Happy Easter

 

 

 

 

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter with time to rejoice in God's great gift!

 

Here is an idea to make things fun for the kids at Easter dinner.  My boys love biscuits and "twinkle twinkle stars", so the other night I took out my star cookie cutter for some fun shaped biscuits.  

 

 

Hoping you enjoy a great Holiday Weekend!

 

 

 

Super Cool Sippers

Today, I wanted to share with you one of the coolest products I have seen in a while.  Check out these "Birch" straws by "Kikkerland". These are available through Anthropologie, click here for website..  The straws are made from paper and are biodegradable (yeah fun and earth friendly).  I first learned about these when reading my new issue of "Country Living" magazine.

 

At just $8/per set of 144, this seems like a reasonable splurge for some super cool sippers.  That is just 6 cents a straw.  I can imagine drinking a tall glass of lemon water, Cherry Coke, Dr. Enuf, or Cheerwine out of these this Spring and Summer.

 

One last cool thing.  Check out these fun flats by "SO".  They are available in tons of colors through "Kohls".  I am partial to the pink and mint green.  Depending on the current sale at Kohls, you can usually get these for less than $20, click here to purchase..

 

 

 

 

 

Has anyone else found some cool Spring/Summer products lately? 

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Angela Adams Love...Super Easy Envelope Pillow Covers

My new envelope pillow covers were incredibly easy to make.  I am a novice seamstress, so I went to "You Tube" searching for a tutorial.  I quickly found a great instructional video for envelope pillows, click here for link to video. 

Fabric Designer: Angela Adams  for "Architex" Fabrics Pattern: Casco, Color: Chocolate

Envelope Closure, Super Easy to slip off and wash

The face fabric on my pillow cover is an "Angela Adams" design.  She is one of my favorite artists and textile designers.  She lives in Maine and her designs are inspired by nature.  The "Casco" pattern on my pillows was inspired by the water off the New England coast.  You can check out all of her beautiful designs and products by visiting her website, click here.  As a commercial interior designer I am most familiar with her commercial fabric line from "Architex" fabrics and carpet designs with "Shaw Contract".  I ordered the "Casco, Chocolate" fabric used on my pillow cover from "Architex" about four years ago when I used it to upholster my dining room chairs. I had some large pieces left which I was always planning to turn into pillow covers. 

Well this week I finally quit planning and started sewing.  Once I watched the tutorial video, it only took me about 20 minutes to cutout and make each of my two pillow covers.  The backing fabric I used is also a left over from some roman shades I made several years back ( I don't know the name or manufacturer for this one).

Here is a link to the entire "Angela Adams" fabric collection for Architex

Angela Adams fabric collection

 

Mickey Mouse is in the House

This past weekend was filled with celebration for my oldest son's third birthday.  It is hard to believe he is already three. One of his favorite things right now is Mickey Mouse and the Disney Junior cartoon, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse".  I decided that for his party I would try to make a Mickey Mouse cake.  In planning, I pinned several cake ideas to my ongoing "Birthday Cake Ideas for Toddler Boys" inspiration board on Pinterest.  You can check out my entire Pinspiration board of ideas by clicking here.  I ended up finding a "Wilton" Mickey Mouse cake form at Hobby Lobby.  With the help of a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby the cake pan was only around $8.

I used a "Betty Crocker" cake mix and the "Wilton" whipped icing mix.  I colored the icing with "Wilton's" black, ivory, and peach  color gels. Because we had several guests at the party, I also ordered some cupcakes from Sam's Club.  You can get 30 cupcakes for $13 and some change at Sam's Club. I bought some Mickey toppers at our local "Party Corner" store.  I thought the Mickey toppers were expensive at $5/per package of eight, so I only got one package.  I just placed one here and there in the cupcake box and left the "Happy Birthday & Balloon" toppers that came from Sam's on the others.

The cake ended up being a bit too dry, but all in all we had a great time!

To recap my cake decorating experience to date, below are the photos from the past birthday parties for my boys.

Cake from my youngest son's 1st birthday, June 2012

Cake from my oldest son's 2nd birthday, March 2012

 My first decorative cake was a Dinosaur cake for my oldest son's first birthday, but I can't seem to find the pictures.  It was a fondant covered cake with Dinosaur  and circle fondant cutouts. Maybe I can find the pictures soon and post an update.

Have a great Monday!

Laura

Table Runner, Done

This week has been really busy.  I am planning the last minute details for my son's third birthday party this weekend and my "job that pays money" has been really hectic as well. Somewhere in the mix, I found time to sew my table runner with the Chevron fabric that I first mentioned in this post, click here.  I made the table runner a bit shorter than typical because I didn't want my boys to be tempted to grab it and pull it off.  The length may be a bit unusual, but I love the color and fun pattern it adds to the table top.  I had some green dot fabric leftover from another project that I decided to use as the backing to the runner.  Now, I can flip this "reversible" runner from gray/white chevron to green dot depending on my mood. The total time invested in this project was just 20 minutes.

On another note, I was out in the back yard this afternoon with my boys enjoying the creek and the sunshine.  I don't think I will ever get tired of this view.

Does anyone have any other quick projects to share?

My little survivors

The pansies that I planted late last fall made it through the winter.  The little dose of warm weather that we had this weekend seems to have breathed new life into them. 

I have been working to upgrade this blog.  I just added a "house tour" page to make it easier to reference our home renovation progress.  I also increased the font size of text for easier reading and I am currently working on ways to make it easier to "pin" images from this blog to "Pinterest".

Speaking of pinterest, you may want to check out my "Guest Bedroom/Sewing Room" inspiration board by clicking here.  This is one of my current projects.  We have been cleaning out this "catch all" room in hopes of painting it this week. 

Does anyone else have a Pinterest Board of renovation inspiration to share? If so, just post a link in the comment line.

Have a great Monday!

Freeze Frame

As much as we may sometimes want to, you can't freeze time.  You can however, freeze your child's hand prints in clay.  I picked up a tub of Crayola's "Air Dry Clay" the other day at "Hobby Lobby".  I rolled out a piece and together my husband and I corralled the boys for a hand print.  The clay took about two days to dry.  I had a shadow box on hand that I had picked up  a couple of months ago in a buy one get one for a penny sale at "Michaels". A little double stick tape was all it took to adhere the clay to the shadow box.  I had some left over dark grey linen cardstock from my Silhouette project (see full details on that project here) that I used for the backdrop of the shadow box.

The tulips you see in the bottom of the picture above were purchased to decorate my house for my Dad's suprise birthday party.  Below are some other flowers/decor that I used to spruce up the house.

Have you done any projects recently to preserve memories?  I would love to hear about them.

Sweet Little Easter Eggs

Sweet Little Easter Eggs $1.97 @Walmart

This past week I was shopping at..duh.duh.duh..Walmart.  This is not my favorite thing to do, but sometimes you can be suprised at what you might find on a mundane shopping trip.  These little painted plastic eggs are some of the nicest I have ever seen.  At just $1.97, I couldn't pass these little guys up.  I put these in the wood bowl on the table in my foyer (that previously housed some "faux moss stones" from Target) to help jump start our Easter.

This week, I also picked up some grey/white chevron fabric at "Hobby Lobby".  You can see this laid out on my dining table above.  I am planning to turn this into a table runner (wish me luck!).