Easter Eggs

Ok aren't those the cutest little egg holders ever? Williams Sonoma is full of adorable Easter things right now. If those wired egg holders aren't in your budget, (like me) Creating Keepsakes Blog has some cute paper ones you can download and print instead of those ones you punch out of the egg dying kit! Find those HERE. I also thought these tissue wrapped eggs were really pretty, I want to wrap some chocolate eggs up for my kids Easter baskets to look like these.

Latest ebay obsession

I go through ebay phases- I can go months without looking at it, and then I'll think of something I need and spend (too much) time looking at it, maybe making a few purchases... Lately I can't get enough of the vintage wallpaper and contact paper! I want to cover a desktop in Miss B's room but most of the good stuff is too expensive. I think this is so cute for a baby girl:

and I know I would never need this but how awesome would these metallic pink flamingos look somewhere!
And I love these contact cut-outs- I got some of these that I plan to put on some buckets or bins for Charlie's room, or maybe the playroom or something.

Food Storage Friday #4

Besides storing food and water, there are a few other necessities you should stock up on- think about toilet paper, soap, shampoo, diapers, deoderant, contact solution etc. and don't forget to keep some cash on hand- find a place that you will remember, but not think about much so you don't sneak from it. Consider something like these diversion safes-(or make your own) If you're getting a tax refund this year, think about setting aside some of that to help fill your 3 or 12 month supply. Costco has this great emergency food bucket: I think it's only $70 in the store and has 40 meals that serve 5 people. You just need to have water and a heat source. Also, I found a great food storage blog if once a week (or less) just isn't enough for you! http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/

Food Storage Friday #3

So sorry to be posting this a week late, and on Saturday but sometimes that's how it goes... Ok, so you've gotten your 2 weeks supply of water, and you're working on getting that 3 month supply of food your family likes to eat. (right?) You will need lots of purchased canned and dried foods in your supply, but remember the option you have to can or bottle your own food! I have learned to do peaches, apples, chicken, roast and ground beef and it's really not hard. This week I am going to do my mom's spagetti sauce recipe. When you bottle your own meat, it tases better than regular store bought canned stuff, and it lasts for up to 10 years! I was intimidated at first but it's really very easy. I found this great website, Fresh Preserving.com with recipes and instructions for canning, freezing and drying all kinds of food, and on the right hand side of this page (click) they have a link list to other canning related websites. Most fruits (high acid foods) just need a boiling water canner, such as this one: and meats, vegetables and soups (low acid foods) will need a pressure canner, like this one:The pressure canner is an investment, but ask around and you may be able to find one you can borrow. So that's something to think about, something fun to try right? Let me know how it goes if you do it! I can e-mail you the spagetti sauce recipe and step by step meat canning instructions (thanks to my super provident mom!) so if you want them, let me know! Next Friday: Beyond Food

6th Picture Tag

I was excited to get to do this tag, it sounded fun. You go to your sixth folder (in my pictures) and post your 6th picture. I wondered if I would cheat if it was a lame one but I like this one so phew! It's Miss B (the clothed one) and her cousin playing the piano at Mimi and Papa's ranch. She's probably about as old as Charlie is now- doesn't she look a lot like him? I don't know why I have pictures from 2002 on here still, they are backed up elsewhere but I don't want to delete them. I feel like everyone has done this one except me, but I'm going to tag 6 of you anyways, if you already did it, forgive me, I forgot. Becky B, Suzi, Diana, Ann, Amy C. and Katy M. Thanks Melanie for tagging me! I haven't looked at this picture in ages!

Kiss it better

This is what every mom needs in their purse! If you've never heard of Fred Flare, you've got to go check it out HERE, for all the things you never knew you always wanted... Here's some of my other favorite items:

Do you like fabric? Pretty patterns?

I discovered Anna Maria Horner recently and stuck a little link over there to her blog but I just wanted to point it out in case you aren't constantly checking my links! She is amazing and has some beautiful fabrics coming out- including some fantastic oil cloth which I am suddenly dying for. I haven't sewed anything in ages but visiting her blog has my mind seriously considering it. Doesn't that picture make you want to sew something?

v-day

We spent the day yesterday with the kids in the snow so there wasn't really any valentine's celebrating but it was a good day nonetheless. I saw some cute love related prints on Butterflies blog from Studio Mela and I really liked this one.

New Do

I tried to style it for church Sunday- I've since learned hairspray is the way to go, not gel. I think he likes it though.

Neat project

Somehow I came across illustrator/designer Claire Mojher's blog and I really liked these bird plaques- they are pretty, and don't look too difficult to try sometime.

What are you feeding this kid?

I hear that a lot for some reason! The answer is baby food and formula of course but we're easing our way into real food- he found this chicken nugget and apple on the floor (it was right after dinner, I promise!) and was SO happy I couldn't bring myself to take them away. I just got my camera.ps- he got his first hair cut today! (snif snif....) but if you can believe it he's even cuter now! I didn't have my camera today but there will be pictures tomorrow!

Super Cute Valentines

I've been spending WAY too much time searching craft blogs but I love it! It makes my head spin when I see all the creative beauty out there! I'm loving all the valentine stuff I'm coming across, here are some things put on my mental "to do someday" list.

First, this adorable valentine box and wrappers for Hershey's nuggets:

from the blog design, wash, rinse, repeat, then these darling paper fortune cookies from her as well. Click on the pictures to go to her free downloads and instructions. I saw some made with felt somewhere too. Next, this really cute way to make regular paper clips into heart paper clips from How About Orange:

I love how simple and cute these stitched cards from The Purl Bee are, also the little stuffed felt hearts!

Food Storage Friday #2

How's the water collecting going? Hopefully you've gotten started on that. The next step I want to talk about is getting your 3 months supply of food. Don't be intimidated, this is really easy to do by just buying extra of the non-perishable items you already buy every time you shop. You want to build up a surplus of the food you already eat, that you could live entirely off of for 3 months if necessary. The easiest way is to choose 7 meals, times 12 weeks. Write out the ingredients you need for those 7 meals and start stocking up. Get 12 boxes of pasta and 12 jars of pasta sauce. Get 24 cans of chili and 12 boxes of cornbread mix. Canned soup, rice & beans, tuna, mac & cheese, top ramen, refried beans, peanut butter and honey are all good lunch options. For breakfast I have oatmeal, boxed cereal, and big bags of Krusteaz pancake mix- you just have to add water. I have some dry powder milk, but the thought of drinking it makes me gag so I bought a couple boxes of vanilla soy milk from Costco- they store for about 9 months and don't need to be refrigerated until they are opened.

I don't count the food in my freezer as food storage because in case of an emergency that you would have to rely on your food storage, there might not be consistent electricity.

Your 3 month supply is easy to rotate because most canned or boxed goods are fine stored for a year as is and if you use 1-2 of these meals a week and replenish your supply, you'll keep stocked and rotated.

Food Storage is easy! Let me know if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them! Next week- canning meat! It's not hard- wouldn't it be great to have some chicken or beef in your food storage? When you bottle it, it tastes better than the canned stuff you buy, and it stays good for TEN YEARS!

Fashion Friday? noooooooooo

I'm totally not qualified to talk about fasion, but I need some advise from those of you who are- Can these kind of shirts be worn tucked in? I have a similar one I love but I look obese in it untucked over jeans. So can I tuck, or should this shirt go in the DI pile- I can handle the truth. And PS- if you do like fashion (or just need some input) Cardigan Empire is a really fun blog to read. I especially like it because reading her lovely description of apple shaped figures made me almost ok with mine.

Food Storage Friday

I know it's not really Friday anymore, but I've been thinking about doing this for a while and I didn't get to it yesterday. I have a blog because I enjoy it, I like to think about what I'm going to write, I like to find cool things to share with whoever might care to read it, (without spamming everyone in my address book) but I do want it to be useful to you- whoever you may be. I want you to want to read it because you might learn or find something new. I have a really great resource when it comes to food storage and provident living in my mom, and I realized not everyone has that, and maybe you want to learn more? If you can't believe the words of a prophet telling us we should store up necessary food and supplies, maybe you would consider it based on the teachings of Al Gore! or even our own government, FEMA, tells us we should be doing what we can to help ourselves because they might not be able to get to us in a timely manner in case of emergency. And they were saying that even when they had plenty of money and resources. SO- I'm thinking Fridays I will try and post some kind of tip or reminder to make some preparations for your family in case of natural disaster, terrorist attack, bird flu, job loss, or just to have peace of mind or opportunity to help when you hear about others dealing with these situations.

So this week's simple tip- start getting 2 weeks of drinking water! It's not hard or expensive, and especially this week everyone has bottled water on sale for the big game. Plan 1 gallon per person, per day. That's about 5 cases (24 bottles per case) of water per person. They stack up nicely in a closet, or stuff them under beds. They usually store for close to a year and we use them in school lunches, hunting trips, park trips etc. Whenever I see them on sale for $3 I buy a couple to keep supplies up. You don't have to go out and buy it all at once, just grab up a few each time you're at the store and you'll be set.

What am I doing?

I'm a Hannah Keeley fan, this quote is from this week's newsletter: "How often do we look at each day of our lives as just one more link in the chain? We see the necessary. I need some gloves. I need a hat. I need some shoes. It's so easy to get caught up in the necessities. But all of that is just to prepare us for life. That's not living. We cook up dinner so that we can connect together around the table. We clean up our homes so that we can welcome people into it. The housekeeping is not the end. It's just the beginning. Living is the adventure that follows when we are prepared to jump into it." I need to be reminded why I'm supposed to be doing the things I'm supposed to be doing! For weekly inspiration, sign up for Hannah Keeley's weekly newsletter HERE. Also on her website check out the free recipe e-book download with 30 recipes that keep it under $10, under 10 minutes, and under 10 ingredients, hooray!

Elle's Studio Blog

I found a really fun blog today- Elle's Studio. She's got a ton of "handmade with love" valentine ideas right now including some free downloads for her Be Mine printable banner and really cute envelope templates. I never thought to use those silicone baking pans as crayon melting molds either- so cute! Go check it out- you'll probably add it to your Reader list too!

Thirty, Flirty and Thriving!

Remember that movie? Funny how I feel much the same person I was when I was 13. I love birthdays usually but the older I get the less celebratory I feel about mine! Today was spent cleaning in the morning (YUCK!) but then I got some Krazy Sub for lunch and got to enjoy a mostly quiet afternoon in a cleanish house! I watched Penelope and made beans for dinner and now I get to go get my hair done- it's been over a year so I'm really excited! Thanks for all the birthday love via phone, e-mail and Facebook too! My birthday celebrations included dinner with my family Sunday, dinner out Tuesday with my bunco friends and a hot date with Sam this weekend. So happy birthday week to me! (and thanks Lindsey for the cute card you made me- hope you don't mind me posting it here!)

Share the love

I got to go to the card class at the scrapbook store today and we made some fun valentines- I had to go back and get some of these sheets of paper- 12 cute valentine cards on one page! I love them.

Still need a calendar?

I borrowed this picture from Photojojo- I love this idea, though I don't think it would go anywhere in my house, but maybe yours? It would look really neat in an office too I think. They took pictures of numbers, then printed and laminated them, you can re-arrange them each month. Click HERE for complete instructions and links to others like it.

Made some cards this weekend

I didn't make any official New Years Resolutions, but there does seem to be something about the new year that has me a little more motivated to do the things I always want to do- and this weekend it was making cards!

Another grocery savings tip

I recently discovered that there is an Alpine Valley Bread bakery in my town and they make really good bread with all natural ingredients, and I especially love that it has no high fructose corn syrup. (because I get enough of that in my Dr. Pepper!) They always have some discount bread that's close to it's "sell by" date for $1 and even stuff for $.50! The selection is always different, sometimes they have rolls, or hamburger buns too, but I got all the bread in the picture for $4! If you double bag it, it can be frozen for a while and taste perfect. Anyways, find out if there is a bread bakery near where you live and see if they have discounted "day old" bread, because you know it's at least a few days old when you get it at the grocery store anyways, and it costs $3-$4 a loaf there.

So with all that bread, can you guess what we had for lunch?

I had grilled cheese (on multigrain- YUM!) but Miss E just wanted CHEESE with RANCH and a pickel. I figured the orange juice kind of rounded it out...

We got crazy with the buttons

The little girls glued them all over papers, and Miss B (my fasion designer) learned how to sew them onto her "scarf" and she was busy for hours this weekend- it was great.

I'm supermom!

Lyndsay said so- go see my guest blogger post on her blog about how to be a thrifty mom HERE. If you haven't heard, it's 2009 now and being thrifty is SO in. Thanks again Lyndsay!

Done!

I really should post projects I want to do more often because it really made me make the time to do it! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out- I used Stickles glitter glue for the antennas because I couldn't make them look right with buttons, and I used Elmers Tacky glue, but I'm thinking pretty much anything that dries clear would work. Very easy and fun little project to do! For another (much more creative) go at it check out THIS BLOG. You can tell that Ginger is an artist, she used different sized circle punches instead of buttons and then made a couple little friends for it! So cute, I could only imagine doing it (almost) exactly like I saw it in the catalog!

PB Inspiration

I looked through my Pottery Barn catalogs the other day and wanted to post my favorite pictures- this one is from the PB Kids of course- I love those little owls!

And I haven't ever considered doing black and white for a room but I love this office space:This room is cute but what I really liked was that button butterfly picture on the shelf- I have tons of buttons and I bought a canvas at Big Lots today for $3 and I am going to make it- I'll post pictures when I finish it.

Happy New Year!