How could I forget?

Just a quick post because I forgot to add it earlier in the day. Yay for me because I was a lucky winner of a giveaway for a subscription to Family Fun Magazine from the blog Crap I've Made I can't believe how good it feels to win something. That was a first for me and it made me so happy. It was great to have that experience because now I know how someone feels when they win one of my giveaways and that makes me want to do more of them. So thanks to Crap I've Made for the great prize. P.S. Check out that blog. I love it, can relate to it and find it super refreshing. I have added a link on my sidebar to this blog and some other new ones so check them out.

Random pictures and ramblings

I just have a couple of random pictures to post and a frustration to vent; bear with me please.

First: Ever wonder what it is like to craft with a one year old? Now you know. I sometimes have people ask how I can get things done. Well I usually do most projects while small fry sleeps or daddy is home but occasionally I try and do something while she is awake and this is what happens. I try and craft and keep her occupied with whatever will grab her interest. The garbage can is my best resource. She unloads it all over my craft room floor and I get in 15 minutes of craft time. There, now you know my secret.Second: Dear Martha Stewart,

I love everything Martha and I am a big fan. Of course I would buy any of your crafting materials, that is a no brainer. But alas, I must post my beef with your so called "permanent glue". You tell us on the back of the bottle that it works on a "variety of crafting materials." I have tried this on felt, fun foam, buttons, ribbon and fabric and guess what? It has not made a single one of those things stick to anything. Martha what you have here is glue that holds paper together, that is it. I think you should change the label to say, "permanent crafting glue that can be used on a variety of crafting materials, but really it is only going to work on paper." At least that way we know what we are getting.

Thanks,

A concerned customer.

T-shirt #2

My nephew just turned one this past weekend so I wanted to make him an "I'm one" t-shirt as well. I got a bit more creative with his and used a dinosaur cut out and put the one on top of it.

It turned out really cute. Here is a picture of Zach and Small fry at the end of the party. I just had to post this picture because I would want to poke my eyes out too if everyone wanted to play with my new toys and small fry wouldn't hold still so I could give her a kiss. We had a great time at the party.

We have a winner

I apologize for being tardy on posting the winner of the giveaway, we have just had a busy morning. But so that you are not kept in suspense any longer here you go......

Here are all the names, 24 to be exact
I cut them up and put them in this handy dandy pail

Small fry reached in and fished around for a bit

And this is the name she picked. Congratulations Leslie. I left you a comment on your blog to e-mail me. If it makes everyone else feel better, Small fry did at some point draw out your name. She fished through the pile of names multiple times.

A Sweet Giveaway---Now closed

As promised the cupcake cards are complete and ready to give away to someone who is just as sweet as they are. This giveaway includes the set of 6 cupcake cards (all the outsides are different and the insides are pink). They all have a tag that says, "So sweet" on the outside. I figured the winner could customize them how he or she wants. These could be used for thank you cards, a birthday invitation, or a birthday card. Whatever you want really. They each come with their own cellophane envelope and I am including 6 white envelopes also. You can mail cards in cellophane envelopes but they do cost a bit more. The giveaway will close on Monday morning; that is when Small fry will make the drawing. If you would like to be entered please leave a comment. Everyone is welcome. Good luck.

Glorious Gardening Revisited

The weather is GORGEOUS here. I finally have been able to break out my shorts and we love being outside. My little plants that were started inside just got too big to be in the house any longer so we moved them out to the garden. Small fry thought this was the most wonderful thing ever. We had put her on the grass to play before and she loved that, but once she discovered a whole lot of dirt that was free for her to explore/eat, she was in heaven. She crawled around in the dirt and licked the rocks and pushed dirt in the holes we dug, pulled leaves off the plants we transplanted and in general had a great time. She was not impressed at all when I had to take her inside for nap time.

We now have the following things planted in our garden:

Potatoes

Peas

Beets

Onions

Cherry Tomatoes

1 Broccoli

Carrots

Lettuce

Sunflowers

Tomato plant in a water tower

Broccoli plant in a water tower

Cupcake Thank You's

I found this template online when I was searching for a cupcake pattern for an apron that I made (go here for that post). I thought that it had great possibilities and wanted to turn it into a card someday. Well that someday has come my friends. I was needing to make a few more thank you cards to send out after Small fry's birthday. I went back to this template and copied and pasted it into Microsoft Word and then printed it out. Here is what I did to make the cards.

Step 1: Cut out the cupcake template. You could adjust the size to your liking. I used a 12x12 piece of cardstock to make my cards. Fold the cardstock in half. Place the template on the fold with one edge hanging over slightly. This is where the card will open. Using this size of paper allows you to get 2 cards from each sheet of paper. Trace the cupcake onto the cardstock and cut it out.

Step 2: I used felt to make the liner part of my cupcake. I roughly traced the bottom of the cupcake onto my felt and cut it out. You want the top part of the felt to come up higher than where the imaginary top of the liner would be. This way your cupcake top can overlap with the felt. I used a regular old glue stick to attach the felt. Step 3: Trace the top of the cupcake onto a patterned paper. This time trace around the whole top. Cut this piece out and glue it to the cardstock.This is what it will look like. From here what you do to embellish it is totally up to you. I used a small price tag that I had on hand and stamped "Thank you" on it and attached it with sticky tape then glued a little bow on. I also traced the inside of the card on another piece of patterned paper and glued it to the inside.I love these so much I am going to make another set to use in a give away so stay tuned for that coming up. Enjoy!!!

Happy Birthday to small fry

I grew up on a farm and love the country life. So when we knew we were going to have a baby I wanted to have farm stuff be a part of my child's life also. We decorated the babies nursery with animals and have tons of stuffed farm animals and animal/farm books around the house. So a few months ago when my Aunt (thanks Auntie Cathy) gave me 2 boxes full of farm themed birthday party stuff I knew it would be perfect for small fry's 1st birthday party. Besides the decorations my Aunt gave us, my brother and I made farm animal shaped sugar cookies as well as cupcakes decorated as sheep, pigs and chickens for the party. We also had veggies and dip and chips.

Here is the treat table.The farm animal cupcakes. The chickens were and sheep were Martha Stewart ideas. Here is a link to the chickens. The pigs we made up ourselves using pink frosting and strawberry marshmallows which the cake decorating Gods lead us to in the baking isle at Wal-Mart.
The cookies decorated by my extremely talented brother. You can check out the blog he is starting here.

The gift table (yes I know she is spoiled, we're okay with that)
The "Happy Birthday" banner I made a month or so earlier.
Small fry's cake. I just made her a jumbo cupcake and frosted it with cool whip and sprinkles. I am sorry but I just couldn't justify giving her a whole cake covered in sickening sweet frosting just so she could smash her hands in it.

At first she didn't even want to try it. We all sang "Happy Birthday" and she was really confused as to what was going on.
But after one little taste she figured out it was pretty good and ended up eating 1/2 of it. And she didn't even get very messy (she takes after her mommy)
She even shared with mommy. Afterwards we opened her gifts and in classic one year old style she was most thrilled with the bows and packaging. She got tons of cute clothes and some great toys. I will post pictures of her with those later.

I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to everyone who took the time to come to the party and gave us such wonderful gifts. It is really nice to have part of my husbands family and my family and a few great neighbors show us their support and love. It was great to have my family all together for a few days and small fry had so much fun playing with her 2 cousins that were there and her uncles and grandparents that today when everyone is gone she seems to be lost. I just really appreciate the love and support shown to us.

Birthday preparations

One of the best qualities about my family is that they are not afraid of traveling nor do they let distance keep them from getting together. It was because of my family wanting to come for small fry's birthday that we ended up having her party a few days earlier than her actual birthday. First my parents were going to come (from Canada) for my younger brother's college graduation (in Idaho) and since they were going to be near by they would be able to come for the birthday party too. That meant that my younger brother and his wife would also be able to come. And because we were all getting together (which we only do a few times a year) my old brother was able to fly in too from New York City. That meant we could all be together. It was the best weekend having everyone together. One thing we do well together is laugh and it was so refreshing. So here are the events leading up to the big party.

1st: Daddy watched small fry so I could drive the 3 hours to the airport to pick up my older brother. From the pictures daddy took it looked like he and little one had a great day (he even took her out to lunch to a local burgers and fries place where she ate her first corn dog). My brother and I had a great day too. I laughed so hard I was choking and coughing most of the day. It was wonderful though.

Daddy and small fry wearing their camo hats getting ready to go have lunch.

2nd: The next day cousin Kylie came and played with small fry so that my husband could do some much needed outside work and my brother and I could get the party treats ready.

Here is my fantastic brother frosting the farm animal cookies. Thank heavens for him. I finally turned the job over to him completely after I decorated 2 dog cookies that looked more like sickly yaks. Here is a sneak peak of the treats.3rd: My parents arrived late Friday night and my aunt and uncle came the next afternoon. We decided to take a little drive out of town to look at some ancient Indian cliff drawings.4th: My wonderful sister in law planned a little Easter egg hunt at my mother in laws in the afternoon so we went and took that in. Small fry knew exactly what to do because she practiced a few days before at the church Easter egg hunt. She didn't want the egg hunting to end. I think we may play Easter egg hunt outside for months to come now because it was such a hit.She did so well walking and just holding on to one of daddy's hands to find the eggs.

Cousin Zachary hunting his eggs.

Grandpa Sam helping with the egg hunt.

The 3 cousins together with all their eggs.

5th: Small fry chilled out and played with all the company while we had a nice dinner and visited together. The next day would be Easter Sunday and the big party. She had no idea what was going to be happening.