Summer Scraps: March 2012

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Breathing Space Giveaways I have found

Because I want all of you to join me at the Breathing Space retreat I want to share these giveaways I have found. The giveaways are for a ticket to the event. If I find more I will let you know!

The first Breathing Space ticket giveaway I found is at Is this my life? The giveaway ends on April 10th at midnight - so go enter :-)

The second Breathing Space ticket giveaway I have found is at Keeping it Simple This giveaway ends on April 5th.

Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor! (tee hee, couldn't help adding that bit from Hunger Games)

Summer

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Featured on Newlyweds on a Budget

Today my Choosing Craft wood Tutorial was featured on Newlyweds on a Budget! Awesome!

Kari from Newlyweds on a Budget also has a great Tutorial Tuesday linky party. Go check it out!

Summer

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Breathing Space Retreat

I have made the decision to attend the Breathing Space Retreat.

I am so glad I have made the choice to attend this retreat. This retreat is really for anyone - those who enjoy reading blogs, bloggers, really anyone looking for a girls weekend getaway.

There will be some fun classes, activities and yummy food - I have already started planning what classes I am hoping to take!

This fun retreat is being held on May 4th and 5th in Daybreak, UT. I was able to meet Aly last week who is planning the event (she is so cute by the way) and she has already told me of some of the fun activities planned. I am so excited and meeting her made me even more thrilled!

Here is a link to a fun video that Aly has made about the retreat. I haven't quite learned how to add videos to my blog posts, so you get a link :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq7UGfkYUYo

Are any of you planning on coming to the retreat? If so let me know.

Summer

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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Watching grass grow...

Watching grass grow is literally what I have been doing this last week and a half. Wheat grass that is! I have seen some ideas on Pinterest and other places about decorating with Wheat grass and I have just loved it. With Spring and Easter here I knew that I wanted to bring this element into my home decor. So using a tutorial I found I decided to go ahead. My little sidekick Adison wanted to do it as well so it was a group effort.

I found this pretty planter at the second hand store and just knew it would be perfect, and it was only $3 - can't beat that!

So I ripped out the fake flowers, glued some loose pieces of wood and then repainted it white. I repainted it because it was yellowing in some spots. I then added some dirt and my prepared wheat kernels.

Here is a close up of the wheat kernels. If you look close you can already see a white head starting to poke out of the kernel. That's the beginning of my grass!!

Adison planted hers in a simple can. Now it has been about 12/13 days and I have some wheat grass to show you. Keep in mind that our two planters have been buddies for this whole experience. They both received the same dirt and wheat. They both were watered at the same time with the same amount of water. They were both put out in the sun at the same time.

Adison's Wheat - so lush and pretty!

My wheat - can you even see it?

Here is a close up to help you see it better.

Here is a side by side pic so you can see how lush Adison's wheat turned out and how mine is very sad and sorry to look at.

Dude! Seriously! It's like the Wheat Gods spat on my planter "No wheat grass for you!"

Can you imagine how pretty the grass from Adison's can would look in my planter? I want to put this on my mantle but it is pitiful right now.

What do you think happened? I am thinking of trying a second time around.

Have you ever tried to grow wheat grass. I was going to say it really isn't that hard but if you look at my planter you might disagree. In case you want to see the tutorial I used and some beautiful wheat grass check out the the tutorial found on the Today's Fabulous Finds blog.

Summer

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Visiting Disneyland Series Part 1 - When to go?

I have always been a huge Disney fan. In fact if I could choose to go anywhere for a vacation it would be a Disney resort. I have only been to Disneyland but I would just love to go to Disney World! By the time my oldest son was 4 years old we had gone to Disneyland 3 times. Then money became tighter and more kids joined the family and we were not able to make it back for some time. This past year the kids were a bit older and we decided it was finally time to visit the happiest place on earth! The best part is that we surprised them - but I will write more on that later :)

When we got home I wanted to write a blog post about our vacation right away but there were a million photos to go through and I didn't make it a priority. In a couple of months it will be a year since we have gone so I told myself I had to write about this now, better late than never!

I thought it would be fun to share with you my planning, preparing and fun that we had. There is so much to write and share that I thought I would split this up into a series. So my hope/goal is to add to this series every Sunday. I would love for you to share your tips and ideas as well so please be sure to leave comments!

Disneyland Series Part 1 - When to go?

When your family makes the decision to go to Disneyland one of the first decisions is when to go? For me it is usually "Let's go tomorrow!" and then Ryan has to talk some sense into me and he helps me realize we have to plan and pack.

Every family is different and has to decide what works best for them. For us it is going during the off season - but for others that is not practical because of work and school. So I decided to come up with some pros and cons

Going to Disneyland during the "on" season

Pros:
-Longer hours of operation
-Majority of rides/attractions are open
-Fireworks happen more often *I think*

Cons:
-Long lines
-Crowded
-Eating in restaurants takes longer due to crowds
-During the summer it is usually way too hot (Thanks for the tip from Jackie who commented on my Facebook post - I completely agree with her!)

There are many more pros and cons - but that is what I can think of right now. Can you think of anymore? I will add them to the list.

Going to Disneyland during the "off" season

Pros:
-Not as many crowds so you can get through lines faster
-No crowds! - Yes, that bears repeating twice!

Cons:
-Shorter hours of operation
-More rides will be closed for maintenance
-Kids might miss a little school

Can you think of any other pros/cons for going to Disneyland during the off season?

For our family the off season is clearly the winner. For us we need to make the biggest bang for our buck since we don't get to go that often. So we need to go when there are hardly any crowds so we can experience more rides and attractions. Our kids did miss some school but I arranged everything with the schools/teachers before we left and had our kids do the schoolwork prior to vacation. In fact they even stayed after school a few days to make sure they understood everything. The only downer for us is that we miss the fireworks. We usually arrive on a Sunday and leave on a Friday - so we don't get to see the fireworks they have over the weekend during the off season. I have heard that they are awesome!

So when is the "off" season? Well it's not during the summer time and it's not during the holidays. I have gone to Disneyland in May, June, November and February. Out of all those times June was the busiest. My favorite was in November. They were starting to put out the Christmas decorations but we went early enough in November that we did not have any holiday/Christmas crowds. You can visit the Disney website for to see when their on/off seasons are to get a better idea of what works for your family. Disney also has a fun and free trip planning DVD available for when you start thinking about going on your trip.

Do you have any tips you would like to share on when you choose when to go?

Oh and just so you all know Disney did not ask me to write this post or my Disney series - I just happen to Love Disney and Love to talk about them - all opinions are my own :)

Summer

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Friday, March 16, 2012

Buying wood for craft projects - Tutorial

I use wood for so many of my craft projects. Mostly 2x3's & 2x2 studs. I run to Home Depot or Lowes, find the right size of wood I need and buy it. When I get home I hope it works for my projects.

Then I was able to convince my husband to start cutting my boards of wood for me and he was surprised at how crooked the boards were. None were that straight. --Well it looked straight when I bought it?? See I am a bit clueless. So he took me to the store and showed me how to pick out a 2x3 board that was straight. So I thought I would share it with you. This may be pretty obvious for many people but for me I learned something.

So first you have your big stack of wood

Some pieces of wood are obviously crooked but some aren't. So this is what you do. You set one end of the piece of wood on the ground and then you look down the other side - and you will clearly be able to see if it is crooked or not -
This picture will explain it better

This board looked perfectly straight from the side view, but when I looked directly down it I could see it curved at the end.

This board is nice and straight, and the one I bought.

I hope this little tutorial helps you like it did me! It is something very simple but can make an impact on your projects.

Summer

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Monday, March 12, 2012

New Blog Design

Yea! A new design for my blog!

I am so excited to have a new blog design! I am still tweaking some things but I am loving it! I am not very blog "design" savvy and a friend of mine offered to help me. I was sooo excited for the help. I met Lori from Eclectic Mamma at a little blogging get together and I am so happy that I met her. She is so sweet and nice and was wonderful to work with on my blog. I would love for you to visit her and show her some blogging love. If you are reading this in Google reader jump over to the blog and take a looksy at my new design.

Thanks Lori!

Summer

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Friday, March 9, 2012

White Chocolate Strawberry Trifle

This post was on my old blog and I have moved it here for your eating pleasure:

I have seen many versions for Stawberry Trifle and I toyed with several and came up with this one. I took it to a family barbecue and everyone loved it - in fact none of it made it home! That is always a sign of a good dessert!

Ingredients: Fresh Strawberries (I only used 1 package even though my picture shows 2), White Chocolate Jello Instant pudding, Sweetened Condensed Milk, Cool Whip, Angel Food Cake. Ingredients needed but not shown in the below picture is milk and sugar.

1. Make your pudding according to package directions except where it calls for 2 cups of milk use 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk. Once made set aside in fridge so it can firm up a bit.

2. Wash your strawberries. Set aside three nice big ones. Slice the rest of the strawberries and mix with a couple of Tbsps. of Sugar. Set aside.

3. Cube Angel food cake in 1" pieces.

4. Once pudding is set up gently fold in the entire container of Cool Whip.

5. Layer the pudding, strawberries and angel food cake pieces in a trifle dish. Repeat layers until most of the ingredients are gone - ending with the White Chocolate Cool Whip.

6. Decorate the top with the 3 strawberries you set aside. Admire what you just made - so easy and yummy. Put in fridge until it is ready to eat.

Thanks for looking!

Summer

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Mario & Luigi Party

Mario & Luigi Party!

I happen to be in Cubscouts in my neighborhood and am one of the den leaders over the Wolf pack. The month of February is when we have our Blue & Gold Banquet. This is when we have a nice dinner for the boys and their families and we try to have fun with the decorations. This year we wanted the boys to have some say in what was going on so we voted. The winner was an Italian dinner. We had a bunch of ideas for Italy and it morphed into a Mario & Luigi party. The boys and their families loved it!

First lets dicuss the food (which I don't have a picture of) We had several kinds of pasta along with alfredo sauce and a marinara sauce. Chicken and meatballs were available to add to their pasta along with parmesan cheese, a nice big yummy salad and garlic bread. We then had a variety of brownies for dessert.

Decorations!

Decorating was so fun. We went with the color theme of red, white and green and made Italian flags with questions on them to put at the tables.

The questions on the placemats were fun and silly and the kids had a good time running around to the different tables and answering questions.

My favorite decoration of all was the mushroom centerpieces my friend Celia made.

Adorable right? She was able to buy the polka dot balloons at a party supply store. She then made the white stems with poster board and drew on the eyes.

My friend JoAnn made Mario and Luigi hats for the kids to wear and I brought mustaches for the kids to tape on under thier noses. Here is my sweety Adison all dressed up as Mario

It was a Fantastico night!

Summer

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Happy Birthday wood blocks

Earlier this week I finished up a custom order in my Etsy shop for a customer. The custom order was for some wood blocks to say Happy Birthday with her childs name. I had so much fun sharing these blocks and loved being able to work with my customer to make sure everything was just right. These are so adorable and I wanted to share them with you - I hope you all like them!

Because I enjoyed making them so much I am also making this block set available in my etsy shop - with your choice of names of course!

Summer

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Easter blocks featured on Ginger Snap Crafts!

Today my Easter blocks were featured on Ginger Snap Crafts. I think this is so exciting! If you haven't seen my Easter blocks yet here is another picture

So cute huh! So head on over to Ginger Snap Crafts to see the other great projects featured, there are so many great ones!

Summer

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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Brownies featured @ Serenity Now

Today my Caramel Turtle Brownies were featured on Serenity Now. I was so excited to see this that I just had to share! Some other great stuff has been featured as well so make sure you check it out.

Summer

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Weekend Wrapup

If you missed anything this week this is what happened around here

Weekly Menu
I shared a simple Birthday card
Did you see my Caramel Turtle Brownie recipe? It's so good!

I also added these to my etsy shop:

Summer

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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Family Reunion

Last weekend our family went to my husbands family reunion. It went from Friday to Saturday and was jam packed full of activities. Besides visiting with family and eating good food we did some fun activites

Like -

Crafts for the girls
Making Pinewood Derby cars for the boys
A picture Scavenger hunt around the city
Family Olympics
Pinewood Derby race

I was in charge of a craft for the girls and they all wanted to make a block set with the word Family. So I created this Family block set (which is also available in my etsy shop)

I don't have a picture of our Pinewood Derby car but the kids had fun designing it. the boys cut it out and then Adison painted it. She did red, white and blue and tried to do an American flag on the car. My girl is so creative!

The picture Scavenger hunt was a blast and probably my favorite activity. We were given a list of things to find around the city and then as a family had to go find them. We had to take a picture on our phones and instantly email them back to the person in charge. The person with all of their pictures sent over first won. The kids had so much fun doing this. I will share the pictures of this activity next week but here is one of them

Next up was Family Olympics. There were 7 games to play such as ring toss and Wii bowling.

We ended the activities with a pine wood derby race. The guys sure loved this! Our car did not do to well but it was fun anyway :)

Spending time with family was great but after all of these activities we were tired. I spent a lazy day in bed on Sunday watching movies and the Oscars :)

How was your weekend?

Summer

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Friday, March 2, 2012

Caramel Turtle Brownies

This was first posted on my old blog and has now been moved here for your eating pleasure! :)

These Brownies make me Happy!

Today I am going to show you how I make some super yummy Turtle Brownies. I am not sure where the recipe originated from. I first tried them at my Cousin Lori's house. When I tried these brownies I fell in LOVE! I now make them when I am asked to bring a dessert to something. So here we go:

Turtle Brownies

Ingredients:

1 box of Devils Food Cake Mix

1 stick of butter or margarine

1 small can of evaporated milk

Pam cooking spray

Caramel – I use a bag of Kraft Caramel bits

1/2 cup to 1 cup of Chocolate Chips (depends on how chocolaty you want it) – I use milk, cuz I like really sweet stuff

Pecans, chopped (again just use as much as you like)

Preheat your oven at 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9 inch cake pan with a spray like Pam.

In a microwave proof bowl melt the stick of butter. Once the butter is melted add in the cake mix and 1/3 cup of the evaporated milk.

(The recipe says to use a Devils Food Cake Mix - Lori said she tried using another cake mix and it didn't turn out as good)

Stir together until everything is completely mixed. The brownie mixture will be thick almost like a cookie dough.

Seperate the brownie dough in half. Take half of the brownie dough and spread in your 13x9 inch pan and bake in the oven for 6 minutes.

While the brownies are baking begin making your caramel sauce. In a medium sized stovetop pan pour in the package of caramel and 1/3 cup evaporated milk.

You could buy the squares of caramel and spend forever unwrapping them or buy these awesome caramel bits made by Kraft - I have only been able to find them at Walmart (if you know of somewhere else to get them please let me know).

Update: For those of you that have not been able to find these caramels I actually found the Caramel Bits on Amazon - I swear Amazon has everything!

Here they are out of the bag in the pan

Over a low heat slowly melt these two ingredients together, stirring often. I don't worry if there are still a few chunks of caramel as it will melt when the brownies go back in the oven.

Take the caramel off the stove so it doesn't overheat. On the baked brownies evenly spread out your chopped pecans and chocolate chips.

Then drizzle the caramel sauce all over until every last yummy drop is on the brownies.

Now we need to get the rest of the brownie dough on the top of the caramel sauce. Do not attempt to just dump on the dough and spread it out - it won't work as the dough does note spread well and you will end up with a ooey gooey mess. You have two options Option 1: Roll out the dough with your rolling pin and then transfer it to the top of your brownies. I have never done this so I am not sure how well this option works. Option 2: You can take small pieces of dough and flatten them out with your fingers and place it on top of the caramel. You will have a couple of holes but once baked you will not be able to tell (this is what I always do). I flatten pieces like this

And spread it over the pan like this

Bake in the preheated 350 degree oven for 15 to 16 minutes. Take out and let cool for several hours. In a couple of hours it will still be ooey gooey. 4 to 5 hours it is firmer.

Once cooled enjoy, it is so yummy!

I actually like the brownies better on the second day. They firm up a bit more and are not as ooey gooey but still so soft and yummy.

Go make these today, right now.... I mean it, you will not be dissapointed!

Oh and you can do some yummy variations - sometimes I use white and chocolate chips. Or once I ommitted the carmal and did mint chips for mint brownies. Yum!

Where I party

Summer

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