Little LOVE-ly Mailboxes

Yesterday I went to Tina's home and learned how to make these cute Valentine mailboxes.

Aren't they ADORABLE??

Here's the lovely Tina and her cutie-pie doggy, Eva. Check out Tina's blog, and all the wonderful things she makes here.

I just couldn't resist...I had to hold Eva too. Smile Eva!

Julia & Judy, the Stampin' Up girls taught us how to make these. Here's my finished products. Check out Julie's blog to see all the cute stuff she makes including these mailboxes.

I L.O.V.E. it!!!
And guess where you can get the undecorated, plain mailboxes? The dollar section at Target! Awesome!

I ran over there and got me a few more mailboxes to decorate. Look what else you can get in the dollar aisle...Valentine paper!

When I got home my daughter and I made more mailboxes.

My mom gave me this cupid punch years ago. I finally got to use it.

Pretty mailboxes all in a row.

Ready to be filled with surprises...

Thanks Tina, Julie and Judy for the inspiration!

These mailboxes were a cinch to make...just cover with scrapbook paper and embellish with ribbon, buttons, stamped images etc...Have fun!

Sculpey Teddy Bears

The kids and I are on a 2 week Fall break from school.
Which translates to: find lots of things to keep them busy!

All of these kids aren't mine...
just the precious one with the long, black hair and white shirt.
The rest are friends and neighbors.
They are sculpting with Sculpey clay.

They all decided to make teddy bears.
Here's Josh working on his Polar Bear.

And here's Michael's Brown Bear and Megan's Polar Mom & Baby!

Summer did a Panda Daddy and
Megan did a Polar Daddy.

You bake them in a glass dish at 245 degress
for about 15-20 minutes.

Aren't they cute?!
This best part was that it kept those kids busy for at least an hour and a half!

Our Own Cake Boss

My daughter loves watching the CAKE BOSS show.

He is SO talented.
He makes works of art like this...

...and these. Amazing.

One day my daughter got inspired to do some cake baking of her own. We had a cake mix, but no frosting so she turned to the handy-dandy internet and found a recipe!

What a smart girl!

She mixed, baked, and frosted the entire cake all by HERSELF!

It's her PEACE sign creation.

Preeeetty cute!

And it didn't taste bad either!

(She also won that cute cake stand from a raffle. See, she was destined to bake cakes!)

Cookies, S'mores and a Pie!

Since I've been off for the summer I've been doing a lot more baking than usual. Here are a few things I've made:

Chicken Pot Pie

My friend, Karen, taught me how to do this one, and it's REALLY EASY!
This is a standard 9 inch pie. All you need is:
Ready-made pie crust that comes in a box and you unroll it.
Cooked chicken {I used leftovers from a roasted chicken}
A package of frozen mixed veggies {carrots, corn, peas etc.}
Cooked potatoes cut up in chunks.
A can of cream of mushroom or chicken soup.

Lay down the first pie crust layer in the pie pan and trim the edge.
Layer in all the ingredients.
Cover it all with the last pie crust layer.
Pinch the edges and cut slits on top to vent steam.
Turned out yummy!


During our rv trip to Oregon I got addicted to these.

I saw on somebody's blog that they made them in the oven- so I copied!
They got perfectly toasted in the toaster oven!

This week I had to make 6 dozen cookies to bring to some meetings.

Crinkle Cookies!
{Just like everyone's grandma used to bake!}

Ingredients:
half a cup a butter
1 and half cup of sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp. of vanilla
4 (1 oz) squares of unsweetened chocolate (melted)
2 cups of flour
2 tsp. of baking powder
one-quarter tsp. of salt
powdered sugar

Set oven at 350 degrees. Mix ingredients. Refrigerate dough for 2 hours.
Roll into balls and coat with powdered sugar before baking.

They are so yummy!

Clipboard for Carol

Hi Everyone!
Meet Carol. She is a beautiful person inside and out.
Carol works so hard at our church
as the Children's Ministry Director. I just wanted to
make Carol a little something to thank her for her hard work.

I saw this tutorial for making decorated clipboards at Imperfectly Beautiful.

I LOVE how it came out!
Here are front and back pics. Just use scrapbook paper and Modge Podge- easy!

I added a little tag.

I attached Carol's wishlist for Vacation Bible School this summer
and then got her a few items off her list.

Carol was quite happy and glad to cross off a few things on her list!

Thanks Carol for all you do!!!

BTW, these cute, little guys AND the original clipboard came from the .99 Cent Store!

Baby Hair Bows

The new tween-age hair fad is buying baby bows. At the local baby boutique these darling, little bows set you back about $3.00 to $6.00! My daughter was begging me for some...She said, "I really want to get some, but I know what you're gonna say: 'We can make those!' " My little darling knows me soo well!

So make them we did!

Out of these little hair clamps. You can get them at the beauty supply store. They come in a box of 100 for only $3.99!

Get together all your favorite ribbon...

Then glue-gun the ribbon to the hair clamps flat or in bows.

We copied the ones we saw at the baby boutiques selling for $6.00 each and placed a little rhinestone on the center of some.

We gave this cute bunch to our neighbor, Paulina, for her birthday. She LOVED them!

Crafting with Summer

My crafty daughter, Summer, had the idea to pull out ALL her craft supplies,
spead them all over the kitchen counter, and then enlist her mom
to come "make things" with her.

Here is what I ended up with:
cute clothespins {covered in scrapbook paper} and glued
magnets on the back so they could be used to hold memos on the fridge.

Here's one of Summer's projects:
an old cookie tin with lid covered in scrapbook paper-
now her new "memory box".

I think it turned out purty cute!

Extremely Easy Teacher Gifts

Between 2 kids, I have been doing teacher-end-of-the-year
gifts for 12 years now!
Now that my 2nd child is in middle school,
I've decided to go easy, quick, sweet, simplified and LOW BUDGET!

Just a little token to let my daughter's teachers know how
much I appreciate their efforts!

So I had these little boxes that I ordered from Stampin' Up
years ago. You fold them and glue them together.
They're only 3 in. X 3 in. but cute as can be.

I decided to stuff the boxes with designer M&M's
that come in my daughter's school colors: burgundy and gray.
Watch out, those designer M&M's are pricey- $5.99 for a 7 oz. bag. Ouch!

Thankfully, I only had to buy one bag of each color to fill 6 of these li'l boxes!

Short, sweet and to the point! Best of all, it only took me
a few minutes to put these together! (Shorter than
it took me to write this post!)