The REAL Housewives of Riverton

Riverton Housewives Round Up # 3!

2012-02-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Riverton Housewives Round Up!

Before we get to the linky party, we want to share our favorites from last week's party!

We LOVED this Menu Planner from Falling Down House. Anything to make meal times and grocery shopping is an A+!

This is one of a few ADORABLE Owl Valentines brought to us by Twirlly Girls!

Raising Oranges showed us this simple, yet fantastic desk update!

And our MOST VIEWED...

Is from Alderberry Hill! It's perfect for any mantle or shelf this Valentine's Day!

Thanks to everyone for linking up!!

Now on to the PARTY!

We have only a few requirements to play at our party...

~Be a Follower of our blog

~Link back to our blog somewhere on your blog (a text link will do, we are hoping to have RHW buttons coming very soon!)

~Link to the actual post you are sharing, not your blog in general. We don't want to make our friends search for the awesome ideas you are sharing! (No giveaways or Etsy Shops please)

Monthly Onsies - Baby Shower Gift

2012-02-06T09:42:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we had a baby shower for my Sister in Law, they're expecting their first at the beginning of March and we're all pretty excited for a new baby boy to snuggle!

I did the regular baby shower shopping, found him a bunch of really cute little outfits at my favorite store (gymboree) but I wanted to do something a little bit more. My brother in law is a pretty awesome photographer and I have no doubt that he'll probably rival me with taking pictures of his new baby and so I wanted to do something for him.

I saw this cute little thing on pinterest (of course)

and thought it was an awesome idea.

I didn't realize back when I pinned it that it was stickers! What a neat idea.

My plan was different though, I didn't know it was stickers and so I didn't order any stickers. Instead I wanted to use fabric.

This is what I came up with.

I did a onsie for each month including one that says *brand new*. I think they turned out pretty cute!!

Lady Kensington Dexter the Third

2012-02-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

We happily welcomed a new little 4-legged friend to our family this past Thursday.

She's a cute little 8 week old Golden Retriever and we're smitten with her.

Let the house training begin!

Simple twirl skirt - Thanksgiving sewing project

2012-02-03T00:00:00.004-07:00

So I was realizing that I was doing a really bad job sharing my fun sewing projects (unless it was for pattern testing), because of that I have decided to fix that and share some the projects!

The older girls weren't interested in having a custom outfit for Thanksgiving, they had cute stuff that kind of fell into the fall colors so I was OK with that but Little Missy is my "do what I want with her" baby and so she got a cute little skirt & sash that turned into a pretty cute outfit.

Bow we've had for a few years from Gymboree, t-shirt is from Baby Gap, skirt & sash by me (material was purchased at Material Girls but I don't think I can give you any line names or anything - sorry, I'll try to get better at that). Tights are from somewhere and the boots I found from an Etsy shop it seems like forever ago and we just love them!

So, the skirt! There are like 940 million free twirl skirt tutorials online so I didn't make one up when I made the skirt. I've been making them for it seems like forever and they're quick and fun! Here are a few different online tutorials to help you out if you've never made one before - warning though! Once you make one you'll want to make like 20! They're that simple.

Punky n Munky

Dana Made It

indietutes

For my skirt I picked a fabric for the top and then realized it was going to be hidden by her shirt so I made a sash out of the same fabric because I loved how they all looked together. I also used a pair of pants the darling hubby no longer wanted for the corduroy piece. The last thing that I did that is probably different than your standard twirl skirt is that since I didn't want to worry about hemming the bottom I used this trick for having a nice finished bottom without having to worry about hemming! No hem skirt.

So there you go! Lots of resources up there so you can get started today. It's amazing what fabric prints look so great together and it's always so fun to see the smiles and of course who doesn't love compliments on a job well done! Good Luck!

Here's Missy showing off her skirt (and the whole outfit)

Big Brother wanted in the picture too (He is 100 MILLION percent in the middle of a dinosaur love affair, I should probably figure out something to make him because of that but everywhere seems to have dino stuff right now so it's pretty easy to just buy it - however if you know any cute dino gift ideas I could make please send them my way!)

Could it be she's trying to pose?...

Not sure what she was so shocked about but she was cracking me up!

She realizes better than he does that she's catching up with him! He still wants to hold her all the time though.

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

Snickers Cupcake & Recipe Round Up #2

2012-02-02T00:00:00.031-07:00

Totally random thing that I think you should know about me....I love baby carrots but every.single.time I eat a baby carrot I get the hiccups! Isn't that weird?

Anyway...

Typically I am NOT a baker. I leave things like that to my sister Paula and Lisa. With friends/family like that I don't *need* to bake but yesterday for our Young Women's New Beginnings night I was asked to bring cupcakes. I wanted to do something fun and it appears I was craving a snickers because immediately that is what I started searching for through good ol' google.

I found this recipe. It looked like something I could do!

Here is what you're going to need if you want to make these yourself:

Snickers Cupcakes

Makes 24-30 cupcakes

For the cake:
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil’s food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs; lightly beaten
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon of vanilla
24-30 frozen Snickers Miniatures (I used more than that, I bought a bag that had about 36 in it and then still used some frozen snack sized bars for the garnish on top)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line (2) 12 cup muffin tins with paper liners.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs, vanilla and water.
4. Evenly divide the batter amongst the prepared pans.
5. Gently push a frozen Snickers Miniature bar into the center of the batter and smooth the surface making sure to cover the candy bar with batter.
6. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Cool cupcakes thoroughly on wire rack.

Here are some pictures so that you can see how I did things.

Step 1 - how the batter looks all done without the snickers.

Cupcake liners filled about 2/3's full

Place a snickers on top of each cup of batter

I used a toothpick and pushed them down into the batter

The recipe says to make sure your candy is covered with batter so I used a spoon and smoothed the batter over the top of the candies

Here they are baked up and cooling on a rack

Here is the frosting recipe:

For the frosting:
2 sticks unsalted butter; room temperature
1/2 cup shortening
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 pounds confectioners’ sugar (friendly help - 1.5lb of powdered confectioners' sugar is right about 5 1/4 cups)
1/3 cup caramel topping; plus more for drizzling
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method1. Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer. Add the vanilla extract, salt and caramel syrup and combine well.
2. Begin adding in the sugar and mixing thoroughly after each addition. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, give it a taste and decide if you want to add in more caramel syrup. For thicker frosting you can gradually add in a little more sugar.

Butter & shortening creamed together

Everything except the powdered sugar

Powdered Sugar added (this stuff tastes so yummy!)

I do NOT have all the cool decorating tips (I mentioned above I don't do a lot of baking right?...) so my go to product for frosting is a ziplock bag! I cut a hole in the corner of the bag about the size I want to use and go from there...so far it hasn't let me down!

Here are the cupcakes all decorated and looking yummy. I used my ziplock bag and put my frosting on top of the cupcake and then used crushed up snickers (I had them frozen in their back and whacked them with the handle end of a butter knife it left me some big chunks and some almost powder, it was perfect).

Once I added the snickers I used Hershey's caramel. I just drizzled it over the top of them.

This pictures job is to show you that decorating these cupcakes is NOT a clean process, the caramel drips down the sides (before I put them up I'll take the tinfoil wrapper off which reminds me - Paula just informed me that you're suppose to keep the paper liner inside the tinfoil liner!!! Did you know that? Please tell me you didn't and that I'm not alone!) and the snickers gets everywhere but the taste makes up for the mess I promise!

So, there you go. I was able to get 28 cupcakes out of 1 batch and aside from taking a little longer than normal cupcakes to make they were quite easy and seriously yummy!

(here is where I also apologize for the picture quality - with 7 kids you can imagine this isn't something I did during the day so you're getting night time pictures.)

There was one little thing I wanted to add to make these even a bit more dressed up if you will. I have seen like 30 tutorials on how to do this but I didn't follow any of them and cannot for the life of me think of what to call it so I can try to search for it to show you how to do it - SO I'll just have to tell you.

I wanted to make little chocolate hearts to put on top of the cupcakes. I have Hershey's milk chocolate chips so I used about 1/4 - 1/3 of the bag (and it was more than enough) - put it in a glass bowl and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and stirred, put it in for another 30 seconds and stirred - did this 3-4 times until it was all nicely smooth and melted. I then did my ziplock trick and clipped a tiny corner off the bag. I put parchment paper on a cookie sheet and just free hand drew hearts on the parchment paper. After just a few minutes (like 10 tops) in the freezer they came off the parchment paper with no problems at all and were pretty easy to transfer onto the cupcakes. I would assume that if they get warm enough the chocolate hearts will melt but they held up for our fun evening!

See how cute they are!

Just one more little touch of love!

Here are our linky party rules...
~Remember this is a RECIPE link up so your post needs to include the recipe of what you are making. Also it needs to be something you actually made.
~Be a follower of our blog.
~Please link back to us somewhere on your blog.
~Link to the actual post you are sharing, not your blog in general. We do not want to make our friends search for the awesome recipes you are sharing! (Please no giveaways or Etsy shops.)

We do encourage you to check out some of the other recipes that are linked up because that's what this is all about! Sharing recipes! :-)
Remember to check back each Thursday where we will feature a few of your great recipes and begin a new party! Also be sure to come back on Tuesday to share all of your NON FOOD creations!

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

Pattern Testing - Lindsey Dress

2012-02-01T01:57:00.002-07:00

Welcome February! We are STILL waiting for snow...maybe this month?

Please come join our 2nd Riverton Round Up, all non food projects/crafts/etc. welcome (food items are welcome to our Recipe Round Up on Thursday)!

I had another chance to pattern test a new dress pattern for Brynnberlee. This one is called the Lindsey dress and should hopefully be available this week sometime.

I will admit that for me the scallops around the arms were a bit hard. I will have to work on those because I really love the dress. I have an idea since this wasn't the fabric I originally intended to use and it seems like a lot of pink so I want to make a thick black sash to put around where the tie is to break up the pink a bit, I'll get more pictures when I get the sash done.

Someone was being a bit silly since Daddy was there playing with her.

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

Riverton Housewives Round Up #2!

2012-01-31T00:00:00.008-07:00

Welcome to the Riverton Housewives Round Up!

Before we get to the linky party, we want to share our favorites from last week's party!

We loved this ADORABLE cupcake hat from 19 Elephants!!

This Scrappy Doll and Quilt is so cute and came from A Farm Wife's Journal!

We loved the great idea with these Mommy and Me journals from Ducks In A Row!

And our most viewed...

Super cute Valentine Apothecary Jars from Uncommon!!

Now on to the PARTY!

We have only a few requirements to play at our party...

~Be a Follower of our blog

~Link back to our blog somewhere on your blog (a text link will do, we are hoping to have RHW buttons coming very soon!)

~Link to the actual post you are sharing, not your blog in general. We don't want to make our friends search for the awesome ideas you are sharing! (No giveaways or Etsy Shops please)

Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

2012-01-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Remember this post when I made five minute fudge? Well I made two smallish pans of it. My family ate one pan as just plain, chocolate fudge but I had plans for the other fudge! :-) I wanted to make a peanut butter fudge to go with it...because honestly, I love peanut butter and chocolate together almost as much as I love sandwiches!

So I started with putting 1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar in a bowl and set that aside.

Then I took 1/4 cup of butter and melted it in pan.

Once the butter was melted, I added 1 1/8 cup of brown sugar (light or dark is fine)

Then add 1/4 cup of milk and bring it to a slow boil for a couple of minutes.

Remove from heat and add 1/2 cup of peanut butter (I used creamy but next time might try some crunchy for texture), and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.

Stir those in until well mixed and creamy.

Take your peanut butter mixture and pour it over the powdered sugar in the bowl.

Blend those together until smooth. The mixture will be more like a cookie dough texture.

Spoon on top of the already set chocolate fudge. I used a piece of wax paper to press the peanut butter fudge into place and make it even.

Cover the fudge and put in the fridge for about an hour for the peanut butter fudge to set.

See! A great layer of chocolate and peanut butter fudge!

I usually wait for the fudge to come up to room temperature a little before I slice it. Also this is VERY rich...so I suggest small, bite size piece. :-) Enjoy!!

Knot Dress & Ruffle Pants sewing project

2012-01-28T10:46:00.002-07:00

I love to sew. It is something that I didn't really even try to do until I moved away from my mom because she was/is so amazing at it that if I wanted something done I would just ask her. Living states apart made that a little harder and made me have to actually start trying myself.

Over the years I have made quite a few things, mostly for my girls but some for my boys too. I have also over the years learned that things like patterns and I do not get along. I have found quite a few of the NEW style pattern (you know the ones you can buy from places like www.youcanmakethis.com - the ones that have a pattern you print out but also pictures of each step along the way so if you start going wrong you know right away that you are!) that I really like and I can use but still with the actual patterns that come on the thin paper that you buy at the store, I'm lost.

So now that I've rambled a bit I'd like to share my newest project with you. The baby is obviously a choice specimen to make clothes for. She's walking now so the outfits aren't lost in a crawling around little Miss :) I have been stalking Etsy looking at different types of clothes that I like, it's funny to me how styles that I have loved forever but have in the past seemed maybe a bit *over the top* have really gained popularity so I can have her wear them anytime and people don't think it's odd any more.

So here she is in the cute little outfit I made her this week. I love it and cannot wait to go get her pictures done in it! (I need new pictures to match her bedroom and I think these will fit the ticket).

(I am hoping to take new pictures soon since we were losing light in these ones but you get the idea)

Isn't she adorable? On Etsy that top/dress & bottoms would run you about $80 + shipping but thanks to watching for sales & using coupons I was out a total of $6 in material and I have some left!

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

BEST Microwave cleaning trick!!! So Easy!

2012-01-27T16:09:00.002-07:00

Ok, I have the most amazing and easy microwave cleaning tip to share with you!

1st I wanted to tell you that you've still got a couple days to join the recipe round up.

OK! Are you ready for this tip? I learned this years ago, like not long after we were married and my dread of cleaning the microwave went away.

I am pretty happy to say that my microwave is always clean. The other day the 13 year old was warming up some ribs and the paper towel he had covering it came off and of course it popped everywhere. So I figured that would be a good time to share this trick with you (since he didn't tell me and I didn't see it until the next morning).

Here is the lovely inside of my microwave (yay bbq sauce)

Step 1 - fill a glass bowl with water. I used about 4 cups of water.

Step 2 - set your microwave for 8-10 minutes

Step 3 - Once your microwave stops leave the door closed and let the water steam in the microwave for a good 5-10 minutes.

When you open the door it should be all nice and steamy

(you can see the steam dripping better on the door)

Ok, I don't have pictures of Step 4 because I couldn't take pictures and wipe the microwave down too. I didn't use any soap or a scrubber. I only used a hot wet washcloth. It took less than 2 minutes of work from me to get my microwave perfectly clean.

SEE!

(the little black marks are sadly something from the metal rack that won't come out)

The door is so clean you see the reflection back into the clean microwave.

So, that's it. About 25 minutes of time but like 23 of those minutes you can be doing anything else! No yucky cleaning stuff inside your microwave and it is beautiful again!

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

Melt In Your Mouth Monday

Five Minute Fudge and RHW Recipe Round Up!!

2012-01-26T12:00:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends! Today I'm going to show you Five Minute fudge! I went to a Pampered Chef party at my sister in laws house a good 7 years ago and they made this fudge! It was SOOOOO good and SOOOOO easy! I almost always use it as part of my goodie plates!

Here are your ingredients...

One bag of chocolate chips and one canister of frosting!

First thing, put your chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl...

Heat for 30 seconds at a time until melted (it took me about 1 min 30 secs). The chocolate chips will not be completely melted, stir them until it's smooth.

Then open the canister and heat for 30 seconds or until pourable.

Pour into the melted chips and stir until blended. You can use any kind of frosting. I used vanilla to mellow out the chocolate flavor just a bit. I have made it before with milk chocolate frosting and chips and it was delicious but SUPER rich.

Next pour your mixture into a greased 8x8 pan. (I had two 7x5 pans so my fudge was a little thinner)

Next you will put it in the fridge to set for an hour (or however long it takes for it to set). :-)

When it is set, pull it out and slice into small squares. I make them pretty small because it's very chocolatey fudge. :-)

Then set on a pretty plate and let everyone think you are an amazing fudge wizard! :-)

Enjoy and PLEASE be sure to link up to our first ever Riverton Housewives RECIPE Round Up!! We'd love to see what great food you've been whipping up in your kitchen!
Here are our linky party rules...
~Remember this is a RECIPE link up so your post needs to include the recipe of what you are making. Also it needs to be something you actually made.
~Be a follower of our blog.
~Please link back to us somewhere on your blog.
~Link to the actual post you are sharing, not your blog in general. We do not want to make our friends search for the awesome recipes you are sharing! (Please no giveaways or Etsy shops.)

We do encourage you to check out some of the other recipes that are linked up because that's what this is all about! Sharing recipes! :-)
Remember to check back each Thursday where we will feature a few of your great recipes and begin a new party! Also be sure to come back on Tuesday to share all of your NON FOOD creations!

One Year Blogaversary and a NEW linky party!

2012-01-24T11:28:00.001-07:00

Can you believe it's been a WHOLE year since we created this blog! It sure has come a long way and we are pretty proud of it! We've learned a lot about blogging over the past year and are excited to announce our very first LINKY PARTY! We've been linking up our crafts, tutorials, room designs, recipes, etc for the past year and are now going to host a party of our own!

Welcome to the Riverton Housewives Round Up!

Each Tuesday we are going to host a linky party for you to link up your crafts, tutorials, decorations, sewing projects and whatever NON-FOOD creations you can think of. Fear not my chefs and bakers! Starting on Thursday we are going to have a RECIPES ONLY linky party! Being the amateur foodie that I am, I think food deserves a party all it's own! :-)

We have only a few requirements to play at our party...

~Be a Follower of our blog

~Link back to our blog somewhere on your blog (a text link will do, we are hoping to have RHW buttons coming very soon!)

~Link to the actual post you are sharing, not your blog in general. We don't want to make our friends search for the awesome ideas you are sharing! (No giveaways or Etsy Shops please)

Weekend wrapup

2012-01-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Did you have a wonderful weekend? Was it relaxing or crazy busy?

To much of mine I think was spent enjoying good food!

Friday night after Nate's basketball game we headed out with Gena and Theron for a late dinner.

It was fantastic and yummy but the company was even better!

The girls were having a friend over for a sleep over so we all got to bed a little later than planned but we got up pretty early for a Saturday and we were determined to be productive.

While dropping the 5 year old off for a play date I got to visit with Vivian from over at A Dance for 5. The boys have been playing nearly every weekend but we've been hitting and missing so it was nice to visit for a bit.

We were FINALLY getting some *snow* and I was so excited to see it continue.

Nate and I had a very enjoyable work dinner at The Mandarin.

I was so excited to go. I have heard about The Mandarin from so many people and it has without exception always been raving reviews! I am happy to report that it did not disappoint. They take reservations which in itself is like a little miracle but then the food is simply amazing. Luckily we had a group of 8 and decided to eat family style so between appetizers and entrees I was able to try 12 different items, every single thing was fantastic. I TOTALLY recommend you go if you're around.

Sunday morning starts bright and early with Church starting at 9am. Before we left for dinner the night before I had everyone gather their Sunday clothes and bring them upstairs so that I knew they all had something. We even found the elusive other brown shoe!

Right after Church I raced home and made no-bake cookies for a treat for our 1:00 meeting. They went over very well and the plus is that we had a treat for the kids for lunches today!! I just realized that I haven't ever posted my recipe. I will do that this week - it seems everyone knows them but I have to search for the recipe every time and we love them!!!

Sunday dinner with the family was awesome! Ribs, parsley red potatoes, fruit & jello, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green salad and I am sure there was probably more. It was awesome! After dinner clean up we played a fun and competitive game of "May I?" (<~I should note those are NOT the rules we play by...there are long standing family rules that are used - especially at Sunday dinner!). I ended up losing out on 1st place by 5 points! It was a fun game.

We had dessert of pumpkin cake (another family favorite recipe I will be sure to share soon!) and then finally got out the door to get home and get the kids to bed.

After all the food it was a requirement to get some exercise in!

Bob does a good job of kicking your butt in weight loss yoga without making you want to kill him because he's annoying.

I also finished a book.

The Iron Knight was the last of a 4 book series and I am happy to report I very much loved how it ended! The 1st book is called The Iron King. They aren't brain surgery which is why I think I enjoyed them - just something to read and escape reality in for a while :)

Sadly the snow has not continued and we have nothing at all to be excited about as far as that goes!

Here's to a productive week!

Valentine's Red Velvet Cupcake w/Raspberry Marshmallow Cream Cheese Frosting

2012-01-21T00:00:00.022-07:00

So I have decided that I will do a monthly (maybe more) cupcake recipe to share with you! They are all going to be from scratch and since I'm not overly experienced with baking, hopefully easy for anyone to try! With Valentine's Day coming up next month, I thought I'd try a traditional red velvet cupcake with a yummy, nontraditional frosting. :-)

Didn't they turn out SO pretty?! And the best part is, they taste delicious too! The cupcake itself is not overly sweet and to me has a nice, strong cocoa taste. The frosting is cream cheese-y and since it's made with marshmallow cream has a great sweetness to it and the raspberries add a perfect bit of tartness to the whole package.

First I started by preheating my oven to 350°. Then I combined my dry ingredients in a bowl and set them to the side.

1 1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Then I creamed together all of my wet ingredients...

(I was very careful when editing my pictures not to adjust the color at all. The batter will be very red, but I think the picture looks crazy red because of the direct sunlight coming in through my kitchen window.)

Beat 1/2 cup softened butter and 1 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar until fluffy (about 4-5 mins on medium)

Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time

Then mix in 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup milk, 1 1/4 tsp vanilla and 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons of liquid red food coloring, depending on how red you want them to be. (Just don't go overboard because then you'll only be able to taste the food coloring in the finished product.)

Gradually mix in your dry ingredient mixture until blended. Be sure that you don't over mix.

See! Once the cocoa powder and flour are in the mix, it doesn't look so crazy red anymore! :-)

This recipe made me exactly 18 cupcakes. I filled each cup 2/3 full.

Now pop those bad boys in the oven! I baked them for 18 mins and then checked...they were well formed but not completely cooked so I put them in for another 6 mins. By then the toothpick came out clean and they were ready to cool! Don't over bake! You don't want to be stuck with a dry, crumbly cupcake.

Yummy and very red velvet-y!

While your cupcakes are baking, you can get your frosting together. It's amazingly easy with only three ingredients!

First take about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of FRESH raspberries and chop them. I used them right out of the fridge so they were nice and cold and didn't lose too much juice while I was chopping.

You don't have to chop them real fine. Nice, small chunks are good!

Now after you have done that, take an 8 oz package of soften, room temperature cream cheese and a 7 oz tub/jar of marshmallow cream. Blend those together on medium until smooth and creamy.

Add in your chopped raspberries...

I used a fork to carefully mix in the raspberries.

Let the frosting hang out in the fridge until your cupcakes are cooled and ready to frost.

See how nice they turned out! To frost mine the way I like, I put my frosting in a quart sized ziplock bag with the corner cut out. You don't want the hole to be too big or you won't have enough frosting to go around for all the cupcakes. :-)

After I frosted, I topped them off with a fresh raspberry. I love how this looks because I think the raspberries look like little hearts on top of the cupcake. :-)

So be sure to make plans to make this cupcake to surprise someone with on Valentine's Day! :-)

Edit: Husband just ate one and said it's his most favorite cupcake I've ever made! He said the cupcake is not too sweet and has good flavor and the frosting is just enough to go perfectly with the cupcake. He also thinks the raspberry/chocolate pairing is a winner! YAY! :-)

Linked up here
and

Your Recipe, My Kitchen

Savory Sunday

Makin' You Crave Monday

Market Yourself Monday

Made By You Monday

Just Something I Whipped Up Monday

My Meatless Monday

Muffin Monday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Two Maids A Baking

Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Tasty Tuesday

Tea Party Tuesday

Tuesday Talent Show

Taste This Thursday
Pomp Party Fridays
Friday Potluck
Fusion Fridays
Friday Favorites
I'm Lovin' It Friday
Fabulous Friday

Jocelyn Top Pattern Testing - Tunic

2012-01-20T11:36:00.002-07:00

I had the opportunity to test another pattern for Brynnberlee. This one is called the Jocelyn top. It fits my 7 year old more like a dress but I love it anyway and so does she!!! The pattern is still in testing but should be available soon.

She picked the green leaves to go with pink flowers!

I love that the dress/top is fully lined!

She dreams of being in pageants, can you tell?

The back.

The back has endless possibilities on how you can tie it, with 4 straps and 4 loops you can get it as tight or loose as you need it.

Cute gathered button detail.

Sarah's patterns are great and easy to follow, I highly recommend them!

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these:

Curly Hair Tutorial - Pinterest Pass!

2012-01-19T04:10:00.004-07:00

So this cute girl Kate has a really cute blog called The Small Things Blog. The blog is darling and she is adorable and so I kind of kept reading and reading and reading and I came across this post How to curl your hair with a curling iron. I personally don't have a lot of luck with the whole curling iron curling, I use a straight iron mostly because of how hot it gets but my 7 year old got a good curling iron for Christmas that heats up to 450 (55 degrees hotter than my straightener) and so I thought I'd give it a try.

My hair is quite a bit longer (and in serious need of color) than her hair is so I figured if it would work I would show you how it turned out.

I'm happy to report it turned out. With my length I did have to break it up into 5 sections but it worked. I also used a 1" curling iron and just a bit of hairspray.

I also used her How to wear a headband tip and am trying that out as well (typically headbands don't last long on my head because they give me a headache but dang there are so many cute ones).

So, here you go! Kate's curling iron curls on much longer hair!

Please excuse the extreme *cheese* Paula was a bit loopy while taking the pictures and was making me laugh a lot but she was also in a hurry so we couldn't do retakes!

Go check out Kate's blog for lots of great hair tips and tricks like this one!

What's the deal with bobby pins anyway - I was literally SHOCKED when I read this, I seriously DID NOT know that bobby pins go in zigzag side down. I DID know that if you want to be happy with bobby pins and understand why they're so awesome and actually get some that work you want to buy these:

I always buy black...not sure why (oh wait it's because I have figured out that I am NOT a brown person so I always tend to grab black if I'm not buying both) - I buy them in this lovely 1lb box at Sally's (unless my mom's around and we can go to Cosmo Prof). Our family goes through 2-3 boxes a year, please remember that I have 2 girls who both dance 2 days a week and have to have their hair in ballet buns for every class and recital, personally I probably go through a box, we aren't great about re-using the bobby pins after they've held in a bun and pretty much if my husband sees one on the floor he's going to throw it away SO, if you're better about taking care of them they'll probably last you longer, for the price we just seem to keep buying them :D They really are 100 MILLION % better than any that you'll buy in a regular store, I promise!

Disney Vacation Jar Tutorial

2012-01-18T12:16:00.001-07:00

So, a while back Lisa posted about the belief jars she did for Young Women's. I loved them and knew as soon as we started planning our family vacation this year to Disneyland (thanks to a very generous and exciting gift from my parents) I was going to makeover our vacation jar to be cute and a constant reminder of what our end goal is.

Monday night after our day of fun Nate and I talked to the kids about the vacation and about how much things cost and then got them thinking about how much money they'd like to save up for their own spending money. 5 out of 7 of the kids have birthdays right close to the time we're going and after talking to them it sounds like they just want money for their birthdays this year so that they can pick their own treasures at the happiest place on earth! I love talking with them and how a lot of them are old enough now to understand that things cost money and that some things they'll have to save up for and buy themselves.

SO, to keep us all excited and inspired for saving money for our vacation that is far away I made our jar all sorts of cute and I'm going to show you how you can do it too!

Here it is all done!

For this project you'll need:

a jar

lots of scraps of paper

embellishments of your choice

mod podge

foam paint brush

glue gun

We already had a jar (gotta love the size of the pickle jar from costco) and we'd already been using it as a collection jar so it already had a hole cut in the top.

Here are the papers I used. I already had them on hand from a project I did last year.

All the papers torn up into pieces - no rhyme or reason, just lots of pieces.

layer of mod podge on the jar (work in smaller areas so it doesn't dry before you get your paper on)

Start putting your papers on the mod podge (I found it is easiest to also put some mod podge on the back of the paper as well.)

Once you have a few pieces on start rubbing them down with your fingers (this is not a clean project).

Again once you have a lot of pieces pressed down with your fingers put a layer of mod podge over the top. I do my best to keep it as smooth as possible, it's still not very smooth.

Here is the other side. I wanted you to see that I put a piece of painters tape down the side of the jar. I figured it would help the kids stay excited if they could still see how full the jar was getting. Once the mod podge was dry I just used my xacto knife to run it down the edge of the paint and peeled it off. This step is purely optional.

While the mod podge is drying I started working on the lid. Step 1 was to trace all around it.

See, traced.

Step 2 was to cut it out.

Then I lined it up to make sure it was going to fit right.

Then I used hot glue to seal down all the edges. I couldn't take pictures of the steps because I can't glue and take pictures at the same time. I glued around the opening and stuck the paper down and then lifted sections around the outside and glued them down a bit at a time.

Then I used some black grosgrain ribbon and put it around the edge. As you can see it still isn't covering up all the yellow.

Luckily I had some red ric-rak ribbon so I just put it all around the top - again using hot glue.

I guess I didn't get a picture of the tulle step. No brain surgery there, just used some scraps of tulle and wrapped it around the neck of the jar a couple times and tied it so it was nice and fluffy.

To make the little Mickey Mouse tag type thing I used my stampin up scallop punch and my creative memories circle punch. I punched out a circle that fit inside the scallop circle. I backed them both with white cardstock so they'd be a bit more stiff. Then I happened to have a cute mickey mouse sticker (also from creative memories) and so I stuck it on the inner circle. I used hot glue to stick them all together which really gave the tag a 3D type look. Then I just used hot glue to attach it to the center of the tulle bow.

So, here you go again, finished pictures of the jar!

Here you can see the opening where the kids can see how they're savings are growing!

This is such a fun simple project. I had everything on hand to make it and it's possible you may too. There is no reason kids can't help out (just make sure they're wearing grubby clothes because mod podge doesn't come out). Have fun with it. Pretty much the options are endless.

Linking up to all these fun parties

and these: