Easy Teacher Gift Idea

Hello! I have been so sparse on here, like I have said before I do most of my blogging from work, and about a month ago I was able to quit my job.  I am so thankful to God that I am able to stay at home for now! It's definitely an answered prayer.  So that being said I don't have my fancy computer that I had at work and my computer at home is basically slower than a snail, so I will blog as much as I can stand to be on it. ;) 

This week is Teacher Appreciation week, I have seen a million ideas out there for gifts so I thought why not add one more. ;) 

My sister and I were shopping at Michael's and found these adorable note cards.  They had the cutest colors and patterns, and I love anything with an initial.  We thought they would make a perfect teacher gift. To make it a little more festive I wrapped it in a cellophane baggie and added a tag.  

"Thanks for being a 'note'worthy teacher!"

I am really getting into these cheesy puns. LOL

Carter was excited to give it to his teachers! Now we are ready for Summer break! 

Linking to...

Craftomanic ~  Under the Table Dreaming ~ Today's Creative Blog ~  Tip Junkie  ~  Organize Your Stuff Now ~  Shabby Creek Cottage ~  The Crafty Blog Stalker ~  See Vanessa Craft  ~ Southern Lovely ~ Grits and Giggles ~ Thrifty Decor Chick ~ It's Overflowing ~ Creatively Living ~ 52 Mantles ~ 30 Handmade Days ~ The CSI Project ~ The DIY Dreamer

DIY Painted Wall Art

I have slowly been changing the colors in our living room.  It was basically brown and beige, pretty dark and   has been the same since the time we moved in almost 5 years ago.  I am working to make it brighter and cheerier than the dull browns and khakis it had going on.  I have been incorporating whites, blues and other bright colors to do that, and last week I created a piece of wall art that was really easy and helps add the brightness I am looking for!

  Originally, I had these two wooden pieces hanging on either side of a large mirror.  They were just hollow wood with a fleur-de-lis carved into them, I got them on clearance from Hobby Lobby years ago.  

  After seeing this piece of art,  I fell in love and I was inspired to just make my own art using paint and paper to replace the fleur-de-lis.

I didn't want to spend a lot so, instead of buying canvases, I just took the two existing pieces and covered them in a canvas material using my staple gun, and it worked out great thankfully! 

Once I had the pieces covered in the canvas fabric, I brushed on a brown/gold acrylic paint randomly all over, the fabric absorbed the paint pretty quickly so it didn't spread as much as I was expecting it too but I think it helped give it the aged and worn look I was going for, luckily, so I went with it.

After I had the goldish color on, I topped it with a aqua color, randomly covering the whole thing going over the gold in some places. 

Next, I used a quartrefoil stencil I had left over from something else, I placed it asymmetrically on the canvas and painted over it with pink, adding the pink color all over as well.

All of the colors start blending together and fading off each other creating a neat effect.

Finally, I used the same stencil to cut out book pages. I modge podged them on and mixed a tiny bit of paint with the glue so the pages would look like are aged as well, almost like they are being exposed from underneath. 

I also very lightly used sand paper on some parts of the paper.  

I really like how this turned out, and I am not a painter, usually every time I try to paint something on a canvas it looks like my 4 year old did it, lol.  Since this is an abstract piece even mistakes can look like they were meant to be.

I just love these bright colors and they tie in nicely with the scarp paper art I made for the wall across the room from these.

I want to make a few pillows and paint a table then I think I will be finished with the living room.  So hopefully I get those things accomplished before I decide to switch things up again. Ha!

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Mini Spring Cupcakes

Hello! Happy Spring to you! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

A couple of weeks ago I made mini cupcakes for my friends baby shower, and I've kind of become obsessed with them. They are so cute and tiny! The perfect size for one bite, I feel way less guilty eating 6 of these bad boys than I do eating a couple regular sized ones.  And lets face it, I always eat more than one regular size cupcake and feel guilty so making these it a winner for me. lol 

Today I'm sharing this easy treat with you.  It is so easy because it came from a box! :) I am not much of a baker, I'll have to say.  I love to try out recipes for cakes and cookies, but they just never seem to be as good as the work and time they took to make them.  So I am not ashamed to say I use the mix straight from the box. :) And for these I used my favorite, which is confetti cake!

I also found some Spring colored sprinkles to top them off. 

What really had me excited about making these is that I realized mini cupcakes are the perfect size for an egg carton.  This makes it so easy to transport and makes an adorable neighbor gift!

I found these cartons in the Easter candy aisle at Wal-Mart for $1, they had marshmallow candies inside, but any egg  carton will work. I added this cute little tag to the top, to make it a little more festive, and so my neighbor didn't think I was randomly bringing her some eggs. ;)  

If you'd like this image you can right click and save as.

I'm so happy Spring is here! I think these bright and cheery cupcakes are a perfect way to celebrate.
I hope it starts feeling like it around here, I am ready for my flip flops! 

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

linking to these parties...

Craftomanic ~  Under the Table Dreaming ~ Today's Creative Blog ~  Tip Junkie  ~  Organize Your Stuff Now ~  Shabby Creek Cottage ~  The Crafty Blog Stalker ~  See Vanessa Craft  ~ Southern Lovely ~ Grits and Giggles ~ Thrifty Decor Chick ~ It's Overflowing ~ Creatively Living ~ 52 Mantles ~ 30 Handmade Days ~ The CSI Project ~ The DIY Dreamer

Woodland Creature Baby Shower

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Yesterday I shared the Wreath I made for the shower we threw last weekend for my friend Jennie, and today I wanted to share the other elements that we came up with for our Woodland Creature theme. Jessica and Katy did most of these details, and they are SO cute! 

The Welcome table, we had a book for everyone to sign when they came in, as a keepsake. It would be so fun looking back when he's older to see what everyone wrote.

Katy made these adorable "Squirrel Snacks" which were trail mix in mason jars, I will say it was good, I had the whole jar finished before I knew it! I wish I would have taken more than one ;) I just love the burlap around the jar.

Since the mommy to be isn't a huge fan of cake, I made these bite size cupcakes instead.  S'mores, strawberry, cookies and cream, and peanut butter cup.  It was easy to just pop one (or 5) in you mouth! ;) I found the recipe for these here.

Katy made these moss covered letters, Jennie's nursery is woodland themed so this would fit right in.

Jennie's sister-in-law made the "acorn cookies" and Jessica made the "Gnome Walking Sticks" which were chocolate covered pretzels rolled in nuts. YUM!  Again I wish I had taken more leftovers ;)

Jessica and I made these flowers out of paper bags, via Martha Stewart. They were super easy and inexpensive.

We had more food made by Katie, the soon to be aunt of Eli.  Which was awesome, she did the food at our wedding reception and I still think about how good it was!  I didn't get any good pictures of the other food, but I think you get the overall idea with these.  We had so much fun celebrating, and now that the showers are over I can't wait to meet those little babies!!

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Woodland Creature Wreath

Hi there! For the past month or so I have been in baby shower mode, two of my best friends are expecting back to back and we threw them a shower back to back.  A couple of weeks ago I shared the pink and teal shower we threw for Katy.  This past weekend we celebrated Jennie's soon to be little guy with a Woodland Creature theme.

We had so much fun putting all the details together for this one! Today I wanted to share this cute little wreath I made that was inspired by her invitations.

Jennie was a gnome for Halloween once and for some reason, every time any of us see one, we think of her, so these invitations were perfect. :) And the perfect inspiration for a wreath! 

Since I love felt and wreaths are my specialty ;) I was really excited to make this.  Using the cute little guys on the invitation as a guide, I cut the gnome and hedgehog out of felt.  Then wrapped a vine wreath with twine and glued my felt guys onto it.   For the flag I cut the letters using my Silhouette Machine and glued them on the felt.

The little hedgehog was one of my favorite parts of the invite so I had to include him! He just makes me want to squeal he's so cute! lol

I love the woodsy feel of the wreath contrasted by the soft felt! 

My other friends Jessica and Katy threw this shower with me and everything they did was so adorable, I will share more pictures tomorrow! 

Sharing here...
Craftomanic ~  Under the Table Dreaming ~ Today's Creative Blog ~  Tip Junkie  ~  Organize Your Stuff Now ~  Shabby Creek Cottage ~  The Crafty Blog Stalker ~  See Vanessa Craft  ~ Southern Lovely ~ Grits and Giggles ~ Thrifty Decor Chick ~ It's Overflowing ~ Creatively Living ~ 52 Mantles ~ 30 Handmade Days ~ The CSI Project ~ The DIY Dreamer 

Pink and Teal Baby Shower

Over this past weekend I threw a baby shower for one of my best friends, Katy.  The past few weeks my other two girlfriends and I have been focused on all the details of it, we love throwing showers! And it is exciting to go from wedding showers to baby showers now.   

I thought I would share some of the elements we did, because I thought it turned out so cute! We first thought of a theme, more a color scheme, of pink and teal and burlap. 

We had such a great time celebrating, everyone was really FIRED up at one point...I'll get to that in a minute. ;)

A little welcome sign for the guests.

We took our sofa out of my living room to make room for table and chairs, we wanted everyone to be comfortable, and have a place to set their plate and drink.   It's always the worst trying to eat something with a fork while holding your drink! 

These adorable table runners were made by the other hostesses, Jennie and Jessica.  That's Jennie in the picture, she's another soon to be momma! 

It is always so fun to see your friends baby pictures and trying to imagine what their new little baby will be like! Jennie rounded up some branches from her yard and we made a little baby picture display, by clipping on the pictures with tiny close pins.  And I made the banner with burlap and my silhouette machine.

We loved the idea of writing advice or thoughts on a diaper, maybe it will give them a little laugh or smile during those 3am diaper changes. 

For me my favorite part of showers is always the food. ;)

Jessica made this beautiful cake! I'm in love with the ombre effect, she is an amazing cake decorator and it tasted great too! (Jes and I love making cakes she was my partner in the garden cake I posted about last year.)

Here I am with the mommy to be! We had such a fun day celebrating Katy and her little baby girl that's on the way!

I also made this sash for her a few weeks ago, I hadn't ever heard of a belly sash until she mentioned it to me.  It is amazing how quickly trends change about babies. Carter is only 4 and things have changed so much since he was a baby! I love this belly sash trend though, super cute!

You can see this in my Esty shop if you would like one of your own.

So when I said everyone was fired up, I mean literally there was a fire in my living room at one point! 

It went kinda like this, the winner of one of the games got a prize, which had tissue paper in the bag.   Katy's mom opened the gift, and the tissue paper fell into a candle on the table.  Seconds after she gets the gift I heard a commotion and look over and Katy's mom is waving a flaming tissue paper, with a shocked/terrified look on her face, and the fire just kept growing!  No one knew what to do, I am stunned holding a piece of cake in my hand, Im pretty sure I was jumping up and down, like that would help things.  So the girl next to her mom grabs the tissue, by now it is just a ball of fire, she runs a few steps towards the door, with pieces of burning tissue paper flying off. At this point I thought, wow my house is literally going to go up in flames right now. lol.  I start to stomp a small piece of tissue that is flaming in front of me, and she can't hold the paper anymore since its all fire, it falls on the carpet and she frantically stomps it out, completely burning her shoe in the process.  

Finally it was all over, it seemed like 10 minutes but Im sure the whole thing was more like 30 seconds.  Phew! After we realized everything was safe we all started laughing and recapping the whole thing to each other.  We are so thankful no one was hurt or it wasn't worse! Once things settled down we went back into shower mode like nothing happened :)  It was a memorable day for sure!! Luckily we were able to get the burn spot out of the carpet too, so alls well that ends well! :)

We played Bingo as one of the games, I made a card for it and you can download it below if you would like to.  Just hit the arrow button in the bottom right.  For personal use only.

You can fill in the squares with items the mommy to be may receive as gifts, and as she opens them, the guests mark off the item if it is on their card. First to get five in a row wins.

We are throwing Jennie a baby shower in 3 weeks, she is having a boy so it will be fun to go in a totally different direction with hers, I don't think we will be using any candles either. ;)

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Cookies and Cream Popcorn

Happy Valentines Day! Last night I made these yummy treats for Carter to take to school today.  I had made them before for his birthday party, and it is so good I knew I had to make it again!

Cookies and Cream Popcorn

Recipe:

1/3 cup of popcorn kernels 

3 Tblspoons of oil

2 sleeves of Oreos

Vanilla candy melts

I also added pink and red candy for V-day.

In a skillet pop the popcorn in the oil and set aside in a large bowl, crush up Oreos into chunks and add to the popcorn.

Melt the vanilla candy melts in 30 second intervals until smooth, then pour it over the popcorn Oreo mixture.  

Stir together so the melted chocolate coats everything. 

Spread on wax paper and to let the chocolate set.

That's it, I bagged it up in these little bags and made a cute tag for Cart's friends at school.  

I'll warn you this stuff is sooo good!! I had to get on to my husband because he kept grabbing spoonfuls. ;) 

Hope you all have a wonderful day full of LOVE!