{Peach Crunch Cake}

This stuff is H.E.A.V.E.N! You can find the recipe HERE from Bakerella. My family loves it...so much that there's never any leftovers!! We like to drizzle it with THIS caramel sauce from Everyday Food Storage. Give it a try.....you know you want to!!

Fabric Scripture & Notebook Covers

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You can still link up your sewing projects HERE! The link will stay open until Monday, March 1st!!
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So I woke up one morning and decided I was going to try and figure out how to make a fabric cover for my scriptures. I ended up making 5 of them (they turned out okay, but weren't exactly what I wanted), before I remembered I had a project on my "To Do" list that was similar. After reading By Small Means' instructions on how to make a notebook cover, my scripture cover turned out beautifully!

I'm a note-taker. Always have been. I seem to remember things better if I write them down. For the last few years, I've kept a notebook with me while at church so that I can keep notes on the talks and lessons. So I decided to make a matching cover for my Church Notebook.



Here's some of the first scripture covers that I made.

I measured wrong on this one and it wouldn't fit my Quad scriptures. But it worked for my daughter's Bible, so I made a matching cover for her Book of Mormon.
The thing that bugged me about the first ones I made was how thick the edges were (hopefully you can see what I'm talking about in this picture!). It wasn't a huge deal, but I wanted them to lay more flat.

How often do you try to figure something out on your own? Sometimes I'm successful at it, and sometimes I'm not! But what I have learned is that there is usually someone out in blogland that has already done the project I'm trying to figure out. Next time I think I'll search first to see if there's already a tutorial written. It'll save me a lot of time!!



I'm linking to: Fireflies & Jellybeans, Somewhat Simple, Someday Crafts

Sew Cute Tuesday {2.23.10}

I don't know about you, but I'm getting some inspiration from the fun projects that have been linked up so far! I know there are more of you out there who sew....feel free to link up any projects you've done!! And help spread the word by putting the button on your blogs...pretty please!!

Now that I'm done begging, let's get back to business! We had fewer links this past week, but that didn't make it any easier to pick which ones I wanted to highlight.

I loved these Heart Bean Bags from Crafting My Heart Out.

What an adorable fabric lunch bag from All For This Penny.


Naptime Journal shares this cute Apron for your little girl!


And Brandy from Some of This and Some of That made this cute skirt for her little girl.


Feel free to grab my "Featured" button on my sidebar, ladies!!

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Rules for linking:
**Link sewing projects only!! (can be sewn by machine or by hand!)
**Link to your blog post, not your home page!

Burlap Family Reminder...

When I saw THIS post from Kaysi at Keeping It Simple, I knew it was something that my family could use. All too often by the end of the day, I've forgotten what we have and haven't done.

A few weeks ago I came across a great deal at the DI....a garbage bag full of burlap for only $2.00! I tend to hold on to things for a while before actually doing something with it, but decided this was a perfect project for my burlap.

I love how it turned out...minus the crooked "Family" (it'll bug me everytime I look at it!). Now that I've used some burlap, I'm excited to do other projects with it!!

I'm linking to: Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, Making the World Cuter, The Girl Creative, Someday Crafts

Mom's Chicken Enchiladas

My Mom makes the best chicken enchiladas!! I can remember being extra excited for dinner when we knew she was making these! And now the tradition carries on with my children!

Here's how to make my Mom's Chicken Enchiladas...

You'll need:
**chicken, diced & cooked (I like mine shredded. You can also use canned chicken)
**1 onion, diced
**2 lbs. grated cheese
**1 large can tomato sauce
**1 can enchilada sauce
**1 can cream of chicken soup
**1 can diced green chilies
**corn tortillas
**sliced olives

1. Combine chicken, onion, and about 3/4 of the cheese in a large bowl.
2. In a sauce pan, warm up tomato sauce, enchilada sauce, cream of chicken soup, and chilies. Put a little bit of sauce on bottom of a 9x13 cake pan.
3. In a frying pan, heat a little oil. Put corn tortillas in one at a time and warm on both sides.
4. Dip warmed tortillas in sauce mixture, and put in cake pan. Put about 1-2 Tbsp. of chicken mixture in tortilla, and roll up.
5. When done, pour remaining sauce on top of enchiladas, sprinkle with cheese, and add sliced olives.
6. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes or until bubbly.

This recipe makes 2- 9x13 cake pans, plus an 8x8 cake pan full. And my family eats every last bite! We usually serve this with a green salad and corn.

{Juice Pouch Makeup Bag}

I'm a little embarrassed to show this, but hopefully I'm not the only who had a makeup bag that looked like this.....
Not so functional, huh?! Every morning I'd get so frustrated trying to find what I needed! I finally decided since I'm too cheap to buy a makeup bag, I may as well try and make one.

So I made a quick sketch of what I wanted it to look like....
.....then dug into my juice pouch stash, and went to work.


It turned out mostly how I had envisioned. I didn't end up using elastic on the inside like I had on the sketch. It would have looked too messy on the outside. And I was all out of white thread, so had to go with red. I'm not a huge fan of how it looks with the red thread, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

I couldn't get completely away from the ziploc bags either! I went ahead and grouped my makeup into 3 smaller bags so it's easier to find what I'm looking for. No more digging through everything to find those darn tweezers!!

It all fits nicely into my new makeup bag! Yay!!
We recently went on a weekend trip to visit family, and it was so nice having this makeup bag! Everything was all in one place and it was so much easier to pack! And since juice pouches are so durable, I plan on having this one around for a long time!

I'm linking to: Fireflies & Jellybeans, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, Making the World Cuter, The Girl Creative, The Trendy Treehouse, Someday Crafts

Sew Cute Tuesday {2.16.10}

I'll admit it.....I was a little nervous last week. I was so sure that nobody would link up any sewing projects, and I'd have to chalk this up as an "atleast I tried". So imagine how thrilled I was to have 19 links....and all of them were great!

It was hard to choose favorites, but here's a few that I really liked:

Plush Flowers in Pots from Bird Crafts via Someday Crafts


Tic Tac Toe: 3 Hearts in a Row from Oopsey Daisy


Corduroy Purse from Seven Thirty Three


Thanks for sharing your great sewing projects ladies! Feel free to grab the "I Was Featured Button" on my sidebar!

I can't wait to see what projects are linked this week!! I have a feeling my "To Do" list is going to be growing longer and longer!





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Rules for linking:
**please link sewing projects only! (can be sewn with sewing machine or by hand)
**link to the specific post, not blog home page!

Rice Bags

My husband recently had surgery to repair a hernia, and the day after his surgery, he asked me if we had a heating pad. Well, we don't own a heating pad, so I did the next best thing. I whipped up a rice bag that he could warm up in the microwave! It did the trick for him, and was a big help in his recovery.

Of course, when our kids saw what I was making, they all requested one too.

There are lots of tutorials on how to make these, but since my husband needed one quick, I just made it up as I went. All I did was:

**cut 2 rectangles

**placed them right sides together and sewed, leaving an opening at the top

**turned right sides out and ironed them flat

**filled with rice

**sewed the opening shut

It was so simple, that my oldest daughter made 2 more rice bags all by herself to give to some of her friends at school! It was a fun project that brought some warmth and relief to those that I love the most!

I'm linking to:

The Girl Creative, Keeping It Simple, Making the World Cuter, Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Blog Swap with Keeping it Simple!

Hello all you Creative Itch readers! I am super excited to be here with you today!! From the first time I went on Misty's blog, I knew that she was amazing. She has such great ideas and she does such a good job! I don't know how she does it, especially with having 5 kids, wow!

Let me introduce myself, I'm Kaysi

from Keeping It Simple.

I'm the mother of three adorable little boys, ages 4, 3, and 1. I'm married to an amazing man, he is just wonderful. My family is my life! Those boys bring me so much joy and happiness!

I am a simple person, I don't like to over do anything. I absolutely love color, especially green, brown and blue. With many hours of painting, I finally don't have a white wall in my house.

Each day of the week, I have something different.

Motivate me Monday, that's where I have link party and you get to show me all the cute things that you have done.

Tutorial Tuesday, I give a tutorial of a craft that I have done

Whatever Wednesday, this is my day that I put anything up.

Tip Thursday, this is the day that I post a scrapbook idea or give a scrapbook tip

Fridays are the days that I do Blog swaps with other bloggers.

Here are a few things that you can see at my blog:

Home Made Valentines

Wall hangings made out of gift boxes

Utensil Holder

Painted Countertops to look like stone

Ribbon Bow Tie

You should stop on by and see what else I have!!

Thanks so much Misty for doing this with me!

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Isn't Kaysi great?! I know for sure that I'm going to try her "wall hangings made out of gift boxes" idea...so clever!!
Thanks for swapping blogs with me, Kaysi!

The Best Pumpkin Bread!

I love pumpkin bread!! I was craving some and went looking for my recipe, but couldn't find it. So I went searching for a yummy recipe and hit the jackpot!

You can find the recipe HERE from Allrecipes.

**I used applesauce instead of oil, and added 1 c. of chocolate chips to the batter. I also sprinkled the top with a cinnamon/sugar mixture before baking. It gave the bread a nice, sweet crunch!

Our Articles of Faith Reward System

For the past year or so, I've been trying to figure out a way to help my kids learn the Articles of Faith. Previously we'd work on 1 Article of Faith a month for Family Home Evening, but there was no motivation for them to work on them on their own.

As part of my New Year's Resolution to "work on my organization", we revamped our Family Home Evening schedule. For the past several years we followed the Primary Outline for Sharing Time, but we wanted to incorporate talks from General Conference too. So this year, our FHE schedule goes as follows:

1st Monday: Lesson from the Primary Outline for Sharing Time (OST)
2nd Monday: Lesson from a General Conference Address
3rd Monday: Lesson about an Article of Faith
4th Monday: Lesson from the OST
5th Monday: Our Choice

Since we're having a lesson on an Article of Faith a month, I decided to implement a reward system for memorizing them. I grabbed a #10 can, cute paper, and Mod Podge and went to work.

The kids can work on memorizing the Articles of Faith however they want. They can wait until our lesson on them each month, and then try to pass it off, or they can work on 1 (or more) a week. For each Article of Faith that they pass off, they can pick a treat from the reward can. And to make it easier on myself and my husband, we've designated Sunday afternoons as the 'pass off' days. That way we aren't bombarded every day of the week with someone wanting to pass one off.

So far this has worked wonderfully! The kids are excited about learning and passing off the Articles of Faith, and I feel more organized about it all.