To do list!

Not only do I have a to do lost for crafts but everyday chores too! I'm hoping to get all these knocked out tomorrow. If only miss Abelle would go to sleep!

Weekend

I hope the everyone had a wonderful weekend! I sure did! My six year anniversary was this past saturday.  In the six years the hubs and I have never gone out and celebrated. My sister in law had plans for the kids, so everything worked out. My husband surprised me with a new camera lens. A 50mm f1.8 lens! I was so excited to use it, so he took me to a park. We spent three hours just walking and talking about everything. It was really nice to spend time with him and to have a conversation with no interruptions.  "Our" day was wonderful and we both really enjoyed it. On Sunday we had a small dinner at my mother's apartment and the kids got to spend time with their Gma. The weather was beautiful that day and the kids were able to swim and play in her backyard. I took a  walk and played around with my camera. Her landlord lives behind her and loves to garden. He has all kinds of fruits and veggies growing. My mom has known him for years and his garden is not fenced in, so he allows us to walk through it as long as we don't disturb anything. Him and his wife are such sweet people. They have given me many of their crops for my family to enjoy. The walk was fantastic and I'm hoping to get some more pictures of his fruit to use for my kitchen decor. For now I will leave you with a few of my pictures taken with my anniversary gift. Did I forget to mention that my husband also purchased some Florabella photoshop actions. They are all so beautiful and Shana takes such wonderful pictures of her children and horses. Check it out if you get a chance!

My husband wanted to play with the cam too.

Gma bought her a mini golf set.

Gma bought him a pool for her patio.

Beautiful flowers at her landlord's house.

We've had so much rain the pomegranate bushes were full of fruit!

Grapes

Figs.

Smartphones!

Every night before I go to bed I run a to do list through my head. It seems like almost every night I have write a blog post on my list! MY blog has definitely been a struggle for me to keep up with. It seems like anytime I sit down at a computer my daughter is "working" too. I rarely get to use my computer during the day. Well even at night. Between driving my son to school, cooking three meals a day, laundry (which seems to never end), household chores, and running errands there is hardly any "ME" time.

Since I rarely have the computer to myself I came up with this brilliant plan! I'm not sure why it has taken me such a long time to find a solution to my oh so lonely blog. ( which I'm sure the only three people that read this are my friends :/) I decided to check the app store on my iPhone, and bam there was a blogger app! How cool is that?! I'm sure that I am late to the blogger app party, but it sure did make my night! So here I am promising that I will be posting regularly again. There is no way that I can't do it now! I mean I always have my phone on me so it seems like it will be very convenient! Oh iPhone how I love you!( I'm sure all phones have the app) so for now I'm going to leave you with a few pictures from the past month. Enjoy!

We went to the beach, got our zoo membership again, and went to a carnival near the house.

I'M BACK!!!

Yes I'm back!! Finally after all the mess with my laptop we got a iMac :) I'm still getting to know her, we are only acquaintances but soon we will be best friends.  I have been on somewhat of a hiatus since my old laptop broke down. I mean a hiatus from just about everything. I've been having crafting withdrawals, not to mention my addiction to Pinterest!!! I mean who is not addicted to that. Speaking of Pinterest, I was recently on there and saw the bast photo props. Well I guess for a back drop. I've seen and heard about these for a while now. I knew they were fairly easy to make, but I did get my tutorial from here. Its pretty simple and easy to follow. I actually made a few to use while I was going to attempt  take my kids spring pictures. They came out pretty decent and I can't wait to make more for parties and to hang over my daughter's bed. Just be sure you do have 8 sheets in each package of tissue paper or else you will have a pretty flat pom pom. I'm telling you from experience, I sent my husband to buy the tissue paper from the dollar tree thinking that 8 sheets was a standard pack. I was definitely wrong. Anyhow let me know if you have tried this or have done it before. There are tons of tutorials around and I actually want to try a few of these:

1. Smile and Wave  These colors look awesome.
2. 36th Street events This would look cool for a mini photo shoot
3. Beyond Beyond This would be great for a party.
4. Pizzazzerie For my love of birds and owls. :)
5. 7 Year Wedding This isn't a tutorial but awesome display.


Well with that in mind I hope that you try these out for you next party, photo shoot, or home decor. I'm on the POM POM band wagon.  Here's how mine came out today.

What I did without a computer...

So I have been gone for a long time now. I was taking a mini vacation from flower making and blogging.  As I was on hiatus my computer decided to crash, my oven broke (right before a big dinner party), I got into a fender bender, my husband spilled soda on my phone, and then I received my computer from the repair center and it crashed for good.  Everything is starting to get back into place and with it being a new year I'm making a change . I will try to blog more and I already started changing my eating habits.  After I had my daughter I lost all my baby weight within 9 months, then I started eating all the bad stuff again. I went from eating 2 boiled eggs or oatmeal to eating a stack of pancakes or biscuits and gravy. So back to my eating healthy. I know this is supposed to be a craft blog, but when my computer crashed I lost all of my photos from tutorials :(  So for now I will share what we ate for lunch today :)

Pizza Pockets

Flat Wrap Pizza

My daughter stealing my pineapple!!!

  Now my husband and kids don't really like the meals that I eat for myself. I still make their food very healthy. Like whole wheat pancakes while I eat and egg omelet or special K red berries. For lunch they had Pizza Pockets and this is how I made them:

Pizza Pockets

1 can crescent rolls
Jar of Pizza sauce
Pepperoni or what ever filling you would like
Shredded Mozzerlla cheese.
Olive Oil and Italian Seasoning (optional)

I just opened up each piece of crescent rolls. Placed a very small amount of pizza sauce in the middle. Add filling and fold cover, use a fork to seal the edges. Brush a little olive oil on top and sprinkle with italian seasoning. Bake until brown, about 13 minutes.


Now for my lunch I had a flat wrap pizza. Which is very easy to make and very yumming, Also it is very healthy and low calorie.  Now I didn't have any low fat cheese or anything, but that couldn't hurt. ;) I got my Flat wrap from Costco. It is 100 calories and 100% Whole Wheat. Also has FLAX inside. Great for making wraps and well pizzas :)

I just layered a wrap with a very small amount of pizza sauce. (i'm not a big fan of pizza sauce, I like just enough) Then I added all my toppings. For this pizza I added a few pepperoni, a handful of frozen fajita veggies, pineapple chunks cut in half, canadian bacon, and mozzerella cheese. I also sprinkled it with italian seasoning. I baked it for 10 minutes of 350 and then broiled it for a couple minutes.

I hope you try these recipes or feel free to tell me some of your recipes. I would love to hear from you all.

First Sewing Tutorial with help from Little Red Roost

Yay!! Finally a sewing tutorial.



 I actually made this dress a few months ago, but I have been waiting a long time to post it. This dress is so easy to make anyone can do it. I'm not the best seamstress, but I can make a few things. I tend to make things more complicated than what they are. I also have to stick to something I can make during naptime. I got this tutorial from Little Red Roost. It's actually an adult dress, but I decided to make a mini version for Princess Abelle. This dress is so much fun to make you will definitely make more. I have made 3 already!! Enough of the blabbing let's get started.

What you will need:

old t-shirt

1/2 yard of fabric (I used a pillowcase I purchased from the thrift store)

thread

sewing machine

pinking shears

elastic

iron and ironing board





For the skirt portion of the dress, you will need a piece of fabric wide enough to go around and as long as you’d like. Cut your material and sew up the side to form a large rectangle open on the top and bottom.

Next you iron a casing for your elastic. iron the top 1/4 in, next fold it down about 1/2in-1in depending on the width of the elastic you are using. Make sure you make the casing larger than the elastic since you will be sewing 1/4 in from the stop to attach to shirt.

Next sew your casing.



I don't sew the straighest  ^_^



Once you have sewn your casing cut a small slit, so you can feed your elastic through.

I use a safety pin attached to one end of my elastic to feed it through my casing. Once you feed it through sew the ends of elastic together.

Now you end up with a skirt!! Your next step is to figure out the placement where you want to attach the skirt to the shirt. Trim the excess fabric from the shirt. Make sure you leave a little for seam allowance. Does that make sense? I wanted this dress to be a little more of an empire waist than her others that I made her. Pin the dress to the shirt and sew right above you top stitch for the casing. This was the part that I had trouble with, but as I said before I make everything harder than it seems.

Once you are finished all you need to do is sew the hem on the bottom of the skirt and your little princess will be ready to wear it to the park with big brother!!

Here are the other two dresses I made using the same tutorial.





made from her old shirt and clearance fabric

made from my old shirt and skirt!

 Thanks for checking this out I hope that this tutorial has been helpful, and I would like to thank Little Red Roost for posting the original tutorial.



Fall Weather and Apple Pancakes...

\Well the weather here in Texas has been pretty nice. Awesome rainy days and cooler nights. This is the time of year that I bake A LOT!! I guess it's so I can add that extra layer of fat for the winter. This recipe I came across isn't baked but I love anything with apples. They were pretty good so I decided to share with you.

Apple Pancakes

1 1/2 cups reduced-fat baking and pancake mix ( I used Bisquick, I know it's not reduced fat hehe)
1/2 tsp apple pie spice ( I didn't have any on hand so I just added a little cinnamon and nutmeg.)
1 cup finely chopped apple (about one apple)
1 cup water

1. Sift pancake mix and pie spice in large bowl. Add 1 cup water. Mix well and stir in apple.
2. Coat large non-stick skillet with butter flavored cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto skillet, cook for 2-3 minutes or until it starts to bubble.

This recipe is pretty simple to make and they taste pretty good too.  Next time I might try and bake the next time. Let my know if you try this recipe I would like to see how you modify it or like it.