Friday Faves

Digging the funky pattern on this easy dresser restyle! Check it out over at Better After. 

I had a dream last night that I made a quilt. Yes, I am even a nerd in my sleep! This looks like a cute project for a beginner over. See how to make it at Originate and Renovate. 

Gorgeous botanical prints! I have plans to have a bunch of these printed and framed. Find many more at http://www.botanicus.org/.

Fun activity, especially for boys at Come Together Kids. 

I hope everyone has a wondful Christmas!

Monster Cupcakes!!

I must admit that I am pretty smitten with these guys! Given my terrible track record with ornate baked goods, I was shocked that they turned out as well as they did. 

The body is a normal cupcake with a mini cupcake on top to add height. The icing effect was made by cutting the very tip off of a Ziploc baggy and randomly stringing the icing back and forth. 

The eyes are so fun! They are just Dum Dums stuck through peach rings with M&M pupils. 

Most importantly, they were a huge hit with my FIVE year old and his class!

Original tutorial can be found here.

Creamy Tortellini Soup

I make it a point to try at least one new recipe a week. Creamy Tortellini Soup is hearty and comes together quickly on a weeknight. This could easily be modified for the slow cooker. Just throw in all of the ingredients except the tortellini and spinach and cook on high for 5-6 hours. Add in the tortellini and spinach about 15 minutes before serving. 


Ingredients

• 4 cups water
• 1 Jar Ragu Garlic Parmesan Sauce
• 1 1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
• 2 Cubes chicken bullion 
• 2 Cups Cheese Tortellini 
• 1/2 Cup Milk
• 2 cups fresh baby spinach leaves or torn spinach
• Ground black pepper 

Saute onions and mushrooms until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute for another minute. Add water, Ragu, milk and bullion cubes, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, add basil, salt, oregano, pepper and tortellini. Cook another 5 minutes. Add spinach and cook another 5 minutes or until tortellini is cooked through. 

Recipe slightly adapted from BHG.

Friday Faves

Just a few of my favorites from around the interwebz!

[source]

I could scrub toilets in these and still feel fabulous!

[source]

Halloween Pre-K Pack. Sawyer will LOVE this!

[source]

I will be attempting these babies for Sawyer's class birthday party next week. Aren't they totally cute and scrumptious looking?

[source]

Loving this Mod Podge kid's table over Maple and Magnolia!

[source]

Strawberry Shortcake Sushi! This would be so cute at a party! 

[source]

Mittens from an old felted sweater!

Happy Friday!

It's Fall Ya'll

Yep, it's that time of year again. Time for falling leaves, cinnamon, pumpkins, halloween and all that good stuff! Fall's right of passage for us is an afternoon at the pumpkin patch. Luckily, we have a few good ones around here to choose from. We ate a big lunch and hopped in the car for a 30 minute drive south to Chesterfield Berry Farm. Even though we never make it out of any place without a meltdown of some sort, we did pretty good this time! Our camera ate most of our pics though (boo) so here's just a small sampling of our activities:

The hay ride is always a hit. 

No amount of screaming, clapping or funny faces with coax Sawyer to look at the camera. He actually says, "I am looking!" Sure, buddy. 

Just a lost soul waitin' on the train.

Train ride, corn maze, haunted house, pig races--lots of fun to be had. Ok, the haunted house was a trail  featuring every halloween decoration ever sold at Target and 90% were busted. However, Avery was still terrified! She's wimpy just like her mama! 

The Super Wimps! 

Mud Cupcakes

It has been way hot here so if an activity does not involve A/C or water, this crew isn't doing it! Our lovely pooches have been relentlessly digging up a giant patch of grass. The result is a patch of barren soil. Add water to this and voila, you're ready to get dirty and make some fab mud cupcakes!

There's no way to make this activity look nice, but it sure is fun! 

Everyone having their own spoon and bowl is very important if you don't want this activity to turn into baby mud wrestling. 

But who are we kidding, it will anyways! You could encourage your kiddos to find things in nature for cupcake decor but we didn't get that far. And that's ok! Just go with it! 

Don't forget to check out my new Etsy page!

Happy Belated Easter!

I am way late with my Easter post and now everyone is over it and here I am awkwardly posting photos. Story of my life.

We used boxed dyes.

But still got some pretty cool results!

Next, we headed to Sawyer's preschool for an Easter Egg Hunt. The toddlers went first. 

I love that they had a hunt just for the babies!

Next it was the big kids turn!

So.many.eggs.

Sawyer was incredibly particular about which eggs he picked up during the hunt. They were everywhere and he only picked one from each area before moving on. Maybe that means he'll try many things in life? I am digging too deeply here? ;-)

Extracting the prize!

Machine applique is my new addiction!!

My favorite pic from mom's Easter lunch!

Free Pattern: Last Minute Felt Easter Bunny

I like quick, I can't lie. This little dude is just about as quick as they come!

You will need:

1/2 yard of felt in blue (or whatever color your like)

Small bit of white and black felt for the eyes

Scrap ribbom

Stuffing

Basic sewing supplies

Download the template

1. Cut out the bunny and lay the pattern onto your felt. Pin or trace and cut two pieces.

2. Cut two small circles for the eyes and two even smaller ones for the pupils. Use fabric glue to attach them. Alternatively you may use a button or even stitch the eye.

3. Cut four pieces of various ribbon to approximately 2" in length. Fold them in half and pin them to the inside of the bunny. 

4. Pin both sides together and sew all the way around, leaving a small opening at the bottom.

5. Fill the small opening with stuffing.

6. Sew the hole closed. 

7.  Put in child's Easter Basket and make him or her happy! Or be like me give it to her before, she won't know the difference!

Avery toted hers around the yard all afternoon. I'm lucky it didn't become a dog toy!

Happy Easter!

Simple Things.

I don't make many things for myself and I don't like taking pictures of myself. Honestly, I hate the process of getting prettied up although I love the way I feel when I do. My girlfriend, Mary, made one of these fab necklaces for herself and I had to have one!

There are tutorials for these all over the web but basically you just sew a tube and slide little wooden beads down it, making a knot after each one. Easy fosheezy! Sawyer was asking over and over "When are we going to the park?" as I was taking these. Doesn't he know that photo shoots are waaaayyy more important than playing outside? I mean, come on kid!

Avery prefers to play outside the box. I hope she is like that in life.

All of the moments they spend picking at one another are completely trumped by the moment they spend sharing and being best friends.

Sometimes Sawyer will say to me: Mom, I love my sister so much! That's when I really feel so lucky to have them both!