Love Bugs

Is anyone else scrambling to make Valentines to hand out at school? A couple of weeks ago I found this adorable paper at the craft store and knew that Valentine butterflies were in my future.

The paper is Paper Note by American Crafts. The whole paper line is really fun!

I wanted to attach them to a treat with the clothespins. I was able to put a few treats in a little snack size bag and clip the butterfly on. I've seen several butterfly ideas for snacks around on the Internet and knew these would work perfectly! I cut out several designs of butterflies that were patterned in the paper and glued them onto wooden clothespins. I painted the clothespins in different colors to match the papers and used really thin jewelry wire as antennas that were attached with a dab of hot glue.

The wings are glued to one side of the inside of the clothespin.

To create a bit of movement make sure to bend slightly the top wings up and the bottom wings down.

Aren't they so fun?  I love how these beautiful papers and designs can "come to life" so to speak
with just a little glue and love.  Yes, cheesy, but it is for Valentine's day....:)

The hardest part was making up the template. Here's a shot of the ones I used, yes, they were eyeballed and cut out of notebook paper that was in front of me. I would probably recommend using card stock or card board from a cereal box~it would ease the tracing.

Having all boys I can only get away with this with my youngest who is 3.

He didn't care as long as there were treats attached.

Now only 3 more ideas to come up with.....

Tomorrow Nicole has her daughter's duck themed Valentines to share, you won't want to miss out on them~they are hilarious. Good luck all you procrastinators~we're in the same boat, but at least we have Downton Abbey to watch while we work!

WYLTC? Crafty Sisters Chevron Heart Flower Garden Stakes

It's our turn today over at Wood You Like To Craft with this month's theme of Chevron and we are sharing a simple Valentine's Day wood craft you'll want to add to your "to do" list! ~ Come on over and take a peek!

Love Shack!

Yup, I said Love Shack!  It's fitting though right?
A couple of weeks ago I was enlightening my daughter on all things of my youth including all the crazy songs that our little brother and I would sing at the top of our lungs as we drove around our yard on the 3 wheeler. I've completely dated myself haven't I?  I'm sure our neighbors thought we were completely nuts.
Well I still want to dance every time I hear the song and want to call my brother and sing it to him over the phone.  I'm sure he's glad when those calls go straight to voice mail.:)

Well Candace and I always love playing around with Valentine candies and I got the best Gingerbread house mold before Christmas that I never got a chance to use.  It's a Pampered Chef mold from 20 years ago!  (Thank you Ebay!)
We decided to use sugar cookie dough instead of gingerbread and it worked great.
Be forewarned though~it takes a lot of dough!  One single batch of our Mom's Famous Sugar Cookie dough makes one house.  Make sure to cook the dough a bit longer so it's nice and brown around the corner and will be extra strong for the house.  I cooked mine about 12 minutes each.

 Gather some great treats!  Keeping them separated in a muffin tin worked great!  The hardest part was keeping Daddy's hands out!

The frosting is the most crucial part!  You have to have some serious "glue" and I always get nervous about the kids licking their fingers with raw egg white in Royal Icing.  You will love Wilton's Meringue Powder!  It contains pasteurized dried egg whites and it's so easy to use.
The recipe is quick and easy too!

Wilton's Royal Icing
3 Tablespoons Wilton Meringue Powder
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons of water

Beat all ingredients at low speed 7-10 minutes until icing forms peaks.  Makes about 3 cups.

One batch was enough for us to put together 2 houses.  The frosting dried rock hard and fast!
This was such a fun project to do and the kids had so much fun!

Now to fill up the Valentine advent calendar and get out the rest of the Valentine decorations I procrastinated getting out.....

If you are looking for some fun Valentine printable freebies make sure to check out some cute subway art
for every season by Elise at Halloween Costumes.com

                                                 
and......if you're in the mood for some B-52's.....click the picture!
Happy 1st of February!

Cupid Cones

Target has all their Valentine candy on sale this week
and I went a little crazy buying some~note to self, don't shop when hungry.

I think I'm totally in love with cone bags.  I had some left over from making up the Cocoa cones at Christmas~they come in a package of 24 for $1.99 so they are a great deal!  There is just something fun about the shape that makes everything look even better than normal.  I made a few up for some friends I don't get to see very often that I'm missing today.

Tonight hopefully we'll finish off a project we've been working on for the last week~the kids are going to love it!  Everything seems to take so much longer to do in January, am I the only one who thinks that?  Candace and I have been doing all those crazy "To Do" list items~like pull and clean behind the fridge, the washer and dryer, re-string the blinds, sort every single Lego so they can be thrown around the play room next week.  Ya know, Mom stuff.  At least it was warm enough (yup 37 degrees) to fill up the kiddie pool for my duckies.  It was hard to try and snap a picture and not get completely splashed!

 Life's little pleasures.:)
 What do you in January?

Love Floats

It's been so cold here the last couple of weeks that we haven't been very motivated to craft.  The only thing I've been motivated to do is drop off my kid at school and crawl back under the covers to watch episodes of Psych!  Just kidding, while Candace sorts toys in her bonus room I've been catching up on all my touch up painting.  Sounds thrilling huh.  Definitely not blog worthy stuff.

I've seen this idea around for a while where you can use Cherry 7UP instead of root beer for a float.  I thought it looked so cute that I did it for my church Activity Day Girls last week. They looked great but Cherry 7Up left me wanting....it just wasn't strong enough to balance out the vanilla ice cream.  So since we are busy preparing Science Project experiments in our house- we thought we would try an experiment of our own.  My daughter was all too happy to be the judge!

We tried Shasta Raspberry Creme Soda 

                                                           

and Barq's Red Creme Soda.

                                                   
Both are pretty tasty but I think the Raspberry Creme might be a tad better.
They were so easy to make for my girls~I pre-scooped the ice cream and stored them in the freezer until ready to go.  Add a couple of cute Valentine straws and who can resist?

Now if you really want something tasty you'll have to try these Italian Creme Sodas~
Head over to Butter With A Side Of Bread for an easy and delicious recipe for homemade Italian Sodas.  Yum!
                                         

Next Year's Valentines

I survived Valentine's Day!

Sounds drastic doesn't it,

but that's about how I felt last night

after scrambling to make sure everything was ready for

my daughter's school party and then an hour later I had

my Sunday School girl's Valentine party.

I thought it would be fun to see some of the Valentines that

were homemade, which the Moms all got from Pinterest,

our favorite go-to place for ideas.

First up are the Valentines!

Above is my daughter's last moment scramble idea.

We were in Zurchers party store for a at least an hour

trying to come up with something.

It couldn't be too girly cuz ya know she's got boyfriends.

Clarification Boy Friends.  2 separate words.  Phewww.

Somehow the snakes were okay for girls since

they had red and white Valentine stripes.:)

Here are a couple I loved:

Okay, fortune cookies~LOVE this!

How fun is this arrow made from a Glow stick!

I had to share this yummy recipe too from Kraft!

They are Strawberries 'n Cream Minis!

They are the yummiest creamy sinful Jello Jiggler I've ever had!

I found these cute condiment cups at Walmart

and they were perfect for the individual servings for the party.

Of course we had cupcakes and that yummy Betty Crocker Chex Mix.

Holy smokes that was tasty!

I forgot to grab a picture but I tried something different with punch this year~

Have you seen these at The Container Store or Walmart?

Well I made up my punch in the larger one and used it at both parties.

It holds 2 1/2 gallons and it doesn't leak all over and isn't glass breakable.

I was pretty proud of myself for not dropping $20 on a cheap punch bowl

and only $8 on one of these.

Even better~the kiddos could get there own refills!

I admit I'm bummed it's all over so quickly, but.....

Who's ready for EASTER!!!!:)

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is it...the last of the bulk candy.  I don't know what I was thinking when I bought that much candy!I added jellybeans into a glass vase, using a smaller vase to hold the water for the roses.

 It is an easy and unique way to give those you love flowers.

 This pretty Easter jellybean centerpiece was my inspiration, found at A Passion For Creativity. 

Today I also made the Betty Crocker heart peanut butter cookies that are everywhere on Pinterest.

I went over to their site and noticed that Betty is using a different recipe for the peanut butter cookie.  I'm sure it's great, but Nicole has been using an old Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie recipe that you can't go wrong with.  If they are not overcooked, these cookies are sooooo good. 

Here's the recipe:

1/2 c. margarine or butter

1/2 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 c. flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

Refrigerate, bake at 375 for 7-9 minutes. 

We are off to all the class parties..I swear holiday party days at school are some of the craziest.

  Nicole will be back tomorrow to share her Valentine party ideas!

Valentine Candy Bouquet

 This is what happens when I am stuck in the house recovering from being sick with limited access to crafting supplies...I get creative with candy! I didn't have the energy to hit the craft stores, so my major shopping trips were to the grocery store. It's amazing what you can find if you look hard enough!

I have a hard time passing by the Valentine bulk candy without stopping to fill a bag.  Red and pink gumdrops, jellybeans, red hots....I can't help it!  They are just so darn cute.  I also found Valentine candy corn. Gross to eat, but they make perfect petals for flowers.  

  

For the base of the candy flowers, I used Styrofoam discs that I painted red with craft paint.  I poked the small dowel into the Styrofoam disc and added a bit of hot glue to stabilize the foam. 

Each piece of candy was added with a hot glue gun. I made sure to use a low temp gun to avoid some serious burns to the fingers!

I also grabbed a bag of gummy ring candy (Peach O's) at the store that fit perfectly around the large gum drops. 

For the heart shapes flowers, I used heart shaped cookie cutters to cut into the foam. The cookie cutters worked surprisingly well on the foam!  

I gave it a good crunch with the cookie cutter and then cleaned the rest up with a knife.  I think the red hot hearts are my favorite.

Painting the Styrofoam the same color as the candy helps to hide the gaps.

 Nicole and I have made candy topiaries a couple of times, like the Jelly Bean and Halloween topiaries.
(I missed Nicole this time...she didn't want to catch what I had!) In those cases, we used Styrofoam balls, which are easier to place candy around.  You have to get creative with candy placement on the discs. 
I filled the edges of these flowers with red hots to avoid getting too bulky.

I hot glued layers of Styrofoam into the glass vase, making sure there was room for the jellybeans to fit along the side. Next I added the flowers, then filled the vase with pounds of jellybeans. I used heart lollipops to fill in the empty spaces. All of the stems were wrapped with green floral tape and the heart leaves were made from scrap paper.

It's nice to know I can still enjoy Valentine's candy without having to eat it.  It's also a lot less tempting to eat when there's gobs of hot glue on each piece! :)

 

SWAK!

This week I've been busy making some Valentine letters
and I just had to use some of the cute My Mind's Eye paper
that we used on the Valentine banner.
My pictures don't do the paper justice but they were still fun to do!

I'm missing my crafting partner in crime Candace!
She is doing much better thanks to some
great antibiotics for her bronchitis~she is quickly on the mend.
So I thought I'd share some ideas for my daughter's school Valentine party
that I'm scrambling to put together today!

First off Candace shared with me this great resource for sending out
the party invite and volunteer checklist for the school party.
I don't know about you but as the Room Mom I feel like all the notes get lost in transit
from school to home and then everyone simultaneously volunteers to donate
the bag of M&M's so I'm left with a bunch of phone calls begging them to bring
fruit and veggies.  Jealous aren't ya!



































The site is called BringIt! and it will email out a note to everyone
on your list, with a sign up sheet, first come first serve.
It will then send out email reminders before the party so nobody forgets!
Brilliant isn't it!  It's totally free too!

But what do you guys do for treats?
Above is pictured a white chocolate version of Muddy Buddies
recommended by my daughter's teacher.  Yum right? Here's the link for the yummy recipe courtesy of Betty Crocker!  I'm soooooo making these, party or not~they will be in my belly or more accurately on my fanny, thighs, jowls.....I could go on and on.:)

I know a lot of schools have outlawed sweet treats
and luckily ours just encourages us to be healthy.
I looked on Pinterest which is an evil site for someone on a diet....
and there are so many yummy treats~but are they healthy?
So here's my plea for help~~~Do you have any great ideas to share!
I'm officially desperate and need help!
Leave us a comment and let us know!

Love Notes

This week I had my Sunday school girls Activity Day

and my teaching partner and I decided to help them put

together some Valentine envelopes so that they could 

exchange anonymous admiration notes to each other

for our upcoming Valentine party.

My teaching partner Jill is one of the most creative people I know~

she is seriously amazing and we'll have to show off her crazy talent here soon!

She came up with these cute envelopes that we let the girls,

who are 8-11 years of age then decorate and sew buttons on.

Of course I had to come home and make some up for me!

Candace has a houseful of sick kids this week and is under the weather too

so we have stayed clear except for the quick~Purell soaked hands~exchange

in my driveway for the pinking shears.:)  So this week I am missing my sis and her camera 

with the great pics she takes!

I love the elongated size of these envelopes and they were the perfect fit

for all those goodies we love to grab in the dollar bin at Target!

I made a couple to take to some of my friends

and even did a smaller version to hold some cute note cards I found too.
Here is the pattern I made up with the measurements~

We used primarily felt but I had to try one with some of the cute Valentine fabric
for the liner that I found at Hobby Lobby.
Some of the fabric was so cute I actually got some to make a dress for my daughter....
we'll see if that ever happens.  Probably by the time I get around to it, it'll have
to be a mini-skirt or something.:)

Pretty easy and pretty inexpensive to make

and it's for sure something you and others will love to get!

Valentine Pennant Banner

There's nothing like a trip to the craft store to get our Valentine creative juices flowing.

We took a stroll through the scrapbook department at Craft Warehouse and fell in love with a line of Valentine paper by My Mind's Eye.  It's called "Love Me". 

Once we saw the whimsical valentine pennant print, we knew we had to have one in "real life" size.

  We really don't need another pennant banner, ah...but the papers are so fun!

To make the banner, we picked up 3 x 2 1/2  inch chipboard pennants and chipboard hearts.

For the other pennant sizes, we used the paper cutter to slice squares, rectangles, 

 and a couple of larger pennants.

  

We used Mod Podge to glue the papers to the chipboard.

Then we used a small hole punch to make holes for the string. 

 It takes some muscle to punch through chipboard and a layer of paper!

It's so easy to make!

We might have to head back to the store to stock up on this cute paper before it's gone!