Purse Card Holder...

I have a problem. A crafting problem. Every day I find new ideas that I want to try. The problem is, I don't know if I'll ever get to all of them!! But I'm sure going to try!

One project I can now cross off my list is this cute card holder. I love how it turned out!

The instructions didn't say to do this, but I used a velcro dot on it to keep the flap closed.

And here are the cards I made to go inside.

This was a fun project with an adorable result. My girls are now begging me to make them each one to use as a purse. We'll see....

Birthday Cake #3...

My oldest daughter turned 10 yesterday...I can't believe I have a 10 year old!! When we were trying to decide what to do for her cake, she saw this idea and loved it.
This cake was so much fun to make! We used a chocolate fudge cake mix for the cake and regular buttercream frosting. So good!

She got to invite 4 friends over for a "late night". We made some gourmet popcorn for them to eat while they watched a movie. The most popular flavor was butterscotch...it was gone before I could take a picture!! The four flavors we tried were semi-sweet chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, and butterscotch.
The popcorn was a sinch to make. All you do is make popcorn (can be microwavable or from a popper), melt chocolate chips, and mix together. Yummy!!

After her friends went home, my daughter told me that this was the best birthday party she's ever had! That made it all worth it to me!!

Birthday Cake #2...

My baby turned 2 today, and the boy is obsessed with cars and trucks! I checked around at different craft stores for car cake pans, but decided that I didn't want to spend forever decorating the cake (been there, done that!).

Instead of making his cake into a car, I took the easy way out and used a cookie cutter in the shape of a car for my template. I just pressed it in, outlined the shape with frosting, and then filled it in with a star tip. For the wheels I used some black gel icing from a tube. Easy peasy! And it doesn't look half bad! **his name was covered for privacy**

On the side I just winged it and put wavy lines and dots of frosting.

My kids loved it...they kept telling me how cute it was. And my boy kept saying "Car" over and over as he pointed to it.

The point I want to make in sharing this is.....**you don't have to spend a lot of money on a cake from a bakery, and if you make it yourself, you don't have to spend a lot of time on it to make it cute! ** This cake took me less than 45 minutes to decorate, including the time it took to make and tint the frosting. I know I could have bought a cuter, more professional looking cake, but I think it means more to my kids to see me taking the time to make them a special cake for their birthdays. Atleast I hope it does!!

Try this the next time you need a cake. I think you'll be surprised at how quickly it will come together, and how cute it will turn out!

**Two birthdays down, one more to go! I hope you're not getting tired of seeing my cakes...I'll be sharing one more this week! Then I'm done with birthdays until September....

A Simple Birthday Party...

I've never been one to go "all out" for my kids' birthday parties. I'd love to be that mom who throws elaborate parties every year, but I learned long ago that simpler is better (especially when 3 of your 5 kids' birthdays are within 1 week of eachother!)

For my daughter's birthday this year I made her invitations first. I didn't have a 'theme' in mind. I just made the invites based on my mood for the day. This is what I came up with.

After the invitations were finished and passed out, I decided to use 'flowers' as a theme. I found a cute fry box idea here and made some for the treat bags. (I ended up using a bigger fry box template from here). I decorated them the same as the invites, threw in some candy, and wrapped them in cellophane bags. They turned out pretty cute, and the kids loved them!

Since I was going with 'flowers', I decided to have atleast one game that went with the theme. I made this flower using my scrapbook paper scraps and we played "pin the leaf on the flower stem" (I know, it's not a great title, but I don't know what else to call it!). BTW...the little hearts weren't really on the leaves...I just added them to block out the kids' names.

For the cake I made a double layer 9" round cake and frosted it with basic buttercream frosting. Then we (my girls and I) got out my flower cookie cutters and used them as a template for the flowers on the cake. We pressed the cookie cutters in where we wanted them, then filled in the spots with colored frosting. My girls all got to fill in some flowers and had a blast! I think eating the extra frosting may have been the best part of their day!
Again, the hearts were used to block my daughter's name.

Although it was simple, the birthday girl had a great time! In my book, that's all that really matters anyway!

Paper Bows...

I love to give matching homemade cards and gifts for birthdays. Something I've been lacking on is the packaging. Usually I'll just throw them in a bag or a box. Sometimes I'll wrap them. That's why I was so excited when I found this tutorial on how to make paper bows.

I made this matching notebook and card to give to my daughter's friend for her birthday. We also included a washer necklace and anklet and some flower clips. They probably didn't even notice, but I love how the matching bow tied everything together!

And here's a shot of the dressed up box from the front.

Here's another example of matching the bow to one of my cards. This one was for my little sister. She's been wanting some M&M cookies, so I made some for her on her birthday and dressed up this plain styrofoam box with a cute paper bow.

After making the bows with scrapbook paper, I wondered what they would look like using newspapers or ads. We like to recycle our paper at our house, but reusing it to make something cute saves me a trip to the recycling bin.

This one is made from a newspaper.

It's hard to tell, but this one came from a shoe ad.

I loved the colors of this ad. I think it was for a local health food store.

The possibilities for this are endless. I think these bows would look great using the Sunday comics...I've got to find someone who subscribes to the paper so I can steal theirs! Also, these would look so cute on Christmas gifts using Christmas themed scrapbook paper! Or for Valentine's Day, or Easter....you get the idea!

M&M Cookies...

It's no secret that I LOVE sweets. And I love to bake. Several months ago my sister found a great M&M Cookie recipe here. It is now one of my most favorite cookies.

Don't they look yummy? They are even better than the M&M cookies at the bakery. I always have one of those big 56 oz. bags of M&M's from Costco on hand so I can make them often. And I do make them often! Try them and let me know what you think!

Washer Anklets...

I found a great tutorial here on how to make anklets. When I saw it, I wondered how they would look using small washers dressed up with scrapbook paper (like with the Washer Necklace tutorial from The Creative Crate.)

I ended up using 1/4" washers, and they were the perfect size. Now we have matching washer necklaces and anklets!
I did a few things differently than the tutorial.

**I added beads to each side of the washer. To keep them in place, I put a knot at the end of each bead.
**I cut my hemp cord just over 10" to compensate for knotting the end of the beads.
**I assembled the anklet first before attaching the end clamps.

This was a fun little project! These would be great for birthday and Christmas gifts! We'll definitely be making more!

Tall Milk Carton Box...

Ever since I made those milk carton boxes, I've been searching for a pattern/tutorial on how to make a tall one. As far as I can tell, there isn't one. So I decided I was going to figure it out on my own.

After a few measuring errors, and one really lopsided milk carton, I think I finally got it!

I took a picture of both boxes to show the difference in size. There's lots more room for treats in the taller one!

To make the tall box, follow the instructions for the small box here. The changes that need to be made are:

The paper you use will need to be trimmed to 11" x 11.5".
Step 1 changes: score at 1/2", 2.5", and 9.25"
Step 2 changes: score at 1/2", 3.25", 6", and 8 3/4".

Hope that makes sense!

And the Winner is....

No, I'm not up for the fun of it! It's 1:00 in the morning and my baby is keeping me up. Since I'm up anyways, and it's after midnight, let's go ahead and pick a winner....then maybe I'll be able to sleep in later (crossing my fingers!).

To be fair, I went to Random.org....

And the official winner is:

#9: Camrin said...
VERY CUTE! I would love to be the winner. You are so creative.

Congratulations Camrin!! I will be contacting you shortly!

Thanks to everyone who entered. You all left such nice comments! You'll have to keep checking back....you never know when there will be another giveaway ;)!

One Lovely Blog Award...

**If you're looking for my giveaway, it's in the post below! Remember, you only have until midnight tomorrow night (Thursday June 4th) to enter!!

Thanks to The Creative Crate and The Thrifty Chick for giving me this fabulous award!! I am truly honored!

The rules for accepting this award are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Here are the great blogs that I am passing this award on to...I only have 10 because all the others on my list have already received it...

One Day When I Have Time

Trash To Treasure

Crazy Crafty Cousins

Create A Life You Love

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Not So Idle Hands

Small Fry and Co.

Sometimes Creative

Trey & Lucy

Some of This and Some of That

Cute Stationary Box & A Giveaway!!

I'm always on the hunt for simple, cheap, and cute craft ideas. I hit the jackpot when I stumbled on this cute stationary box!!

When you take the lid off, it opens up to look like this. It has a place for your cards, cute little 3x3 cards, and some tags. The little notebook you see is an address book, and there's a place for stamps and a pen. Isn't it just adorable?
Here's the cards and tags I made. There's a total of 4 of each.
I had so much fun with this, that I ended up making 2 stationary boxes. Hummmm, wonder what I should do with the 2nd one?!?

How about a Giveaway?!

Yep, you read that right.....I'm giving away the box pictured above (minus the pen and stamps)!! There are 2 ways you can win.

#1. Leave me a comment with an email address or another way to contact you in the event that you win.

#2. Become a follower of this blog and leave me a comment saying "follower".

You have until midnight on Thursday, June 4th (MST), and I will announce the winner sometime Friday morning. (Sorry, but I can't ship outside the U.S.!)

If you don't win and want to make your own box, you can look here for a video tutorial, and here for a downloadable pdf tutorial.

Good luck!!