frosting in a small bowl then place it inside a large bowl of hot water.  The hot water will soften it up again and the drops of milk will help give it a smoother spreading texture.

For Conversation Heart Style:
Put cake batter in heart shaped muffin pan bake for 15-20min
Let cool completely
divide them through the middle and add strawberry jelly and strawberries
assemble back in place and spread the frosting all over it.

Buy or make fondant and use mini alphabet cookie cutters for the lettering. assemble on top before the frosting cools. 

Store in a cool area.

Recycled Craft: Stylish Lunch Bag/ Cute Clutch made from a Wipes Bag in 15 minutes

Okay, so I am elated with how this turned out!  I love it!!!!

This can also serve as a stylish lunch bag

. 

You will need: wipes resealable bag, scissors, black tweed, ribbon, glue and fabric

Before covering the bag make two small holes on the side where you will loop the twine thru. The navy striped fabric I chose was to thin and you could see the writing thru it so I had to cover the wipes bag with a thin white piece of cotton. I traced the wipes bag over the cotton and then cut it right out and glued it on.

I looped some twine through the side of the bag. It is probably smart to just loop it through before you cover the bag with the cotton. Then I traced the bag over the navy striped fabric and then cut it leaving some room for the seams to fold under and then glue. Find some fun ribbon and gather and glue in a circle until you get same look from above.

Option 2:  I also cut the bag in half and made a small pencil bag, hand bag etc... using felt.  This only took about 6min b/c there was no need to fold in fabric, lay thin cotton under it and the ribbon was layed flat. I cut out a butterfly with green felt and glued.

i HEART Pancakes. Pancakes with a message!

Follow the instructions from your pancake mix box. Put batter in squeeze bottles
Then put drops of food coloring inside them.  The more drops the more vibrant the color. Shake well.

   On a hot griddle that has cooking spray on it put your design over it. First put the letter design down and then you grab another color of batter and fill it in over the top and around. Flip it over and voila! Or like this star you can just make the outline with one color and fill it in with another color but don't do the sides.

I discovered this idea on someones blog (can't remember where) and I took it another step by not just creating shapes but sending messages.  . My boys who are 3 and  6 helped me with this and they loved it! It is really easy and great fun for the family.

Valentines day Cupcake boxes

These are great for V-day treats. All you need is a box, tissue paper, glue. and whatever your going to use as sprinkles. I used rhinestones, pom poms

Cut your tissue paper into long strips & twist them loosely. Then start layering them & gluing the layers over each other until it looks like fluffy yummy icing.

Stuff with chocolates or jewelry for your valentine!

Valentines day Crepe Paper Rosette Balls

So the trend seems to be rosettes and ruffles on clothes, home decor, purses etc...

I was trying to come up with an inexpensive craft our 6th grade Girls Only! chats.  The counseling dept. meets with 6th grade girls and we discuss girl topics and do a craft. This was what I came up with after seeing the fabric rosettes on pillows.  I will post pictures soon!

You will need styrofoam balls, I am using crepe paper and making them into rosettes, glue, ribbon to hang (if your hanging it).

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls to die for

Our new New Years tradition is to make a different kind of cinnamon roll to enjoy on the 1st.  Nothing like starting you new year right with lots of sugar!!! 
This recipe is AMAZING! I couldnt stop nibbling. I found it on http://www.theidearoom.net/2010/11/pumpkin-cinnamon-rolls.html