Goodie Catch Up

So I've neglected my family blog which means I've definitely been neglecting this one too.  So here is a little catch up of some goodies I've made the last few months.  It's not much since my creativity/energy/motivation has been lacking since I got pregnant.  I didn't feel good for a couple of months which really takes it out of you.  But I'm back.  So enjoy!

For Valentine's Day I made a special breakfast for my husband and little girl.  Everything hearts.  I bought bacon and cut each strip in half and used each half to make a heart.  I cooked it in the oven and voila.  Yummy crispy heart shaped bacon.

 

Here's the pinterest link for more details: http://thepapermama.com/2011/02/wordlessish-wednesday-bacon-of-hearts.html

I also made heart shaped toast. I was hoping to have a bigger cookie cutter but it still worked. So first, you cut out your heart shaped bread. Then you mix some milk with food coloring and lightly coat the bread (you don't want to use too much otherwise the bread will be too soggy to toast). Then using a tiny brush, write a note on the toast using a different color of your milk/food coloring mixture. Then toast your bread. So cool! It takes longer than you think. Mine aren't perfect because I was running out of time so my husband could eat before he needed to leave for work.

Here's the pinterest link: http://cuteeverything.com/food-fun/valentines-day-meal-ideas/

And last I bought a heart shaped ice-cube tray from the $1 section at Target. I dyed some orange juice red and froze my cubes. The next morning I put them in our orange juice. I didn't get a good picture but you get the idea. I also dyed our scrambled eggs pink just for fun.

My next goodie was for Mother's Day. I made these Pampering Kits with a friend for a couple of our friends from church. We loaded them with tissues, chapstick, nail polish, candy, hand sanitizer, lotion, fingernail/toenail  kit, mints, and bath salts. It was pretty easy and I was able to get some of these things at the $1 store to help save on money.  And we drink a lot of juice so I just kept and cleaned the bottles to use for this.

Here's the pinterest link: http://andeverythingsweet.blogspot.com/2010/07/another-packaging-idea.html

And last is a dessert I made for Father's Day. It is so yummy but there is some tweaking that needs to happen. I call it Cookie Oreo Brownies. First make your favorite cookie dough and spread it out on the bottom of your pan (size doesn't matter but I chose 9x13).

 

Then place a layer of whole Oreos on top of the cookie dough.

 

Last, whip up a batch of your favorite brownie mix and spread over Oreos.

Cook at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. This is where I had issues. I cooked it for 10 minutes longer than this and my brownie part was still super gooey. The edges were done but right in the middle was super runny. I haven't made it again to play around with the cook time but maybe lowering the temperature and cooking it longer will fix the problem. I had a friend cook it for an hour and that helped the middle but the edges were too crispy. So good luck but when it's cooked right, it is delicious!

Here's the pinterest link: http://blog.babygizmo.com/2012/02/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookie-oreo-brownie-bars/

Letter Learner

My preschooler loves letters and fun ways to make them. I found this idea on pinterest and here is my version:

Step 1.Use Jumbo Craft sticks and adhesive velcro strips.

Step 2. Put velcro strips together and cut it into small piece.

 

Step 3. Remove backing from adhesive and place each side of one set of velcro to a stick.

Step 4. Have fun creating letters, shapes and patters by matching up the opposing velcro strips.

My preschooler trying them out! They're a success :)

Also I made a cute bag for them(not pictured). We're taking them to church. I hope it will keep them quiet.

Christmas Craft and Goodies

I would like to share all of my Christmas crafts with you but that will have to wait until next year because I still have one family who hasn't received the gift that I've been making for my other family members over the last couple of years and I want to keep it a surprise.

Anyway, for my parents I made blocks with pictures of their grandkids on it. They turned out cute and were easier than I thought. There were a couple finished blocks that I would have liked to fix because letters covered faces and such but there is only so much you can move the letters so they are still on the blocks.

The first thing we did was go to Lowes and buy and cut the wood. Sooooo cheap. I think we spent about $4 on a piece of wood. Lowes cut the wood to 3" x 4" and they didn't charge us for the cuts. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. We sanded the wood and then painted it; blue for my dad and maroon for my mom.

I collected pictures from my siblings of their kids and then used Microsoft Word to size them and printed them on photo paper. Then I modge podged the pictures to the wood.

I had previously cut the letters out using a friend's Silhouette machine. You can buy the vinyl at Michaels or JoAnns. I stuck the letters over the pictures trying to show as many faces as possible though it wasn't always easy. Then I modge podged over the letters and photos to seal it all together. And voila!  One thing I did notice was once I modge podged the photos, they turned a little sepia colored. But they still looked nice.

Now for the goodies. I wanted to do an assortment of goodies this year so I went to Pinterest. Where else?! I made Mint Chip Cookies, Peppermint Bark, Caramel Popcorn, and Fudge. They were all delicious and again super easy. I won't describe the process because I just stuck to the recipe. I'll give you the links so you can see the recipes and try them out for yourself.

 

Click HERE for the recipe for the Cookies.

 

Click HERE for the recipe for the Fudge. I left out the walnuts.

 

Click HERE for the recipe for the Peppermint Bark. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate.

 

Click HERE for the recipe for the Caramel Popcorn. The best and easiest caramel popcorn ever. And I dyed the caramel green before putting it over the popcorn to make it more Christmasy.

 

And here is my little goodie plate that we gave to family, friends, and neighbors.

 

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Harry Potter Party

This year, my soon-to-be six year old wanted a Harry Potter Birthday Party.  Unfortunately, I kinda dropped the ball with my dates and had only one week to plan it.  I thought I'd share with you what I did, but let me just say that if I'd had more time, it would have been much more elaborate.  In the end, though, she loved it and her guests had a lot of fun (I had a huge headache by the end, but it wasn't about me).

First of all, let's start with the cake.  I wasn't sure what to do for a Harry Potter cake.  Amazon.com to the rescue (they helped me out quite a bit with their fast shipping).  I was searching Harry Potter parties and there and found this super cute cake kit.  It arrived with all the pieces and I just had to add the cakes.  I baked 2 9x13-in cakes (Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge, to be exact).  The first cake went down as the bottom layer.  The second cake I cut in half and stacked on top of each other (I put frosting between each layer to hold it together).  They were then centered on the first cake, but with their backsides all even.  I, then, frosting the top 2 layers with light brown frosting (cream cheese frosting dyed brown).  The bottom layer, I used bright green and actually applied it with a decorating tip to create the look of grass.  Then, the castle was attached, the bridge was added, and the characters applied.  It turned out cute, but not exactly like the others (plus I had a green frosting explosion right at the end as I was attaching the bridge).

The games: the birthday princes wanted to play "Pin-the-Scar-on-Harry" and Harry Potter Bingo.  For Pin-the-Scar, I ordered a Harry Potter poster from Amazon (and thanks to my awesome mailman, I got it just in time, but that's a different story) and used that as my template.  The poster was 11x17, so it wasn't as big as I had hoped (it seemed bigger in my mind when I ordered it), but I used the Sorcerer's Stone movie picture, so Harry's head is front and center.  And it worked out perfectly.  I made each of the kids a small scar with their initials attached that they then took turns attaching it to the poster.  And since we used masking tape, the poster is still in perfect condition, so I'll frame it (I originally planned on doing that before the party, but back to the story where I didn't think the poster was going to make, I didn't buy a frame) and place it in the princess's room as a memento.

The other game was Bingo, however, we called it WANDS.  I used a handy dandy Bingo generator online to create my cards.  If you google bingo generator, tons of Free ones pop up.  I used Perceptus/Print-Bingo this time (I've used different ones in the past).  And they have their own template word lists that you can choose from if you don't want to create your own.  I was just browsing them before creating my own and found that they had a Harry Potter one, so I clicked on that.  I used theirs as a jumping off point, but I wanted more words, so I added a lot to it (and deleted a few of theirs).  They turned out great.  You can access my list here, if interested in making HP Bingo Cards.  And don't forget to make a list of the words and print them out to use to actually call out (I placed them in our Sorting hat, which we didn't use for this party, but for our Harry Potter Day Celebration).  I also had gladlock containers with M&Ms in them to use as the Bingo markers.  They were all ready, so that we didn't have to worry about that when the party started.

I also set up a little picture background.  Birthday Princess took a picture with each of her friends in front of it and we are going to use the pictures for the thank you cards.  The background is a castle stairway.  I also bought it courtesy of Amazon.  You can find it here.

Birthday Princess wanted to serve lunch at the party.  To keep things simple, we just had sandwiches and crackers (with cake for dessert, or course).  But I still wanted a little Harry Potter theme in there, so we served butter beer (aka IBC Creme Soda).  I found these really cute free printables here.  I printed one out for each of the bottles and just glued them on.  I really am thankful for people that are computer crafty and are capable of creating printables and are willing to share them.

Finally, what's a birthday party without a take-home goody bag?  I had the great idea to make Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.  Now I know that you can buy them premade through Amazon, but then you get the really nasty flavors like dirt, vomit, boogers (they really do have those flavors; we've tried them; they're horrendous) and that is just a waste of a good jelly belly.  So, with that in mind I thought I'd find a cute design on the Silhouette store to cut out a box like the ones you see on the movies.  I found one, cut it out, and decorated it to look like the movie boxes (I really could have put more time into to make them look even more genuine, but it was getting late and I really just wanted to go to bed).  The design is called tall pyramid top box and you can buy it here (but you have to have a Silhouette to actually cut it).

And that is how we throw a Harry Potter Birthday Party with only a week to plan and execute it.

Jocelyn's 2nd Birthday

My daughter turned 2 this past Friday. I have been thinking and planning her birthday for probably the last six months. I know, maybe a little crazy, but I love doing this kind of stuff. The theme was "Minnie's Bowtique." It's a Disney mini-cartoon. Anyway, here are the crafts and goodies I made for her special day.

 

I traced some mixing bowls I have for the head and ears. For the invite, I just printed up something on my computer, cut it out, and taped it onto the Minnie shape. For the letters on the sign, I used stencils, cut them out, and taped onto the Minnie shape. And for the bow, I looked up a tutorial online on how to make flat bows.  Click HERE for a quick video . And just so you know, adding the bows made them top heavy so I couldn't hang the sign without them flipping over so I ended up taping the sign to the wall.

 

 

This was for the "Pin the Bow on Minnie" game.  I traced bowl lids (they were a little bigger than the bowls themselves) for the head and ears. The face and bows I drew just from looking at pictures and then cut them out. I colored the face and taped to the Minnie shape.

 

 

 

This is the goodie bag I put together for our guests. I had a bunch of lunch bags so just used them. I printed out something on the computer, cut it out, and taped to the bag. I know, easy. In case you're wondering, inside was a Minnie/Mickey puzzle and hair bows (or bowties for the boys).

 

 

For sides we had cheese and crackers and grapes. I bought sliced cheese (not the nasty processed kind) and used a mini cookie cutter and cut the cheese. HAHAHAHA! That joke never gets old. The main meal was chicken nuggets (shaped like Mickey from Costco) or PB&J sandwiches. I was going to cut the sandwiches like Minnie but the cookie cutter ended up being too big. We had different juice boxes and water for drinks.

 

 

 

And these are the cupcakes I made. I used a good ol' box cake mix. Chocolate of course. Then I tried to get the frosting red but I swear I used half a tube of red food coloring and they were still pink but that worked just fine too. Then I used mini oreos for the ears and decorated with sugar balls. The party turned out great and I jokingly told my husband, when our guests left, that it was time to start planning next years party. Haha, I'm not that crazy.

 

The birthday girl.

It's December Already. What have I been up to?

Okay, so it is already December.  I haven't posted since my fiasco with Pumpkin seeds at Halloween.  I have a really good excuse this time, though.  Not only did I host Thanksgiving at my home for 16 people, but I participated in a little thing called NaNoWriMo.  Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month?  Well, you do know.  And I participated this year.  In fact, not only was I a winner (having written 50,000 words in a new novel), but I feel like I should be considered a super winner because my total word count was 77,912.  I am in the midst of my editing and revisions, but I wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about my blog.  In fact, I am working on two new Christmas ribbon wreaths and homemade stockings for my family (you can see my post on the baby's here).  So, those posts will be forthcoming.

Also, I'm a winner in a completely different way.  I won the Tastefully Simple giveaway on A Bowl Full of Lemons.  It is my favorite organization blog.  If you've never visited Toni's blog, I'd highly recommend it.  It is fabulous.  You can visit it here.  I really do love being a winner.  And over the last few weeks I feel like I'm a winning machine (have I mentioned that I've already finished my Christmas shopping and decorated my house?  No, well I have.  Score another one for me.).

Mini Pumpkin Pies

Making goodies for the holidays is one of my favorite hobbies.  And thanks to Pinterest I can always find cute ideas and inspiration.  For Thanksgiving I tried making mini pumpkin pies and they turned out great.  For the recipe click here.  It was really easy which is the way I like it.  Here's how I did it.

Cut out your pie crusts.  The recipe used a pumpkin shaped one and was 3 3/4".  I just used a round one that was 2 3/4".  Worked just fine. 

Place the pie crusts in the mini muffin pan.  I also powdered the mini muffin pan with flour so they wouldn't stick.  They came out so easily.

Make the mix.  Mine looked chunky because of the cream cheese so melt it down a little before you mix it in.

Fill your pie crusts full of the mix and bake at 350° for 12-15 mins.  I had to cook them longer in my oven, maybe an extra 3 mins. on top of the 15. 

Voila!  Yummy, tasty, mini pumpkin pies.

 

And here's how I made it a gift.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!