Friday Finds #13

It's already Friday and I'm looking forward to the weekend. Tonight we have our elementary school carnival where I will be helping at class booths while handing over cash to my kids in the name of helping the school for bounce houses, dunk tanks and cakes walks. We've set a budget for each of our kids, so hopefully it won't be too crazy.

Today is the day where I like to share things I've seen around the web during the week, so let's get started...

No Sew Table Runner


Since the sewing machine I got for Christmas is still in the box, this project really apealled to me. I've had a hard time find a table runner that I like for our dinning room table. Now I'm going to be on the lookout for cool placemats.

Strawberry Lemon Crepe Cake


Doesn't this look amazing? My husband said that he is going to make it for breakfast on Mother's Day.

Lego Silverware


These would be a hit at our table!

Rainbow Cupcake in a Jar found via Be Normal Act Different

My daughter's birthday is coming in a couple of weeks and I hoping that she will want to make these for her party. They are so bright and festive!

Homemade Chicken Taquitos from Turbo Bubble Gum


This is a quick recipe I came across that I *think* everyone is my family would enjoy. It's going on the menu for next week and hoepfully it's well liked.

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg


I started reading this book a couple of nights ago and it is totally enjoyable. Molly's writing style really draws me in and she does a great job combining her life stories with her favorite recipes. If you want a sample of what her book is like, you can read this blog post she just posted yesterday. Now I want to make Almond Cake!

The NY Times has an part of the first chapter of the book here. I highly recommend this is you are looking for a book to add to your summer reading list.

How about you? Any fun weekend plans?

Celebrate!

I've had some fun playing with the Scrapbook Circle Anniversary Kit over the past couple of days. We celebrated my father in law's birthday on Tuesday and I used that kit to make a card for him.


One of my favorite things in the kit is the printable. This file is emailed to anyone who orders the kit and then it can be printed and cut and used as many times as needed.

Here's a small photo look at the printable. (The real file is much bigger and perfect for printing.)


The little flags are probably my favorite element on the page. They would be fun on top of cupcakes too!

Hope you are having a wonderful day.

5th Anniversary Kit Peek

Today I finally has some time to create with the upcoming Scrapbook Circle 5th Anniversary Kit. I can't believe that it's already been 5 years of creating kits each month!

The layout isn't quite finished, but I thought I'd give you a little peek.


I used a bunch of Jillibean Soup Frames, Pink Paislee paper and the Scrapbook Circle Anniversary Printable.

The Anniversary Kit is for sale now with a great discount price for all of our subscribers.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Party Favors with Fancy Pants

I'm sharing a tutorial on Spring party favor boxes over on the Fancy Pants blog today. Hope you'll stop by and check it out. :)


Loving the colors and patterns of the It's the Little Things line!

Hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend.

Handmade Notebook for Max

Over the past couple of years, I've made many notebooks for our kids to give to friends for birthdays, but I've never made any for our kids. They've asked me several times when I was going to make books for them, but somehow their books just never made it to the top of the list.

For Easter, I decided to make a notebook for each of my kids for their Easter baskets. Today I thought I'd share the notebook I made for Max.


The paper and accents came from the Crate Paper Toy Box line. The boy designs and colors were perfect for this project.

I started from scratch with this book and cut chipboard to 8.5" x 6" and then cut a bunch of regular white printer paper in half to fit inside of the book.


Inside of the front cover, I made a pocket page for him to hold any extra things he may want to keep in the book.


The back and inside covers were just covered with patterned paper and then bound together with the help of my Bind It All.


It's a pretty simple design and I hope that Max has fun creating, writing and drawing in his book.

Enjoying Easter Weekend

We've been enjoying a relaxing 3-day weekend with our family. We had friends over yesterday to color Easter eggs. I spent some time boiling 9 dozen eggs and the 8 kids all seemed to have a lot of fun coloring them.



Today we have spent time with my sister who is visiting from out of town while balancing a football game and getting our daughter to a birthday party. This afternoon I starting setting the table for Easter dinner. We are lucky to have a lot of out family in town and tomorrow we will be having 17 people over for dinner.


We set up a folding table next to our dining room table and had just enough space for everyone.

I had one centerpiece ready, but since we now have two tables, I decided to add something to the other table.


I have a set of 3 glasses vases that I filled with paper grass and plastic eggs and tied ribbon around the vases. It's nothing fancy, but it will work for our casual table.


I'm looking forward to celebrating Easter tomorrow with our family. Wish you a wonderful Easter too!

Friday Finds #12

Happy Friday! I've been on the lookout for Easter ideas this week and thought I would share a few of my favorites with you. I'm hoping to have so time today or tomorrow to use a couple of these ideas.

Favor Boxes Tutorial at TomKat Studio


Even though these are used as thank you gifts on this blog post, I think they would make great favors for any party or occasion. They would look great on a Easter table this weekend too.

Coconut Easter Egg Candies by love and butter


Those little eggs are made with coconut and sugar sprinkles. The recipe looks pretty easy and I like how the edible grass was used to hold the eggs. I've seen the edible grass at Target and this is a great use for it.

Easter Candy Jars from Martha Stewart


I love using glass jars and these would make a great centerpiece. The bunny sitting on the candy eggs is my favorite.

Bunny Salad by One Charming Party


Just add a cookie from Trader Joe's and you have a little bunny hiding the salad. Simple and cute!

Easter Nail Art by Holiday Snob


My girls (at least my 6 year old) would love to have her nails painted like this.

Paper Easter Basket by Coffee @ 3


This is a nice tutorial on how to make these baskets. Not only are they great for Easter, but they would make great favor baskets for birthday parties too.

Did you do any fun crafts for Easter? Do you have any fun Easter plans?

We are having about 15 people over for Easter dinner. I'm looking forward to celebrating Easter with our family.

Happy Easter to you!

Pinewood Derby

Last month my son participated his first Pinewood Derby. I let my husband and Max handle getting the car ready for the big day. My husband had to go out of town and couldn't make it to the Pinewood Derby, so I went with specific instructions on how to carry the car and how to apply the graphite right before the race. (This is serious business!)

When we arrived at the event, we had to weigh in/measure the car. Guess what? The car was too long. If you haven't been to a Pinewood Derby, it's a pretty intense dad & son event, so you can images my panic when I found out the car was the wrong size. Thankfully a really nice older guy (who I hadn't ever met) helped us out and got the car to meet the measurements. After the crisis was adverted, things went smoothly after that.


Max won a race and didn't win others, but he had a great time which was all I was hoping for.


Now we get to look forward to the cub scout raingutter regatta in the fall. :)

All of the supplies for my layout are from the Fancy Pants Beach Bum line. Don't you love how a beach line works for other topics too?

Easter Centerpiece

Last year I made this Spring banner and wanted something new to hang the banner from on my dining room table.

I remembered that I had a box of quart sized canning jars in my garage, so I dusted off two of them and decided they would be perfect for holding the banner.


I used my Silhouette to cut the Happy Easter text and a few Easter eggs from the fuzzy white vellum. I used my Tattered Angels Mist and sprayed the vellum pink, yellow and orange. I love that the fuzzy white vellum can be customized to any color with the mist.


The ribbon was just the right length to tie it around the mouth of each jar.

I filled the jars with paper grass and Cadbury Mini Eggs. (My favorite Easter candy.)



The simple look of the open jars created the casual Springtime look I was hoping for.


Now I just have to hope that I don't eat all of the candy in the jars before Easter!

Friday Finds #11

Good morning! I hope that your Friday is off to a great start. Today I'd like to share a few of my favorite things I've found around the web this week . Hope you enjoy them!

The Best Mac & Cheese


I had this Mac & Cheese last weekend at Creative Estates. I even tweeted about it while I was eating it because it was so good. Now that I see the recipe, I can see why it tasted so good.

Carrot Box Template


How cute are these? Emily from Recipe for Cute shares a downloadable template for making these carrot boxes in her post. These would be fun to set out on dinner plates before Easter dinner.

Easter Grass Centerpiece


Wouldn't this make such a pretty Easter centerpiece. Or it would be great for any spring themed party. It would even be great at a baby shower. Check out the link for step by step directions for growing the wheat grass.

Save the Date


Isn't this a clever way to announce that you've found your "match" and people should save the date for the wedding?

Personalized Bookplates


These would make a great gift for any book loving friend.

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Pudding Pops


These would be my kind of popsicle on a hot summer day. Chocolate + salted caramel. Yes please!

Any fun weekend plans? We have a piano recital tonight where two of my kids will be playing. I'm excited to watch them perform!

Easter Layouts with Glitz

When I saw the new Afternoon Muse line from Glitz, I knew it would be perfect for a couple of Easter layouts. The colors are so happy and fresh.

On my first layout, I used one of my favorite photos taken during Easter last year of my daughter coloring eggs. Her happy smile blurred in the background and the egg with her writing capture a fun Easter memory.


Did you know that Glitz Designs has a teeny alpha with a wood grain print? The brown wood grain is a great color because it coordinates with everything so easily. This sticker sheet may not last long since it's one of my favorite alphas!


In this next layout, I had fun adding some paint to the page. Using a piece of corrugated cardboard plus some paint, I turned the cardboard into a stamp and pressed the painted cardboard right onto my background paper.


I did a litle touch up after stamping with a foam brush.


It's a quick and easy way to add journaling lines to a page.


Since there was extra paint on the tray, I smudged some around the edges of the page with a foam paintbrush to add a little more texture to the page.


Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies

Coloring Eggs
Glitz Designs "Afternoon Muse" Paper: Block, Carte Postal, Polka, Stripe
Glitz Designs "Love Notes" Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Afternoon Muse" Whatnots
Teeny Alpha Wood Grain
Other: Elle's Studio Tags

Egg Hunt
Glitz Designs "Afternoon Muse" Paper: Block, Carte Postal, Polka, Floral
Glitz Design "Afternoon Muse" Glitzers
Glitz Designs Teeny Yellow Alpha
Glitz Designs "Afternoon Muse" Journaling Stickers
Other: Paint, Bakers Twine

Creative Estates Recap: Saturday

Saturday was such an inspirational day at Creative Estates. Becky Higgins spoke on a panel with Megan from Brassy Apple, Melanie from Above All Fabric and Becki from Whippy Cake. They shared some great ideas on balancing motherhood and work.


Here are a few of my favorite tips from this panel:

* Have one family calendar (use iCal or Google Calendar)
* Prioritize each night what you want to accomplish the next day
* Don't let social media and email take over first thing each day
* Have a notebook where you collect your thoughts and ideas
* Write ideas in the notebook so that there is room for more ideas to form
* Plan rewards to stay motivated
* Plan meals for each week
* Be focused and present for your children
* Begin with the end in mind: What kind of mother, wife, community member do you want to be?

In the afternoon I went to an entertaining discussion with Char of Crap I've Made, Shelly of House of Smiths and Stephanie of The Daily Blarg.

They shared ideas about helping bloggers share their personalities.

A few highlights of their discussion...

* Figure out what your thing is and do it well
* Have integrity in your blog and respect for others
* Try to minimize the effect your blog/job has on your family
* Do not compare your worst to someones best
* There is no competition to be yourself
* You will never be sorry for acting appropriately

I am still processing all of the great information that was shared this weekend.
The best part about the weekend was meeting so many talented women who love blogging and crating as much as I do! I now have an amazing collection for business cards that I get to go through and check out everyone's blogs.


Thanks to Shey and Tauni for putting such an inspirational event together.

Giveaway Winner

Thanks to Random.org for selecting a winner for the scrappy goods giveaway.

The winner is Savannah!


Thanks to everyone for playing along. Hope you've had a happy Monday.

Creative Estates Recap: Friday

This past weekend at Creative Estates has been simply amazing. I met so many talented ladies who love crafting, cooking, interior design, photography, sewing and so much more. Everyone was extremely friendly. I only knew one other person attending the conference, so I spent the weekend talking and getting to know many new people.

I did a completely terrible job taking pictures, but I'll share the few photos I have.

Friday morning's session was a discussion with Shey, Erin Edwards of The Vintage Pearl, Ashley Hackshaw of Lil Boo Blue and Kim Stoegbauer of TomKat Studio. They talked about turning your hobby into a business.

They focused on finding your passion and then balanacing everything.

That afternoon, I taught a Scrapbook Circle class where everyone made this little mini house album. This was my first live teaching event and I loved it. Thankfully Jennie and Diana came to help and Diana even took a few pictures. A huge thank you goes out to them for their help!



Here's a look at the finished project:


Friday night I attended a Girls' Night Out that wasn't officially a part of the conference, but was scheduled so that conference attendees could go. They thought of every detail from amazing handmade nametags, decorated swag bags with lots goodies inside, sewed menus and best of all, great company.


I sat with Cindy from SkipToMyLou and Char from Crap I've Made,
Kelli and Kristi from lolly jane and Rachel from Denim Lovers Etc. Plus we mingled around with many other amzaing ladies.

There is another Girls' Night Out scheduled in June and I hope to be able to attend. This event sold out in less than a day, so if you want to go, you need to sign up fast once sign ups are available.

I'm so thankful for an amazing day spent with inspiring ladies!