Baking Stuff

I love to bake!  I get that from my mom.  She loves to bake too.  The problem?  Then I end up eating it!  Ha ha ha!  I didn't actually do too much baking over the past few months just because I have been trying to eat better & if sweets are around, I will eat them.  Luckily we have many neighbors & friends who enjoy being the recipients of the baked goods.  

I made this simple bundt cake for my hubby's birthday:

 Luckily his birthday cake requires very little fuss.  He requests this chocolate chip bundt cake every year.  It is easy & it is so good!  What I also love about this bundt cake is that it's dense which makes it sturdy so it travels well too.  I can't do bundt cakes too often because they are just so heavy, but I'll make this recipe a couple times a year.  If you are in the mood for chocolate, lots & lots of rich chocolate, then this cake is the one!

Here's another pic of the apple decorated cupcakes we made for our annual back to school dinner:

 I saw this idea on Pinterest & they were so easy to decorate-red buttercream, green fruit slice cut in pieces to make leaves & a pretzel rod for a stem.  The girls loved helping with these too!

For Thanksgiving this year I made some pies:

 I'm not a big pie person, but my absolute favorite kind is the Apple Crunch pie (above right).  That's actually the only kind of pie I usually make.  So for Thanksgiving I thought I would branch out & also make a pumpkin pie & cherry pie.  Yum!

We went to my parents house for the actual Thanksgiving holiday & my mom made cupcakes with our girls:

 She had bought one of those little cupcake decorating kits & they turned out really cute!

For some sweet treats for friends during the holidays I dressed up my chocolate chip bundt cake & made them mini:

 Why are they just so cute when they are mini?  And they looked pretty with the powdered sugar "snow" & holly berries.

In January our baby turned 2!  She is SO into Monster's Inc. & Monsters University.  It is so funny!  She drags her little Mike & Sulley stuffed characters everywhere.  So it was just the natural choice for the theme for her birthday party this year.  I saw this Monsters inspired cake on Pinterest & decided to give it a try myself.

I think it turned out pretty cute:

Quinn loved it & that's all that really mattered!  Oh & it tasted pretty darn good too!

Crafty Stuff

Hello blog world!  Wow.  It has been almost one year since I last posted here!  Yikes!  Time really does fly when you are having fun.  I don't have any excuses for not posting for so long other than life is busy!  Even though things have been crazy busy around here I still manage to get my craft on when I can.  I decided to do a few posts with some pics of craftiness from the past year (I have been trying to remember to take pics when I do make something).

Here are the teacher gifts I made for the girls teachers for their end of the year gift last year:  

 I had gone to Utah in May with some friends & we went to this awesome wood/craft store called The Wood Connection.  I picked these cute wood pencils up at that store.  Then I just painted them, added pink glitter to the eraser, tied some silver ribbon around them & put each teacher's name on the pencil in black vinyl.  They turned out great!

When we moved to our new house the big girls decided they wanted to have their bunk beds separate for a while.  I decided they needed something above their beds.  But I didn't want anything too heavy (hello, we have earthquakes here!) so I just painted a canvas in a pink that coordinated with their bedding, painted a wooden letter of their initials white & glued it on the painted canvas:

 The pictures are from my phone & they are horrible!  Ha ha ha!  But they look really cute in person.

Then I painted some Ikea wooden spice racks white & we hung them on the wall next to each girls bed so that they could have a little shelf to put their reading books on:

 I know you saw that idea on Pinterest too.  But it works out great!  They love their little shelves.  Oh & the cute pink reading lights are from Ikea too.

My Aidynn has always wanted long hair.  She talks about it all of the time.  So for her 4th birthday last July I made her a Rapunzel braid:

 Isn't she darling?

Here's a better view of the braid:

 This was so fast & easy to make & it was by far her favorite gift.  It has definitely gotten a lot of use!  To make it I just braided yellow yarn, tied it with some pretty lilac ribbon & then hot glued some fake flowers in different shades of purple all over it.

I made myself a necklace for our family photos:

 I just used wood beads in different sizes & painted them a pretty aqua color.  I strung them onto ribbon & that's it!  It was an easy & inexpensive way to get exactly what I wanted to go with our colors for our family photos.

Speaking of, here's our family photo from last July:

I also made Aidynn a yellow wooden bead bracelet to wear.

(Photo credit:  Shari Hanson of Shari Hanson Photography)

In September we had our annual back to school dinner the night before the new school year began.  Every year it seems I add just a little bit more to it which is fun.  I totally got the idea for the apple plates off of Pinterest.  They looked so cute on our table: 

The chalkboard we use every year on our first day photos:

We also got the easel out for the girls to color on:

And they love coloring on the table when we cover it with paper:

Also inspired by Pinterest, cupcakes decorated like apples:

The annual dinner?  Spaghetti, zucchini & garlic bread:

I made my niece some thank you cards for her nautical themed baby shower:

 Simple is always nice.

And a Christmas photo of these 3 beauties:

They keep me busy, but I love them so!

Well, that takes care of some of the random crafts from the past year.  Stay tuned for the sewing & baking adventures!

Back to School Celebration

My first born started kindergarten yesterday. I don't believe it! {sniff, sniff} She was a little nervous to start kinder because it's full day (8:15 am-2 pm), at a new school, with a new teacher. So we decided to have a back to school celebration the night before school started to help her get excited for her first day. We didn't do anything fancy, just decorated with some stuff we had around the house already, but she definitely had fun & felt extra special. It turned out great!

I used my Silhouette to cut out the ABC, apple & 123 to hang on the wall:

We covered the kitchen table with the roll of paper from our easel. The girls thought it was so fun to color all over it & they couldn't even wait to start:

We also added a basket of apples & the alphabet letters from the fridge to decorate our table.

We made some cupcakes-Kaylee picked out the Funfetti cupcakes & frosting & I made some simple apple toppers for them:

We also made her favorite dinner-spaghetti, zucchini & garlic bread. We talked about how fun school is & then we got her school supplies ready & picked out her outfit for her first day. Then my husband gave her a father's blessing & I can tell it really helped her to feel comforted about starting kindergarten.

I have been seeing so many cute chalkboard signs all over Pinterest lately for various things-as an announcement for pregnancy or engagement, showing how far along you are in a pregnancy, sending a birthday or holiday message & even as a way to document what grade your child is in. I love the chalkboard idea! So I went to Michael's a few weeks ago looking for a plain, small chalkboard to use. Of course, they didn't have any. But I did come across this plain, inexpensive clipboard & I got an idea. I simply taped off a nice rectangle, painted it with about 3 layers of chalkboard paint & then embellished it with a cute apple stamp layered with a punched circle & scallop circle & then tied a little piece of ribbon through the hole.

Here it is:

It was so simple & cheap to make & we can use it year after year, girl after girl as a fun way to document the beginning of each new school year. I love the idea of having them write their own names on it so you can see how their handwriting changes as they grow!

And here she is on her first day of school, our brand-new kindergartener:

She looks so grown up!

Aidynn & I sure missed her during the day!

First Day of Preschool

Tuesday was my daughter's first day of preschool! She was so excited, it was really cute! It's hard to believe that next year she'll be in kindergarten. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves! I made a scrapbook page for her first day of preschool last year too & my plan is to document her first day of school every year & make a little school album for her. At first I felt like there was a lot going on in this page, but I really love how it turned out. Of course, I used My Digital Studio by Stampin' Up! to make it. I used the new Play Date digital designer paper kit, embellishments & quick accents kits. Since everything coordinates so nicely it makes it super easy to make great scrapbook pages. And here's to another fantastic year of preschool for Kaylee!

Back to School Teacher Gift

I knew that I would be needing a back to school teacher gift soon, but just didn't come up with anything creative on my own. I've been seeing everyone in the crafty blog world giving decorated bottles of hand sanitizer so I decided to make one too. Well, actually, they had this ginormous (40 oz) bottle of hand sanitizer at Costco a couple of weeks ago for only $2.50, so that kinda made this gift an even better idea! {wink, wink} So I peeled the front label off, used a little Goo Gone to remove all of the leftover sticky gunk & then I glued on my own label using the new & super adorable Stampin' Up! Play Date designer series paper. I added a pretty red polka dot ribbon at the top & attached a cute little tag as well so they would remember who it's from later.

Here's the tag:

And a close-up of the decorated bottle:

It's not a fancy gift I know, but it is very practical. And at least now it will look cute in the classroom while helping to keep everyone healthy!

Teacher Thank You Notes-Digital Style

My daughter's preschool class is putting together a special end of the year gift for their teachers. It is a digital book with photos & thank you notes from the families. I decided to use My Digital Studio for the thank you notes & I love how they turned out! And it was really fast to make them & then super easy to email over to the mom who is putting the whole book together. Another reason to love My Digital Studio!

Now if I could only get some of my digital scrapbooking done! :)