Month: August 2014
Dress Pattern
Along with the 007’s desk and the Door Shelf, both made by our own Handy Dandy Papa, Mama and I wanted to tackle another problem in particular…
We wanted to sew a dress.
And it happened! With quite a bit of help from our friend, Cindy (Check out her blog here) , who provided us with a pattern and sparkling creativity. 🙂
 The bottom picture is the dress we were going for, the pattern was beautiful!
First, we analyzed the pattern to decide what would fit best.
 After that, we ironed the pattern in order to distinguish our lines and measurements more clearly. (Don’t iron over tape folks, it melts…)
 
We sewed.
And sewed.
And sewed till I was delirious and bleary eyed. It was super fun. 🙂
But at 9:30 PM, after working so hard and seeing pieces slowly come together, we were finally done!
Thanks Cindy!
One Huge Oatmeal Pie
Cat loves Little Debbie Oatmeal Pies. If I buy a box, she will consume the entire thing. So, when I saw this pin, I thought that it was a good “end of the first week of school snack”. Lets see if she agreed…
As always, when baking is involved,
I have, beside me,
my trusty side-kick 007
I didn’t even have to tell him to pose.
He saw the camera,
leaned in toward the mixer, smiled
and said “Is this a pin?”
What will he do next week
when he bakes without
paparazzi?
The dough comes together quickly.
After you divide it into two
(fairly) equal portions,
bake it for 20 minutes.
Cat came home and sniffed the air with a smile.
She knew something awesome
was about to happen.
After they cooled, I spread on the icing.
  
That is the face of a happy sixteen year old.
I cut it into 8 pieces,
even though she thought
the whole thing was for her.
Her first words after tasting were
“Shut up” and “Yeah, man.”
That’s teenager for
“Dearest mother, thank you so very much
for providing me with this brilliant
biscuit after I toiled at my studies all day.
It is divine.”
I speak teenager,
so I was flattered.
If you love oatmeal cream pies
and can eat gluten
(which seriously rules out
a bunch of my friends)
You’ll be glad that you did.
🙂 6 more, Ladies and Gents.
Ribbons and Bows
Today, I learned something that I wish I would have learned 12 years ago, when my little girl was a little girl. Today I learned how to make my own hair bows.
Seamus helped me.
Pick a ribbon and sew it.
Then, loop a ribbon around the center
and sew it.
I liked this one too.
Then, you could hot glue it to
a plain old hair clip like this
Or you could just slip
a bobby pin in the back
    
and put it on your pretty
“little” girl
who still lets you
pretend
because the dog is hiding.
7 more pins left.
PS If you liked this one, check
out the other diy ribbons and bows here.
Back to School Cupcakes
Is it REALLY back to school time already?
(sigh)
Tomorrow morning, Cat beings 11th grade and 007 starts 2nd. What happened to my summer??? In my compulsion to make the first day of school both memorable and joyous, I came across this cute cupcake idea. It looked easy and fun.
I made some chocolate cupcakes
and a basic vanilla frosting
as well as the marshmallow fondant
we absolutely love.
I rolled out the fondant
and cut it into discs.
Then, I used my cooling rack
to imprint some lines
That was Papa’s idea.
(He’s so smart!)
Yesterday, 007, Cat and I bought these
from the craft store.
I used them to paint lines
on the discs.
Then, Cat, Papa and I wrote on the “paper”.
My math was simple
Other people showed off
😉
8 more pins left
‘Cause summer doesn’t really end
until after Labor Day, right??
🙂
Glow in the Dark Art
Aside Posted on
My friend Heidi sent me this picture last year, and since then, I’ve been trying to figure out how to incorporate the idea into our home. At last, when I saw our new super hero scrapbook pages, a light bulb went off above my head. Ding!
My intent was to frame these two
scrapbook pages.
One, is an empty comic page,
ready for a story to be written,
while the other is
a picture of a city at night
with spot lights illuminating the sky.
The city scape was just
asking to glow.
We purchased some glow in the dark Mod Podge
and carefully painted it on the
windows and spot lights in the picture.
 
Then, we framed it
and turned off the lights.
It looks amazing in person.
When we framed the other page,
007 immediately got out the
dry erase markers and started
writing a comic.
I love making room for his creativity.
We hung them up in his room.
9 pins left. 🙂
Dry Erase Erasers
Between our message boards, our meal planner and various calendars around our house, we use dry-erase markers a lot. When I saw this pin, I knew it was for us. Y’all, this is EASY.
Here are a few of our markers.
I bought these cute little pom poms
at my local male-named craft store.
Tonight’s tool:
the glue gun.
I opted for the black pom poms
rather than cute colors
because I knew that after
a few uses, those cute colors
wouldn’t look so cute anymore.
There’s someone who always looks cute
He’s already working on tomorrow’s pin.
There are only 10 more.
Upcycled Cereal Box: Journals
If you read our post from yesterday, you’ll know that I was knee-deep in helping hands. With school just around the corner, we thought that these diy journals would be fun to make.
The girls cut the boxes
While “The Boss” worked intently with Play Doh
They traced and cut construction paper
for the inside of the journals.
Then, they sewed buttons on the front.
We deviated from the original plan
in that we tied yarn around the button
instead of sewing directly with the yarn.
Here is Twinkle Toes showing off her button and yarn.
Sewing the inside seam is a task not
for the faint of heart,
or fingers.
We used various decorative tape
and stamps on the outside.
Here’s the one we made for their
precious mother.
 
Overall, a fun project
with really great company.
11 pins left
🙂
Cake Mix Cookies
My friend has six amazing, sweet kids and today, she let me play with them. The three oldest girls (Twinkle Toes, Mary Lou Retton and The Thespian) hung out with me while the three younger kids (The Professor, Scooter and The Boss) played with 007. I was very excited to have more minions helpers in the kitchen. We decided to tackle two pins and this one took us about 3 minutes to prepare.
All you need is cake mix,
eggs, and oil.
Thespian cracked the eggs
while Mary Lou Retton added the oil.
That’s it.
Twinkle Toes (I think those are her hands)
helped by scooping the dough on the pans
Photo cred: Thespian
Dirty oven cred: Me
Viola!
Sure, they were easy,
but, were they good?
Yup.
🙂 They were a hit.Â
12 pins to go.Â
Thanks for helping today, girlies!!   Â
Come back tomorrow for more
with his lovely family.
Homemade Bisquick
One of the main reasons that I continue to visit Pintrest is to learn how to make things that we would normally buy at the store. This Homemade Bisquick recipe is one of about five that I have pinned to my boards. I liked this one because it used butter instead of shortening.
Since we were having some amazing company for dinner, I thought it was the perfect day to give it a go.
I put some flour in the food processor.
Then, I tossed in some butter,
Salt and baking powder.
After it spun for about 2 minutes…
I put in in a plastic bag
and I asked my little guy to hold it for a picture.
007 said “This is my super hero pose.”
It looked fine in the bag,
but I needed to test it to
really be sure if it was the same.
So, I made a simple apple cobbler.
My sweet guests (Anna and Kristoff)
and my darling family
loved it.
I’d call that a pin win.
13 to go!
Oatmeal Banana Pancakes
This morning, I was up a little earlier than usual to see my dad off to work. He stayed over last night after he took 007 to his first ever baseball game. With all this extra time on my hands, I decided to treat my family to some pancakes, but not just any pancakes…Banana Oatmeal Pancakes. The question is: would they think it was a treat?
Eggs and bananas
Ground up oatmeal, cinnamon and protein powder.
(Mine just happened to be green)
The batter consistency was
similar to “regular” pancakes.Â
They flipped nicely and look at the pretty golden hue!
While I was cooking the pancakes,
I started on the blueberry topping.
I let some frozen blueberries boil.
and added some honey.
That’s it.
Everyone enjoyed these!
Because of their high protein content,
they will make a great breakfast for school this year.
Which, incidentally, starts in 11 days.
Until then, however, we’re still having fun
pinning away together.
14 pins left! Â Â Â Â Â
Pinning Summer 
