Material Covered Canvas

I recently decided I needed some wall art for my room.

For this project I just used

4 8x10 canvases
Left over material
Spray adhesive
Black ribbon
Wooden letters which I painted black
Glue gun


I cut the material to match the size of the canvas. Then using the spray adhesive I glued the material to the canvas.

Next I hot glued the ribbon and the letters onto the canvas and that's it. This project was so easy and only took about 40 minutes from start to finish.

What do you think?

PJ the Elf

Seeing as there are so many of you new since I last posted our PJ the Elf tradition, I thought I would post about him again.

Our family has always received PJs for Christmas. Since I was a little girl. But I had never heard of PJ the Elf until my sisters introduced me to the idea when my children were little.

Now I go all out for Christmas Eve and PJ the Elf. He has special wrapping paper. A special knock and even his own special poem. I thought I would share the poem with you just in case you need one to attach to your PJs. This was written by my sisters a few years back:

You have been good so Santa has said,
Now put on your pj's and go straight to bed.
Your jammies will keep you so nice and cozy,
from the tip of your toes to your cute little nosey.
So hop into bed, dream of reindeer in flight
For Jolly ole' Santa is coming tonight!

Nothing gets a child to bed quicker than the thought that Santa is on his way.

Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree

Lately I've done so much furniture make overs that I rarely post simple crafts anymore. But I did this over the past few days and wanted to share it with you. It's really very simple to do. They are Christmas trees made from Popsicle sticks.

Here is what I did:

First I took a poster board and wrapped it into a cone shape. I glued the flap so that it stayed a come shape.

Next I cut it to the height I wanted.

I then attached four Popsicle sticks to the bottom all even so that it would stand on its own.

Next I hot glued Popsicle sticks and Popsicle wood chips (all can be found in the craft store) to the cardboard. I started at the borrow and layered them all the way around until I reached the top. This is the longest part of this craft.

Once the poster board was covered completely, I hot glued a snowflake Christmas tree ornament inside the top hole of the poster board / Christmas tree.

Finally I decided to stain mine. You could leave it Popsicle stick color but I felt I wanted it to look a little more rustic.

I've made two and they sit on the mantle with the snowman I made earlier this year too.

If you have any questions let me know. I'd be happy to answer them for you.

Ranch Cheese Ball

There are just some things that for me are a must while entertaining and one of those things is a Ranch Cheese Ball. Every time I make this bad boy it's hard to take it anywhere without my husband having a sneak taste or begging me to leave him some. And it's just one of those things that always goes first so I thought I had better share the love on this one.

Ingredients:

8oz cream cheese
1 stick of butter at room temp
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/2 packet dry ranch dressing seasoning

Directions:

Cream the butter and cheese together. Add the Ranch dressing packet and finally the cheese. Shape into a ball and serve with your favorite crackers.

You can use the whole Ranch packet but even with unsalted butter, to me, it's just to salty. But season it to taste. You can't go wrong. Enjoy!

Armoire make over

Most of you will remember that we moved to the USA from England only a year ago. And how when we came we only brought 3 suitcases for my husband, myself and our three children. Which meant we had a whole bunch of stuff to buy. We bought the essentials when we got here but have, over the passed year, been still collecting more items. I've recently been working on our bedroom. I've recovered lamp shades, a dressing table seat and an ottoman all for our bedroom. Well this weekend my husband and I refinished an armoire. Our bedroom is black and blue in color. I didn't want it to be to feminine but still wanted to pretty. Anyhow.....

About 2 months ago I bought this old armoire. I actually went to pick up a sander I bought from someone. She asked why I wanted it and I expressed my interest in refashioning furniture. Then she proceeded to tell me about an old armoire she needed to sell. It was given to her mother in law years earlier but was now just taking up space. So I looked at it but was certain she wanted far to much for it! When she told me I could have it for $50 I jumped right in it. It was just stained wood with gold handles. Nothing special. The drawers were broken and had to be fixed but over all the structure was fine.

Well here is the finished project. It went really quick because I pulled my husband out to help me. Lucky, I know.

What do you think?

Ottoman Refinish

A few weeks ago I found the ugliest ottoman at a rummage sale. Seriously, U-G-L-Y!! But I knew with a little help it could be pretty again. Paid the $20 for it with a vision of beauty and took it home. My husband was convinced I could never makes something so ugly beautiful again. I stripped the leather, painted the legs, recovered it and now it sits at the end if my bed. I love it. I'm in the process of redoing a bunch of items in my bedroom with this fabric. So far I've recovered this ottoman, my dressing table stool and the lampshades in our room. I'm having so much fun. I'm adding a picture of the lampshades too. Just for fun 😊

Pumpkin Spice Trifle

Each month at book club we all take a treat. I love this because it allows me to make all those pintrest recipes I've been dying to try. This month I wanted to do something pumpkin but not traditional pumpkin so I decided to look up and see if they had any Pumpkin Trifle recipes and I found this one on Taste of Home. It was a winner. Everyone really enjoyed it.

Ingredients:
1 package (14-1/2 ounces) gingerbread cake mix
1-1/4 cups water
1 egg
4 cups cold fat-free milk
4 packages (1 ounce each) sugar-free instant butterscotch pudding mix
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger, nutmeg and allspice
1 carton (12 ounces) frozen reduced-fat whipped topping, thawed

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, water and egg, beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour into an ungreased 8-in. square baking pan.

Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. When completely cooled, crumble the cake. Set aside 1/4 cup crumbs for garnish.

In a large bowl, whisk milk and pudding mixes for 2 minutes or until thickened. Stir in pumpkin and spices until well blended.

In a trifle bowl or 3-1/2-qt. glass serving bowl, layer a fourth of the cake crumbs, half of the pumpkin mixture, a fourth of the cake crumbs and half of the whipped topping. Repeat layers. Garnish with reserved cake crumbs. Serve immediately or refrigerate until serving.

I will definitely be making this again. What's your favorite pumpkin recipe?

Rocking Chair Makeover

Recently I've really been getting into the idea of refinishing furniture. So I've been buying furniture like crazy and refinishing it. At the moment all the furniture I've bought I've needed for our home. But hopefully in the near future I will buy things to refinish and sell. Here is my most recent refinish a rocking chair I bought for a whopping $20. It cost about $10 for all the materials. I wonder what I could sell this for if I tried. What do you think? Do you enjoy refinishing furniture? Any tips?

Bar Stool Recover

You know that feeling when you finally find something you've been looking for. Something you've wanted for what feels like ages but the right fit or in my case the right price never comes up? Well that was me and bar stools. I've wanted some for our kitchen bar since we moved back to the US but I could never find any the right height or more commonly the right price. That was until last week. I came across someone who was selling two for $15. I was so excited I didn't even try to talk her down. This week I bought some fabric and tonight while my lovely hubby was watch The Avengers for the 3rd time this week, he's a Marvel fanboy!, I recovered the bar stools. All I have left to do is put some clear vinyl in them.... I know, I know only Granny's cover their furniture with plastic. I may not be a Granny but I have got 4 small messy children. I'm going to cover in plastic for my sanity. :-)

Pumpkin Pie French Toast

Tis' the season for pumpkin. Honestly I can't get enough of it.

Tonight for dinner I made Pumpkin Pie French Toast. I put a picture up on Facebook for all my lovelies to see and had an overwhelming number of requests for the recipe. I guess I'm not the only pumpkin lover out there.

So as requested here is the recipe:

Pumpkin Pie French Toast

4 eggs
1/2 c. Pumpkin Purée
1/2 c. Milk
3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
2 teas. Vanilla
1 teas. Pumpkin Pie seasoning
1 loaf of French Bread sliced thickly

Mix the eggs, pumpkin purée and milk together. Add the brown sugar and vanilla and mix well. Finally add the pumpkin pie seasoning and give one final mix.

Heat a frying pan or griddle to medium and spray with your favorite non stick cooking spray.

Dip the French bread into the pumpkin mix. Make sure to cover both sides. I really like to let the soak it up. Place on your fry pan or griddle for 2-3 minutes then flip and cook the other side for the same amount of time. You want both sides to be a lovely light brown color.

Serve warm with maple syrup and/or whipped cream. For a special treat I whip up my own fresh cream with a little sugar and ginger added to it. Lovely.

He said WHAT!?!?!

The other morning I came downstairs after a long sleepless night with the baby. My hubby had gotten up with Miss K and Mr S to help them get ready for school and I took just an extra 15 minutes to "wake up". When I got down stairs Mr S was no where to be found, which is unsual for our 5 year old. I asked the huby where he was and he explained that he was probably hiding because he was embrassed. Embrassed? What? Mr S never gets embrassed. I asked what he did that was so embrassing and my hubby explained that he dropped the F BOMB.... Eeeekkkk What? My sweet innocent 5 year old said what? As far as I had known he has never even heard that word before. But then wait he just started Kindergarten this year. My once sweet and innocent little boy was being exposed to the world for the first time. And I quickly learned that not all 5 year old boys are as sweet and innocent as Mr S.

I wanted to do something and quick so after a little discussion about what words are right and what words are wrong we sent him off to conquer the world one bad word at a time. It must has worked because last night we watched Jumanji as a family and someone said OMG and he asked why if we cant say those words would we watch movies with those words. Nothing like a 5 year old to put you in your place :)

Anyway I was flipping through this months friend and found this totally awesome story and Pledge. The "Help Stamp Out Bad Language" Pledge. Needless to say we will be doing this for our FHE lesson on Monday evening. If anyone else is interested and doesnt have the Friend, here is a link to the website and page. Maybe we can all help to "Stamp Out Bad Language" In our own little parts of the world.

Pumpkin Spice Muddy Buddies

So I discovered a new love while at Target last week.... Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses. Imagine my excitement when I came across these bad boys. I started to think of all the lovely Pumpkin Spice Treats I could make. Cookie, truffles, and, wait for it.... Wait for it.... Muddy Buddies. Or as they like to call it here in East Texas, Puppy Chow. I know weird, who wants to eat something called Puppy Chow. I'll stick to Muddy Buddies 😉

These bad boys are easy to make and oh so tasty. The thing that takes the longest is unwrapping all the Kisses.

So here's what you do:

1 pkg Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses
1 box Chex Cereal
1 cup Powder Sugar(or more if you like

Unwrap all the Hershey's Kisses and put them into a bowl. Melt them by sticking the bowl in hot, boiling water so as to heat the bowl melting the chocolate. Stirring constantly.

When the kisses are all melted add about 9 cups of the cereal to the chocolate and mix well.

Finally put the powder sugar in a ziplock bag. Add the chex cereal covered in chocolate and do the Wiggle Dance shaking that bag so all the cereal is covered in the powder sugar.

Open the bag and pop one of those bad boys straight in your mouth. It's not my fault if you can't stop at just one. I know they are simple divine.

Enjoy!

Pacifier clip

Another project I have been meaning to do is a pacifier clip. My two year old still uses a pacifier.

Ok so here is the story. She NEVER took a "dummy" (thats what we call them in England) but when I had to stop nursing her when I got pregnant this time my wonderful, amazing, extremely helpful 8 year old thought it would be a great idea to give her a pacifier that she found from when the 18 month old was a baby. BIG MISTAKE! she loved it. So much so in fact that now she is completely attached to it and I fear that she might hide it in her purse on her wedding day for a quick suckle to settle nerves :)

No but honestly she loves it. The only problem at the moment is when it falls under her crib in the middle of the night and she cries cause she cant find it. Me and my 9 month pregnant belly have a little bit of a difficult time crawling under the bed to get it. So for months I have said I really need to make her a dummy (pacifier) clip. So last night I finally did it.

Again this was so easy I have no idea why I waited so long. I could have saved myself so much discomfort in the middle of the night especially these last few weeks.

All I did was:

Buy:

Ribbon

Clips

cute bows

cute buttons

I cute the ribbon long enough to double it over and hung the clip at the bottom. I ran a couple stitches across the bottom to keep the clip in place and a single stitch up either side of the ribbon so that it wasnt a loop. I wouldnt want it to get stuck around her neck. I them added some velcro and the cute bow and button for decoration. And that was it.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

Boppy Cover Remake

So I was given a boppy a few months ago and it has been sitting in a closet with all the other baby items just waiting to be used. Last night I pulled it out and decided to finally redo the cover. It needed a serious make over. It was so simple to do. I literally took the old cover traced around it on some really cute fabric, cut it out, sewed a zipper on it and then sewed the whole thing together. It only took about 1/2 an hour to do. I have no idea why I had been putting it off for so long. Now that I have done it I think I will make another one as a spare. Here are a few pictures :)

Here is while I was tracing and cutting the fabric. And that is the old cover.

Here is the finished Boppy cover on the Boppy. So easy Im not sure why anyone would ever buy a cover over making one :-)

Announcement

Some of you may remember nearly two years ago I had a very traumatic pregnancy when my water broke at 18 weeks with my now two year old.

Here is Siena at 2 years old. She is with her big sister and little brother.

You may even remember that I had explained how I always have very difficult pregnancies and that out of the three children I had never been pregnant longer than 34 weeks. My oldest was born at 34 weeks and my middle born at 26 weeks.

Well for this reason I was very hesitant to tell the world that I was expecting my fourth child. We are back in the USA now and I was very hopeful that things would be different and I can now tell you that things have been very different. I am now 38 weeks and am scheduled for a c-section in 11 days. I am so excited. This pregnancy has been wonderful. Im not going to say that it has been 100% easy but I have the most amazing Dr. who has worked with me so well to prevent anything from happening and everything he has done has worked. For the first time I am now carrying a full term baby.

This is the reason for the lack of posts over the past nine months. Being a full time mom and taking care of this unborn child have been my main priorities. I love being a mom. I feel that it, along with being a wife, are the two most important things in my life right now.

I have been crafting and the next few posts will be a few of the things I have worked on recently and over the last nine months. I have more to do before this little GIRL (yes we will have 3 girls and 1 boy) arrives and I will try to get some of them posted before she arrives.

Me at 37 weeks pregnant. I get asked a couple times a day if I am having twins. Nope just one, but she is a very big girl already according to the sonograms.

Frosted Strawberry Squares

There are certain tastes and recipes which immediately send me back to my childhood. One of those recipes is Frosted Strawberry Squares. My mom used to make these during the summer when the strawberries were ripe and on sale in the stores. With strawberries being on sale these past few weeks here in Texas for 99 cents per pound I have been making these babies and just as I loved them when I was a child. My children and my husband love them too. Hopefully it will be one of those tastes that will effect my children the same way when they are adults as it does me.

Frosted Strawberry Squares:

Ingredients:

1 Cup Flour

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Slivered or Chopped Almonds

1/2 Cup Melted Butter

2 Egg Whites

1/2 Cup granulated Sugar

10 oz Whipping Cream

2 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

2 Cups Sliced Fresh Strawberries, Crushed / Smashed

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325F
• Combine Flour, Brown Sugar, Almonds and melted butter and spread in an 8x8 pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Stir a couple of times. Once done allow to cool completely.
• Once cooled press 2/3 of the mixture in the 8x8 pan to create the crust
• Beat egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form
• Beat whipping cream until soft peak
• Combined beaten egg whites, whipped cream, lemon juice and crushed strawberries. Spread mixture over the crust.
• Sprinkle the remaining crust/crumb mixture over the top
• Freeze 3 - 6 hours
• Cut into squares and serve. I garnish with a little fresh whipped cream and strawberries.

As a side note this last week when I made this I used Splenda brown sugar blend and Splenda Sugar substitute. It worked very well. When frozen they needed to defrost a little bit before serving but it actually worked very well and tasted very good still.

Coronation Chicken Sandwich FIller

During the Queens Diamond Jubilee we decided to have a few friends over and have a little garden party. We served traditional British food. You know, scones with Clotted Cream and Jam, Sausage Rolls, Chocolate Rice Crispy cakes and Sandwiches. Not just any sandwiches though Coronation Chicken Sandwiches. Since then I have had so many people ask me for the recipe. Even people who werent at the garden party have now heard of this awesome chicken sandwich which I made that evening and been requesting the recipe. So I thought I would list it here. If so many of my Texas Friends want it than maybe people in the rest of the world would be interested too. If you try it let me know what you think. We love it!

Coronation Chicken Sandwich Filler:

Ingredients:

1 Can Chicken (Or 2 chicken breast cooked and shredded)
3 Tbsp Mayo
1 Tbsp Mango Chutney
1/2 teasp cinnamon
Curry powder to taste
1 - 2 small boxes of raisins

Mix all these ingredients together and serve on your favorite bread. I love it best on homemade Honey Wheat. Either way even on the cheapest store bought bread this recipe is delicious and I am sure you will enjoy it as much as we do!

Teacher Appreciation Week Printable

Next week is Teacher Appreciation week at my 8 year olds school. Each day the children are supposed to take a different kind of item for their teacher. Monday they are to take in some kind of poem or art creation. So I made this little printable which I will frame and have my daughter take with her.



I have some ideas for the other days I just haven't gotten around to making them yet. But I will post those as the week goes by too. If you can use this please feel free to its a size 8x10 but you can shrink it down to whatever size you would like :)

Pretty Storage Boxes

So my husband and I are still in the process of decorating and furnishing our home. When we moved to Texas from England we literally brought 3 suitcases with us and sent two small boxes with a few misc. items. When we got here we bought all the essentials and have since been buying a few bits and bobs. A couple weeks ago we bought an entertainment center from Ikea. I love Ikea. This entertainment center has four cubby holes down the left side and 4 cubby holes along the bottom. I was able to fill all but two of the cubby holes and really needed them to be filled cause it was driving me insane having them empty. So I got onto pintrest and came across these really cute nappie (diaper) boxes which has been covered with material. I knew straight away that this was what I wanted to do. So here is what I made:



I kind of have a purple theme going on in our living room. I am not sure why I just really liked it with the black so it stuck. Here is a link to the site where I found the idea. I really didn't follow her tutorial just because it was so simple to do. But if you need a tutorial she has a great one. Happy Crafting!

Summer Wreath

I needed a cute wreath to adorn my front door. I mean lets face it I don't think its socially acceptable to have the Christmas wreath up at the end of April :) So I grabbed a few things from Hobby Lobby, one of my favorite stores since moving back to the US, and made this sexy little number:

It was so simple. I literally covered a styrofoam wreath with some scraps of burlap I had around the house and then stuck some sunflowers on and a cute bow to finish it off. So simple and yet really cute. I do think I will have to bring it inside during the CrAzY TeXaS StOrMs!! They are wild here!!

Family Rules

So since we moved back to the US I have been trying to decorate. I have a million and one projects on the go and about the same number to blog about. Here is something that I made today for a little table in our living room. Im sure there will be more of these to come.

Natural Homemade Facials

Recently I have been asked quiet a few times if I have any suggestions for simple Natural remedies for skin care. See I am a trained Esthetician. I went to school when I was in my early 20's and gave it up when we moved to England and had children so that I could be a stay at home mom. Even though I don't go to work and give facials or do aromatherapy any longer it doesn't mean that I am not interested in the skin any longer. In fact my 8 year old has recently been put on some medication which causes her to break out, not good!! I wanted to use some very mild Natural products on her and decided the best way to do this was by making homemade products.



There are two tips I want to share with you:

1) Always wash your face twice. The first time all you do is remove make up or dirt that is on top of your skin. The second wash is to actually was your skin.

2) Wash your face with warm water. This opens your pores and allows you to clean your pores. When you are finished splash your face with cool water. This will close your pores up and keep any new dirt from getting inside.

Mango Chicken Salad with Lime Cilantro Dressing

I thought I would share with you one of my favorite salad recipes. This salad is pretty and tastes delish!! If you have any awesome salad recipes you want to share back my family would thank you. It's like summer here in Dallas and I'm pretty certain that means this summer we will only be eating salads :)

Ingredients

4 cups torn romaine lettuce
3 cups cut-up cooked chicken
1 can (15 oz) Progresso® black beans, drained, rinsed
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 ripe medium mangoes, seed removed, peeled and chopped
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup lime juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, if desired
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Red pepper sauce, if desired

Directions

In 3-quart glass trifle bowl, layer lettuce, chicken, black beans, tomatoes and mangoes.
In jar with tight-fitting lid, shake dressing ingredients. Drizzle over salad; serve immediately. Or, cover and refrigerate salad and dressing separately up to 4 hours; drizzle salad with dressing just before serving.

Valentines Day Swag

So we have arrived in TX. We love it here. And I have now found a totally awesome crafting buddy! Yay for me ;)

The other day we ran to Joann's and brainstormed in the isles to try and come up with a really cute valentines day swag. Something not to red or pink but totally cute!

Here is what we did.

You need:

Burlap
Felt
2 pieces of card stock. We got the kind you can sand. Yeah totally awesome stuff!
1 piece of scrapbook paper

We cut the burlap into 8 squares 4" wide and 5 1/2" tall. Then we folded a 1" flap and sewed them over this is where you will pull your string through to hang it.

Next we cute a heart in the felt. We used a cookie cutter to gage the size. We used the outside of the cutter for a bigger heart made of felt, the inside of the cookie cuter for a heart made out of card and then just cut a smaller heart out of scrapbooking paper.

We then, using our sewing machines, sewed the hearts together and into the burlap. Way Cute!!!

Last I just strung them together and hung it on the mantle. So cute. Not to red or to pink but just enough to know that it is Valentines.

What do you think? Cute?