Crayon Rolls

Be aware that making crayon rolls are addicting. If you are like me you might end up making 5 at one time. They are fast, simple and easy.

My favorite tutorial is from The Pleated Poppy.

I used ribbon to tie it up for a few and then hair elastics for the rest. These would make great stocking stuffers for Christmas. If you are way ahead of the game.

elizabeth's recipes

I am not a chef. I don't ever claim to be. I'd much rather bake than cook. And I am not one to improvise. I follow recipes to a tee. If I don't like something I make I like being able to blame it on the recipe, and not my cooking skills, because I can cook, but only because I can follow a recipe.

This summer I tried out a bunch of new recipes. Here are my favorites from Elizabeth's blog.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
I actually made pizza again tonight using her pizza dough recipe. I really like it. In this picture I made a BBQ Chicken Pizza, tonight Pepperoni and Black Olive.

Chicken Caesar Wraps (no picture)
This is one of my new FAVORITE meals. I didn't make the homemade Caesar dressing because I had some on hand. But let me tell you the wrap bread is delicious. But it does take some time. So the second time I made them I made a double batch of the wrap bread and froze half of it. Then next time I defrosted the bread and then heated them up on a hot skillet for less than a minute each and they tasted just as good.

Chicken and Dumplings (no picture)

I was nervous to try the chicken and dumplings because I have never even had it before. But I made it and like it a lot. Justin loved it. LOVED!!! Elizabeth says it is David (her husbands favorite) maybe it is a guy thing. Don't get me wrong I liked it but Justin loved it. So it will be a repeat.


Strawberry Shortcake

This is me on my birthday...in June. I am not much of a cake kind of girl. I am a baked goods kind of girl. I will take a cookie over anything else every time. I love cookies. Sigh. Now I really want a cookie. Moving on. I really liked the cake in the strawberry shortcake. This is my favorite Strawberry Shortcake recipe so far.

So there you have it. All of Elizabeth's recipes that I have tried. Go try them out. You can trust Elizabeth she is a foodie and has a very refined palate.

This Weekend..All about ME!!!

This past weekend was ALL ABOUT ME!!!! (and no, it is not my birthday.)

I drove over 7 hours in the car.

I met Meg from Whatever! (she was so sweet).

I ate Cafe Rio for dinner.

I went to LA fashion district with my friends & Claire (unfortunately almost everything was closed because of Yom Kippur).

I went to Michael Levine (all the fabric was so beautiful I felt like a kid in a Candy shop).

I got some of Randy's donuts.

And finished off the weekend on a major sugar high.

A special thanks to Justin for putting up with all my plans.

Pirate Party Activities

To entertain all the kids at the party I made a tape the patch on the pirate. I thought the kids would be old enough for this game but they were not quite ready. The age range at the party was mostly 4 and younger. The small kids didn't even get the patch on the eye without a blindfold (which I forgot so we used a friend's sweatshirt). I was planning on hanging it somewhere but it was SUPER windy/cold the day of the party so we used the stroller.

As the kids arrived I had rolled up white card stock that the kids could decorate for their telescopes. Then we went on a pirate treasure hunt. They would find a clue, use their telescopes to find the next location until they were lead to the pirate treasure.

For the pirate treasure box I spray painted a Costco Baby Wipes Box and used masking tape for the designs. The "treasure" inside was the party bags. Tanner looks like he has a pirate side pony in this picture, it is just Lily behind him.. don't worry, he doesn't have a side rat tail.

This is the sad end to the Pirate Party series. Maybe something new next week.

Cupcakes and Pirate t-shirt

The cupcakes sailed to the pirate party. I used some free printables from cottage industrialist. Super adorable if you ask me. She has great printables for pirate parties. I was lucky enough to find some pirate party hats and other decorations at the dollar store, otherwise I would have used more of her free printables.

I used the pirate party for an excuse for trying out some of the crafty techniques that I have been dying to try. For example Freezer Paper Stenciling. Tanner HAD to have a homemade pirate shirt for his party. There are a ton of tutorials out there on how to do this. I used Create Studio's tutorial. I didn't have textile medium so I just used puffy paint and painted it in. I did this a lot in high school when making t-shirts. It didn't work as well as I remember it working but my puffy paints are from high school, so maybe that was the problem. This was a lot of fun and easy to do. Now I want to make some onesies for Claire. This picture was taken months after making the shirt and washing it weekly (since it is one of Tanner's favorite shirts). He did wear it to the party but his jacket covered it the whole time.

tomorrow: activities

Parrrrty Bags

Here are the parrrrty bags I made for the pirate party. I've wanted to try potato stamping FOREVER. This was the perfect project for it. I went to check out any tips from Martha and she actually has instructions on doing skull potato stamping. HERE is the link. I didn't use her template. Potato stamping would be great for so many other projects and even with kids. I will be doing more potato stamping in the future.

My skull and cross bones stamp.

Party bag sweat shop.

tomorrow: t-shirt and cupcakes

Pirate Party Invitations

I threw a pirate party for my son Tanner's 4th birthday party. This is the first of four posts with all the fun crafty things I did for the pirate parrrrteee.

I made super simple invitations for the party. I made them using microsoft word and printed them on some scrapbook paper that I had. Then I crumpled them up to make them look old. I rolled them up and tied a ribbon around them. I used this link HERE to get ideas for wording the pirate invitation.

tomorrow: party bags

Blueberry Crumb Cake

Hello...
Anyone There?

Well I have debated long and hard about telling the whole story as to my whereabouts, but I would attribute a lot of it to this talk from Elder Bednar.

Seriously, read it when you have time. Make time. It hit me hard and made me really evaluate where my time was being spent.

That is enough about that.

Now Summer is over, not officially but it is Labor Day, I am back to blogging. Before blueberries disappear from the grocery store go run out TODAY and buy 2 cups, or 1 cup if you want to half it.

I saw this picture on Pioneer Woman and about DIED! Blueberry Crumb Cake. Yum! Yum! Yum! I couldn't stop thinking about it until I made them.

Picture from HERE: Pioneer Woman

Now I don't know what I was expecting. They were delicious but I think I built them up in my head WAY too much because I was almost disappointed when I ate them. But don't get me wrong they were wonderful. I think I just expected one of those melting moments where you sink down in your chair because something tastes that A-MAZING. So just go get some blueberries and make them before it is too late and you have to think about them ALL winter.

By the way it took me forever to find the pioneer woman. Where have I been? Her blog is a tad overwhelming to me because she seems to have so much to look at. But I have been enjoying her recipes and photog tips. So go check her out.

Come back soon. This week I have posts set up every day to tell you all about that pirate party I told you about months ago.