Christmas Favors!

I love that Lily is in preschool for at least a hundred reasons and one of them being that I get to be crafty & creative for a lot of special occasions, like Christmas! Today was Lily's Christmas party at school and she is so excited. They get a fancy Chick Fil-A feast and sing Christmas songs and have a book exchange, I'm excited that I get to take part in the festivities and get to see her celebrate with her friends.

First, I thought I'd show off my favor ideas for each little kid in her class. I thought they turned out really cute! Thanks to 2 Muses for the great idea on the Reindeer Dust!

Here is a picture of my chocolate dipped candy canes & the writing on the reindeer dust!

and now, here is my sweet girl at her first school Christmas party! She had a great time. 

Congratulations Chrystal!

This weekend one of my dearest friends, Chrystal had an amazing Harry Potter themed Bridal Shower, it was such a cute idea, you entered through a "brick wall" and the house was full of themed foods, drinks and decor. It was definitely a unique idea, it reminded me that I need to get caught up on my Harry Potter movies!

I was proud of a few of my creative touches for her shower gift so I thought I would show it off. When purchasing something from her registry, I took advantage of the free gift bag (of course!) but hated handing over a gift that would look like every other package on the table, so I added a little bling. From now on, I'll continue to take advantage of the free gift wrap but add my little touch of flare. The guests loved the diamond ring I added to the bag!

Inside her gift bag, amongst other things was a pot holder & wooden spoon bouquet. I thought it turned out really cute, using some artificial flowers mixed with wooden spoons and a few other goodies inside made the perfect gift for the Bride to Be. (Check out the floating candles in the background!)

It was an amazing shower and I ate WAY too much yummy food, Congrats Chrystal!

Christmas Time is Here!!

It is now "officially" Christmas time! I am so excited about all the new ideas I have for Christmas this year. I've already hung the Christmas countdown rings and wrapped the Christmas books for Lily to open one a day leading up to Christmas... and the ideas keep flowing! From my daughter's preschool class, Christmas parties and get togethers, I hope to have lots of excuses to use all the ideas and creativity flowing through my head. Here are a few of my recent projects to get Christmas started!

I tell ya, getting an active 8 month old to put his hand prints on anything is a challenge, I was happy to get his hand prints at the top of my canvas hand-print tree and that was a 2 person job! It turned out cute though. :)

Stationery card

Wishing You Merry Christmas Card

Custom Christmas cards are always available at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Lily's 3rd Birthday Flamingo Bash!

We had Lily's 3rd birthday at the zoo this year and wanting to go with a zoo theme and also keep it "girly", my wonderful husband (yes, I am actually going to credit you hun!) came up with the great idea to do it flamingo themed. I did most of my decor & invites using one pad of scrapbook paper & the "Life's a Beach" cricut cartridge. All the kids had a great time and I loved how it all turned out!

Thank you Sweet Treats by CC for the fantastic cake. She hand cut all the flamingo fondant pieces, find her on Facebook. :) 

Rice Krispie treats made with breakfast cereal, yum! :)

I had a flamingo craft for all the kids too! 

It's "Sew" Nice Out!

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately, as my friends and acquaintances start to think about the holidays, they think about needing some pretty dresses too. I love when a customer just tells me to pick something out, I try to find something new and try some new color combinations. Here are some of the dresses I've completed in the last couple of weeks.

Here is a dress for the fall & a Christmas dress for a one year old little girl. 

I loved this gingerbread fabric!

I also made 2 adorable Texan's dresses for twin girls. I am hoping their fabulous Mommy sends me some pictures of them wearing them tomorrow so I can show you guys how cute they turned out!

As always, if you need a dress for an occasion, feel free to email me! 

Cupcakes & Carvings

I am in full fall mode, and loving all the different ideas on Pinterest for fall too! Yesterday we carved our pumpkin and I made some "candy corn" cupcakes.

I read an article about how after you gut the pumpkin, let it soak in water for 12+ hours and the pumpkin will last an additional 2 weeks so after I gutted the pumpkin and let it soak (and took a few pictures of my 7 month old in the pumpkin, ha!) we decided to try the cookie cutter approach on the pumpkin. We used a rubber mallet to cut out shapes in the pumpkin. It turned out really cute! Beware that you scoop out the lining pretty thin or it is tough to get the cookie cutter through. Also, we learned the hard way not to put the shapes too close as we had a little break in the pumpkin, but not too bad.

I also made some "candy corn" cupcakes for some friends who came over for dinner this weekend. Of course they are just made with white cake and white frosting, but look adorable. If I did them again I would make sure the orange was really dark as it came out really light orange. From the outside, you can't see the different dimensions but when you bit into it you can really see that it looks just like a candy corn! A great halloween treat.

Oh, and of course you wanted to see my baby in the pumpkin.

Lily Crafts

I tried to think of a good name for some of the crafts I do for Lily's and I am so original that I thought I'd call them "Lily Crafts" ha.

I really want to have a way for Lily to look at pictures of her friends on a daily basis and remember certain moments of her life. I did the memo board thing, even took a lot of little frames and had them in her room but I think I finally found something that we both love. You all know I love unfinished frames and the endless possibilities so I took a few and painted them to match her new Ikea bookshelves (spice racks!). I did some mod podging of a few cut outs that represent Lily, stabled some ribbon on the back and hung them up! They are easy to change out pictures as often as possible and at a great height so Lily can look at her friends & family anytime she wants!

Also, my daughter loves spices, and she can reach the spice rack in the pantry and she always wants to play with the containers. As I emptied the diced garlic, garlic salt, fresh garlic (I really like garlic, but I'm kidding!) containers I saved them to make spice containers for Lily's play kitchen in her room. I washed them and removed the labeling, covered them with scrapbook paper and used packing tape to holding them in place. I filled them with paper pieces and glitter to give them a nice shaking noise but look pretty in the spice jar. I used packaging tape at the top, under the plastic so that no glitter can get out but Lily can unscrew the top or flip it open to make it seem like she is really adding something special to her concoction of plastic veggies! Of course I labeled them "Sugar", "Spice", "And Everything Nice...".

The T-Shirt Scarf

So, I'm sure we've all seen the pin or craft blog entry on the "T-shirt scarf" but today I decided to put on of the many methods to the test. I decided on a technique on Pinterest and went on the hunt for an old t-shirt. It was really easy to do, make sure your cuts are at least 1.5in wide cause they will break when tugged on. I also used the sleeves to cut smaller hoops, making a t-shirt necklace. I was going to utilize this old shirt! I played with different style methods for a good half hour, and there are a lot of options. I think I'll be doing this with lots of old shirts for the fall!

Here is the traditional look with the necklace (the sleeves) and the scarf (the shirt).

Here is just the scarf double looped to make a thicker necklace.

Here is the twisted look.

In this look, I used a few of the strands to tie a knot on the scarf to give it some flare.

And here is my favorite, the one I settled on and hung it up as in my closet. I have the necklace (the sleeves) on and the scarf (the shirt) and then tied them together with a few strands.What a great fashion accessory!

Weekly Menu Board

Due to another fantastic Pinterest idea, I created a menu board to go in my kitchen! I feel like if I plan my meals out in advance it takes away the "what am I in the mood for?", "What do you want for dinner?", "nothing sounds good" factor. I took a piece of kitchen coordinating scrapbook paper and a cheap document frame. I cut out the days of the week abbreviations with the cricut and framed it. With a dry erase marker, I just write and wipe the meals of the week. :) Love it. Don't judge my hot dogs meal either, they were on the grill so it was a lot more complicated than it sounds, ha. (Sure!).

October is here!

In our house, October is fall (regardless of 90 degree temps) and it almost means the start of Halloween decor and clothes. I want to get the most out of all the adorable Halloween outfits I have for my kids so I start rotating them through the month to make sure we get the most out of the "I'm so cute it's scary" apparel.

Lily needed a new Halloween pillowcase dress this year and I found this adorable fabric that I fell in love with. Check out her new dress! I also made her a bow to go with her Halloween costume. She is going to be a Pumpkin Princess and needed a pumpkin "top". I have really enjoyed playing with new types of bows lately.

I have 5 dresses to sew this weekend for some customers & friends so stay tuned for pics. Happy Fall Yall!

My Adventure with the Cake Ball

So, I am horrible at baking cakes. Seriously. Even out of the box, they are lop sided, fall apart, crumble, whatever. Well, I love eating the cake ball (and I just ate one of my own!) and you have to be able to crumble a cake to do it, so it sounds like the perfect new dessert to add to my kids parties, holidays, events, etc. After researching at least a dozen recipes, tips, techniques, I set out to experiment with the cake ball.

Thank god I was making cake balls cause my cake seriously broke in half putting it on the cooling rack (see, I told you!). I went with the technique of mixing the cake with the frosting while it was warm. I tried a couple different methods on when and how to make the balls and the best one seemed to be letting the mixture cool in the fridge for a couple of hours and then using your hands to roll the ball. The melon baller is a pain to keep floured and the balls came out too small and took forever to dip. Next time I am going to just scoop a glob out with a spoon and hand roll them, or maybe even an ice cream scoop for some big ones. I did a batch after the cake balls were in the freezer for about 2 hours, and it seemed like they weren't cold enough so I let them freeze all night and they were really easy to work with this morning. I played with four different dipping methods. The whole toothpick method is just annoying, having to go back and fill in the hole, it just doesn't look pretty. I ended up settling on using a chocolate dipping tool I found in my many drawers of random kitchen utensils. It had a circle on the end, making to easy to coat the ball.

It is definitely time consuming, but more because of the waiting. It is really easy though and I am not trying to sell them or anything, but for the occasional treat at home or dessert to a party, there are endless possibilities. This batch definitely was not the prettiest, but are actually really yummy!! I might only use 3/4 of the frosting can next time cause it is a bit overwhelming, but gooey is good.

My Date with Ikea!

Last Wednesday, I met some of my Mommy friends for an Ikea play date. We dropped some of the kids off at the play center where you can leave them for an hour to go crazy and play while you shop. Of course, my child with her separation anxiety would not set foot in there, but the other kids had fun! So, I have seen some great ideas online and I love Ikea Hackers to find new ideas with the same old Ikea pieces. I thought I'd share my projects I completed and my purchases from my date with Ikea.


First, and my favorite! I picked up some plastic stools ($7.99 each) and used an Ikea side table (also $7.99) a friend gave me to make Lily a tea table for her room, and she LOVES it. It provokes her imagination and I already caught her having a tea party with Mawna, the bear! I covered the top of the end table in a durable fabric, cupcake print of course and it is the perfect accessory to a little girl's room.

My next Ikea inspiration came with the use of spice racks, spice racks for book shelves! Who would have thought??? I feel like half of our books go unread because they sit in a conventional book shelf and we just read the sames ones over and over again. I saw this idea and had to copy it. I'll switch out the books based on the seasons, occasions, relevant event, etc. and keep books for easy viewing! I painted the bottom of the spice racks in some matching colors to Lily's room too! You can't beat $3.99 a piece.

My last purchase wasn't anything creative, but I saw this adorable frog prince hanging baskets and had to have it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I go to eliminate the tub of Barbies in her room and now they are easy to access and even easier to clean up!

I hope you enjoyed my date with Ikea! I will be going back soon, once I find a place for my new round of inspiration, ha. <3 Julie

Football Season is here!!

I just wanted to share a picture of my babies on the first football Saturday of the year! Of course, Lily's dress is one of mine. :)

The crafts of a power outage...

This last weekend, we experienced a few power outages, so I utilized the time without tv to do some fun fall crafts.

The first one we did was a great idea I saw on Pinterest, a ghost canvas with the kids' foot prints! I love how it turned out. I know it is only September, but I already hung it in my house!

I also took a scrap of wood leftover from some new shelves and with some cute cut outs from the cricut and some mod podge, I made a reversible mantel decor piece. I'll have the fall side out until Thanksgiving and then switch it to the Christmas one. A decor item for 2 season in one piece!