Girl's Ribbon Holder

If you've ever bought little kids' shoes at Old Navy you may have received one of these, which were holding the shoes on a hook at the store. The little hooks caught my eye, and I thought to myself 'How can I recycle this into something useful?'

Then it hit me! Ribbons! At first I thought about using it in my craft room, but with as many ponytails as I put into my 2 1/2 year old daughter's hair, I thought why don't I have ribbons? I have plenty in my craft room to use on her hair. So then I designed it with her in mind.

At the local craft store I had picked up these puffy 3-D stickers. They were on sale, and if you know me, you know I pretty much only buy things on sale hehe.

In a nutshell, I placed the princess crown and the word "princess" onto a light pink matching cardstock and cut them out. Then I took my white opaque gel pen and just dotted the outline for added decoration. Thinking that I would hang this onto the wall, and that the width of the hanger itself wasn't enough room for a nail, I adhered the princess crown and word with thick foam tape.


Lastly, I used these little felt flowers I got on sale at the local craft store's Easter aisle with an adhesive dot on the back of them already.

This was the end result! Quick, cute, easy and practical!

Simple 5 Minute Sweet Treat Gift

I'm sure at some point in your life you may have stuck a sticker onto a glass surface and tried to remove it. It's just stuck! You can rip or tear it off for sure, but it doesn't easily come off. While walking through our local Hobby Lobby, I saw that stickers were 50% off. While walking through their glass crafts aisle, I saw these cute little milk glass jars with a flip lid. (I also bought an apothecary jar which I'll post later.)

Then the light bulb went off, how about dressing up a glass container with a sticker! I mean seriously, how much easier could that get! Not to mention that the longest part of the process was deciding on what stickers to buy!

This was what I ended up buying:


Here are links for these photos going clockwise.
Making Memories Puffy Alpha Stickers in Pink
American Crafts Remarks Journaling Stickers - Veggies
Mini Milk Glass Jar with Flip Lid, which by the way was only $1.49

I also bought some teal sheer ribbon and some Chocolate Hershey's Eggs at the supermarket.

This was the end result, and it truly took 5 minutes!!! Plus the journaling tags were so freakin' adorable and that took time to pick one that I wanted to put on my milk jar.


Here is a close up with the puffy stickers. They are pretty with their mini polka dots and their high sheen :)


Lastly, I just want to add that not only was this a really quick gift idea, it was also affordable. You can easily find stickers on sale at your hobby store, or even the dollar store. Use some ribbon or twine you have on hand even. Try and buy candies that are on sale due to the season, example: Easter Candy, Halloween Candy, Christmas Candy etc. This is perfect as an add on to a gift. A little handmade gift always makes anything a little more special, because it's from the heart ;)

Wall Art with Simple Embellishments

We painted our new baby Jocelyn's room the lightest pink we could find. When she's 2 we will move her into her sister's room, and we will then change that room into a guest room. Before I got pregnant, I had bought a beautiful Shabby Chic bedspread with matching frilly pillowcases. The room currently holds the crib with a cute little baby quilt with many similar colors to my beloved Shabby Chic bedspread. To make more of my money I wanted to buy artwork for the walls that I could maybe keep up on the walls after the baby moves out.

After looking around my craft room I realized I had little flowers, some glittery brads, and matching scrapbooking papers. Plus, I had some leftover white paint from when I painted the dresser in that room.

Here was a photo frame I picked up at Wal-Mart for $3.


I simply painted the frame white. Then I cut the color coordinating cardstock to the bedspread and the crib quilt to fit the frame (I used a white lace looking paper from a Making Memories package I had, and the pink is from Lilly Anna Soar With It Collection from The Angel Company. I layered the flowers and secured them with the glittery brads and put them in a row. This was the turnout!

It's Jar-tastic! Repurpose Small Jars

In our home we've got clutter scattered all around. Some of the things that bother me are the loose change that we find on the counters, on the floor, on the kitchen table, etc. Another thing I can't stand is losing my chapstick or my keys.

So, I thought of a way to repurpose these little glass jars I had, into attractive, and decorative pieces that would hold these scattered items. I once read in one of my home decor magazines that in places that gather clutter, you should place many containers, jars or glasses in that location, so that you may put things into them instead of having them pile up on your table/dresser space.

So what I did was gather some scrap pieces of cardstock that matched my home decor, and embellished with a bit of ribbon, a flower, a fuzzy brad, and a little scrapbooking charm I had that said "inspire". It took me about 30 minutes to put both of them together. So fast. So simple. So cute! You can easily find these items pretty cheaply at your local craft store. If you like the paper though, you can go to The Angel Company and click on Shop Now.







Here are some other ideas for what you could repurpose your own decorated jars for:
- Fill one with a recipients favorite candy and attach a mini tag.
- Decorate one with the initial of your child, and fill it with crayons.
- Decorate one with matching colors of your little girls room, and put all her pony tail holders you find around the house into it.
- I showed one with Q-tips, but it could also hold cotton balls nicely.
- Put one by the front door to hold your keys.
- Keep one on the back of the toilet with some lovely smelling potpourri.
- Use it to hold paperclips on your desk.
- Create many with the same color scheme for an outdoor or indoor party, and put votive candles inside of them.

Create-A-Cookie

One thing I've learned from my life experiences is to not assume anything. I personally found out that you could make cookies out of any kind of cake mix about a year ago. So I will not assume that everyone else in the world knows about this trick, and this is for my friends out there who didn't know, here is how you can create-a-cookie out of your favorite cake mix.

Ingredients
Cake Mix of any Flavor
1/2 oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup - 1 cup of candies, nuts, etc.

Directions
1. Mix the cake mix, oil and eggs together until blended well.
2. Hand mix in the fillings of your choice.
3. Bake in a 350 degree, preheated, oven on parchment paper for 8 - 9 minutes.
4. Leave on the cookie sheet when it comes out of the oven for about 3 minutes, then transfer to a cool surface. That's it!

These are some cookies I made last night for the guys' poker night in the basement. The light ones are Butter Pecan with Butterscotch Chips and the dark ones are Devil's Food with Peanut Butter Morsels.




Yummy. Soft. Chewy. Delicious!

Tea Party Wonderland

With the hype around Alice and Wonderland, I wanted to share this find with you! This is off of one of my favorite Blogs, Hostess with the Mostess. It's called Alice in Wonderlandia.



The photos just make me want to hurry spring up, so I can have a wonderful evening of colorful entertaining. I am totally LOVING the lounge area on the grass.



My mind races with design ideas I would create for my own wine bottle labels, and menus. The beautiful spring colors of turquoise, canary yellows, pastel pinks, and bright whites. Ahhh, so beautiful!

I encourage you to check out Hostess with the Mostess blog. You will truly be inspired!!!!

Triple Chocolate Cupcake Delight

Around this time when there has been a plethora of Valentine's and Easter Candy EVERYWHERE, I get a craving for chocolate anything. To show some of my close co-workers (and friends) how much I appreciate them, I decided to share my love for chocolate with them.

Now, being a mom of a 2 and a half year old and a 3 month old, I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands. Whenever I do get a minute I rarely want to spend it in the kitchen all day long, or on my feet for that matter....wait, I don't mind being on my feet if it means I can go shopping though, hehe.



Anyhow, I feel so wrong when I bake something from a box. It's like I just feel like I'm saying "here's what I made for you...well not really me, but Betty Crocker" because all I am doing is adding water, oil and eggs! LOL. So, to make myself feel like I put some kind of personal mark on these cupcakes, I made my own Chocolate Almond Buttercream frosting on top of boxed Devil's Cake Cupcakes.

Chocolate Almond Buttercream Frosting

4 oz. Unsweetened Baking Chocolate
1/2 Stick Salted Butter
3 1/2 c. Confectioner's Sugar
6 tablespoons of Milk (I used 1%)
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Almond Extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

First, melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate in a microwave safe bowl on high. I did mine in intervals of 15 sec. until it was melted completely. Then pour it into a big mixing bown to cool down to room temperature.

Second, Mix in the Sugar, Milk, Extracts, and Salt.

That's It! Oh, and to make it even more chocolatey, I shaved some chocolate almond bark I had left over from the holidays onto the tops of the cupcakes.

Here's the smile of approval from my daughter. Enjoy!