Cereal Necklace

I've been busy getting ready for a very special conference this week. I'm attending Alt SLC for the first time and am pretty anxious about it. That means, not a whole lot of my brain power has been going towards meaningful activities with the kids. Fortunately, I was able to take a tip from a fellow blogger and keep Jellybean busy making a cereal necklace yesterday afternoon.  I love simple projects and luckily, Jellybean does too. (Thanks Home Learning Journey for the sweet idea. It's an oldie but a goodie.)

Orange yarn (her favorite color) and Fruit Rings (one of her favorite cereals). I wrapped the end of the yarn with some tape to make it a little easier for Jellybean to string the fruit rings. She ate a lot of fruit rings while she put this together. Then she refused to eat any of the cereal on the necklace. Once it's an accessory, it's no longer food.

You can see some of her sticker rewards on her shirt. Potty training is going awesome!

I'm really looking forward to Alt.  Tomorrow, I'm going to post about what I'll be wearing. I want people to recognize me after all.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Lemon Pound Cake

We are in full "holidrama" mode over here. This may be the first year that I wondered why I bother with half of the things that I've found so important previous years (i.e. Christmas cards, neighbor gifts..etc.) I look at the list of things that still need to be done and I have to remind myself to take it a day at a time.  I've already resigned myself to the fact that the gifts I was supposed to ship to my friends in time for Christmas, will just not make it before Christmas. (sorry friends) Also, I haven't wrapped a single gift and am starting to regret the number of gifts purchased just because I don't want to wrap them.

Today, I felt like I was making some headway on my to-do list, however. I managed to actually mail those totally unnecessary Christmas cards and I did some totally unnecessary baking for our neighbors. Growing up, the traditional baked good for the neighbors was lemon pound cake. I thought I'd revive the tradition for our new neighborhood. Really, I'm just trying to make my mother proud.

Once the pound cakes were cool, I wrapped them up and brought Jellybean along to deliver them. My across the street neighbor never fails to look suspicious when I come over to deliver a small gift. Today, he looked at me in silence for a moment and then asked, "Oh, from across the street?" Uh, yeah, we've been here for more than a year, I was really hoping you'd recognize me by now...

Lemon Pound Cake:

Makes 2 standard loaves or 5 mini loaves (5.5x3x2)

Ingredients:
2 sticks butter (softened)
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. lemon extract

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream together butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Alternate adding eggs (2 at a time) and flour mixture to creamed butter. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and lemon extract.

Line loaf pans with parchment and grease well. Fill each loaf pan half full.

Bake standard loaves at 350 degrees F for 1 hour.

Bake mini loaf pans at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes.

Loaves are done when a toothpick comes out clean and the tops have a nice light golden color.

These cakes smell delicious right out of the oven, but will develop more flavor as they cool.

Enjoy!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Another Holiday Wreath

You may be wondering if I spent any time with my children this week. I'm pretty sure that's who I spent the majority of my time with, though to look at this blog this week, you may not know it.

I've just been in the mood to make things lately and have felt the need to take pictures and share (of course). So, here's the last project of the week. A really simple holiday wreath; completed during nap time yesterday. I had a grape vine wreath that has been sitting around since last year just beckoning to me. I also had a bag of holiday "doo-dads"(pine cones, small shiny balls and cinnamon sticks) that has been sitting around. I purchased it on sale last year as well. So, I sat down with my trusty glue gun and went to work.

This sweet little wreath has found its home on my mantel. As an added bonus, the cinnamon sticks still have some scent left. Weird how a quick project like this can lend such a sense of accomplishment. It's the little things I suppose.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Scrap Paper Dolls

I love paper dolls, but the little tabs on their clothes? Not so much.  So, when I saw this idea from Giddy Giddy and then I saw these free Betsy McCall Paper Doll printables, I knew I had the materials to make paper doll magic. I'm calling these Scrap Paper Dolls.  All the classic charm of the classic paper doll, no little tabs, endless possibilities. 

I chose a few of the Betsy McCall forms, enlarged them and then printed them out in color. From there I sketched out the area that I wanted to cut out.

Then I took my trusty Martha Stewart crafts knife and went to work cutting. After the cutting was complete, I went to town cutting out all kinds of different patterns from any catalogues and magazines I had lying around. I tried laying the scraps out nicely and then, with the help of my kids, I discovered that scattering them at random led to even more interesting results.  Here are some of the combos we came up with:

All I can say is: Those are some stylin' kids.

I've become obsessed with clipping different patterns and textures from all of the catalogues we receive in the mail. I loved The Land of Nod catalogue. As you can see, the combinations are infinite. The price tag on this is also awesome: The cost of the card stock and color printing (if you don't have your own color printer) and that's it.

We're all sick over here, so smiles were difficult to come by.

Ditch all of your paper doll tabbed clothing and try out some Scrap Paper Dolls. Big thanks to Giddy Giddy and Betsy McCall for giving me some inspiration!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Father's Day 5 Minute Craft

We just finished celebrating Father's Day in our home.  It was a nice day.  We got to spend time with my Dad, D's Dad and D's Grandfather. 
To celebrate the dad in this house, the kids helped me put together a little gift.

I had some scrap booking paper on hand, so I traced the kids' hands on some scrap paper and used that as a pattern for cutting out their prints in color.  Then I photoshopped a message and printed it out on some patterned paper.  After I glued on the hands, I slapped the entire thing in a frame and whallah!
If you are interested in the template for the message, here it is:

Best Dad Template for 8.5X10 Print

I got the inspiration for this project from this awesome blog: Roots & Wings Co.

You'll notice, that she did her lovely piece on a painted canvas with the hands actually going down, which may or may not add a little extra cuteness to the phrase, "hands down." Also note that their dad is apparently, "the World's Best" That's a pretty lofty claim. Sorry, D, I couldn't quite go there. heh.
This version seemed a little more, what's the word...work. I'm too lazy for canvases and paint. Especially if the project calls for a canvas and paint on the evening prior to Father's Day and the stores are already closed. I do wish I had placed the hands pointing down though, I totally missed that element.  I didn't even notice until D was unwrapping it.  He claims that it doesn't make a difference. I'll take his word for it.

I hope you all had a fantastic time celebrating the dads in your life.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ