My Blonde Ambitions

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2011-12-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

I finally got all of my Christmas decorations up this week. We've had quite a bit of snow here surprisingly and the kids had a snow day today and yesterday. We never once had a snow day in Utah so we were quite excited to get one here. The difference is that they don't have the ability to clear the roads here very well so the buses can't get kids to school. Darn. Actually we loved it, I pretty much used to take my own "snow days" in Utah (my kids and I are pretty big wimps when it comes to going out in the snow). I'm glad we got a few official ones here. It was fun to have the kids home and get our house ready for Christmas. I don't have any pictures taken in the daylight yet, but here's a few Instagram one's I snapped last night on my phone.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

We made a quick trip to Utah for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago. It was so nice to be there and spend time with family. We didn't make it back to our old neighborhood this trip because we have so much family in Utah between the two of us and were juggling time with them. But don't worry Herriman, we'll be back this Summer! We had Thanksgiving dinner at my brother Steve's house. It was so nice and relaxing and the food was awesome. Here's the story told through Instagram, my new favorite thing :)

The Table

The Kids waiting for dinner

Austin, Angela, Brian and Cute Jane who doesn't want to smile for me

Steve the generous host slicing Emily's yummy turkey

Emily the beautiful hostess

Me and Angela, missing were my cute sisters Becky and Katie

Me and Travis

The kids enjoying the feast

Grandma and Grandpa Craig

Dessert!

Cute Norah

My favorite, "Not yo Mama's Banana Pudding" a Paula Deen recipe, look it up on the food network, it's heavenly!

Playing with the little kids after dinner, the only way I can get them to like me is my iPhone

Hallie's Baptism

2011-12-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

Over the Thanksgiving Break while we were in Utah we were able to baptize Hallie with all of her cousins and Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles who were in town. We really debated whether to have her baptism in Utah or here in New Mexico, but got permission to do it in Utah so most of our family could be there. I'm so glad we did, it was a very special day just for Hallie.

Travis was able to baptize and confirm her, and Dallas and I gave talks. Dallas spoke on baptism and I spoke on the Holy Ghost. We had a quick little party for her afterward at the church.

We were so glad that both sets of Grandparents were there because a few days later my parents left for Costa Rica where they will serve for a year and a half in the LDS Temple there. We are hoping to go visit them soon!

Hallie with Grandma and Grandpa Jo

Hallie with Grandma and Grandpa Craig

Family Update

2011-10-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Instead of giving you all the excuses as to why I no longer take time to blog very often I'll just show you what I've been up to lately. My parents and my sister Becky (complete with her 6 children) came to visit us for Fall Break. We had a lot of fun exploring New Mexico while they were here.

Before everyone arrived (they really should have come a week earlier!) we found out for ourselves what all this "balloon stuff" was about. Ever since people learned we were moving to New Mexico they started talking to us about the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, so we headed off to see for ourselves if it was worth all the fuss. Thankfully, it was. These pictures were taken during one of the night time Balloon Glows. It's really quite an amazing site. All the hot air balloons are in a big park lit up and thousands of people are walking around enjoying them. There's lots of people, and lots of balloons, and it's really cool. My little brother Austin and his friends came down for it, but we weren't smart enough to take any pictures together. I did get some of the balloons though.

We especially liked what they call the "special shapes" balloons, you can see for yourself why they're special.

Then when Becky and my parents got here we took a day to go to Santa Fe. I really love it there and think it's a fun place to take visitors, it's so beautiful. I feel like there you can really understand why they call New Mexico "The Land of Enchantment."

We went to an old Catholic church at the Plaza (can't remember what it's called), it's a beautiful church and I'm so glad they let you go in and take pictures because it's amazing inside.

Then we also checked out ABQ's museum of natural history and Old Town Albuquerque.

But one of the reasons I was really glad my family was in town was that they were here to celebrate Hallie's 8th birthday with us. She was so excited to have her cousins here for the occasion. We made a fun Halloween cake and spent the night playing with her new birthday present, Just Dance 3. The kids never seemed to tire of dancing, I love that game! My nieces who were here also have October birthdays, so we had two cakes for the occasion and sang to them too.

Remember Hallie's candy cake from last year?

We liked it so much we made a Halloween version this year.

I pretty much did the same thing as last year except went to town with Halloween Candy. And instead of doing the rainbow cake on the inside I layered (with my Mom's help) a chocolate and vanilla (dyed orange) cake. It was yummy.

I promise the Fancy Nancy blogger you've grown accustomed to is around here somewhere. I've just got figure out how she fits into New Mexico before she resumes her normal posts :) Thanks for hangin in there with me.

Costume City

2011-10-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

My favorite part of Halloween is coming up with costumes for the kids. These pictures make me smile and remember fun Halloween memories. There are 2 years missing, Dallas' first Halloween (he was a tiger) and 2004 when Dallas was a bee and Hallie was a flower. Those pictures are packed in a box somewhere and not on my computer. Anyway these were the pictures I had digitally so they went into a collage that I created in Picasa and printed so I could put it up with my other Halloween decorations. We are currently trying to decide what the kids should be this year, any suggestions?

Halloween Decorations 2011

2011-10-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well the majority of my house might still be very under-decorated, but that doesn't mean I won't decorate for Halloween. I dug through all the random boxes in the garage the other day and found most of my Halloween decorations, and added a few new ones. Here's your first look at our new house, as you'll see it's not unlike my old house (that's probably why I liked it so much). This is our family room, it's the most decorated room in our home. I still have to hang my curtains, and have some plans for a gallery wall in the future, but for now this is it. Like our last home it is open to our kitchen, which I like. Even the configuration is very much like our Herriman House, the fireplace is to the left at an angle, and then there's just a big open room. We were glad there was a perfect spot for our entertainment center that Travis' Dad built us for Christmas last year. It fits beautifully.

Here's some close-ups of the mantel. I've pretty much got the same decorations as always, I just put them out a little bit differently every time. The big Happy Halloween bunting is new though. It was cheap, $2 from Target, but I really like it even though it's paper.

I don't think I put the little Halloween girl decoration out last year, I made her along with about a dozen others like her for a few friends for Halloween. I really think she's cute.

The other new addition I bought this year was this pumpkin bunting. It was also super cheap at Target, $4. Yes please! It's not even paper, it's made of felt with ribbon so I think it'll last for a long time. Love it.

But probably my favorite new Halloween decoration this year is my Subway Art from the Eighteen25 girls. This is my favorite holiday subway art they've done so far, and I can't believe they give them away for free cause I would have paid for this. But it's a free download that you can have printed at Costco. I got the 16X20 poster size and it only cost $5.99 to print. Then I just put it in a frame I already had that I spray painted white. Promise me you'll download (they give great instructions on how to do this) and hang your own. It's so cute, it will make you happy every time you walk past it, I promise!

But I couldn't quite leave it well enough alone so I added a few more decorations to the niche that it's in.

Well that's pretty much it for the Halloween decorations. I've got a lot of family coming to town next week and we're having a Halloween themed birthday party for Hallie, so perhaps I'll add some more. For now I'm off to sew pillows for my Living Room.

Time to blog again

2011-10-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I don't like to cook in a messy kitchen. If it's time to make dinner and the kitchen is a mess I will clean it first, and then prepare dinner (same thing if my bed is unmade and it is time to go to sleep: I will first make the bed, and then get in to go to sleep.). My husband finds this very odd. His philosophy is that if it's already a mess you may as well just add to it, and then do a big clean-up after dinner. But I prefer to cook in a clean kitchen.

I kind of think this is why I haven't blogged much lately. My "kitchen" (code for life and my new home) is messy (or still in boxes), and it's taking me a long time to clean it. So I feel like I can't blog or craft until I get settled. Anyway we've been in our new home for a month now, and I'm getting more and more settled every day, so I've decided it's high time to start blogging again. Maybe no one is even paying attention any more anyway, and that's okay. Really I blog more for myself and my sanity than for anyone else. Blogging gives me a creative outlet and a way to connect with other people (even if the only other people out there are my Mom and my husband, I'd still blog). So here I am, blogging again, and feeling all accomplished :)

Remember my coat hanger that I had my father-in-law make way back when? He basically took a 4X4 block of wood, and put some legs on it for me, and then I painted it and added some hooks. It looked like this before we painted it.

Then Travis painted it for me and added hooks, but once we got here to our new home I decided it needed a little something else so I hung a fun retro clock on it that I bought at Target.

What do you think? I'm kind of loving it. I think the clock really finishes it off and gives it a retro vibe. I use it in my kitchen to hang my purse and apron and whatever else I feel like hanging on it. I got the hooks for it at Hobby Lobby.

Basically I've been doing things like this for the last month. Trying to pick my life up out of boxes, and find a new place for everything. We're getting there, but I've got a long way to go. Our new house has quite a bit more room than we had before, and so there's a lot more to decorate. I'm excited about decorating because I love doing it, but it's going to take a while. I'm just going to have to do it piece meal as I can afford it, but I'll be sure to document along the way.

On the family front Dallas recently had his first Rain Gutter Regatta for Cub Scouts, and we took a family trip to the Albuquerque Zoo.

The Rain Gutter Regatta here was really fun. They did a few crazy races, and Dallas got picked for the silly string race where he tried to get his boat to move through the rain gutter by spraying it with silly string. It didn't really work very well, but he sure had fun doing it.

And the ABQ zoo was surprisingly great. If you ever come to New Mexico, you have to visit the zoo. It was super affordable and really big. There's also a train ride you can take from the zoo to the aquarium which we did and enjoyed that as well.

So that's about what I've been up to lately. I recently put up all my Halloween decorations and even did a fun craft that I'll share with you another day. Right now I'm getting ready for family that is coming to visit, and Hallie's birthday next week. Also there's a big balloon fiesta in Albuquerque that we're going to check out, so I'll be sure and take pics of that as well. Bet you can't wait!

Update from my phone, don't even begin to edit this one :)

2011-09-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

So I guess it's been awhile. I'm finding that I'm the kind of person who doesn't do anything half heartedly. I'm either all in or all out. With that said, my blog and my diet have both suffered in a major way lately. But don't worry, I will eventually find my way back to both.

My blogging life pretty much got put on the back burner in a major way this Summer when my real life was turned upside down. My husband was offered a great promotion in New Mexico which we both originally said "thanks but no thanks" to. But after some humbling soul searching we both realized that this was an offer we could not walk away from. So on Memorial day Travis moved to New Mexico while I stayed behind to allow the kids to finish the school year and sell our house. Travis mostly came home every weekend with a few exceptions here and there where he stayed in NM. It was a long, hard Summer for both of us. We had great family weekends and some wonderful family vacations, but mostly I was miserable without my husband and entire family in tact. These feelings were probably a much needed experience for me because they made me appreciate having my family together even if it means we had to move.

Toward the end of August even though our house hadn't sold Travis and I decided to try to find a way to make the move anyway. We found a house that I'd been eyeing online and sent Travis to
see in person. When Travis went to check out the house he found out that the sellers were
moving even though the house was still up for sale. With this information we decided to put a
lease to buy offer on the house dependent on the sale of our own. We found out that the same
day we put our offer on the house someone else had put a cash offer in as well. We didn't feel very confident that the sellers would choose our offer, but they did. So we went ahead and scheduled our move even though our home in Utah was still unsold.

Well less than a week before our move some people came through who loved the house, made us an acceptable offer and we are now under contract. That news was such a huge relief and answer to fervent prayer. We are keeping our fingers crossed and expecting the sale go go through within a few weeks.

Last week we made the whirlwind move and we are now living in our new home in New Mexico. I can't believe we bought a house that I hadn't seen in person but my leap of faith paid off and I'm pleasantly surprised with the house and neighborhood. The kids are settling into school, and I'm still getting us settled into our home. I should have a computer up and running within a week and hope to be back to blogging soon. I have a very empty house in need of decorating so I'm sure I will have lots to share. Right now I'm just happy to have my family in tact and sitting at the dinner table together every night. Life is good, even in New Mexico.

Booties and Blankets

2011-07-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

So I actually pulled out my sewing machine the other day. I've had it packed away since I've been trying to sell my house, but when one of my very Best Friends in the whole world had a baby I figured it was time to get it back out and put it to good use.

I made a baby blanket for my friend Dawn who recently had baby #4. After having 3 beautiful girls in a row Dawn finally got her boy. So I decided to help her celebrate this new little one with a new little blanket.

I wish I would have taken the time to do a tutorial on this blanket, but I didn't. It's very similar to all the other baby blankets I've shown though, and a tutorial for those can be seen here. The only thing different I did on this one was to put a ribbon around the center of the blanket between my two fabrics. I also used different types of fabric this time (minky and flannel). I pulled the colors for this blanket to match these baby booties that my sister Katie's company makes.

Aren't they the cutest little baby booties you've ever seen? I was able to get these straight from the source when we were in Portland a few weeks ago. We were able to visit Puj headquarters and get a behind the scenes tour from Katie and her husband Ben who created Puj. Katie gave these same booties to an audience full of pregnant women at the Ellen DeGeneres show on Mother's Day. Here's Katie in front of Puj headquarters and at the Portland Rose Garden. Behind all that beauty is an incredibly talented woman.

Put together I'd say the blankets and booties made the perfect baby gift, Congrats Dawn!

The Crazy Craig Clan heads to the Coast: Lincoln City Family Reunion 2011

2011-07-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, once again, it's been a while. My blogging is kind of on the back burner these days. I'm still here in Utah waiting for my house to sell. I sound like a broken record. Oh well. Forget selling houses and moving to another state (that's just depressing and beyond boring), last week my whole family took time out for our annual family reunion. We grew up with only 1 first cousin and no real family reunions to attend so I think we all truly delight in the experience now (and hope our kids all appreciate what they've got in this here big family). My Mom and Dad rented some beach houses for all of us to stay in on the Oregon Coast. Lincoln City specifically. And if you've never visited this part of the country, put it on your bucket list. I was amazed by the beauty there and will be sure to visit again. So instead of taking a ton of space and time writing about this, I made a ton of collages to show you what a good time we had. But before we get to the nitty gritty details here's a few shots of the whole clan (minus my very missed BIL Brian who couldn't miss school). Here's one normal, and one crazy picture (we have a lot of both in our family :)

Travis and I and the kids made the trip from Utah to Portland in two days. It was kind of a long drive, but very worth it (and the Oregon stretch of it at least was really pretty). When we first got there we stayed with my Sister Katie who lives in the Pacific North West and one of our first afternoons there we visited Portland's famed Rose Garden. It was unbelievably gorgeous.

Then we headed to the coast to check out the area where we'd spend the next few days. The first evening we were there everyone wanted to check out the beach. These were a few snapshots I got that evening.

These were some of the houses in the neighborhood that we stayed in. The top middle one, the bottom right and the bottom left were the ones we actually stayed in. I was dying of coastal cottage cuteness. Why don't they have any houses like this in New Mexico?

Here are a few random shots of everyone at the house. We mostly ate and hung out there in the morning and evening but spent the days off seeing the sights or playing at the beach.

One of our first afternoons we decided to take all the kids to the Aquarium in Newport. It was really fun to see some of the marine animals up close.

After the aquarium we headed to Mo's for some world famous clam chowder. Anyone who truly knows me knows that I detest sea food, but no matter, I relish in all things nautical. So I enjoyed my grilled cheese sandwich and the ambiance of the bay. Here are some fun signs along the boardwalk.

Technically these bottom two signs were not from the bay area, but I liked them anyway and they were from the trip so I added them. Another afternoon that we were there we headed to the Tilamook Cheese Factory. This place was crazy busy, who knew that cheese making could be so fascinating? We had fun checking out the factory and filling up on cheese and ice cream.

My family enjoys reuniting so much that we design t-shirts every year to commemorate the occasion. Well technically my sister Katie designed the shirt this year. So when we finally got around to the day we wore the shirts we took a lot of pictures to document. Here's our very windy beach photo shoot. If I did my math right we're up to 30 people, I have 6 original siblings, 2 parents, 5 in-laws and 17 grand kids. And I must say that I quite enjoy all of these beautiful people.

Then since we were in such a picturesque, beautiful part of the country I made my own little family hold a photo shoot. They weren't very happy about dressing up and taking time out for this, but lucky for me everyone likes to keep Mom happy so I got my way :)

If you take enough pictures you'll usually get a few good shots. These were the best of what we got. These bottom ones are a little more random. Trav and I snuck away for a little walk one evening and I made him take a few pics with me, and the bottom left one is of my sisters and my Mom with my sweet niece Jane, and the bottom right is a great shot I got of my Dad when he was taking my family pictures (I turned the camera on him.)

And finally here's my cute Mom and Dad, without them we wouldn't have our family or family reunions to celebrate each other. They celebrated their 39th anniversary 3 days ago, congrats Mom and Dad! I'm so blessed and lucky to be a part of your family. Thanks for making all of this possible, Happy Anniversary!

A little story about a little boy and his little car

2011-06-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

I'm sort of amazed that I have any followers right now. You've probably got it on your list of "things to do" to drop me from your blog reader, but you just haven't gotten around to it. If that's the case I totally understand. But, if by some small chance you're interested in what I have to say and show enough to stick around, well then I'll consider you a true friend :) I promise to one day get back to blogging and creating, I just have a crazy life right now so that's not likely to happen until I sell my house, move, and get settled into another home. So for now I thought I'd show you what we were up to this last week. Pinewood Derby anyone? Who knew such things would be so exciting. I sure didn't until I had a cub scout of my own. It's kind of like you don't ever think a kid's soccer game could be very exciting until you've got your own kid on a team. When that happens soccer suddenly becomes the most exciting sport there ever was. It's like that.

So last week was Dallas' Pinewood Derby. Travis helped Dallas design, shape and build his car, and then Mom took over with the decorating. The boys decided to go with a space rocket theme and this is what we came up with. What do you think?

Exciting, right? Just look at my boy's face, if that doesn't show excitement then I don't know what does.

Actually that was more of a "Mom get out of my face with the camera" look. Oh well. Here's a few more cars that I really liked. My favorites (besides ours of course) were the Hershey Car and the Dinosaur Car. Very impressive.

Unfortunately for Dallas his car had a lot more style than speed, and seeing how the Pinewood Derby isn't exactly a beauty contest we didn't exactly win. That's okay, there's always next year! The boys still had a ton of fun though, and we had a good time watching.

Even though Dallas didn't place in the top 3 he still took home the award for "Most out of this world car." The boys all got an award with a medal made out of licorice rope and a York Peppermint Paddy. Clever, cute and culinarily pleasing.

Now there's the happy face.

Curve Balls and Birthdays

2011-06-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. My posts lately are very few and far between. But I do have an excuse. Over the last month my husband has been offered and accepted a job promotion. We are so excited, and I'm so proud of him! Only thing is: the job is in New Mexico, Albuquerque. Yep. We are moving. To put it mildly, I'm devastated.

Though we've only been here in Utah for a little over 2 years we love it here, and are happier than we have ever been. We love our house, we love our neighborhood, we love our neighbors, we love our school, we love our church, but mostly we love being so close to both of our families. I could keep going and going on about why we love it here (and why this is the perfect place for us) but it just makes me sad to think about it. We really thought when we moved here that Utah would be our forever home. But life stepped in, and my forever home is now up for sale.

I've been trying really hard to look on the bright side of this curve ball. I'm trying to put on a happy face, but to tell you the truth I've probably cried more in the last two months than I have in the last two years. I'm pretty much mourning this move. But I know that we can be happy anywhere, and that we can find friends anywhere, so I'm truly hoping that we love Albuquerque. So if you have anything good to say about New Mexico please, please speak up. Or if you know of any good neighborhoods that I should be looking for houses in, please leave me a comment.

But for now we're still here and life keeps chugging along. This last week was my son Dallas' 9th birthday. I decided not to let the mood of this move put a damper on his birthday. So we got the family (all of them) together at my In-law's house for a weenie roast over the weekend. We had such a good time with everyone (that's what makes it so hard to leave this place).

Anyway on to happier thoughts! In my world birthdays are definitely a time for celebrating, and this sweet boy of mine deserves the happiest of days.

This party wasn't exactly Fancy Nancy, but that might actually be what made it so great. We gathered everyone together, and I mean everyone. Black sheep and all.

I snuck in a few shots of my little family before the fun began.

Then when the whole crew showed up it was party time.

I think everyone had a good time, I know I did. But most importantly I think he did.

Happy Birthday Dallas!

And the Oscar Goes to...

2011-05-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. I'm just stopping in to say that I'm still here, even if my blog posting is suffering. Life has been pretty crazy lately. We're experiencing some changes with my husband's job (good ones - don't worry) which are causing him to travel more. Those changes are keeping me busy with real life these days. So as usual, the first thing to be put on the back burner is my blog time. Hopefully you still like me even if my posting is a little scarce! Last weekend we were able to celebrate Hallie and her theatrical pursuits. She was in a little play that she's been practicing for since last Fall. It was fun to see her up on stage and watch her having fun with her friends.

She did great, and delivered her lines flawlessly. Just look at that emotion on her face, she's quite the little actress I tell ya. After the play we took our Oscar winner over to Grandma Jo's to enjoy the Spring weather that we are finally getting here in Seattle, I mean Utah. Yes, I know it's almost Summer, but we are barely getting Spring here, and the sunny days have been few and far between.

Just look at that happy girl with her golden naked man, and to think we knew her way back when...

The kids had a great time at Grandma's riding their cousin Hunter's Tow Goat. I don't know if I spelled that right, but my nephew Hunter assured me that's the proper name. It's kind of a funny little motorized bike that doesn't go very fast. The kids sure had a fun time riding it. Look at Hunt the daredevil showing off his stunts. I was cracking up with his one-legged riding. This kid should take up ice skating, he's got crazy moves.

We pulled Grandma outside to do a photo shoot in front of her beloved lilacs. She even had a purple shirt on to match, it was sheer serendipity. Grandpa didn't catch the vision of our outdoor spring day though, I think he had better things to do with his time.

The kids even took their own turns behind my camera, I think they did a pretty good job.

Anyway my posting might remain a little scarce for the time being. Be patient with me, I will eventually return with more craftiness, but for now real life is calling.

Cheers to San Diego

2011-05-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Travis and I were able to go to San Diego for his work Convention/Awards trip. This kind of trip is always a little more exciting than our normal ones because it's all paid for by his company, can't beat that! We stayed right near Seaport Village and the Gaslamp District of San Diego in a hotel called the Manchester Grand Hyatt. It was a beautiful hotel, and we had a gorgeous view of the Harbor. It was a little cloudy most of the weekend so there wasn't much in the way of beach or swimming time, but we still had a really fun relaxing weekend. Trav got to golf and I got to shop and read. Every night the company holds dinners and entertainment. One night there was a comedian, and one night there was live music, and always yummy food. Each night before dinner there is always a cocktail hour with an open bar. This is really exciting for a lot of people, but we don't drink. So for us it's an opportunity to try to figure out fun drinks for the bartender to make us sans alcohol. This year we drank a lot of Shirley Temples. These are so yummy and simple that I thought I'd buy the ingredients at home to make them for the kids.

If you don't know what's in a Shirley Temple it's as simple as lemon-lime soda, Grenadine syrup and Maraschino Cherries. I just pour the soda over a glass of ice with a cherry or two followed by 1-2 teaspoons of Grenadine, yum!

Two of my best friends live in Southern California, so we met up for lunch and shopping one day at Seaport Village.

Here's Liz and cute Elyse.

And Courtney and sweet Chase. We wanted a picture of all three of us, so we had Chase take one. I'd say he's a budding Photographer.

So one of the nights at the convention there's a cocktail dress dinner. I made Trav take some pictures with me cause I really liked my dress this year.

I almost always wear black dresses to these things so this time I really broke out of my shell with the Navy. Okay so it's almost black (I'm not the most daring dresser), but I loved it. My Mom helped me make the red shawl because I wanted to wear red shoes with the dress. I don't know why Trav didn't get any pics with the shoes (guys don't think about stuff like that). So I took some close-ups of my accessories to share with you. I'm all about the accessories.

Like the shoes? I got them on Zappos.com (love buying shoes from them). But if you like to online shop for shoes you should also check out 6pm.com, it's somewhat of an outlet for Zappos (I think).

My Mom loaned me this cute little coin purse. I thought it'd be perfect for holding lipgloss and gum. And you know how I feel about my birds. It was perfect to take to the awards dinner.

Here's a closer shot where you can see my headband. Liz helped me pick it out at Nordstrom to go with my outfit. I was kind of hesitant because it cost twice as much as my dress (literally, but I got my dress for a steal) but we figured it really finished the ensemble.

And here's Trav in his cocktail attire. He was kind of like, "I don't look any different than any other day at the office." But still, he looked handsome, and I was so proud of him. It's always fun for me to see him be praised for his hard work, and get to meet the people from his company.

For some reason I kind of had a red, white, and blue theme going all weekend. Nice of my friends to comply with that as well :) It was kind of funny when Liz came and picked me up at the hotel I was also wearing a blue gingham shirt, we started laughing and I went back to change. That's the picture I wish I would have taken.

The Best Day of My Life...Thanks Kim!

2011-05-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

I opened my email this morning to see that I had gotten a few new blog comments saying, "Congrats on being featured at Today's Creative Blog!" What the...? I pulled up my blog reader to click onto Kim's blog and sure enough, that beautiful lady was sending me some love. Holy cow. I've been such a blog slacker lately that I'm feeling very undeserving of her praise. I had the opportunity to meet Kim in person at the Creative Estates conference I attended last month. Kim is so sweet and has the kind of personality that immediately draws you in, and makes you feel like you've been friends forever. I like that kind of a friend, the one you feel like you can dish with: that's Kim (she is completely hilarious). Not to mention that she has super stylish curly hair. In my opinion curly hair is very had to pull off right, but Kim does it right and makes it look effortless.

So if you're here from Today's Creative Blog, welcome. I sort of feel like you all showed up at my house unexpectedly this morning which is a complete mess, and I am un-showered and planning to spend the day doing laundry (don't you love it when that happens?) So I'll do my best to make my house and my blog look a little more shiny for my completely welcome, but unexpected guests.

Here are a few of my favorite past tutorials. I hope you enjoy them! I really do plan to pick up the blogging again very soon. My life has been a bit crazy this last month. I was away from home most of the month (2 trips to Arizona, one to New Mexico, and most recently to San Diego, I literally walked into my door last night at 10 p.m. after stepping off a very delayed plane.) and I'm not a sophisticated enough blogger to blog remotely or line up guests. No, this here blog set-up includes me, myself, and I; and I blog when I have the time- and lately that's been scarce. So feel free to follow me in hopes that I'll be soon kicking myself in the butt and getting my blog back on. Thanks for stopping by!

Double Sided Bunting Tutorial

A fabric pouch for all your little needs.

Embellished Ribbon Headband Tutorial

Fabric Flower Tutorial

Rhinestone Flip Flops

Travel Jewelry Case (in my opinion this is a must make! I've been using this a TON lately)

Anyway thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the tutorials, and follow me for more to come.

Thanks a million times over to the lovely Kim at Today's Creative Blog. You put a huge smile on my face today, and I can already tell it's going to be "the best day of my life!"

My-O Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-05T23:43:00.000-07:00

I've sure been slacking in my blogging lately, but if you don't find me in this virtual world you really should just assume that it's because my actual world is so great that there's no time for blogging. Okay so that's not always the case. But this week it has been. I made another (yes another) last minute trip to my sister's house this week when my husband had to go out of town for business. I figure, why should he have all the fun? So me and the kids jumped in the car with my Mom and Dad and headed South. I'm so glad we made the trip and that I could spend Cinco De Mayo with my family.

Tonight my sister Becky let us tag along on her family party that her cute Sister-in-law Ashley threw. I remember Ashley from when she was just a little kid who liked to sing Broadway tunes (my favorite was her rendition of America from West Side Story). Well now this Maria's all grown up, recently married, and has a thriving fashion blog. Here she is with her beautiful sister Leisel who you should know is my all time favorite hair dresser. Without Leisel My Blonde Ambitions would just be, My Mousy/Dirty Used To Be A Blonde Ambitions. Good thing I've got Leisel.

Aren't they beautiful girls? I die for Ashley's skirt. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise since the girl knows her fashion, it's vintage so I'm pretty sure we can't all rush out and get our own. Besides knowing fashionable things, Ashley knows fancy party things too. I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for themselves.

And if the party details aren't eye candy enough, there were plenty of beautiful people to be found too.

The kids really had fun with the sombreros and mustaches. And the food was some of the best homemade Mexican food I've ever tasted.

Ashley even spray painted some of these chairs just for the party. Now that's dedication, but it looked so great I'd say it was definitely worth the work.

I loved Ashley's name cards. Here's mine and my Mom's. So sweet, clever and simple; I love them.

But here's my favorite picture of the whole night. My sweet Becky, all grown up with her beautiful children, all 6 of them. She's such a shining example of what Motherhood and family are meant to be, and I love her for that.

And last but not least I want to wish an extra special Cinco De Mayo to my sweetheart Trav. We may be in 2 separate states tonight (thanks to a business trip), but May 5 is our wedding anniversary. 11 years ago today we were married. That decision has been the best decision I have ever made and he has made me a very blessed, happy woman. Happy Anniversary Bubba!

Easter Recap

2011-04-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

I love Easter Sunday. It's become one of my favorite holidays to host dinner. It's a lot of work to have it at my house, but I really enjoy doing it so I keep volunteering myself. This year I decided to do most of the work for the party on Saturday so that I could enjoy myself more on Sunday. I think it worked pretty well. Maybe too well. I'm kicking myself this morning because I had so much fun at my own party that I didn't even think to once pull my camera out. Maybe I'll have to invite everyone back to recreate the day. I keep thinking that I really need more pictures of the people in my life and less pictures of the crafty details. I figure in 20 years I'm not going to care that much about the things, and I'm going to regret not having pictures of the people. I at least made an effort to take some family pictures in our Easter clothes after church. I even put myself in a few of them (something I really don't like doing very often these days). And yes, I realize we are wearing Christmas colors. I tried to find other outfits, but this is just what I liked the most for everyone.

We did have our neighbor volunteer to take a family one after he heard me yelling at my kids to, "act normal!" Because this is how my kids act when we attempt to take pictures.

Like this.

And like this.

This was probably the best we got of "normal."

Here's the one family shot. I don't love it, and really hesitate posting it. But, I'm trying to keep it real, and real means I don't always look my best, and Trav has this thing where he squints in 85% of the pictures we take. I did wear cute red high heels to church, but you can see that I barely made it in the door with them still on, let alone the rest of the day.

But that's us.

And here's the only party pics I took, a few crafty details before the guests arrived. After the guests came I lost my brain.

And here's a close up of Hallie's brooch. I didn't make her dress. I had a really hard time finding a dress for her that I liked. I just feel like now that she's grown out of the little, little girl stuff I don't like the things I find in the 7-14 girls section. I don't know why they try to make the little girls look like pre-teens these days. I wish they'd take the littler girls dresses and continue them in the bigger sizes. Maybe I'm not looking in the right stores. I guess if I really want what I have in my head I'm going to need some more sewing lessons. This was my attempt to make the dress I found Springier.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Flowers and things

2011-04-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Confession: I'm kind of an accidental blogger. No, I didn't accidentally set up this blog. But basically I'm really quite naive as to how to do it all right. I just kind of do what I think feels right and hope people respond. I don't even really know how to read all of my stat counters, or how to interpret the results. Basically if you start talking numbers to me my mind shuts down. I once dropped a college math class after the first day when the teacher said, "math is the most beautiful language there is." I figured I couldn't spend a whole semester sitting in someones class who had such a radically different math motto than me. My math motto is more along the lines of, "math is a necessary evil. Pure, pure evil." No, not really, but pretty much I don't think in terms of numbers AT ALL. But one thing I can tell from what draws people to my blog is that everyone likes a good old fashioned fabric flower tutorial. So I'm thinking of doing a few more of those. I won't do a tutorial for these rolled flowers because they are just that simple. But after I saw the cute headband I got from CE I thought I needed to try some of these rolled flowers myself. I've seen these around quite a bit but never really tried them until I needed something simple to keep me busy at my sister's house.

Here's the low down on these rolled flowers. I used felt. I used cheap felt. I bought a variety pack of felt at Wal-Mart, they had surprisingly good and vibrant colors. I used a rotary cutter and mat to cut out the felt. I wouldn't even attempt this with just scissors unless you have a super steady hand. I cut my fabric length wise 1/2 inch wide. Then you simply use some good fabric glue, give yourself a whole line of glue and roll (tightly). These bigger rolls used 2 strips of felt and the smaller used 1. Anyway they were really fun to make and would make a fun kids craft.

I do have some other fun fabric flower ideas in my head, I just need to get them formed in reality, and then I'll share. These are about the only vibrant flowers around me right now. Today's high here is 50 something with a forecast of rain. Here's hoping that April showers bring May flowers!

Swag and Loot

2011-04-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

One of the fun things we got when we registered for the Creative Estates Conference was a Swag box. Inside the box were some fun crafty things for the creative blogger types who would be attending. For whatever reason when stuff is free (although technically we paid to attend the conference) it's just all that much better. Here's what we got. There were some fun craft supplies, a headband, a bookmark, a business card holder, some letterpress papers, and a necklace. I was particularly excited about the necklace. They were made by The Vintage Pearl, I love her stuff, it's so pretty.

One of the places that my Mom and I had to go to while we were in town was SAS. SAS is kind of a random store in Phoenix (they have one in Tempe too, that's the one we went to) that sells fabric by the pound, Mill ends, ribbon, and lace. Now I call this a random store because it's kind of a bargain basement type place. I've been going to SAS with my Mom my whole life and didn't always appreciate the wonders it beholds. It's kind of a funny place with swamp coolers and bad lighting (at least that's what I remembered as a kid) where you have to kind of dig through random fabrics and ribbons etc. As a kid I always heard stories about there being snakes and spiders in the bins under the fabrics so to tell you the truth I was a little afraid of it. I told this to my kids too in order to add some excitement to our trip. But sadly, I've yet to see a snake or even a spider in the store. Mostly a bunch of random crafty people digging through notions and treasures. Here's my loot from SAS.

Can you tell I have a thing for stripes? I should be set with ribbons and lace for a little while now. I got all of this stuff for right around $25. I don't think I paid more than $0.49 a yard for anything. I'm excited to attempt some T-shirt re-do's with some of these fun trims and laces. I'll keep you posted.

And finally here's my loot from Marshall's. I love Marshall's. This is another store I remember going to with my Mom as a kid, and not fully appreciating it. It's a lot like T.J. Maxx and Home Goods (I think they are all under one parent company). Anyway they don't have them here in Utah, so my Mom and I drove all over the Valley and I think hit 4 of them while we were in Arizona. I kept noticing these cute leather things from a company called Baekgaard. I'd never heard of them before, but did a little research and found out that it's the brother company of Vera Bradley. Sadly though, the Baekgaard side of the company just recently shut it's doors. So I'm thinking that's why this stuff was cheap at Marshall's. I bought these travel accessories because I couldn't resist the turquoise, it's the perfect shade.

I don't actually even have a Passport, so I probably don't really need a Passport holder so I decided that I'll be turning that into something else. I'll keep you posted on that one too. You know me, I've always got projects in mind, now I only need to find the time.

Recovery Mode

2011-04-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

I spent this last week with my Mom in Arizona at my sister's house babysitting her 6 kids (yep, you read that right, 6). Becky (my sister) and her husband went on a week long cruise to the Bahamas, and my Mom and I signed up to watch their family while they were gone. So though it might not sound like a lot of fun to take care of a household of 8 children (I had mine with me) we actually quite enjoyed ourselves. Becky's kids are really well behaved and we had fun playing with the little ones, and helping the older ones off to school and with homework etc. My kids were pretty much in heaven playing with their cousins and enjoying the warm Arizona weather. We didn't make it out to see all of our friends from our old side of town- so don't hate me if you're reading this or feel bad that I didn't call you. Just remember, I was watching 8 kids. So that involved a lot of cooking, cleaning, and laundry, but my Mom and I were able to also fit in a lot of shopping, talking, a little crafting and some Happy Hour visits to the local Sonic. As my Dad would say, "A lovely time was had by all."

But being the little sister that I am I decided to take a few pics of Becky's house to share with you. I didn't even ask her permission. I just thought it would be a lot more fun for her to just see them here on my blog and be like, "hey that's my house!" After all what good is it to be a little sister if you can't have some fun on your older sister's behalf every now and then. And don't worry Becky, these are good pictures. So enjoy Becky's front room while I am busy recovering at my own house. Today is all about laundry, laundry, and more laundry. And please don't stop by because it's after 1 o'clock in the afternoon and my kids (they are on a long Spring break) and I are still in our pajamas eating frozen pizzas because we haven't even bothered to get dressed or go to the grocery store. Cause if we got dressed, that would just make more laundry for me to do :)

This is Becky's front room that she recently redecorated. She did some lovely board and batten and then slip covered her couch and added some end tables, pillows and lamps for pops of color. I think it's kind of funny because in High School our school colors were orange and blue, but at the time I thought it was an awful combination. I've seen the error of my thoughts, and in recent years I've come to love the colors together myself.

Becky made the two blue pillows herself and her friend gave her the orange round one. She got it at Goodwill and told Becky she had to have it for her front room. I think her friend is right, it gives such a great punch of orange whimsy.

I love these lamps too. I don't know where she got them, but I'm willing to bet it was either Home Goods, Marshall's or TJ Maxx. I think my Mom and I went to 4 different Marshall's while we were in Arizona. I really wish we had one here in Utah!

I love the photo collage Becky did above her couch. She chose some very simple fabrics, mirrors, a photo and some craft paper to frame, and she pulled it all together perfectly. That's a picture of the Arizona LDS temple that 5 of my siblings and I were married in, so it's a pretty special place for our family.

And don't you love this bicycle painting? It sits above Becky's piano. She made it herself. I'm going to have to try something similar one of these days.

So that's Becky's front room. I hope you enjoyed it, if you did leave her a comment here so she doesn't get mad at me for sharing. I'm hoping to get crafty this week for Easter. I ordered a Silhouette machine that's still sitting in the box it was mailed in. I'm a little afraid to open it. I'm hoping it's really user friendly because I'm not all that tech savvy. I'll let you know though and share some of the things I make with you. But for now I'll just be busy doing laundry. :)

Turquoise Obsession

2011-04-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've been mildly obsessed with the color turquoise for quite a while now. And I somehow got it in my head that I needed some new turquoise melamine plates. Do you want the background on that? Of course you don't, but I'll tell you anyway.

I have a set of cute red plaid melamine plates that I often use for the kids. It says on the back of the plates "not dishwasher safe." So being the rule follower that I am, I've always hand washed them. But one night we had friends over for dinner, and my friend offered to wash the dishes and put my melamine plates into the dishwasher. The next morning when I emptied the dishes they appeared to have made it safely through the wash. So I figured that it must be safe to be a rebel, and from that point on put my melamine dishes into the dishwasher. My husband was totally annoyed by this: the fact that I'd put them into the dishwasher after my friend said it was safe, but not when he said it was. Oh well. Anyway long story short - after about a year of washing these dishes in the dishwasher they are all cracking and breaking. But when this started happening there was a part of me that was like,"I was sick of those anyway and now I have an excuse to get new ones."

So when enough of my red plates went to their garbagio grave (this is the term my FIL uses for the garbage) I decided to search for some in my new fave color, turquoise. I took my search to the Internet and couldn't quite find what I was looking for. But did find that there is a vast array of cute melamine plates on the Internet if you're looking. So one day when I was at Wal-Mart I was very pleased to find that they had turquoise melamine plates. I think they were made just for me and I bought myself a set. They also had some plastic ware in the same color so I got some of that too. Cute, huh?

And the best part about plastic is you can take it outside and use it for BB Q's all Summer long. At least that's what I told myself when I also bought this matching bucket. Don't you notice that when you become obsessed with something (like a color) you suddenly see it everywhere? Some of my favorite things in this color can be found at Macy's in the Martha Stewart Home section. I love her stuff, it makes me want to get married again just so that I can have a wedding registry there. Ready to renew our vows honey?

In conclusion I'd just like to say that I have a real knack for making a short story long. What can I say? It's a talent. Now you know what it's like to have a real conversation with me :)

And the moral of the story is: if you truly love your melamine dishes follow the rules, and hand wash them.

Okay I'm done now. What is your color obsession?

Spring Mantel Addition with Eighteen25 Subway Art

2011-04-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

Do you read eighteen25? I do. For me it's a must read. These Las Vegas sisters are clever, clever, clever, and I love their style. Every time they post a new project I say to myself, "why didn't I think of that?" But beyond being clever these girls are really nice and share their clever ideas with their readers. So when they posted their Spring Subway art earlier this Season I immediately downloaded and printed one to add to my Spring Mantel. What do you think? I did the 8X10 version, I think it's so sweet.

We had actually talked about this blog and their Subway art at my Primary Presidency Meeting before (have I mentioned primary recently? Along with 3 other women from church I'm in charge of our children's group) so I decided to print a copy for each of my presidency members. They deal with a lot from me, believe it or not I have my faults (this is where you feign surprise :) Anyway I just thought some gratitude was in order and I knew they would love one of these.

For their version I painted some wooden frames to match the print ink.

Cute, right? Then I wrapped them simply and gave them to my friends, I think they liked them.

Here is a link for you to download your own Spring Subway Art from the girls at eighteen25.

My next obsession from e25 is their cute candy jars. These are my next on my "eighteen25 to do list!" Check them out on their blog here and I'm pretty sure you'll be making them too.

Pen Pouch Tutorial

2011-04-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

So if by chance you didn't already receive one of my pen pouches, and would like to make your own, here's the tutorial. In order to make any of my pouches you will need two coordinating pieces of cotton fabric and one piece of thin quilt binding. Cut all three of your fabrics to the same size. I made mine 2 1/2 inches wide by 18 inches long. But your size will vary depending on the size of your pen or the contents of your pouch.

Once you've cut your fabric, grab your pins and you're ready to start.

First, layer your fabrics on top of each other like so: quilt batting on bottom followed by your two cotton pieces with their right sides together. Your top piece should have it's wrong side facing up.

Next take your pins and carefully pin these three pieces together. Take this to your sewing machine and sew around the perimeter of 3 sides leaving the top of your pouch open so you can pull your fabric through.

Once you've sewn the 3 sides you can pull the fabric through like you would turn a sock. This step is a little difficult with this particular pouch because it is so narrow. So grab a drumstick or chopstick or pencil (I think there's an actual tool for this, but obviously I don't have it) and push it through.

Once you've pulled your fabrics through take your iron and press down the pouch so it's nice and flat.

Now I measured and folded the bottom of the pouch up about 6 1/2 inches. This should give you enough space for an average size pen. But before you sew up your sides you need to sew your ribbon into the inside of the pouch.

I had folded the pouch bottom up about 6 1/2 inches so I placed the ribbon at about 5 inches. Then pin the ribbon in place and sew it into the pouch (don't forget to back stitch). Once you've got your ribbon sewn fold the pouch back up and sew along both sides (I don't have a picture of this step-sorry!). Now I decided that I wanted to straighten out the top of the pouch before I sewed it so I cut about an inch of the top off, folded it into itself, pinned it and sewed it along the top. Now you're done!

That was easy right? So easy you're ready to make 20 pouches :)

If any of this confuses you leave me a comment or email me and I'll try to help!

I'll be linking up this post to Kim's craft link party. I had the pleasure of meeting Kim at Creative Estates, she is beautiful and hilarious. She reminds me of a celebrity or someone I know, but can't quite put my finger on. Probably because she's just the kind of person that when you meet her you feel like you already know her :) If you're looking for amazing blogs to read follow Kim at Today's Creative Blog.

Creative Estates Conference

2011-04-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of AZ. Okay, not really, but this last week I took my show on the road and headed over to the Creative Estates Conference in Chandler, Arizona.

It was a Craft Bloggers conference, the first I've been to of it's kind, and I'm so glad I decided to go. I guess you could say it was a good place to network with other creative bloggers, but for me it was just a whole lot of fun (think upscale girl's camp for crafty ladies). I met some of the most wonderful, amazing women I've ever surrounded myself with. Everyone there was talented, ambitious, and fun. We attended classes where different panels of bloggers shared their experiences and expertise. I taught a class entitled: Blonde Blogging (A Blonde's perspective on Blissful Blogging). Just kidding. Of course I didn't teach a single thing, I was there to learn, and soak up the blogging prowess of all my blogging "neighbors".

It was so amazing to hear from these women (they are the giants of the craft blogging world I frequent); they were the reason I went. I loved hearing from all the women at the conference, but the main ones that were the convincing factor in my attending were Jen from Tatertots and Jello, Shelley from House of Smith's, Kami from No Biggie, and Kim from TomKat Studio. All of these women were just as impressive in person (if not more than) as they are online. I left the conference feeling so inspired by all the creative people around me. At the end of the conference they announced that next year's conference will be held in Utah (yea!) so you'd better believe I will be there with bells on.

This is me with Kami and Jen, what you don't see is that Shelley from House of Smiths was the one taking the photo (I'm liking her camera angle). I really should have gotten one with her too, but I was trying not to annoy her. Kami and I knew each other back in my BYU days, and have since reconnected through the blogging world. I love her blog, and have been so interested in watching her grow.

Speaking of growing, I have an affliction to pictures of myself (I don't know about yours, but somehow my camera adds an extra 50 lbs. * I need to see about getting that fixed* ) so I really didn't take very many photos. That right there shows you that I was having too much fun to worry about documentation. But the other reason I didn't take very many photos was that in a sea of schmancy SLR's, my point-and-shoot felt very out of place. But I hope to fix that in the VERY NEAR FUTURE (if anyone has advice for me on purchasing a nice camera leave it in the comments section).

A lot of what was so much fun for me at the conference was hanging out with my friends. Some new and some old. The TomKat studio girls were a blast (Toni and Molly), and then there's my WhippyCake Wendy. Wendy and I go way back and it was so much fun to spend the weekend with her. These girls crack me up. They had better come and stay with me next year when the conference is in my neck of the woods.

I made a really sweet and fun new friend Cristin, but my pictures with her didn't turn out very well. As soon as she gets her blog going I'll send you in her direction, she makes amazing jewelry.

So even if I don't look skinny on camera my "party favor" does. Most people at this conference handed out business cards, (which I did) but I wanted to make myself stand out more than that. So I had some pens made with my blog address on them. See.

I bought about 100 pens from discountmugs.com. They were easy to make (really easy, I just sat back and watched my little brother design, upload, order and "put a bird on them" for me, it was a cinch :) and came quickly by UPS.

I had plenty of pens to go around, but I still wanted to make myself stand out to some particular people, so I decided to Fancy Nancy my pens up a bit by making cute pen pouches for them.

What do you think? Are you loving that Robert Kauffman fabric as much as I am? I think it kind of has a '70's Chevron vibe going on. Plus it had some turquoise in it that matched my pens. I'm kind of obsessing over turquoise anything these days.

I made a few more of these to hand out to some of my favorite people from the conference.

Don't they look yummy? I pretty much like fabric as much as candy, and the fact that I can't even eat it if I wanted to is a total calorie-free bonus.

Don't worry I'm working on the tutorial for these pen cases (pronto) so you can all make your own.

Busy Day Chocolate Cake

2011-04-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

We had a really relaxing weekend watching General Conference. It's one of our favorite weekends of the year. The weather was a little bizarre, snow followed by sunshine, followed by snow. But we enjoyed ourselves all the same. I made this chocolate cake for dessert after our Sunday roast. The kids and I gave it "2 thumbs up" so I thought it was worth sharing.

Here's why I like it: it's easy to make, uses ingredients you already have in your pantry (it doesn't use eggs so it's even Vegan), makes a small enough cake that you're not tempted with left overs, it's surprisingly moist, and it's a great recipe to have in your food storage.

Here's what I don't like about it: it's not super chocolaty. For some people this might be a good thing, but I was thinking after I made it that it would be a good cake to put some extra chocolate chips in, or chocolate frosting on. It has a similar taste to Texas Sheet Cake minus the frosting. It's really worth a try, and a good recipe to have.

I saw the recipe on my new favorite Cooking Show, Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn (Hallmark Channel). I recently added her to my DVR and am loving watching her cook. Her kitchen (set) is gorgeous, and she just seems like the nicest lady, and very down to earth.

Busy Day Chocolate Cake Lucinda Scala Quinn
Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 cup cold water

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In an 8-inch square baking pan, whisk together all-purpose flour, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, and coarse salt.
Make a well in center of flour mixture and add vegetable oil, pure vanilla extract, white vinegar, and cold water. Whisk until well combined. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack.

WINNER!

2011-03-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

It's still Thursday, right? I think I have a couple more hours. Today has been a little bit crazy. Something about a third grade project due tomorrow where we had to design a hole for a golf course, then build the hole and decorate it for golfing at school tomorrow. I know, a little crazy. I'm having flashbacks to all the late night projects I had my Mom do for me as a kid and remembering her saying, "why are we just starting this the day before it's due?" We actually started Dallas' hole a while ago, but there were a lot of last minute details to be done. I'll show you some pictures soon since I probably confused you with what the heck I've been doing all day.

And now for the winner of the J Crew knockoff necklace......

# 20, Erin Sims! Congrats Erin!

Email me your address at nancysblondeambitions@gmail.com and I'll get that off to you. Right now I'm going to bed to dream of Star Wars golf courses.

J Crew Necklace Knockoff and Giveaway

2011-03-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago I noticed a friend's cute necklace and asked her where she got it. She said, J Crew. I thought it was so cute that I wanted one for myself. So our mutual friend who works at J Crew occasionally (for the discount) sent me one in the mail. It looks like this. It's basically a silver ring with cute silver toned charms on it. I love it.

Once I got it in the mail and got a close look at it I decided that I could make a similar one. So last week when the Gem Show came to town my Mom and I went and got some fun beads. Here's my loot.

Then this afternoon I used some beads and tried my hand at my own version. You'll have to let me know if I got it right, but I'm feeling pretty good about mine.

Here's mine next to the J Crew one. Can you tell which one I made? Mine is the gold one.

Here's how I did it.

You'll need a large jump ring, some head pins, and a bunch of varying beads. You take one of the beads, put it on a head pin, and then bend it into a loop. I used these round wire wrapping things (sorry I don't know what they're called) to get a good loop, but you don't have to have them to make one. But in case you want to get some tools here's what I used.

You bend your wire into a loop and then wrap it around the base of the loop multiple times. Once it's wrapped tight you take your wire cutters and snip off the end. Now you have a cute little charm that you can put onto your large jump ring. Keep doing this with all the charms you want to use. Then close your jump ring, put it onto a necklace chain, and you're done!

But I wasn't entirely done because I like to have jewelry sets so I made a matching bracelet.

And then I made a few more necklaces.

These were pretty fun to make, and I have plenty more combinations I'd like to try so I'm sure I'll be making them again. But truth be told I have more jewelry than I could ever really wear (shh... don't tell my husband that) so I'm going to give one away.

GIVEAWAY RULES:

That's right. I'm getting so close to 500 followers that I thought I'd see if you could help me reach that goal. So to enter to win this silver necklace (well the charms aren't real gems, but the jump ring and head pins are real silver, the chain sadly is not though) simply become a follower of my blog, and leave me a comment below. If you're already a follower let me know that. I'll pick a winner some time on Thursday (March 31st) and get this necklace off to you! Good luck, and thanks for following :)

Paper Craft: Flower Topiaries

2011-03-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

Remember My Easter wreath from last week? Well I finally got around to making some paper flower topiaries to go with it. I saw some similar to these at my local craft store and bought the supplies to make my own version. They look like this.

Here's how I made them. These were the majority of my supplies. I bought two little robin's egg blue buckets at Hobby Lobby along with some of these half Styrofoam rounds. I thought it'd be easier to just make the half size. Then you'll need some craft paper cut into circles (use a paper punch or you'll be making circles all day!) The paper cutter I used made 2 inch circles. And you'll also need some stick pins, get the pretty ones with the pearlized tops.

Then take your circles and cut them into spirals. Just eyeball this. Once you get your spirals cut you kind of roll them into themselves and make a small flower shape. Use a hot glue gun to glue the end shut, and then pin the little flower into your Styrofoam ball.

Then you just keep going and going until you finish your topiary. You can see why I chose the half shape, much quicker. I also switched out the ribbon on my buckets to match the flowers, I really like the black and white with the blue. Here they are with my Easter Wreath.

What do you think? That's my bathroom shelf. Kind of a funny place to decorate for the holidays, but I really like the shelf. My Father-In-Law made it and another like it for our downstairs bathrooms. I'll have to show you the before and after on those someday.

And here's the original inspiration, I snuck this picture on my cell phone so it's not that great. I thought these were so cute and would be a great way to use up paper scraps. I think they used bigger circles and larger pearl pins. So cute!

Put a Bird on It!

2011-03-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this is so true. And hilarious. But I'm slightly offended. But not really. You have to watch this, my favorite part is the end. Really, watch it. My brother sent this to me because somehow I think he sees just a little bit of me in this video. Maybe it's funny because it's true.

Spring Mantel

2011-03-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

Life is busy. I can't believe it's been a week since I posted. I haven't had a lot of time for crafting lately, but I did get a chance to get my Spring Mantel put together this weekend. I think it's still a bit early to go full blown Easter, but thought this was a good start. At least it looks like Spring inside my house, if only I could get the outside to cooperate...

Easter Wreath Tutorial

2011-03-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I guest posted for Kami at No Biggie with this easy, inexpensive Easter wreath. I thought I'd re-post it here for those of you who missed it. Enjoy!

I decided to share a fun, easy, and totally inexpensive Easter wreath with you. I made a Halloween version of this last year, and thought it would be fun to try the same technique for Easter. So let's get started, here's what you'll need. A foam wreath form, some crepe paper, and stick pins. All of these supplies together cost under $5. I got the wreath at the dollar store, the crepe paper at a craft supply (they also have crepe paper at the dollar store but were out of the color I wanted), and picked up these stick pins at Wal-Mart. I wanted my wreath form to be a little bit more rounded than it was, so I simply took a steak knife to the inside and outside edges to round it off. No biggie :)

From there follow these easy steps.

1. Take your crepe paper fold the top side under, and pin to your wreath form.

2. Continue with your crepe paper and wrap it around your entire wreath form.

3. Once you've wrapped the entire form, cut off your piece of crepe paper and pin the end to the form.

4. Now you'll want to cut LOTS of 4 inch strips of your crepe paper. When you start to think perhaps you've cut enough, cut more. I never really counted how many I cut, but you'll want your wreath to look full so you'll need a lot.

5. Now take those 4 inch strips, fold them in half, and pin them to your form. I pinned mine in rows across my wreath form. The rows were 3-4 strips deep.

6. Repeat this process over and over.

7. And over again until you've covered your entire wreath in crepe paper loops. If you see areas that look bare simply pin in another loop or two.

8. Now you're done, and that was super easy, right?

You could stop there if you want a really simple wreath. But I wanted to add some more decor to mine.

This was my first idea. It's very simple, and very Springish, with a hint of Easter.

I think the bird's nest is very sweet (and love this version), but decided I wanted more than a hint of Easter. So I took some bunny stickers (these were also from the dollar store) and spray painted the one I wanted black.

I attached my painted bunny to an oval wood piece that I had painted white.

I love how the sparkle from the glitter still shows through even after I painted the bunny black. But I thought this little bunny needed a little something more so I took some ribbon and added a ruffle. Here's how I made it.

You take a needle and thread, and thread it through the edge of your ribbon over and over. While you're threading gently pull the ribbon down so that it begins to ruffle on your thread. Keep doing this until you've got a good long ruffle, cut it off and thread a knot at the end. I also burn the edges of my ribbon to keep them from fraying, I love that trick. Just hold a match to the edge of your ribbon and it will seal the edge for you.

Then I hot glued this ruffled ribbon to the edge of my bunny silhouette.

Now we're almost done. Find the spot you'd like to put your bunny on your wreath and hot glue it on.

What do you think? Cute? I love it. But I decided that I liked the look of the fabric in my background so much that I should make it permanent. I simply hot glued the fabric onto the back of a frame, and then hot glued my wreath right onto the fabric. Like this.

This little project has me coming up with many more ideas for my Easter decorations. Stop by my blog to check them out. Thanks again Kami for the invite, I'd love to be your guest anytime!

A Pen Pouch

2011-03-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

When I went to California a few weeks ago to see my pal Oprah, I also got to hang out with one of my best friends from Childhood, Liz. While I was at Liz's house her sweet little son Christian brought me out an unexpected gift. Liz's Dad Mike* makes these custom, amazing pens. He has a lathe where he takes exotic woods, fancy plastics and even animal antlers and creates gorgeous designer pens. I've admired them before, but have never owned one myself so I was so excited when Liz gave me one. This is the one she gave me.

Isn't it pretty? I had never seen any of these plastic ones before, I'd only seen the wood. I was amazed that he could do the same thing out of a special plastic that he could do with wood. The pen is heavy, and very substantial. I thought at first that it looked like it was something by Tory Burch with all of the beautiful gold detail. Of course in the back of my mind I thought, this pen deserved it's own pouch. I know, I have weird thoughts. I can't seem to get pouches off my brain. So the other night I got some fabric out and went to town making a special pouch for my new pen.

What do you think? I love it.

Then the other day when my husband called to ask if I had any ideas of what to get his regional manager for her birthday, of course Mike's Pens came to mind. So we picked one out for her too.

And you know I'd never give a gift without putting my own touch on it, so this one got a pouch as well.

My pen pouch is lined with fleece, but this one for Trav's manager is lined with silk.

So next time you need a gift for a good friend or your boss consider finding a beautiful pen and making a great pouch for it. To see my pouch tutorial go here.

*Mike does his pen business, Phat Pens, old school style (by word of mouth). He doesn't have a website, but if you're dying to have one of his pens let me know and I'll hook you up with him. Just send me an email at nancysblondeambitions@gmail.com.

Nintendo DS Case tutorial (if you can call it that :)

2011-03-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

Enough people asked about the DS cases that I made for my kids that I thought I'd give a mini tutorial on them. You know by now of my love for pouches. I don't know what it is but ever since I've learned how to make them I want to put everything in a pouch. It's a slight case of pouch addiction I guess. You'll see. You make one pouch and you start seeing the world in pouches. Then when someone asks you over for a friendly game of cards you'll say, "oh, I could make a pouch for those." Okay that was lame. Here's the instructions.

With any of the pouches/cases that I make you start the same way. You choose two coordinating fabrics and a piece of quilt batting all cut to the same size. Place the fabrics right sides together, the batting behind, and then pin in place. For these DS cases I cut my fabric 20X10 inches. That might seem a bit big, but I wanted these cases to be tri-fold and fit the kids DS, charger, and games.

Sew around the two sides and one bottom, and then pull the fabric through itself like you're folding socks.

Once you get your pouch pulled through you'll need to play around with it to see where you'll want the folds to be. There's no exact science with me and my sewing skills, but I folded the bottom part that makes the pouch for the DS up about 4 1/2 inches. But before you sew this pouch in place you'll need to sew the back piece of Velcro that makes the pouch close. I don't have a picture of this and learned the hard way that you must do this step before you sew the pouch up. Otherwise there will be a lot of unpicking and resewing going on which may or may not have been the case at my house.

After you've got your back piece of Velcro in place sew up your bottom pouch about 4 1/2 inches on both sides.

Now you're ready to add the clear vinyl pouch for your DS games. I bought my clear vinyl at Wal-Mart. Try to get one of them that is kind of medium weight, not too thin that it will rip, but not too thick that you can't sew through it. Cut a piece about 8X4 inches and affix a piece of ribbon at the top of your vinyl. Then you'll want to sew a piece of Velcro on the back.

Now take your case and sew the other part of the Velcro onto the spot where it will need to meet up with your vinyl pouch. This is very technical, I know.

Once you've got your bottom Velcro in place you can attach your vinyl piece to your pouch. The vinyl is hard to pin, so I just attached the Velcro pieces to hold it in place and sewed around the sides and bottom. The Velcro won't fray so you really don't need to have the ribbon on top, I just think it looks cute.

Now you just have to figure out how tall your case needs to be and fold the top pieces into themselves, pin and sew along the top edge.

After you sew the top seam add your final piece of Velcro, and you're done! That was simple right? My tutorial was a little uninformative I'm afraid. But I hope that if you want to make one this gives you a good enough idea of how to do it. Sometimes I think the pictures explain themselves and my wordy details just confuse people. So if you have any questions leave a comment or email me. And sorry, at this point (I guess never say never) I don't sell them. I love making things like this for my kids or as gifts, but mass producing is not on my agenda these days. But let me know if you give it a try, I'd love to see yours!

What's for dinner?

2011-03-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

So, there were not a lot of posts last week, I fully realize that I've been slacking on my blog. But life is busy. I keep thinking things will slow down, but they don't. I guess it's better to be busy than to be bored. I made a dinner last night for my family that I thought was worth sharing. I fully realize that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be a food blogger. So excuse the pictures. They may be unappetizing, but I promise if you make these recipes the results are tasty!

Have you ever made homemade Manicotti? I have to admit that I hadn't until last night. But when I was in California at Liz's house last weekend she made this for us and it was so good and so easy that I just had to try it for myself. And you know if I think something is this good and easy I have to share.

Now something might look horribly wrong in this dish in the far left corner. But there is a reason for that. I have a son who absolutely detests cheese, unless it's on pizza under pepperoni. So my solution to his dinner woes was to put some Costco frozen meatballs in the pan for him as well. And they cooked beautifully with the Manicotti and everyone at my dinner table was happy. Here's the Manicotti recipe.

Liz's Manicotti

1 box Manicotti shells
1 container cottage cheese (regular size)
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/2 C Parmesan cheese
1 egg
1 jar Prego (she uses Fresh Mushroom flavor, and so did I and it was yummy!)

Mix 1 1/2 cups of the mozzarella cheese (saving 1/2 cup for topping), all of the cottage cheese, the Parmesan cheese, and the egg (I also added about 1-2 tsp. of Italian Seasoning because I like the contrast of the seasonings with all the white cheeses). Pour half of your Spaghetti sauce into the bottom of a greased 9X13 casserole dish. Then take your cheese mix and start spooning and stuffing it into your uncooked Manicotti shells. Line these up in the bottom of your casserole dish. Once all of your shells are stuffed pour the remainder of your sauce over the stuffed shells. Pour 1 C of water into the sides of the pan (I poured the water into my empty sauce jar and shook it up before pouring the water into the dish, that way you use all the sauce). Cover with tin foil and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover, add remainder of mozzarella (I also had some left over cottage cheese mixture and spooned that on top as well and it was sooo good!) and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Seriously, this was so easy and so good! I was surprised that you don't have to even cook the noodles before you stuff them. That extra cup of water that you pour into the pan cooks them perfectly and nothing seems soggy at all.

I also made a salad with my favorite vinaigrette, so I thought I'd share that recipe too.

I think I've shared this recipe before, but it's worth repeating. If you haven't tried this salad dressing you need to put it on your calendar to try. I got it from Allrecipes.com and it is a winner.

Greek style Vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil

1-1/4 teaspoons garlic powder
1-1/4 teaspoons dried oregano
1-1/4 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
2/3 cup red wine vinegar (I also put a few splashes of balsamic vinegar because I like the flavor)
Put all of these ingredients into a mason jar, seal the lid tight and shake. The Dijon mustard will act as an emulsifier and incorporate all of your ingredients together.
This salad dressing makes an awesome Greek salad. Just use Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, peppercinis, cucumbers, and croutons. Trust me, next time you have to "bring a salad" bring this one.

I didn't have all the ingredients on hand for the Greek salad, so I just used what I had. Did you notice that I had beans in my salad? Kinda weird, right? Not really. I saw this idea recently in a magazine and thought it was genius. I used Canellini beans and they are tasty, fiberlicious and make your salad much more filling.

We also had a fruit salad for dessert. When I was taking a picture of the fruit salad Hallie said, "Mom, no one needs a recipe to make fruit salad!" And she's right. But I'm going to share what I do anyway.

Lately we like a mix of strawberries, oranges and apples. But the secret is to dice your apples kinda on the smallish side and then squeeze the fresh orange juice down on the top. This will keep the apples from browning and give them a fresh zing. So good! All the orange juice sweetens the strawberries so no need for any sugar.

All about OOOPPPRAHHHH!

2011-03-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

Well I'm back. And I have some pictures of my big day with Lady O. Now the pictures are not very good because we instructed to not bring cameras, and being the rule follower that I am, I didn't. But they didn't say you couldn't take pictures with your cell phone, so that is how I documented the morning. Liz and I stayed in the Downtown LA Marriott the night before the big event. But we hardly even spent 6 hours at the hotel because we didn't get there until 11 p.m. Sunday night, and left by about 5 a.m. Monday morning. It's hard to look your best on 4 hours of sleep, but we did what we could.

This is me doing my best to curl my hair. I only had half of it done in this picture. Like my manicure? On Saturday night we went and got gel manicures, they are awesome.

Here's Liz beautifying her appendages Saturday.

Once we'd done what we could to look our best it was time to leave for the Hollywood Bowl.

We made our way to the Hollywood Bowl parking lot from the hotel and were bussed from there to the Kodak Theater.

We pretty much stood in line for 3 hours before we got to see the show. One of the ladies in line told us that the Kodak theater houses 3,000 people, so that is about how many people were in line. Once we rode the bus to the theater there were more lines to get into the theater and then into our seats. But it was all worth it. Before the show started this cute lady named Sally Lou from Oprah's audience staff jumped up on stage and pumped up the crowd. There was lots of music playing and she pulled some people on stage to dance and get everyone excited. The energy in the room was amazing and so tangible. I think everyone was so excited to get to see Oprah and for the chance to be there. Then when Oprah came on stage everyone went nuts. Liz and I both got the goosebumps, and I got a little emotional truth be told. No Beiber Fever here but Winfrey Fever for sure. The actual show taping went very fast. Too fast, we could have stayed all day. But it was really fun to be able to see how they did each segment and how it really was taped live. When they stopped for commercial breaks someone would come out and fix Oprah's microphone, and give her some water and a throat lozenge (she had a cold). And then the promo music would start back up and the show would go on. At the end when the taping was done Oprah took a few minutes to sincerely thank the fans for all of their support and for making the trip to come see the show. She was so gracious.

Anyway I could go on and on about how amazing this trip was, but I'll spare you the gushing. Thanks Liz for joining, and hosting me! Aside from seeing Oprah and Liz, I think my favorite thing about the trip to California was a little thing called Pinkberry. Yum!

My best for Lady O

2011-02-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

Wow! This is so amazing. I didn't expect this and I didn't prepare anything. But off the top of my head I'd like to thank Nordstrom, The Nordstrom Rack, Dillard's, and Macy's. Oh, and JCPenney you were there too. We've been spending so much time together these last two weeks that I feel like we've become so close. It's like we've become one big happy family. You were there for me when I needed you, and in the end you really pulled through for me. I couldn't have done it without you. What? I'm not winning an Oscar? I'm just going to Oprah's after party? Oh, okay.

If you've wondered where I've been the last week or so, the answer is: THE MALL. Shopping, shopping, shopping like a chicken with it's head cut off. You know how when you're looking for something for an actual occasion, and you just can't find anything? Well that was me for the last few weeks. I couldn't find a single thing I liked to wear to see my pal Oprah. Nope, nothing, nothing at all. I had money in my pocket and I was ready to shell it out for the perfect outfit, but it was nowhere to be found. Even though I never found the "perfect outfit" I decided yesterday I finally just had to pick something and go with it. In the end I took a tip from Oscar himself and decided to go for the gold.

When you're a curvy girl like me, sometimes you have to use a little bling to distract from your lady lumps and bumps. So I believe in accessories (and Spanx), in fact I swear by them. When you want to distract from your figure, I figure that gold, diamonds and pearls are the way to go. And I finally struck gold, and found my salvation at Nordstrom Rack yesterday.

I'm wearing this green, button down, 3/4 length collared shirt with a denim blazer (it also has 3/4 length sleeves) paired with black jeggings and this scarf from Old Navy. In Oprah's letter (that she sent to me after I won tickets to come see her) she requested that I wear bright colors. So seeing how green is my favorite color -and Oprah's- I'm going with a bright green shirt. And I found the perfect accessories to go with it at Nordstrom Rack.

I die for this necklace (said in true Rachel Zoe fashion). Isn't it pretty? And it was such a steal too, normally $48, but I got it for $14.97. I love a good bargain. And these shoes were pretty exciting to me too. They were a little more than the necklace, but were 35% off so I felt pretty good about them.

Then I came home and paired it all with some jewelry that I already owned. I'm not sure if I'll wear the gold dangley earrings, or the big pearls. Most likely the pearls, but I'll take them both just in case.

It's all a bit much maybe. But I kind of go for big and gaudy when it comes to jewelry, and costume doesn't make me feel one bit cheap. That diamond ring there is very much fake, but I love it all the same.

And don't worry I plan to document this trip as much as I can (I'm not entirely sure that I can take my camera into the show, hopefully I can snap a few shots on my iPhone) and share it all with you. And if you're reading this post wondering just what the heck I'm talking about, see this post to explain it all. Maybe in a week or so when I come down from my Oprah high I'll get back to crafting :)

Valentine's Recap 2011

2011-02-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

I try not to go too crazy with Valentine's Day gifts for my kids. ( I leave that for Christmas). But I always remember getting a little something, and my Mom making cookies and a nice dinner, so that's what I did. I do have to confess though that the cookies and dinner were take-out. I was tired, and with the cookies I rationalized that if I made them we'd all eat too many. So Kneaders and Chinese take-out were on the menu last night. Even though the food wasn't homemade the presents were.

My kids each got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, and I've been meaning to make them pouches to keep them in ever since then. I finally got around to it yesterday. I thought I was pretty clever with these. I made a basic pouch like I always do, and then made it so they had a spot for their DS, the charger, and a clear pouch for their games. Like this.

Cute, right? Here's the inside of Dallas'.

These were really simple to make. Would anyone be interested in a tutorial on them? I took pictures so I could do one, I'll probably get around to it eventually.

I feel like half the fun of receiving a Valentine is in it's presentation. So the kids had to wait until after they ate their dinner, and then I had their Valentine's all wrapped up, pretty and pink.

I think that they liked them.

Did you notice the name of Hallie's DS game I used in the picture above? Crafting Mama, it's her favorite. It makes me so proud :)

It's a Sweet Kind of Day

2011-02-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

We finally jumped on this Valentine Blogland Bandwagon where I took the kids' picture holding their hand up and made a sucker Valentine out of them. The kids were excited about how they turned out even though Mom is disappointed in her photography and editing skills. One of these days I'll have a fancy camera, fancy skills, and do some fancy photoshopping, oh and I'll be skinny too :)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO YOU AND YOURS!

Housekeeping: Family Room update

2011-02-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I hosted a church social at my house. It was kind of a hectic day getting ready for it cleaning and cooking, but once everyone got here we had a great time. I had planned in my mind that I could get the cooking and cleaning done the day before the social and be able to relax the day of, but of course I decided to make pillows instead. But I'm glad I got them done because I think they tie the family room together, and I can call it mostly done now. Dallas keeps asking me why I'm constantly "changing our house," but what he calls change I call decorating. I pretty much told him I'll never stop cause, "that's just what Moms do."

I bought the acorn print at a local home fabric store aptly called, Home Fabrics. It's my favorite place for home decor weight fabric. And they yellow is a Dwell Studios print by Robert Allen (love pretty much everything by him) from Fabric.com.

Ignore the messy kitchen in the background, I know I was!

I picked a winner for the bunting giveaway in the post below but I'm really hoping that some of you try to make one for yourselves. And if you do, email me (nancysblondeambitions@gmail.com) the pictures and I'll post them on my blog. Can't wait to see them!

Bunting Winner!

2011-02-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

It's still Thursday, right? Okay so I picked a random winner through Random.org, and the number I got was 38, so that means Brenda won! Brenda said:

I am a new follower :-) I found you through TomKat :-) I would love to win this :-)

Congrats Brenda! Email me your address at nancysblondeambitions@gmail.com and I'll get your bunting in the mail.

Valentine Boxes

2011-02-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Wow! I'm so excited about the response to the Valentine's Bunting Tutorial, so glad you all like it :) Keep signing up for the giveaway until tomorrow afternoon when I'll pick a winner and ship it off to you. I just wanted to show you a simple project I did yesterday. Every year around Valentine's Day my kids come home from school telling me that they need a box to decorate and take for their Valentines. So this year I decided to get ahead of the last minute shoe box scramble and bought some boxes and supplies at the craft store. These were so easy and I'm really happy with how they turned out.

For each of the kids I bought a box, two pieces of 12X12 craft paper, chipboard letter stickers, and an embellishment. With those supplies I came home and went to work with my trusty Mod Podge.

Really all I did was cut paper to fit the top, and the sides of the bottom, I didn't even bother painting the box first. Then once I'd cut the paper I simply Mod Podged the front, let it dry completely, and then put another layer on the top and sides. Then I hot glued a ribbon around the edge of the lid, and applied my chipboard stickers and hot glued on the embellishments.

Dallas was with me when I picked out the supplies and didn't want anything to do with traditional Valentine's Day supplies (no hearts and mushy stuff for this 8 year-old boy). So we went with a Sports theme for him and a little bit of red to remind everyone this was a Valentine's Box.

We decided to switch the bottoms and gave Hallie the Polka-dots. Luckily she let me go with more of a Valentine's look on hers.

I made the little embellishment for Hallie's box using the same method I did here.

Overall I thought they turned out to be pretty cute. I think I just might need one of these for myself!

Double Sided Bunting Tutorial for TomKat Studio and Giveaway

2011-02-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

As if winning tickets to Oprah's after Oscar Party wasn't enough excitement for me this week, I've also been asked to do a Valentine's Bunting for my friends at TomKat Studio. They are doing an awesome series on Valentine's decorations for the 14 days leading up to Valentine's Day, and lucky me I get to participate (my link will be up on Tuesday). So if you're here for the first time from TomKat, welcome! The method of bunting making that I'm about to share with you was thought up by my beautiful, creative sister Becky and I share this with you with her blessing. So pull out your pinking shears and let's get started!

First off I always like to show an "end result" picture with my tutorials, this will give you some of that satisfying instant gratification and hopefully keep your interest for the full tutorial (and for those of you going, "what the heck is a bunting? Is it something you eat?" Now you'll know). It's really easy, I promise. In fact this bunting method can be done completely without a sewing machine, I'll tell you how when we get to that step. But as always if you have any questions on anything I do just let me know and I'll be happy to help out.

Here she is, what do you think? I think she's won my heart. I'll show you her with her Valentine's accessories after I give you the full how-to. Here we go.

First off you'll need a few supplies. To make this bunting I picked out 5 fabrics that I thought fell into the Valentine's Day colors category and coordinated well with each other. Obviously there are actual Valentine's Day fabrics out there that you could use as well, but I tend to stick to the essence of the holiday and choose not to hit you over the head with hearts and cupids. But if that's more your style then go with it. The nice thing about just using a holiday's colors is that you could easily use this bunting for girl birthday parties, or baby and bridal showers as well. That's me, always trying to be versatile.

I bought 1/4 yard of each of my five fabric choices. This amount of fabric could easily make two buntings and if you split it with a friend then they'd be half the price too.

Then I picked out some decorative trim that coordinated with my fabric choices. I used this pom-pomish trim along with a polka-dot ribbon. But you could easily use just the ribbon, or ric-rac is always fun too. I bought two yards of each of these trims, but probably cold have gotten away with 1 1/2 yards. It just depends how long you want your end result to be.

Now you'll need a triangle template. I just used my ruler to draw a triangle the size I wanted on a piece of cardboard and then cut it out. I think you can buy actual plastic templates at the craft store, but there's really no need to unless you plan on mass producing these.

Now the bunting I'm showing you is double-sided, so I also picked up some of this Heat n Bond (I bought it at Wal-Mart) or you could use Wonder-Under if you can find it. You don't have to make your bunting double sided, I just think that you'll end up with a much nicer finished product if you do. Either way it'll be cute.

Okay now you've got your supplies and you're ready to go, so let's get started. You'll need your iron and ironing board for this, so make sure it's plugged in and hot.

1. Take your first fabric, lay it on your ironing board and fit a piece of your heat and bond onto the back side. I cut my piece 9 1/2 inches X 17 inches. This MUST BE SMALLER THAN YOUR PIECE OF FABRIC or you'll heat and bond a lot of sticky goo onto your ironing board and nobody wants that.
2. Adhere your heat and bond onto your fabric with your iron.
3. Let this cool, and then peel the paper backing off of your fabric leaving a layer of the heat and bond on your fabric.
4. Now fold your fabric back onto itself, iron again, and you'll have a nice rectangle of fabric that is double sided.
5. Take this fabric, your cardboard triangle, and pull out your rotary mat and cutter fitted with a pinking blade. If you don't have one of these (you should go buy one) you can use fabric scissors or pinking shears as well. Use your plastic ruler to give yourself a nice edge and cut out double sided triangles. You can lay these back to back and get about 4-5 triangles out of your fabric.

6. and 7. Repeat this process until you have plenty of triangles.
8. Now repeat this entire process with all of your different fabric choices.

9. Now that you've gotten all of your triangles cut, line them up in the order you want them to be on your bunting.
10. Stack your triangles up and get ready to sew. But wait! Here's where you could make this an entirely no-sew project. If you don't have a sewing machine, or are deathly afraid of the one sitting in your closet because you don't know how to re-thread the bobbin (that was me once too), just grab some craft glue or your glue gun and glue your triangles onto your trim. But for the rest of my tutorial's sake I'm going to show you how I finished mine on my sewing machine :)
11. Before you start make a loop out of your trim, sew this together and you'll have an easy way to hang your bunting when it's done.
12. Now take your first decorative trim and sew your triangles next to each other onto the trim. I use my zig zag stitch to do this.
13. Keep going until you've got all the triangles you want on your trim.
14. Now finish your bunting up with a ribbon accent. I used a thick ribbon folded in half to give my bunting a finished look on the front and back.

You're done! That was really easy, right? Another fun way to do a double sided bunting is to put one holiday on the front, and one on the back. I have a Halloween and Thanksgiving one that I can just turn over between holidays. Clever, I know.

Here she is all accessorized and ready for her close-up. What do you think? Want to know the best part about this? I made two of these buntings exactly the same, and I'm ready to give one of them to you!

GIVEAWAY! FOLLOW THE RULES BELOW TO ENTER.

All you have to do to enter is become a follower of my blog in the upper right side, or if you're already a follower just let me know that. Then leave a comment in the comment section below along with a way to contact you if you win. I'll choose a winner by Thursday the 10th so that I can get this in the mail and make sure it gets to you before Valentine's Day.

The Best Story Ever! With a very, very exciting ending...

2011-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Okay so sometimes I put stories up that I think my Mother might be the only one who enjoys. But this is a good one. Trust me when I say you'll want to listen to my ramblings so that you can read the end. And I can never just tell you about something, no I have to tell you the back story, it's how I work people.

So the other night I was laying in bed wide awake. It was late at night, but I think I'd had a few diet Coke's too many and I couldn't sleep. Plus Travis was snoring a bit (sorry honey, but you were) and that wasn't helping my plight either. So my mind turned to very random thoughts one of which was a plaid shirt I've been obsessing over.

You see often times if I see something I like I can't get it out of my mind until I get it, eat it, buy it, create it, or whatever I have to do to satisfy my craving. So ever since Oprah and Gayle went to Yosemite a while back I've been obsessing over the perfect plaid shirt. Why? Because I loved the shirt Oprah was wearing when she went horse back riding, and I have been trying to find one like it ever since. But I still haven't found the perfect one. So as I was laying there I picked up my iPhone and went to Oprah.com to try to see if I could email her about where she got the shirt. (In a perfect world someone would get back to me and tell me that Oprah's shirt was way too expensive for me to ever buy, but at least I'd know where it came from and maybe stop obsessing over it.)

But on my iPhone I couldn't see anything about an email address for Oprah. So I got out of bed and came out to my actual computer. Once I pulled up Oprah's website I noticed a little blurb about this two day window to apply for a lottery to win tickets to Oprah's after the Oscar's taping in LA. I thought to myself: "I'd like to win tickets to that." So I applied, (and still sent an email asking about Oprah's shirt) went back to bed, and didn't tell anyone for fear that it might jinx my chances of winning tickets. And for the next two days I did what Oprah is always telling people to do and I sent out positive energy and thoughts like this: please, please let me win tickets! I really want to go, I've always wanted to see Oprah and this is her last season! You know, a lot of positive pleading and whining, stuff like that.

So yesterday, which by the way was my birthday (so that makes this story even better) I pulled up my email to see this: Oprah Show Reservations: The Oprah Show Reservation Request Status. Then I opened the email expecting to see, sorry, but your request was denied, dream on lady.

But instead I saw this: Great news! Your ticket reservation request has been selected for the Oprah's After-Oscar(R) Party Taping 2/28/11 in LA show taping.

What? No way. There is no way. No, no way. But guess what? It's true! I won Oprah's lottery and I got 2 tickets to go to the taping in LA!

So here's the hard part for me. I've actually shed tears over this people so please, please don't hate me. Remember back a few days when I was applying for this in the middle of the night, never, ever thinking I'd actually win? Well as you filled out your application you had to actually name your guest. I mean even before you ever won the tickets you had to decide who you would take if you won. Now that's a tough decision. Sophie's choice tough practically. I have a Mom, four beautiful sisters, a lot of super close friends, and plenty more close friends, all of whom would like to go with me. I'm pretty sure I'd quickly become the most popular girl around if I asked if anyone would care to join me for a little Oprah. But I had to make a decision. And they only let you put one name on your application, and they said you had to be 100% sure because they were checking ID at the door. So here's how I chose my friend. Location, location, location. Plus, she's one of my very dearest friends.

My friend Liz lives very near LA (no car rental or hotel) and she loves Oprah, and she has taken me to do many a fun thing in my life, and she's been a good friend to me since infancy (literally we've known each other that long). So it only made sense to chose her. But I think in that choice I've hurt a lot of feelings. And I feel really awful about that and wish I could have more tickets, but I can't. So please just be happy for me and don't think I'm a horrible person because I didn't choose you.

So now I need a new outfit! What do you wear to meet the Queen? Or at least sit hundreds of feet away from her and scream her name when she comes out on stage. Seriously, I need help. What would you wear?

Oh and also, I bought a ticket to this in Arizona in April, I can't wait!

I promise to get back to blogging next week (this week was crazy busy, it was my Dad's birthday, my birthday, my kids were out of school, I hosted a church party last night at my house, today is my nephew's baptism, and tomorrow we're having family over for the Super Bowl). But next week is looking good for blogging. I have a fun tutorial all ready to go on Monday :)

A Taste of my Childhood

2011-01-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

I grew up in Arizona in a home that my parents built. They built the home in a cul-de-sac with two of their friends, and then a third family friend moved in years later. This was a wonderful place to grow up. We were surrounded by good neighbors and friends and had a lot of fun and good times in that cul-de-sac. When my parents built the house they planted many citrus fruit trees. We had lemon, orange, and grapefruit trees so many of my childhood memories are associated with the heavenly scents of these fruits.

A few days ago a man and his wife came to the door selling fruit, I was about to kindly smile and say, "no thank-you" until I tasted his oranges. After tasting that orange I still smiled, but quickly said, "yes please." We ordered a half a bushel of oranges, grapefruits and local apples. I don't know how he gets his fruit, or exactly where it comes from, but this is some of the best fruit I have ever tasted and I regret that I didn't buy more.

So my children were excited about the apples and oranges, but claimed to never have eaten grapefruit before. So I excitedly told them about how some of my earliest childhood memories of my Father are associated with grapefruit. I can remember being in our daisy wallpapered yellow kitchen, and watching my Dad who just returned from a morning jog prepare his grapefruit to eat. First he'd cut the grapefruit in half, and then take a paring knife and distinctly cut around each small section of grapefruit, and then once around the entire perimeter to make the fruit easily removable with a spoon for eating. But before he'd eat it he'd take two packets of Equal, shake down the granules, tear off the tops (two packs at a time) and then pour his sugar substitute down all over his two halfs of fruit. Now he was ready to eat. Then after eating the fruit he'd squeeze the juice into his spoon to enjoy as well, squeezing out every last tasty drop.

As soon as I cut the grapefruit for my kids to try, and released that same citrusy sweet smell, I was instantly transported to our home on Port-Au-Prince; and the many mornings that I had completed the same morning ritual of cutting our freshly plucked grapefruit. I was very anxious to give my own children a taste of my childhood.

The verdict: they didn't like it. Neither one of them. My wimpy Utah children couldn't handle the sweet sourness of a good old grapefruit. Oh well, more for me. Come back fruit man, come back please!

Simple Gourmet Recipes (with very complicated back stories :)

2011-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

If you don't have a thing for long/wordy explanations (but who wouldn't?) just skip right on to the recipes.

Sometimes I set out to bake and blog at the same time, and try my best to cook during daylight hours, use my good camera, and do everything I can to capture beautiful pictures of the process. But then other times I'm baking or cooking something and think: I'll just grab a quick picture of this, it's worth sharing. These next two recipes fall into that latter category, so excuse the poor lighting and mediocre pictures, I promise they have nothing to do with the results you'll find if you recreate these recipes.

Have I ever told you before that my neighborhood is notorious for neighbor gifts at Christmas? The first year we lived here I was quite shocked at the amount of neighbor gifts we received and the creativity behind them. On the nights leading up to Christmas if you're out shopping or away from home you'd better be sure to check your doorstep upon return because you can be almost guaranteed that there will be some kind of goodie left for your evening delight. This cookie I'm about to share is my recreation of some fabulous cookies left this year by my friend Amanda. She left a variety of different kinds, but the standout for me was a chocolate marshmallow cookie, a combination I love. The best part was that you don't see the marshmallow, so it's a complete and tasty surprise when you bite into the cookie. Let me tell you, they were heavenly. She said the recipe is a Martha Stewart cookie recipe.

But the other night I needed a treat to take to my Mom's birthday party, and didn't have a ton of time to make the actual MS recipe, so I improvised. I had some chocolate cookie dough in my freezer that I had made the week before out of my cake mix cookie recipe and thought I could use it to put a twist on the original. Here's the simple cake mix cookie recipe.

Cake Mix Cookies
1 box cake mix ( I used chocolate fudge)
1/2 cup oats (you don't have to use these, but I like the chewy texture they add)
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes (the muffin version I cooked for 12-14 minutes)

That's the basic recipe, but I put a lot of add-ins when I make them (this time it was chocolate chips).

So I got out my muffin pan (which is very well loved and thus not the prettiest thing to look at, sorry) my cookie scoop, some marshmallows and my trusty PAM cooking spray.

I sprayed each individual muffin cup generously and put two small scoops of dough in each cup and then mashed them down a bit to conform to the pan. Then I cooked them for 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

Quickly pull these out of the oven and stick a half a large marshmallow down into the mostly cooked dough and stick them back into the oven for 2 more minutes.

Remove these from the oven and allow to cool completely before removing from the pan. When you do remove them use the tip of a butter knife to gently separate the edges of the cookies from the muffin tin. Now these would be awesome if you topped them with a ganache or chocolate frosting, but I wanted them to look more girly so I used pink buttercream frosting and sprinkles.

Aren't they cute? And they are really yummy too. And check out the inside, there's a nice marshmallow surprise just waiting to be gobbled up.

I think these could be really fun in a mini muffin tin as well, perfect for a baby or bridal shower or Valentine. If I ever make them again and I do this large version I think I'll use the whole marshmallow.

Long-winded-story for simple easy recipe: take two.

Here's one more simple and fun recipe to make. But don't be fooled by it's simplicity, this dish looks and tastes deliciously complicated.

We had the craziest morning on Tuesday. My kids are on a break from school and my husband was home with a sinus infection, so I was all ready to take the morning to run errands. But around 9:30 a.m. this funny snow storm hit and our hilly neighborhood was instantly covered with snow. I was watching a few people out my window struggle (and fail) to make it up the inclined snow covered road when I decided to stay home and not brave the weather for my errands. This picture really doesn't do the snow justice, it was a lot of snow in a short amount of time that hit after a lot of spring type weather had melted all of out snow pack. So it felt worse than it was.

Seeing how it was a cold morning I thought maybe a hot breakfast was in order and decided to make some German Pancakes. Have you ever made these? They are so fun, so easy, and use very few ingredients but are a big crowd pleaser. Here's the recipe.

German Pancakes
6 Tbsp. butter
6 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk

Melt butter in a 9X13 Pyrex (I cut the butter into 6 individual pieces first and spread them around the pan, put the whole thing in the oven, and pull it out when the butter is melted) While your butter is melting mix the eggs, milk and flour. (You really have to whisk this quite vigorously, you don't want any flour lumps in your batter or your pancake won't puff enough and won't be near as pretty. So whisk, whisk, whisk my friends). Pour batter into buttery Pyrex and stick back into the oven to bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Serve with syrup or jam (or if we plan ahead we like whipped cream and fresh fruit).

Here's the fun part.

Isn't that cool? The pancake puffs up huge in your oven while it's baking. I usually turn on the oven light and let my kids sit and watch it grow, they love it and get very excited to see the progress. It dies down a bit when you pull it out of the oven.

Then you just cut it into pieces and top it with your favorite pancake toppings and enjoy the yummy buttery goodness.

Maybe a sick husband, snow storm, and simple gourmet breakfast aren't so bad after all. Those errands could definitely wait.

The Evolution of a Valentine's Day Mantel

2011-01-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love that I have an evolving mantel? I do. In our last house (in AZ) we didn't even have a fireplace, and as a result there was no mantel. But I was just sure that I needed a mantel to decorate so I had my Father-In-Law build and install one even though it wasn't planking a fireplace. It worked though, see.

But for whatever reason I feel very compelled to decorate my mantel with every changing season and holiday. I'm pretty sure I get this from my Mother, she did the same. So when I put up my Valentine's decorations again this year, I liked the way it looked and thought the decorations were fine, but didn't felt like it said Happy Valentine's Day the way I wanted it to.

So the other night when I was making my Mom's monogram for her birthday I thought the same process would work well for some Valentine's Day decorations. So I pulled out a few more wooden plaques, some scrapbook paper, and some glittery wood chip letter stickers that I had from another project and set out to make some Valentine's Decorations. I'm quite excited with the results, really, things like this strangely make me happy.

What do you think? Much better, right? Now you're not sitting on my couch wondering what my obsession with pink cupcakes is, you know right away that my mantel is decorated for Valentine's Day. That right there is some sweet satisfaction.

So I didn't take tutorial pictures, but it really is exactly the same process as I used in the monogram tutorial only I used the chipboard stickers (for the locals I bought them at Roberts) and some rolled flowers I had been experimenting with. You wouldn't even have to do rolled flowers, you could choose from any of my flower tutorials and glue them right on.

This cute pink wreath I made last year at Valentine's time following a tutorial from Amy at the Idea Room.

And you could make a similar bunting following my tutorial here.

What do you think? I think I'm feeling pretty ready for some Valentine's Day love at our house :)

Monogram Plaque tutorial

2011-01-24T07:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my Mom and my sister Becky's birthday. I've always thought that it was fun that my Mom and her first born got to share their birthday. I really think that having a baby on your birthday would be the most amazing gift you could ever receive, especially when it's your firstborn who welcomes you to Motherhood.

So on Saturday night we went to dinner with those of us who live around town (plus my sister Katie who was in town) to celebrate. Did I take any pictures? Of course not, we were having too much fun gorging ourselves on Mexican food. But I did manage a few photos of the gift I made for my Mom. She's a hard one to shop for and always says she doesn't need any gifts. So I decided to make her something. This project is very similar to ones I've made before and very similar to a lot I've seen on the blogs, so nothing earth shattering. I'm just sharing for sharing's sake.

Here it its.

I made her a Monogram of sorts out of her initial. I had originally bought paper that had music notes on it which would have been really fitting for my very musical mother, but it blended in too much with the gold monogram (and I had to keep the glittery gold). Anyone who has been to my Mom's house knows that she likes glittery gold so I went with this toile background instead and really like the results. Here are the steps to make one.

Supplies: Wood plaque from craft store (this was only a few dollars), wooden monogram (also from the craft store for like $1.50), scrapbook paper, paint, glitter, glue and mod podge.

This is so simple, just paint the edges of your plaque, I did a few coats. Then cut your paper to fit and mod podge it into place. I let this dry for a few hours otherwise you'll end up with pesky air bubbles. While that's drying glitter up your monogram. To do this I just applied craft glue and then glitter, just like you did in grade school. Then once your plaque dries add another coat or two of mod podge on top. Then let both of these dry over night and glue your monogram in place.

That's it! It really is simple and hardly worth a tutorial, but I thought I'd share anyway. I liked how my Mom's turned out so much that I made one for myself.

Mine is a little less glittery, but so is my house. When I was making these I got to thinking that this same process would make really cute Valentine decorations so I did that too, and promise I'll show you those soon.

Family Room Update

2011-01-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Hi. My name is Nancy, and I run this here little blog. Only lately it feels more like life has been running me, and my poor blog has suffered. I recently checked my stats just sure that you'd all have dropped me by now, but much to my surprise there were even more of you who had signed on. I just have to say a big THANK YOU for even caring about me.

So where have I been? Well I've been here and there, and I've still been participating in life, just not documenting it. My husband keeps asking me why I'm not blogging, so I figure if he notices then maybe there's one or two more of you out there who notice as well.

I've been obsessing over filling my new entertainment unit. Like I said before, it's maybe a little big for the space, but the reason is that my husband had to have room for a big screen TV, and I had to have room for my chotchkees. So here's what I've got so far. I finally decided on an accent color for the room. I found the curtain fabric hard to pair up with another color, but finally settled on this mustard yellow.

What do you think? I love this yellow fabric. It's by Robert Allen for Dwell Studios, I bought it at Fabric.com (it's way cheaper from them). I think it will really brighten up my space when I make some big accent pillows out of it. I'll show you them after I make them, but for now I'll just show you how I've filled the hutch.

What do you think? I looked everywhere to find things I liked to fill this with, and ended up finding most of what I wanted at Hobby Lobby. Which by the way never buy anything full price at Hobby Lobby. If it's not half off this week it will be next week. That's where I got the globe, clock, yellow vase, bird plate, little finial looking vase things, and baskets. The birdcage I found a the D.I. (a local thrift store), the cream vase was a gift from my friend Courtney, the cream pineapple (or maybe it's an acorn which would actually blend really well with my curtains) was a hand me down from my Mom, and the silhouettes I made.

That's what I've got in it today anyway, I pretty much change it on a daily basis but think I've finally got the hutch in a place I can be happy with for a little while. In my shopping/decorating excursions I also picked up this new mirror.

Don't you love it? I haven't quite decided where to put it, but most likely it will end up above my fireplace. The best part was the price, I really thought it was a steal at $41.99. Like it? Love it? I got it at Ross. (Now you're probably annoyed and wishing I'd go back to my non-blogging state).

I've got quite a few more home decor projects in the works actually. I recently changed out the bedding in my son Dallas' room and made new pillows and a bed skirt for that. I'll show you when it's finished. And my sweet Father-In-Law-Kent-who-never-gets-annoyed-by-my-projects I give him built me a few new shelves for my bathrooms and this cool coat rack that I need to paint and put the hooks on.

I'm excited about this. The thing about Utah is it's cold, and the thing about cold is that you need a coat. In our Arizona house there wasn't even a coat closet. Here we have one and it's completely full and too high up for my kids to hang up their own coats. So this fed up Mom decided a coat rack was in order. I like it, it'll look even better when I paint it. Would you paint it white or match my curtains in a sea green type of color? I'm trying to decide. I also think it might need a decorative finial or something on the top. Any ideas?

Well that's it for me today. I promise to be back sooner than later. I have craft supplies for a gift I'm making for my Mom's birthday so maybe I'll do a tutorial on that. Thanks for sticking around!

Christmas in Collages 2010

2010-12-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

Christmas Decorations

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying some time off together, despite a few runny noses. I'll be back next year with renewed craftiness!

Santa came early...

2010-12-17T21:19:00.000-08:00

Remember this?

Well, pretty much if I get an idea in my head there's not a lot that can stop me. Hence my new entertainment unit with room for plenty of chotchkes (that part is very important).

Ignore the night time shot and bad lighting, what do you think about our early Christmas present? Somehow new curtains warranted a new TV and entertainment center. What do you think? We had Travis' Dad build it for us and Travis and I painted it. They brought it over for us last night, and of course Travis and I couldn't wait to paint, so we painted from about 10 p.m. to midnight last night, and then I finished it up this afternoon. Travis couldn't wait to get it put together so he could plug the TV back in. I think these boys are already enjoying it. (Can you spot my new bathroom shelves in the background? Trav's Dad made those too, I'll show you them once I get them finished and put in place.)

It's kinda big, I realize that. We planned it to fill the space, and I think we accomplished that. It might be a bit too big for the space actually, but not a lot I can do about that now. The reason it's so big is because Travis wanted room for a big TV, and well I had to have shelves. Forget about the TV, I'm excited about all the new shelves I have to put stuff in. I thought I'd give you a before shot so you can appreciate the after once I get it filled.

What do you think? Have you ever put up new curtains only to have them make you realize your whole room needed an overhaul?

Homemade Christmas Gifts

2010-12-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

Hallie mentioned a while back that she would like a purse for Christmas. So today while I was out and about I was perusing the aisles of stores looking for a purse for her. But when I decided all the purses I was looking at were rather ugly I thought, "maybe I should make her one." And seeing how I recently made two bags for friends' daugthers I figure my own deserves as much. Here are the bags I made for my friends.

I forgot to take pictures of Liz's purse (for her cute Elyse) before I gave it to her, so these are really bad pictures I took on my cell phone when we met up for lunch, but you get the idea. I thought it turned out really cute.

I also made a simple little wallet to go with the purse for Liz.

Then for April's daughter I made a scripture tote. Cute, right? I actually remembered to take a picture of this one, so it looks a lot better. It's the same pattern as Liz's purse, just a smaller version. One of these days I'll do a tutorial for this, it's just hard to do when you're trying to hurry and there's so many steps to document.

Hopefully I'll get Hallie's done before Christmas. How about you, do you make your kids homemade gifts?

Christmas Tradition

2010-12-13T15:11:00.000-08:00

Last night we decided to have our annual Gingerbread cookie decorating party. This party consists of baking and pajamas, and there's only 4 people invited. The cookies aren't always the prettiest thing to look at, but there's lots of love baked in each bite!

A Dick and Jane pouch for sweet Jane

2010-12-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

Are you sick of my pouches yet? You very well could be. Apparently I'm not yet because I keep on making them and finding new purposes for them. Last month was my cute niece Jane's first birthday and I of course wanted to make a homemade gift for her party. But, I didn't have a lot of time on my hands that weekend, so I purchased a set of these vintage looking Dick and Jane alphabet books at Costco and made a cute pouch to put them in. I was in such a rush (made the pouch right before the party) that I didn't snap any pictures of the project, but had my sister Angela send me some, and I thought I'd share them with you.

This is the pouch, it's pretty large actually because it holds 26 of these little books.

What do you think? Cute, right? I really liked the idea of the book pouch for a gift, I think it just makes the book that much more special. If you'd like to make your own, here's the pouch tutorial, just adjust the size to fit your needs.

An idea worth sharing

2010-12-05T12:53:00.000-08:00

I've been on the hunt for some new glasses for a while now. Although I wear contacts every day I still have to have a pair of glasses to wear at night and in the morning, and on the off day that my contacts are bothering me. I was determined to find some cute ones, but felt like everything I loved was way out of the price range I wanted to spend. So when I saw my friend Julie wearing the cutest Kate Spade glasses I had to know where she got them, and she let me in on a little secret. She had gotten her glasses at Nordstrom, they are a pair of reading glasses that they sell there, and she took them to her eye doctor and had him change them out to her prescription. So smart! I didn't you could do that, but you totally can. So I found myself a new pair of cute readers and did the same thing. I kind of thought that I was going to get away with some designer glasses for a fraction of the designer price, but all said and done with good lenses and anti-reflective coating and everything, they weren't cheap. Oh well, they're cute. Hopefully Julie doesn't mind my spilling the secret, but I think when you have a good idea like that people need to know. So I'm telling you, and of course I had to make a pouch to put them in, right?

But I'm not the only one with some new glasses around here. Hallie got her eyes checked and found that she needed some as well. Although she doesn't wear them very often because her prescription isn't all that strong, (or necessary if you ask me) I sure think she looks cute in them.

(I realize that I have a huge picture of my glasses and a tiny picture of my daughter but this pic was taken on my cell phone and it gets all pixelated when I try to enlarge it, I do love my daughter more than my glasses :)

Orabrush: the perfect stocking stuffer

2010-12-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

So you've seen me brag before about my famous little brother, Austin. He's often referred to as the "Orabrush Man." He's the pitch man behind the Orabrush company and tongue scraper that launched on YouTube and became an Internet sensation, really, just type "Orabrush" on YouTube's search engine, and you'll see. They're everywhere. So I thought I'd give my two cents about the product, and show you a cute pouch to put it in, because that's how I roll.

So recently I was at my local Wal-Mart here in Utah and came across my brother. Only he wasn't really at Wal-Mart, he was just talking on TV, and his face was plastered all over Orabrushes. This is the Orabrush display here at Wal-Mart, complete with a flat screen TV showcasing the product and its run-away YouTube campaign, and who should that be on the screen? Austin. And whose face is on each and every Orabrush? Austin.

Of course I tried to find someone I knew to show this to, but couldn't find a single friend, so I snapped a picture, so I could show you! That's my brother, that's Austin. I'm very proud. Can you tell? Unfortunately you'll only find the product and these displays in Wal-Mart's in Utah where the company was founded. Hopefully soon they will pick up everywhere, but until then head to their website to purchase, www.orabrush.com. Also check out the "Morgan the Tongue" videos, they are hilarious. I seriously want to invite that guy over for dinner.

Anyway I've been thinking for a while now that I wanted to make a pouch that was lined on the inside with clear vinyl, and I figured an Orabrush and toothbrush pouch would be perfect for this. I made my pouch the same way I make them all, but I added 1 layer of the vinyl in between my two main fabrics. DON'T DO 2 LAYERS! Unless you have a serious commercial machine or something this gets to be crazy thick and will break needles and possibly your machine. Trust me. I've worked with double layer vinyl before in purses, but the pouches don't work well, they're hard to pull through and hard to sew, so save yourself the trouble and only line the inside. If you don't want to worry about vinyl try oil cloth, it would work really well, and probably be much easier to sew with.

Have a look see:

Cute, right? Notice the inside has the layer of vinyl, then when you're traveling and your Orabrush and toothbrush are wet you can simply stick them inside the pouch, no more Zip loc bags. I'm so smart, just ask my children, I tell them all the time :)

I might not actually ever use this particular Orabrush though, I pretty much bought it for the packaging, see there's Austin! Right on the front.

Oh, and he's on the back too in case you missed him on the front.

So stuff your stockings and your pouches with Orabrush this year. You, your nose, and your tongue will be glad you did.

Thanksgiving Day Bird: A True Story

2010-11-25T09:26:00.000-08:00

Now if you've paid any attention to my blog you might know that I have a thing for birds in my house. We're talking home decor. For some reason I have a weakness for cute little birds, and if I see one, I buy it. I guess I collect them. Travis thinks this is odd. He actually refers to this as a Grandma-like trait of mine. But whatever, I like birds, and I buy them and put them in my house.

So this morning the kids and I were hanging out. They were watching cartoons and I was putting together a game for the kids' table at Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon. I kept on thinking that I was hearing a bird chirp, but passed it off as part of their cartoon noise. Then the cartoon changed, and I still heard the bird. So I told Dallas to mute the TV, and there was the chirp again. Maybe there's a bird in a window well somewhere? I thought to myself. Then I decided to play a game with the kids and said,

"Do you hear that chirping? There's a bird in our house."

"Ya, I saw a bird in the playroom." Hallie said.

"Oh really? What did it look like?" I asked.

"It's a black little bird. And it's flying around in the playroom." Hallie answered.

"Why didn't you say something before?" I questioned her?

"I just forgot." she replied.

"How could you forget there was a bird flying around in the playroom? If you would have seen a bird you would have said something right away." I questioned her.

"I just forgot, alright?" She retorted.

Then more chirping.

"Mom, are you making that noise? Are you trying to trick us?" Dallas asked.

"No, you think I just have a bird call hidden over here somewhere?" I answered.

Again the chirp.

"Dallas go get the bird." Hallie said.

"I can't, I'm allergic." Dallas replied.

"You're not allergic to birds, I'm your Mom and I would know if you were. Go see what is making that chirping noise." I said.

So Dallas went upstairs and came back to report that there was indeed a live bird in the playroom.

What the?

Guess what?

There was a live bird, in our house, in our playroom. How did it get in here? To this minute that question remains a mystery. All our windows are shut, and we hardly even left the house yesterday. The only conclusion I can come to was derived from my bird detective skills. You see there were feathers on my kitchen counter (I'm not kidding). And above that counter in the ceiling are some recessed lights. One of these lights was broken the last time Travis was replacing it, and since it's so high up we couldn't reach it to fix it. So we just left one of them bare, with no light in it. I suspect the poor bird somehow came in through the attic, and then into my house through the open light hole. That is my suspicion. And if I was a bird I would want to come into my house as well, there's lots of friends to be found. Exhibit A.

So what did I do about the bird in my playroom? I snapped a few pictures, screamed a little when it began to fly aimlessly, shut the door and yelled for Travis. He on the other hand fearlessly entered the playroom, opened the window and let the bird fly free. Problem solved. Memory made. Story to tell. Happy Thanksgiving!

Just Dance 2!

2010-11-25T06:38:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I hosted another party for houseparty .com. This time we got two free Wii games to try with our friends, Wii's Just Dance 2, and Wii Just Dance Kids. Can I just say that these are honestly my most favorite Wii games ever, seriously, I'm not just saying that because I got them for free. My HORRIBLE pictures are proof of our fun party. Why, you say? Because when I have a fun party I have the worst time doing the hostess and photographer thing at the same time, so when the pictures are bad you know I was having too much fun to worry about taking pictures. Oh well, we still had a good time.

In both of these games the players hold the Wii-mote in their hand and follow along to the dancers on the screen. This is so much fun, and quite hilarious. Before the party we had fun playing them as a family, and can I just say that I rocked Wham's "Wake me up before you go go..." Mostly because I was playing against Travis, but still, I wasn't all that bad. My kids were actually quite impressed with my scores. One of my favorite things about these games is that you're having so much fun with them and laughing at yourself and each other that you don't even notice the exercise you're getting at the same time.

Before the party Hallie and I had fun picking out props for all the girls to wear while dancing. We picked up these fun wigs, hats and scarves, and they really added to the party's theme. I also got a lot of fun prizes for the girls to have after they danced. I think the kids appreciated the extra touches. And at one point almost all the girls at the party were up dancing, regardless of whether or not they were actually holding a Wii-mote. And can I just say that I think the Mom's had just as much fun as the girl's did? Oh there was Mom dance time too, I was just forbidden to take proof, but that doesn't mean there wasn't some serious Mom moves going on. These games would be really fun at a New Year's Eve party, regardless of age.

If you have a young girl's party (or big girl) in your future I'd highly recommend these as party games. Hallie who is 7 likes the Just Dance Kids slightly better because the dances are a little bit slower and easier to follow, but both are really fun. My only problem with the Wii Just Dance 2 is that there are a few songs I wish they would have edited the lyrics to, oh well.

So aside from the fact that I got these for free (and I don't get anything else for telling you this, I promise) I would definitely recommend these for Christmas gifts. Even my 8 year-old-son enjoys them (not at a party full of girls, but he played all week with his just his sister). In fact there are quite a few songs geared at boys as well as girls.

So if you're feeling convinced that you want to get these for your kids for Christmas, leave me a comment. I have a few extra coupons for $5 off the game, and free 3-day shipping from GameStop . I'll give the coupon codes to the first 8 commenters. Good luck!

If you'd like to host a house party yourself (they're fun, a great excuse to have a party and you get free stuff!) apply at www.houseparty.com

Need a Handmade Gift Idea? Let me help you with that.

2010-11-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

I was asked to teach a craft class tonight at my neighborhood clubhouse for the women from church and the neighborhood. When my friend Laurie first asked me to do this I tried to come up with a new craft to make and teach. Then I thought, well I've already made and taught a lot of crafts, I'll just point them in this direction, and all the work is already done. Laziness? Maybe, but I did come up with a few new things just for them. Anyway I wanted to put all the ideas in one post so that anyone wanting to make a handmade holiday gift could simply come here and be directed to a number of tutorials that would be easy, inexpensive, and fun to make. So here you go, enjoy!

Pouches Galore

Ribbon Headbands

Embellished Ribbon Headbands

Easy Child's Apron

Fabric Flowers

Rolled Fabric Flowers

Rhinestone Flip Flops

Bejeweled Necklace and Keychain

Beaded Necklace Tutorial

Travel Jewelry Case

Mod Podge Jewelry Display

Toddler Soft Blocks

Simple Appliqued T-Shirt

T-shirt Skirt

Sunglasses Case

Baby Blanket and Taggie Tutorial

Silhouettes

Fabric Bunting

Chocolate Caramel Dipped Pretzels

Rainbow Birthday Cake

It's kind of fun for me to see the tutorials that I've put together this year (most of them anyways). I really enjoy your feedback and encouragement, so thanks for following along with me. If I find more time before Christmas I'll add to this. Let me know if you have questions on any of this.

Pouches Galore

2010-11-18T11:21:00.000-08:00

Keeping with my simple, easy, and inexpensive Christmas gift theme I've got going, I decided to show you a fun pouch idea. I have had these cute recipe cards for a while (I probably got them in the Dollar section of Michael's craft store). Anyway I thought if I put them in a cute pouch with some of my favorite recipes on them they'd make a cute gift for someone. I think you'll like the results.

I used this cute cooking themed fabric (same fun stuff that I made Norah's apron out of) and thought it would make a cute pouch for holding recipe cards. Cut your fabric to fit your cards, or whatever you're going to put in the pouch, mine was 16 inches long by 8 inches wide. I used two fabrics, one for the outside, one for the inside, and then a piece of batting cut the same size.

From there you need to line up your fabrics with the right sides facing each other, and then put your batting underneath and pin them all together. Follow the steps in this collage of pictures. Sew up three sides of the pouch, and then pull it all through so that you're left with the top side open. See below.

Now you simply need to tuck the open seam into itself, pin and sew.

Now your sides are all sewn it's time to add the Velcro.

Add the Velcro before you sew up the sides of the pouch, it's much easier to sew it that way.

Just simply pin the Velcro in place, then sew making sure to back stitch so that the thread doesn't come out when you use your pouch. Then you just pin your sides together and sew in place, and you're done!

But of course I think it's much cuter with a fabric flower, (click here for tutorial) otherwise it just wouldn't be as pretty :)

Here are some other ideas for pouches, remember these are so easy and would make a great inexpensive, but not cheap, Christmas gift.

And of course don't forget about my sunglasses case tutorial, it's even easier because it only uses one piece of cotton fabric and fleece, no batting. See it here.

If you're like me you're going to find these pouches addictive, and fun to make. They are also fast to create and would be easy to make for all your friends.

Part 2: Add a little Spring and a little Bling to your Ribbon Headband

2010-11-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

Last night my husband Travis said to me, "I think it's time for a new blog post. I already know how to make ribbon head bands." I'm pretty sure that if Travis thinks it's time for a new post so does everyone else. Sometimes life just kicks me in the butt a little (is that a weird expression? I think Travis taught it to me, but I think it works for how I've been feeling this last week), and I find I don't have as much time as I'd like to craft and blog; so after Travis' comment I decided to make the time today. And I'm sure glad I did. Here's the second half of my headband tutorial. Enjoy!

So now that we all know how to make our ribbon headbands (of if you don't, see this tutorial) let's embellish them, shall we? Or as I like to say, let's Fancy Nancy them up a bit. Ooh La La. Here's a sneak peak.

So I embellished these gold and silver headbands with some cute fabric flowers that I had made. I followed the steps in this tutorial to make them. But what I think makes these extra cute is that I added some tulle flowers and beads to embellish. I made the tulle flowers the same way as the regular fabric ones by cutting tulle circles, folding them in half, and then in half again and hand sewing them onto a felt circle that was the same size as my tulle circles. Like this.

And of course I have to have a little bling, so I sewed on these sparkly crystal beads. Then I took my tulle flower and another fabric flower and sewed them onto a peanut shaped piece of felt that I then hot glued onto my headband. I used a matching piece of peanut shaped felt and hot glued it from underneath the headband to secure the flowers and give a soft spot that rests on your head when you're wearing the headband. Does that make any sense? Here's some pictures.

Easy, right? Now you're done and you have some really cute, sparkly headbands that will easily take you through your holiday parties.

I really quite like this gold and yellow one, I think it's a lot of fun.

Now if you want some easier, less permanent headbands try this. I simply clipped flowers I had already made onto some of the other ribbon headbands. I figure this way my 7-year-old daughter can wear them with the big flower, and I can wear the more simple ribbon version.

To put a clip onto your fabric flowers follow these few steps with a flower, a clip, and a small piece of ribbon. I bought this box of clips as Sally's Beauty Supply.

Then I just simply clip the flower onto the headband and Hallie is ready to go.

What do you think? Fun, right? And so easy. Like I said before, the tutorial I made for the fabric flowers I used is here. And the ones that look slightly different are made in the same way, just with felt and fleece rather than cotton fabric. See here. And to see yet another type of fabric flower check out my rolled fabric flower tutorial here.

Inexpensive Ribbon Headbands Part I

2010-11-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

Next week I'm teaching a class to a group of women from church about some inexpensive homemade gift ideas. I'm trying to show them cute handmade gifts that use fabric scraps, or ribbon, and inexpensive materials to make, but are cute enough that you'd be excited to give or receive them. These ribbon headbands are the building blocks to even cuter flower headbands, but I thought before I showed you the fun final product, I'd show you how to make your headband base, or if you're like me and you don't always want a big flower on top of your head, these are great just as they are. I came up with these while trying to wrap some headbands with ribbon, and I didn't like the results, so I tried this instead and loved them.

First you'll need some inexpensive headbands. I picked these up at the Dollar Store. They were 6/$1.00, and if I did my math right that's well, cheap. Really cheap. And don't worry that they said Kid's headbands on them, they fit my head very comfortably, and I have a rather large head. Actually I don't know that it's all that large, it might be the one body part I have that's quite average actually. But moving on.

Pick yourself up some headbands and cute ribbons whose width is larger than the width of your headband. I personally like a somewhat slim headband and find that they are less likely to give me a headache. I picked up my ribbon at Hobby Lobby where they are more often than not on sale for half off, and so these ribbons were all $1.00 each.

Then take your ribbon and measure it around your headband, but give yourself 3-4 inches extra.

Then head to your sewing machine. Fold your ribbon exactly in half, and sew it along one edge, then turn it over and sew down the other.

Now you're ready to insert your headband. Carefully slide your headband into the ribbon. The headbands I used were plastic, and I did break one, so be careful and take your time with this step.

Once you've got your headband all the way into your ribbon and it fits snugly you can burn the edges of your ribbon to make sure it won't fray. I didn't get a very good picture of this step, it's pretty much impossible to do while taking a picture. But basically hold the ends of your ribbon into the flame, and it will seal the edges so they won't fray. Or you could also use Fray Check to do the same thing, but the burning step is kind of fun and pretty cool, and you're more likely to have matches than Fray Check anyway. Then hot glue the remainder and fold it into the inside of your headband. I didn't get a picture of that step, so I hope you understand what I mean.

See how easy that is? And the results are so much cuter than your plain dollar store headband. I wear these all the time. So I don't think they are only for little girls, although they would make really cute headbands for little girls and you could get much more fun with your ribbon choices.

I'll be back to show you some embellished headbands soon, enjoy!

Take 2

2010-11-11T09:50:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to thank you for all your nice comments on my Thanksgiving Mantel. I told Trav you never can tell what people are going to like, or what they will comment on. So I was very surprised that so many of you liked it and said so.

That said, I changed it. This is just better, right?

It wasn't that I didn't like it, I did. But I didn't love it, and couldn't wrap my mind around the blue. Also, it clashed with my new curtains.

What do you think? Do you like them? Are they on the verge of Grandmaish? Not that there's anything wrong with Grandmas, around here, we love 'em. It's just that I like Traditional/Contemporary things, and I worry that I border on Grandma some times.

I think the print is pretty contemporary, but maybe the furnishings make it border on old lady. Or maybe I'm just an old lady now and I haven't yet come to terms with that.

The problem with the new curtains is that they seem to serve to highlight everything else that's wrong in my family room. I can see now very clearly where I need some art work, and they make our old-but-still-works-great-and-we-appreciate-the-hand-me-down-TV-from-my-parents look pretty ghetto.

So Trav and I decided that we need a new TV, and since I gave in on the new TV, he's giving in on a new piece of furniture to put the TV into. I'll keep you updated because plans are very much on their way there, and now we know what to get each other for Christmas. You can see what I mean, right? It's a little ghetto.

Just picture a big white entertainment center with bookshelves where my ghetto big box TV is. I'm excited because that will give me a lot more space to put decorative items (into the bookshelf part). Once again, ignore the bad lighting. Can you tell there are very high ceilings in this room? They've always tripped me up, and I've never been quite sure what to do with them, so any decorating advice would be much appreciated. I even sent an email to ask Nate Berkus what I should do, and strangely, I haven't heard back from him yet. I thought about waiting until I'd finished the room to show you the final product, but then I thought it would be kind of fun to take you along for the ride.

So for now, I'm just grateful for my new curtains and my sweet Mom who came to help me make them. Thanks Mom!

Thanksgiving Mantel

2010-11-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have a vision of something amazing in your head, then try to make it into reality, and feel that it all just fell short of the vision? That's kind of how I feel about my Thanksgiving mantel. Oh well. I guess I'm just glad I got Halloween put away before it was time to decorate for Christmas. I thought I'd do a cute interim Thanksgiving mantel, but am not totally loving the results. Part of the problem is that Thanksgiving decorations are hard to come by this "late" in the game. The only decorations I found at the stores on Saturday were Christmas. Also I guess my color scheme is a little non-traditional, but it looked Fallish in my head. Anyhoo, here's what I've got. I have some blue and white pottery that I love, and used to have up in my Arizona home, so I thought I'd work that in with some orange accents. What do you think?

Ignore the horrible lighting. It's raining, crazy cloudy and even foggy outside today. Anyway I like the bunting I made, but I'm not sure that it screams Thanksgiving, but that's actually kind of how I wanted it. Two of those blue and white pottery pieces (the ones with lids) Travis and I got on our honeymoon in Mexico, so there's some sentimental value in those for me. And then of course there's my birds. I have to have birds in there somewhere.

I put some of my other pottery pieces on top of my TV. They help add to the pottery theme, right?

If you want to know how to make a similar bunting, here's my tutorial on that. P.S. I'm on the hunt for a cute turkey (the decorative kind), if I can't find one I'm going to try to make one, but does anyone have any good suggestions? Also if you know where I can get my hands on some of these Pottery Barn plates I'd love you forever.

I looked on eBay and can't find them. These have been a big regret of mine that I never bought them when they were available. Sigh.