Everyone Else Is Doing it!

When I saw this book page wreath on Living with Lindsay, I fell in love! Along with probably a thousand other bloggers! I've since seen it in different variations online. This little man became the proud new owner of my old low-temp glue gun. He was SOOO excited. Dallin too. After all--- it's a gun.

We grabbed a foam ring and a .50 paperback book from Goodwill and got to work! Aaron glued his little heart out. We had so much fun! It came together so fast and looks great. I like the way the edges of the pages turned out. We painted them like Lindsay did in the tutorial for an antique look.
An hour later and we were done! I used a strip of brown fabric, hot glued to the back, to hang it with. It is tacked into the wall just above the mirror.

Fuzzy Buddies

We're super big suckers for foamie kits. We have a whole shelf full of them in our craft closet. I found these at Joann's over the weekend and fell in love! They are the cutest little things ever and the kids had so much fun creating their little "Fuzzy Buddies". Kaylee even made one. She cried when it was finished and I didn't let her have it because it needed to dry.For your viewing pleasure we have Aaron's Red Fireman, Kaylee's Pilgrim (that's what Dallin called it), Dallin's biker fuzzy, and a Yellow Fireman that they made for me.

These little fuzzies reminded me of President Monson's talk in General Conference. I've been meaning to create our own WARM FUZZY JAR. We will incorporate it into a Family Home Evening lesson very soon.

Sharing this at Treasures For Tots

A Baby Boom! {and a little re-purposing!}

There have been 4 babies born in the past couple of months at church. I am now just getting started on making little cloth shoes for all of them. AND my sister is finding out what she is having in a couple of weeks so I will be stocking her up with little shoes too! These are so much fun to make. I made some for Kaylee last year and ended up making a million pairs. She was a very stylish little girl. Now that she has graduated to shoes with hard soles it's fun making them for my friends.

The little boy shoes are made from two shirts that were too small for my boys. They thought it was cool that I made tiny little shoes out of their old clothes. The fabric was in great shape and hadn't faded...because they are still at the point of just growing out of their clothes and not wearing them out! It was fun be able to re purpose them into something so cute! Finding boy fabric is so hard! Everything is so juvenile, baby blue, or to the other extreme; camo. I liked dressing my boys like "little men". Plaids, solids, etc.

I made Kaylee a pair of knit shoes out of two onesies when she was a baby. They were the softest little shoes and the perfect project for onesies that I would have otherwise thrown away since they had a couple of small stains on them.

The babies who are receiving these are only a week old. I hope they like them!

The tutorial that I used is no longer available to print out online

Sorry about that, but here is another one that a lot of people have used. The technique is a little different, but the end product is very similar. Very cute shoes.

 

Homemade Fortune Cookies

 I was so excited to find a recipe on how to make these! The kids and I made a trial batch today and they turned out perfect. So delicious....WAAAAY better than the store bought ones! These will be gifts for Dallin's bus driver, teacher, and my piano students this year for Valentine's Day!

The personalized messages will make them extra fun to open! Dallin opened one today that said, "Kaylee Loves You" :)

I am glad that we did a trial batch just to get the technique down. The recipe said that you could use silpat, parchment or just an ungreased baking sheet. I used parchment and the cookies stuck to it...BAD. So we used a baking sheet sprayed with non stick spray and it worked out perfectly.

Kaylee wasn't sure what to think. She broke off a few pieces then gave it to our friend Stephanie who dropped by just in time to help us taste-test them.

There are a few links to give credit to on this recipe. I saw the idea on Skip to My Lou,

who linked it back to Alpha Mom, who said it was a Paula Deen recipe. Both links had printable fortunes to put inside if you wanted to do that instead of making your own. So check out Alpha Mom's site to make your own!

You've Got Mail!

I saw these cute mailboxes at Target in the $1 section, and with Valentine's Day coming up I thought that the kids would have fun making little notes for each other. The kids love getting mail and now they can send and receive it all the time! They were SOOO excited to make these. They couldn't wait to start getting letters.

I told them that we probably wouldn't have time to make them that day. Aaron looked outside and said, "It's still sunny out! We have time to make them!" How could I argue with that?

The boys discovered the beauty of mod podge. They picked out what they wanted to have cut out on the cricut. Aaron wanted a pirate box and Dallin wanted a cowboy one. They brushed on a layer of mod podge, then attached their cutouts along with a stripe of cardstock to give the box a little more color.

Assembling their little paper cutouts and letters for their name.

Kaylee doesn't care about the cricut...she just likes pushing the on/off button. So I just let her color hers with some sharpie pens. She loved it. She also liked the fact that her box is magnetic and had fun putting little magnets all over it.

The first message arrived this evening! I left little notes and candy for the kids before I left for mutual (youth group) tonight since I wouldn't be home when they went to bed. I think we'll keep the mail boxes up year around!

Little Sofa Makeover

So this was my first re-upholstery project. I started small, lol. A friend gave this little couch to us recently, and while it was in excellent shape and super clean... it needed a make-over. It was the perfect size for Kaylee and we've been wanting to get her a little chair anyways.

I bought a yard and a half of one of my favorite fabrics at Joann's and a can of Krylon Fusion spray paint (for plastic) at Walmart.

I used the old slip cover as a pattern. The only tricky part with making the new slipcover was figuring out the pivot points (where the foam wedges meet so that it folded up correctly), but it ended up being a lot of fun and easy to do. She loves it! Look at those little cup holders---perfect for movies in our basement....which is almost finished!
Checking out the fold out feature :)

Amazing what a little paint and fabric can do!

Ice Wreath

I made this ice wreath after seeing one on a friend's blog. Her blog is private so I can't link back to it, but the inspiration came from the Idea Room. She shared the link and I fell in love with the blog! So many wonderful ideas. I have since made another wreath (this one melted after 5 days). The second one I made didn't have the blueberries. Just the citrus (oranges and limes). I am loving these cold Ohio winters...for ice wreath purposes. Other than that, I'd welcome back some heat :)

 

Easy Cheesy Breadsticks!

These little breadsticks are so easy to make and so yummy! Dallin loves all things 'butter'. Aaron loves cheese. So these are the perfect combo for them.You'll need refrigerator pizza crust or breadsticks and cheese....several varieties. We used colby/jack, mexican blend, shredded parmesan, and grated parmesan. We put a mixture of them in a pie plate with garlic powder and Italian seasoning. In another pie dish we put some melted margarine.
Roll our your dough. Dip in margarine/butter, then roll in cheese. Bake @ 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Super easy!
Aaron, checking on his meatballs that he made for dinner.
The perfect compliment to spaghetti and meatballs (the way Aunt Stacy makes them).

Homemade Noodles over Potatoes

Wait! Don't hit the back button yet. This is definitely a "don't knock it til' you've tried it" dish. When I first heard of this I thought it was a little odd. I hadn't ever heard of noodles with potatoes growing up in California. I mean, that just seemed like way too much starch in one dish. But they serve this all over the place here in Ohio. So now I wonder is it an Ohio thing, a Mid-West thing, or an Amish thing? Whatever it is, it is the best comfort meal around. Seriously. We've seen it at Amish Restaurants and Bob Evan's.

Here is how I make it:

Homemade Noodles

(this is a half recipe from Betty Crocker...plenty to serve 4)

1 c. flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg

2 T. water

1 1/2 tsp. oil

Mix flour and salt in medium bowl. Make a well in the center of flour mixture. Add egg, water, and oil to well; mix thoroughly. If dough is too dry, add a little more water. Gather dough into a ball. Knead 5-10 min. until smooth and elastic. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand 15 minutes.

Divide dough into 2 portions. Roll out to 1/8-1/4" thick. Cut into strips with a pizza cutter and dry on a rack (baking rack) for 30 minutes.

While noodles are drying:

Boil 2 chicken breasts in a medium pot. Shred.

Add 1 chopped carrot, 1 stalk celery, and 1/3 c. chopped onions to 1 T oil in a large heated pot. Saute until onions are clear. Add 8 cups of chicken broth, 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning, and bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes. Add noodles and boil another 5 minutes, or until noodles are firm but tender (they will be floating). Add shredded chicken. Remove pot from heat.

In small bowl combine 1/4 c. corn starch and 1/4 c. water. Stir into soup to thicken. You can add more 1 T at a time of both cornstarch and water if you want to thicken it more.

Serve over mashed potatoes (whatever kind you like. I make my own).

Oh, and if you want to add even more starch to an overly-starchy dish...serve with French Bread Rolls :)

Serves 4

Sharing this recipe with: Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, Blessed With Grace, All The Small Stuff