Grocery Bag Holder

I loved this grocery bag holder that I found on one of my favorite sites Make It and Love It. I made one for my bro-in-law and his bride and loved it so much I decided to make one for my mom & sister.
I followed Ashley's tutorial which you can find here

I been obsessed with fabric flowers lately so I added one of those. You can find a great tutorial for fabric flowers here.

Tip Junkie has tutorials for many different types of fabric flowers. You can find them here.

Sugared Cinnamon Almonds (Like you get at the mall)

My mom made these the other day and I had to try them for myself. She found them here. They really are just like the ones you get at the mall and they make your house smell fabulous!

Ingredients

• 3 1/4 cups whole almonds
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1 egg white
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly spray with vegetable oil.

In a large bowl combine sugar and cinnamon.

In another large bowl, beat egg white until slightly frothy. Stir in vanilla and salt.

Add almonds to egg mixture and toss to coat

Pour almonds into cinnamon sugar and toss to coat

Spread sugar coated almonds onto lined baking sheet

Bake for 25 minutes; stir after 10 minutes

Let cool and remove from pan with slotted spoon

Missing my baby

Do you ever just miss your children?
They're just sleeping but you want them to be awake so you can hug them and kiss them.
But no mother would ever wake their child up....

I was so happy to hear Bridget's little noises this morning (actually, it's 11:15 and she just woke up from her 12+ hours of slumber. I'm lucky, I know) so I flung open her door and was greeted by her beautiful, giddy smile.

Oh how I love this little girl.

Recovered Sewing Box

About a year ago, long before I got into sewing, I went looking for a sewing box to hold the few sewing materials I had (like needles and thread). I found some cute ones but I thought $20 was ridiculous, especially since I was never gong to get into crafts. (Never say never!)

I found this at the thrift store. I liked the baby blue but the fabric was ugly, but who cares because, again, I wasn't into crafts. I look it home and it held every single crafty thing I had, with ample room to spare.

Well, now that I've come over to the crafty side and I use this all the time to hold my sewing notions, I decided that ugly old grandma cover had to go. I looked through my fabric remnants and found a fat quarter I had bought at JoAnns. It's hard to tell in this picture (because my camera sucks) that the blues match perfectly.

Much prettier now.

Appliqued Potato Bag

I think the potato fabric is a little dizzying and I liked the idea of appliqueing 2 potatoes onto the front of the bag so I gave it a try. This bag is for my BFF so I know she wont judge me for the flaws. I like this look a lot better than the all-potato fabric.

I'm anxious to start a pillow slipcover with appliqued flowers.

Homemade Baby Wipes

It seems that Kirkland changed their baby wipe formula and I don't like them much. So I decided to try homemade baby wipes. They're so easy and I like them much better.
I still carry store bought wipes in my diaper bad, these just stay at the changing table.

Homemade Baby Wipes

1 roll of strong paper towels, roll cut in half and cardboard removed
1/4 cup baby soap (I use Baby Magic)
1/4 cup baby oil
1 1/4 cup water
Container Place paper towels in container. Mix soap, oil and water together. Pour into container. Pill wipes from the center (where the cardboard tube used to be.)

I found a 2 qt. rubbermaid container at walmart for under $2. I tried to cut an "x" in the lid but it was made of hard plastic and it broke. It left a triangle shaped hole in the lid which actually works really well.

My favorite thing about these wipes is that they smell like Baby Magic. Yummm! Is there any better smell in this world?!

More Hanging Dishtowels

Turns out DH's brother and his wife's kitchen is red and black, not green. The rest of their house is green, but I guess I shouldn't have assumed. Anyway, I made them red and black hanging dishtowels and I think they turned out really cute.

My kitchen is red and white so I made these for myself.

Hanging Dishtowels

DD takes dishtowels off the oven door the second she enters the kitchen. I remember the dishtowels that had the crochet loop on top, but that's more for my mom's kitchen.

Yesterday I was browsing Somewhat Simple and found the solution to my problem. Tanya from Trey & Lucy was guest blogging and featured these hanging dishtowels

I was at Wal-mart and I went to look for dishtowels with matching potholders. The were out of red (my kitchen color) but they had green which is the kitchen color for DH's brother & his new bride. So I decided to make some for them.
All of this cost me $3! The potholders come in a 2-pack for $1 and the towels were $1 each.
At the last minute I decided to add some ribbon to spruce them up. I'll be watching for Wal-mart to restock their red dishtowels to make some for myself.

Potato Bags

We've lived in our new home since August and I finally ventured out to find some fabric stores today. I couldn't resist this potato fabric to make some potato bags. BTW, if anyone hasn't used one, they are incredible. Perfect baked potatoes in 5 minutes. I followed this tutorial

Orange Dream Cookies

I saw this on Ducks In A Row and had to try it. Oh. My. Gosh. So incredible!

Orange Dream Cookies
1 c. butter softened

2/3 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. sugar

1 egg

1 t. grated orange rind

2 t. orange extract

2 1/4 c. flour

3/4 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2c - 2 c. white chocolate chips ( I like just 1 1/2 cups)

Cream butter, sugars, eggs, extract and orange rind together. Combine flour, soda, and salt and then slowly add into mixing bowl with other ingredients. Mix in the chocolate chips at the end with a wooden spoon. Drop by tablespoons onto a cookies sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Makes 4 dozen cookies (when made with 2 cups chocolate chips)


Give them a try!

Easy Tortilla Soup

It's cold here in Utah. It's also the first snow that is sticking to the roads which meant doing my grocery shopping with a few adventures.

It's definitely a soup kind of day.

I read about an easy and filling tortilla soup and decided to give it a try.



Build your own Tortilla Soup:

Heat:
2 cups chicken broth
1-2 cups salsa (I did one cup)

Let everyone add their own fix-ins, such as:
shredded chicken
cheddar cheese
sour cream
black beans
corn
crushed tortilla chips
and whatever else you can dream up!


My mistake was that I was trying to get rid of some thanksgiving turkey and I added it to the broth to heat it up. Maybe it's just me, but you can't fake turkey for chicken. I just ate around it and added some cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips. Yummmmm!

Dress Solution

DH's little brother is getting married tomorrow to an amazing girl who has quickly become one of my best friends. I just love her!
We were asked to wear black skirts with a top in one of the wedding colors (hot pink, black, silver and dark green). I've had something in mind but I never actually put the outfit together until saturday night. I quickly realized that it just wasn't going to work. PANIC!

I remembered a black dress I bought and only wore once because it's a wrap around and running after a baby in church in a wrap around dress and teaching 3 year olds was rather difficult. Plus, the neckline is to low and putting a shades shirt underneath dressed it down quite a bit.

On Saturday night we ran to Shopko to see if we could find anything to make this work. When we were ready to give up DH saw a display of long sleeve tee's in hot pink. It was the right color, wrong look. And it didn't solve the problem of the wrap around skirt opening.

It finally dawned on me that I could insert some fabric to the wrap around part so that when the wind was blowing I wouldn't flash everybody.

I came home and started cutting up the t-shirt we bought. I sewed the front of the shirt into the neckline and the back of the shirt into the bottom.

Last night I decided that I didn't like the neckline because it's just a boring t-shirt neck. So I made the neckline to look like a corsage tee like I saw on Make It and Love It. I think it really completed the outfit. Here's the bottom: And here's the whole thing:
Then I made this hair piece to go with it using a super cute black button in the middle that I got in a button grab bag from Walmart