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

Hair Bow's & Clippies

Lately I've been making bows in my free time. It is so much fun! DD has an amazing full head of curly hair and I love making a bow to match all of her outfits. All you need is ribbon, a hot glue gun and alligator clips (which I finally found at Sally's. I got 100 for under $5.)


I've found a couple great websites.
hair-hardware has great instructional videos.
Girly Things also has great ideas.
And I found instructions on Ribbon Retreat to make butterfly clippies.

DH's little brother is getting married on Wednesday and I've been trying to decide what kind of bow to make for DD. Her dress is pink and gray so I decided on a pink pinwheel bow with a silver surrounding loop and a jewel in the center. I couldn't resist trying her dress on her with a bow. On the wedding day I'll do pigtails with two bows. This butterfly clippy has a korker body which are so fun and easy to make. You can find a video tutorial on korkers here.

Meet Daisy

This is Daisy. And I love her!
She is my Christmas present from DH. We dragged DD out of bed to get her at midnight. And we were the only ones there for a sewing machine.

Thanks to the sweet Walmart worker who tipped me off to this sale a few weeks ago! Now I can finally start making all the things I've seen on all the blogs I stock follow. I'm so excited. Thanks hubby!

Full of Thanks

I have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful for my beautiful family. My wonderful husband who loves me and my beautiful daughter who brings us to much joy.

I'm thankful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and for his sacrifice on my behalf. I'm grateful to belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and for the blessings that have come into my life because of it.

I'm thankful for temples. I'm thankful that I was able to go to the temple with my husband and daughter and be sealed for time and all eternity to them and my future children. I am thankful my life. I'm thankful for this day that reminds us to ponder the things we have to be thankful for. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Snazzing up some notepads

Life's crazy right now. Not only is tomorrow Thanksgiving, but DH's little brother is getting married on in a week. I've been making bows and clippies for DD in my spare time, but I had a few minutes tonight and I wanted to try this. I saw it on another blog (can't remember which).

I just took some paper and cut it to fit the binding on the top of this notepad and glued it on with Elmer's glue. Fun and quick.

Sob-Fest

DH is working and I've been sitting her for the past hour having sob-fest 2009!!!!

I've been reading NieNie You probably all know about NieNie already, but I'm just now learning about her.

She has made me appreciate the small things in life. I can cook for my family, I can pick up my daughter, I can bathe myself. What an incredible story. Check it out if you haven't already.

And grab the tissues.

Organized Grocery Shopping

Back in June or July I decided that I could save a lot of money by only going to the store once every two weeks. But in order to do that I needed to be super organized so I could remember to get everything we would need for 2 weeks.

Organization is a hobby for me so this was just fun! I ended up with 2 excel documents(Click on them to see them bigger). One for my menu: and this one for my shopping list:I don't mind going to multiple stores for the best deal so I have my 3 most shopped at stores on my list plus a spot for any other stores I want to hit. I have my most purchased items typed in and I just highlight it if I need it then I have space to write in whatever else I need. I like having items already typed in because it reminds me to check and see if I need it.

I like having my list in excel format because it is always changing depending on my family's needs. For instance, my baby no longer drinks formula so I'm taking that off the list. And I now make my own laundry soap so I can take off the list as well.

I was going to be all fancy and link my excel documents for anyone who wants them, but I can't figure out how to do that and my fussing baby prohibits me taking time to figure it out. So if you want them, let me know and I'll email them to you.

Leftover List

This is not some cute craft idea, just something I just started doing that hopefully will save some money. Heck, maybe everyone already does this and I'm just slow.

DH loves leftovers (lucky me!) but he's always forgetting what we have. He got the idea to keep a running list of what we have in the fridge for leftovers. I thought it was a great idea since the day before I threw out a bunch of old food.

So here's what I came up with:

I got this board at JoAnn's in their little $1 - $2.5o section a long time ago.

So I wrote down everything we have for leftovers and to the side I wrote the date it was made and a "I" or "O" indicating whether it's in the fridge in the kitchen or the "outside" fridge (it's not really outside. It's in the pantry)

DH is really good about finding something to eat when he's hungry and it's not meal time. He usually goes for Ramen, but with this I'm hoping he'll eat up all the leftovers and I won't have to throw away old food.

Rolled Turkey and Stuffing

My dad used to make this and we all loved it. DH and I are going to be on our own for Christmas and I thought this would make for a good Christmas dinner. I decided to try it out for Sunday dinner.

I found a 4 1/2 lb. bone-in turkey breast. After thawing it all night I woke up and boned it. I've never boned poultry before, I just tried to stick as close to the bone as possible. It was quite fun, I felt like I was back in the Operating Room.

Anyway, after I boned the turkey I laid it out flat. I made 2 batches of Stove Top stuffing and cooked up some loose sausage and mixed the two together.

I spread out the stuffing/sausage on the turkey and then rolled it up, securing it with thread.

I baked it in a roasting pan and served it with mashed potatoes and pan gravy.

MMMMMMMMM GOOD!

It definitely doesn't need 2 batches of stuffing, but DH LOVES stuffing and only likes turkey.

Another Wall folder

I couldn't help myself. I made another one last night!

No more ugly white boards

Problem: White boards are very useful but they're white and boring.
Solution: Fabric underneath the glass and write on the glass!

It's so simple! I found a $3 frame at DI, fabric for $1.50/yard at Walmart and voila! A message board with some style.

I had planned on paining the frame black, but the wood matches the wood in our kitchen so with a little Old English to fill in the scratches (isn't Old English amazing!?), here's a message board in less than 10 minutes!

Wall Storage Folder

I saw this on a blog and set out to do my own right away. This is a super cute way to store all those pesky loose papers that add up so fast.



All you need is an old book that you're willing to sacrifice, some scrapbook paper or fabric, and some ribbon.

I'm not so good at taking step by step pictures you can look at the step by step tutorial that I used here.

Here's my brief tutorial:
I couldn't find any books in the house that I wanted to sacrifice so I went to DI in search of big (larger than a piece of paper) hard cover books. The only problem is that I kept finding the perfect size book but it would be a great recipe book and I didn't want to tear it apart.
Anyway, I finally found 3 books for only $1 each.

I decided to cover mine in fabric so after I cut the pages out of the book and had only the cover left I plugged in my hot glue gun and set to work covering the outside of the book. Then I used some scrapbook paper for the inside of the book, because some of it will be seen.

I followed the tutorial when I made my holes for the thread. I used embroidery thread and coordinating buttons , but you can use anything.

I know my tutorial is very vague but if you follow the link, it tells you everything you need to know.

This takes less than an hour to make and you may already have everything in the house to make it.

Hair Bow & Clippy Holder re-do

I wasn't very pleased with the first hair bow holder I made. The black and hot pink just didn't fit in DD's room. So I started again and I am much happier this time.

Hair Bow & Clippy Holder & Covered Baby Wipe Case

After having the entire family, myself included, down for a couple weeks with H1N1, I woke up with an urge to to something crafty. After blog stocking my favorite inspirational blogs, I decided to make a hair bow & clippy holder for DD.

I went to DI and found a the perfect sized frame for $1. Then I went to Wal-mart in search for fabric & ribbon. I found some really adorable fabrics but the thrifty girl in me could not resist the clearance fabric. I found hot pink and black pinstripe fabric for $1.50/yard. I got some coordinating ribbon and headed home.

Here's what I started out with:And this is what i ended up with:

This is really the easiest little project. The most difficult task was deciding how to place the ribbon.


While I had everything out I decided to try another little project. You can find a tutorial for it here. It's not great, but I think it's a pretty good first attempt. I'm excited to get better at it and give them out for gifts.
I have to share this great DI find: This cute little coat rack was only $1 at DI and perfect for DD's room. It was brand new, still in it's package. I love DI!

Creamy Potato Soup

Swine flu has been rampant in my house. Before DH got it and he was taking care of me, I asked him to make this recipe that I found on Recipezaar. It is surprisingly delicious!


Creamy Potato Soup:

4 cups chicken broth
4 cups peeled and cubed potatoes
1/4 cup minced onion
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, cut into chunks


Combine broth, potatoes, onion, and spices.

Boil on medium heat until potatoes are tender.

Smash a few potatoes to release their starch for thickening.

Reduce to low heat.

Add cream cheese.

Heat, stirring frequently, until cheese melts.

My baby girl's first birthday party

We had a birthday party for my beautiful daughter on Sunday. I woke up sick on Saturday morning (and later found out that it's swine flu) so this party was tough on me but I was determined to give her a good party.

Here's her ducky cake. It took 3 hours to decorate. The stupid beak was impossible to get right. I finally gave up. Below the cake are sugar cookies then cream puffs and strawberry cupcakes.

My mom couldn't believe that I let her ruin that ducky cake, but it was her birthday, so of course she got to have it by herself.

Not my baby anymore

My baby girl turned one today. She's growing up way too fast!

Caprese Flatbread

This is an all-time favorite recipe. I first had Caprese Flatbread at Olive Garden. I love that they post recipe's on their website. They have this recipe and even a video tutorial that you can see here.

After making this dozens of times, I have made some alterations to the recipe. The following recipe is my version of Olive Garden's Caprese Flatbread.

8 Roma or plum tomatoes, diced
1 1/2 tsp. minced garlic
3/4-1 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
2-3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
20 medium fresh basil leaves, stemmed and chopped (about ½ cup), or basil pesto
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
14 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
11 oz container of refrigerated thin crust pizza dough

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Dice tomatoes into small pieces. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

Add garlic, salt, pepper, ½ of chopped basil (or 1 TBSP basil pesto), and 4 Tbsp olive oil.

Set aside and allow mixture to marinate for 10 minutes.

Flatten pizza dough into rectangle pan as indicated on package, reaching to pan edges.

Drizzle dough with olive oil and brush it over dough.

Bake dough at 350ºF for 10 minutes on center rack. Remove crust from pan and place on center rack of the oven until bottom is crispy.

Remove from oven and allow to cool completely, about 10 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 450ºF.

Combine mayonnaise and garlic powder in a mixing bowl. Evenly spread onto the bread’s surface.

*** If using basil pesto instead of fresh basil, spread a thin, even layer of pesto on top of the mayonnaise mixture.

Top with shredded mozzarella to evenly cover surface.

Drain tomato mixture and spread evenly over the bread.

Srinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

Return flatbread to oven for 5-7 more minutes or until golden, crisp and bubbly.

Garnish with remaining chopped basil and serve.

***I prefer to make my flatbread with pesto instead of fresh basil. But to do this you need a really good pesto.