Counting down till Christmas

I bought these adorable iron on labels last January from Sweetwater Designs. I'm so excited to have actually finished something on time! I'll fill it up tomorrow with little treats and prizes for the kids, and will start the count down December 1st!

Sweetwater has a wonderful blog that I check far too often.

Here's the link to their ETSY site, where I bought the labels.

Elf Slippers Pattern and Fabric Kit

Every holiday season at Pine Needles the employees come up with some "quick gifts" to sell at the store. We create a one of a kind pattern and make up a whole bunch of kits to go along with it. Here's one of my creations... ELF SLIPPERS! They were SO fun to make, each of my kids will be getting a pair with their Christmas PJ's on Christmas Eve.

Pine Needles is selling the fabric kits (which include the pattern for a 3 to 8 year old and the cute little pom poms!) for only $9.40. There are still a few patterns and fabric kits left. You can purchase them HERE and they will ship it out to you! The slippers are made from green felt on the outside and super soft flannel by Riley Blake on the inside.

P.S. Just to let you know, I also made the stocking and gift certificate holder as well :)

Thanksgiving Kids' Table Ideas AND Free Pattern for "Mayflower" Treat Holder!

I can't believe November is half way over! Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I did some searching for Thanksgiving kids' table activities this year and found so many wonderful ideas. I picked out a few that I am going to to with my family this year. I am hoping to make Thanksgiving more of an exciting holiday for the kids. As I get older I am loving Thanksgiving more and more each year. It has become my second favorite holiday, next to Christmas of course. But I remember as a kid not liking it much. For kids I think it just a holiday to get past so they can get on with the good stuff. But I am truly excited for Thanksgiving this year (despite what my husband will tell you. I was teasing him about wanting to putting up the tree today) and I really want my kids to have a good time too. Here's all the fun that will be happening at our Thanksgiving kids table this year...

THIS site has free Thanksgiving scavenger hunt pages to print out. I think I'm going to add to this though, I want to include all the cousins names on the sheet, as well as the different foods I know will be served this year. I'll probably hand these out to the kids in the morning and let them check them off through out the day.

One of my favorite blogs had THIS great idea. I love it!

We actually did THIS idea the other night for family night and the kids had so much fun. P is still wearing hers everyday and has retold the Thanksgiving story to us all a dozen or more times. The only change I made is we chose a sparkly white bead representing religious freedom. I thought it fit better.

And lastly my own knock off Pottery Barn Thanksgiving kids table decoration. I love pouring over Pottery Barn catalogs for inspiration. I think I can count on one hand the amount of things I have actually purchased from their store, but the catalogs keep arriving in my mail box every month just the same.

I drew up a really quick little pattern for this Mayflower treat holder. You can print it off HERE for free. I want to make one of these for each of the cousins to set next to their plates, and I really think that is an achievable goal, seeing as how fast they came together!

To make this cute little boat, print off the pattern and cut two boat sides and one boat bottom from brown felt. I was able to make 2 boats out of one fat quarter of felt. Put the two boat sides together and blanket stitch down both sides. Then blanket stitch the bottom of the boat into place. I used the blanket stitch on my machine and it took my a grand total of 3 minutes! Gotta love projects like that! I used some left over wooden skewers from cooking kabobs last summer to make the boats mast and cut a sail out of white card stock. I hot glued the skewer to the bottom of the boat to hold it in place and once I filled it with candy it held up the "mast" perfectly. When I presented it to the judges (my kids) and asked them what they thought, the two big kids both yelled out "Mayflower!". Perhaps it's been all the talk of Thanksgiving lately, but I was very impressed they even remembered the boat's name!

I mentioned earlier that my youngest had a minor surgery last month. I realized I better explain a bit more so you all don't worry. She had a little cyst on her eye that needed to be removed (you can see it here in this picture take right before surgery). Not a big deal. She is doing great and back to her old super silly self. Doesn't she look cute in the mini hospital gown?

I have to say I love Primary Childrens Medical Center in Salt Lake City! They were wonderful with my daughter and made her feel so loved and special. Thank you Primary Childrens!

Easy Bake Oven Cake

I am still here! October is a very busy month at our house, at least this October was. The month started out with The Boys 9th birthday, in the middle of the month C had to have a minor surgery, and then there was Halloween. I actually have been sewing quite a bit. I have a quilt that is being quilted for me right now and I've been working on 5 Christmas surprises that I'll have to wait a few more days to tell you about :) But for now I thought I would share with you this fun little project that me and P worked on today.

It's snowing like crazy at our house right now and that always makes me feel like baking. Apparently my daughter feels it too, because she woke me up early this snowy morning begging to play with her Easy Bake Oven. Soon after she got her Easy Bake Oven for Christmas last year, we ran out of mixes. I went shopping for more and quickly left the store with a resolve to make a few of my own, less expensive, recipes. This is our favorite recipe...

Pretty Pink Baby Cake

7 Tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

1 or 2 drops pink food coloring

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

4 teaspoons vegetable oil

8 teaspoon milk

Mix all the ingredients together until the batter is smooth and evenly pink. Spray your Easy Bake Oven cake pan really well (the one that comes with the oven) with non stick cooking spray. If you have ever baked with an Easy Bake Oven before you know these little cake pans stick like mad. Pour about 3 Tablespoons of batter into cake pan (fill it out 3/4 of the way). Bake 15 minutes. This recipe makes a 2 layer cake, but we have never been able to wait for the second layer to cook before starting in on the first layer. It's actually pretty yummy, especially with this simple recipe for frosting...

Powdered Sugar Frosting

1 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon milk

I usually don't measure this actually. I put about a cup of powdered sugar in a bowl and add a drop at a time of milk until I like the consistency. DON'T add to much milk, it gets running really fast, only a little milk is needed. If you do add to much milk, just add more sugar and eat the left over frosting right out of the bowl! :)

Here's a picture of a single layer of the cake. If you have the patience to wait, cook both layers and stack them with frosting in the middle. P ended up eating one cake herself and serving the other to her brother and his friends.

And just so you know I haven't abandoned my sewing machine, here is a picture of some adorable Christmas bibs I created this week for the Pine Needles. Patterns and kits will be available this weekend durning their Christmas open house.

P.S. My darling son broke my camera the other day :( So all these pictures were taken from my phone. I am asking Santa for a new camera for Christmas (secretly a little happy our old one broke because the one I'm asking for is much nicer) but until then my picture quality will be lacking.

Korker Ribbon Hairbows Tutorial

I needed a black and yellow hair accessory for P's Halloween cheerleading performance. I didn't expect that to be very easy to find. So I decided if I wanted it done right, I better do it myself.

You'll need grosgrain ribbon (it takes a lot to make a really cute, full bow. I think it was about 6 yards total for the 2 little hair bows), a couple of 1/4 inch dowels, some elastic ribbon, string, thread, whatever... just something to tie it in the middle, and either clips or soft bands to attach the bows to.

I bought my dowels at Walmart for about 25 cents a piece. I cut them in half (easily done with a kitchen knife) so they would fit in my oven.

Wrap your ribbon like shown around the dowels. I tied my ribbons at the end, but you could also use wooden clothes pins. I eventually went back to the store for more dowels so I wouldn't have to wrap... bake... repeat... every 30 minutes all day long.

Put your wrapped dowels on a cookie sheet in your oven set at 275 degrees for 30 minutes. Ovens vary, so I definitely wouldn't leave them unattended, but this time and temperature worked out nicely for mine.

Let them cool a bit and remove your ribbon from the dowel. It's all curly! Cut your ribbon into about 3 inch pieces (depending on how big you want your bows).

Tie them in the middle. I used some stretchy jewelry string to tie mine (the same stuff I used for my button bracelet post).

I fluffed them up a bit and then hot glued it to a soft little ponytail band. She looked absolutely darling for her first performance!

Tomato Cage Ghost

I've search and searched for the original idea for this tomato cage ghost and I just can't find where I first saw it. I wish I could say it's an original idea of mine, but it's not. If I discover where I first saw it I'll make sure to give credit where credit is due.

Anyway, I LOVED this idea at first sight. Here is my version, along with a quick tutorial to make your own.
I'm not much of a gardener. About 6 years ago we grew some pumpkins and they turned out great. Ever since then I haven't been able to grow a thing. Even my flowers this year died. So I had to borrow this tomato cage from my mom. If you are a gardener you probably have a couple tomato cages that lay around all winter. Here a great way to get a little more use out of them.

I dug out a string of Christmas lights and wrapped the tomato cage a few times.

Then I threw an old white sheet over the whole thing.

I wanted to make a cute ghost with a smiley face and a pair of shoes sticking out of the bottom of the sheet (like a trick or treater), but the kids wouldn't have it. They are tired of my "cute" Halloween decorations and wanted something scary. I cut some felt shapes for his face and glued them to the sheet.

Well it's not that scary but it does look pretty cool all lit up.

Our "spooky" front porch.