A homemade Christmas

Ok now that Christmas is over I can post all the homemade Christmas presents I made this year.  I love making homemade gifts and pinterest has made collecting ideas for projects so much more fun.  Above is the Cross stitch of the Seattle Temple.  This is for my sister in law and her husband, they were married there in 2009.  I covered up the part below the temple, becasue it has their full name and marriage date.

                     

                   

This butterfly mobile is to go in my nieces room.

These cute little shoes, are for my soon to be new nephew :)

This Heads and tails  game is to go in the girls busy bag.

Pillow case nightgowns made from pillow cases I got at goodwill.

Make your own Monsters, for my little monsters

Old McDonald Puppets for the girls

Button snake for the busy bag

Busy bags with all the gear.  If you are looking for busy bag ideas click HERE for my previous post with links to all the ideas. 

Fat Quarter dresses for the girls.  Blue and pink for Claire, and Pink and Brown for Violet

Click Here

Glittery letters

Click Here

Hers are covered in scrapbook paper, I wanted mine to be sparkly.  I just painted and sprinkled glitter on top while the paint was still wet...you can spray a sealer on if you like but mine didn't really need it (I'll probably need to "re glitter" them next year because of that though).

                                                                  The ruffle tree skirt

Click Here

Dried oranges for tree ornaments

I love the way these look on the tree.  The light shines through and it sparkles a pretty golden color.

dried cinnamon and apple sauce ornaments.  These smell heavenly and look cute on the tree.  Mine are made with mini cookie cutters, so the recipe made like 30 or 40 of them, plus a small blob of dough the girls could play with till it hardened.

 A ruffle scarf for my mom. Next time I make this I won't dye the fabric.  The process was messy and I wasn't happy with how it made the fabric feel in the end.

 2 little mermaids for the girls....they love them by the way :)

 Bread and Butter as a Christmas treat for my family and friends.

 Overall I had a lot of fun doing a homemade christmas this year.  If you don't enjoy doing homemade crafts I suggest going a different route because it is a lot of work and a lot of pre-planning.  I like to plan way ahead and I usually start seriously planning Christmas in september when all our summer traveling is wrapped up, and I started making stuff in September and I was busy with some stage of the crafting process all the way up until December 17th!

 Oh and last but not least my ultra secret project for Peter.  A Padded headboard!  Here is another Link on making your own headboard.  I'll do a more detailed post on the Saga of the headboard later but let me just say this is not a project for sissies...It involves lots of physical labor, table saws, power drills, giant needles, and lots of hammering!  It was fun.

 Now we've just got to get it out of my parents storage room and into my apartment.

 Thanks to my Dad for helping me for the last 2 months to put this thing together!

So if you are thinking of doing a homemade Christmas (in 2012 or beyond) my tips would be to:

1. Plan WAY ahead!- make a list of who you want to do gifts for or what decorations you want to make (I plan to start thinking about next year no later than March)

2. Sign up to get coupons from your local craft store- this stuff can all get pretty pricey!

3. Read through your instructions before you go shopping for supplies, you may find you need more than you planned

4. Shop for your materials before the Holiday rush...there is nothing worse than being stuck at the fabric counter at any point in the months of October, November, or Heaven help you if you try to go in December.  Crafters start crafting early so think ahead and get there even earlier! (the early bird gets to shop in peace)

5. Prioritize-What's going to take the longest? for me it was the headboard so I set aside time to work on it each week at my parents house, it took about 8 weeks of slow and steady work.

6. If you don't like to do this kind of stuff....don't do it.  It saves a little bit of money but not so much that it is worth torturing yourself.  I happen to enjoy making the things I did so it worked great for me, but if you would rather just hit the mall...go...do it...It's supposed to be a MERRY time of year :)

7. Set an "end of crafting" day at least 3 or 4 days before the holiday (if you cook, entertain or bake for the holidays, give yourself a break and quit the crafts at least a week in advance).  There is always something else that can be made, there are so many cute decorations to put up, but at some point you just have to say  I'm DONE and enjoy the holiday.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Happy New Year!

oh....and check out this cute little puppy that is joining our family in a couple weeks...I'm so excited!

 o

Food Glorious Food!

This is me at dinner...ok not really but I feel like this sometimes.  I love food!  Who doesn't (no nasty comments I'm aware some people don't love food).  I love the recipes that I find on Pinterest and I was just looking through my recipe board in order to start planning meals for the next few weeks and I realized that I have tried a lot of things and haven't bothered to blog about them.  So I'm just going to do a recipe rundown of all the things I have tried.

1.Lemon Fudge- Yuck.  It is like eating a mound of lemon frosting, WAY to sweet

2. Carrot Apple Coconut muffins-  I love them!  However I made them for the kids and they don't love them, the flavor is great but I need to puree the fruit and veggies next time so the kids will eat them, I do love that they are sugar free though.

3. Turkey taco lettuce wraps-Delicious!  I actually used ground beef because I just don't like ground turkey, but the lettuce wraps as a taco shell was delicious and even if you use beef it will save on calories.

4. Texas Roadhouse Cinnamon butter- Heavenly, I gave it away as christmas Presents this year.  yummo!

5.Asian Slaw- great, fresh salad.  I used broccoli slaw instead of regular cole slaw and I added some cold teriyaki chicken to it and used it as a main dish.

6.Sweet and salty roasted chickpeas- yuck...next!

7.Crock pot BBQ ribs- AMAZING! so simple and delicious, there were NO LEFTOVERS!

8. Hawaiian sweet roll Ham sandwiches- yummy but you won't feel good after you eat them.

9. weight watchers honey mustard crunchy chicken- really good but they only count as weight watchers if you use fat free dressing....which I didn't have

10. jalepeno poppers- perfect...Superbowl possibility.

11. Slow cooker thai peanut chicken- just kind of blah

12. Cranberry salsa- best thing I ever found on pinterest, there is a plate of it in my fridge right now and I'm taking it to christmas dinner.

13. double crunch honey garlic pork chops- I insist that everyone try this recipe, it is THAT good!

14. 7 Layer tostadas- fast and easy for a weeknight meal, and there is lots of variation possibilities.

15.Homemade Cherry limeade- of course it's good, its Cherry Limeade

16.  Caramelized Chicken- very good, If you are going to do it in a crock pot keep it under 4 hours otherwise you will have jerky...no joke...and don't go run errands and forget about it either.

17. Spring rolls with Spicy peanut sauce- I had to spice up the sauce a little bit but it was great, and I love spring rolls, there is a great step by step recipe on the link.

18. Cajun Chicken pasta- it's like cajun fettucine.  I know that sounds like a strange combo but it turns out so delicious!

19. pf chang lettuce wraps- a new favorite!

20. crock pot orange chicken- meh.  It's ok but, there are better recipes.

21,ham and cheese crescents- it's ham and cheese and buttery rolls....of course it's good.

22. Honey soy glazed chicken- It is my experience that Martha Stewart will never steer you wrong in the kitchen.  

23. sliced baked potatoes- just not as good as I wanted them to be.  ok but not great.

24. Honey chicken- One of my favorites at the chinese takeout place, and a pretty decent make your own take out, but really heavy.

25. sweet and spicy honey garlic shrimp- So Amazing!

26.  cake batter rice krispie treats- eh I'll stick with the regular ones.

27. Best ever beef dip sandwiches- lives up to its name.

28.  Cheesy chicken lasagna- I'm lactose intolerant...I don't know what I was thinking, but Peter loved it.

29. Comeback sauce- It has a great flavor but it is way to heavy to be used on a daily basis...maybe if you were having a BBQ with fries....lots of fries.

30.  slow cooker coconut chicken curry- very good, very easy.  Great comfort food.

31. toasted ravioli- you bread and fry ravioli then dip them in sauce.  so delicious and bad for you, but they also take a lot of work, I don't think this will be a repeat.

32. Coca Cola Chicken wings.- yum!  mostly taste like sweetened soy sauce.  Who knew coke had such a prominent place in modern chinese cooking.

33. zucchini fries- too much work! you want fries make fries they are so much easier.  you want veggies eat veggies.

34. Dr Pepper sauced boneless wings- SO GOOD!!!  This is a definite for the superbowl!

35.  Crock pot Mac & Cheese- I have tried so hard to like baked mac n cheese and I just don't....blah.

36. Cinnamon roll pancakes- Fantastic breakfast!  And while your at it try the cream cheese topping...might as well go all the way right?

37. Crock pot kalua Pork-  The best part is that it cooks for 16 hours so you have 16 hours to drool over your crock pot.

38. Dirt Cups- Why I waited till I was 28 to learn how to make dirt cups I don't know, but they are a great desert for kids....or teenagers....oh heck everyone likes em.

Ok well that is it.   I hardly ever make the same thing twice so I'll keep trying new recipes and sharing them :)  

Texas Roadhouse Butter

This years "Christmas Treat" is Texas Roadhouse Butter with Old english oatmeal bread.    I found the butter recipe on Pinterest via a blog called Fly through your window.  Check it out, it's a cute blog.  The bread recipe is from a Williams Sonoma baking cook book and they don't publish this particular recipe on their website so I don't think I should publish it here.  If you live near me though I would be more than happy to let you take a look at my cook book.

Thank you to whoever gave me that book for my wedding 6 years ago.   I have used it many times and the recipes always turn out wonderfully!  If you like to bake I would recommend This book.

Anyways, the butter is super easy to make and it is fantastic.  I like to eat it on toast for breakfast.  I have learned in my limited experience of making flavored butter (my Dad always made honey butter for Thanksgiving....mmm) it is best to let your butter soften at room temperature.  DO NOT MELT YOUR BUTTER!!! You will get a weird butter in the end and you won't be happy.  

Enjoy!

2 little Mermaids

2 Little Mermaids have joined the ranks of Christmas gifts for the girls.  They have yet to be wrapped so they are hiding in my closet.  I have one blond daughter and one red headed daughter so they each got a doll that matched them. I used all left over fabric from my mom's fabric bins so this project was practically free! yay!
I found this pattern over at the Crafting Fiend.  It is a free Pdf download, the only part that didn't come up in the download was the body so I just made a long trapezoid that was the same width of the neck and not as wide as the tail width pre-smocked and I think the length was about 6 inches.   Their necks seem a bit long to me so I'm thinking of making a little necklace for them...what do you think?

The most exciting part of all?  This is my last sewing project of the year and my final gift for the girls!  After today I will be almost done baking my bread  and then I just have to finish Peter's top secret gift, and one quick gift for my mother in law and then I can just relax until Christmas!

8 hours later...

 I pinned this ruffled tree skirt how to, months ago and I have been wanting to make one for this year.  I was thinking about what kind of fabric to use.  I had seen it first in the cream, then in burlap and lace, and then in bright Christmas colors.  I loved the lace but hated the burlap, and Peter loved the cream, so I decided to do the cream with just a little bit of lace.

I found in my sheets pile 3 flat sheets that were the perfect color.  Thanks Mom for the hand me down sheet tops! I cut a 4 1/2 foot square out of one sheet and used the border piece as my width guide for the strips.  I cute the strips the the short length of the sheet to make them more managable.

 I cut up 2 twin size top sheets and the rest of the third after having cut out the base of the skirt from it, so this requires about 2 1/2 sheets worth of strips.  I also had 3 yards of lace which only made about a quarter of a row of ruffles, so I placed it strategically so it would show in the front.

  My pile of strips.  It ended up being about 2 times this size.

 next I just hot glued the strips to the base, making a ruffle as I went.  One thing I liked about this skirt was the messy, unfinished edges, this is my kind of project because after doing something for 8 hours I am not precise about anything.

 Finished!  everyone else has long gone to bed and left me to my ruffle gluing.  I had to wake up Peter to show him because it had taken so long and I needed to share my success with someone!

I love it!  It is so heavy though I bet it weighs 10 pounds or more!
 The tree is almost done, next I'm going to dry oranges and lemons to hang, and string some popcorn and cranberries for garland.  11 days till Christmas!!!

Tis the Season...

My goal this year is to not gain a single pound over the course of the holidays!  I have been frequenting the Pinterest fitness boards, a lot lately and I have been picking a new set of workouts to try at home for each week.  Last week I did this workout called 10 ways to fab abs

which was a great workout!  I loved it.  I could really feel it by the end.  I was surprised that the leg lifts were the most difficult workout for me.  Give it a try, which one worked you the most?

I get bored doing the same workout over and over again, so far this year I have been really into my wii fit, pilates, yoga, belly dancing, booty ballet, salsa dance your buns off or something like that and something called ab attack!  yeah I have to change it up a lot otherwise I just give up on working out and sit on the couch and eat M&M's (amazing that I never get bored of that). 

 So I love the pinterest fitness board because there are a ton of workout groups post that focus on one specific area of your body and gives you enough exercises to take up 20 minutes of your day.  I look for workouts that will give me a good workout in a short period of time, something I can commit to on a daily basis, even on those days where the kids wake up before me and I want to just curl up and watch tv all day.  I look for workouts that I can do even when I feel bad.  Something that will push me a little but not so much that I feel it's too hard and quit all together.

This week my workout is called 5 moves to work your core/ ab exercises for runners (I'm not a runner but I like their abs)

Here is the link to the exercises.  I didn't feel like 2 sets of 6 reps was enough so I just upped it to 10 reps per set (it's still a little easy I may do this morning and night).  So far the side plank side march pictured above is the hardest exercise!  I have no balance at all, so this is the one exercise I try to do away from anyone else because I look silly doing it.  I usually collapse laughing at myself by the end.

The best thing that has happened to me because I have been following fitness inspiration boards is that I am excited to try new workouts, I look forward to that 20 minutes a day where I get to just focus on me and do something I enjoy (which as the mother of 2 young kids those 20 minutes might be my only alone time the whole day...yeah it happens).  

Anyways give some of these workouts a try or head over to the fitness board and get inspired to do some working out.

Quite possibly the best...

This is quite possibly the best pork chop I have ever eaten!  Check out the recipe over at Rock Recipes.  

These Pork chops are coated in a flour and spice mixture and cooked in the tiniest bit of oil to get that great crunchy texture and then you add the honey garlic sauce on top and it is amazing!

Also I didn't have sage so I used Rosemary instead and it was still so delicious.  I made an entire pack of these chops even though there were only two of us eating and we have been having leftovers for lunch the past few days and each time we eat one we are just in heaven.

enjoy :)

Make your own green glitter....or the case of the crusty pile of green salt

I still don't have my camera back...ummm Mom...I kind of use that a lot.  I tried to make my own glitter because I was making my own 

Calm Down Jar for the girls and I needed more glitter because I had used most of my glitter supply to make glittery letters to go over my piano that spelled 

Joy.

So I was really excited when I saw this picture on Pinterest 

MAKE YOUR OWN GLITTER!!!

Awesome!!! Now I can avoid one more trip to JoAnns...it get's a little weird when more than one employee recognizes you because you have been in more than 3 or 4 times that week.

Ok so the recipe says to mix up some salt with some food coloring and bake it on a tin foil lined baking sheet, and 10 minutes later you will have a 1/4 cup of gorgeous glitter.  

well I decided to make green glitter cause it's my favorite color and I thought it would work well in the purple calm down jar I was making...sounds cool huh?

Well what I got was a sheet of crusty green salt, not sparkly at all.  I used gel food coloring so maybe that was it.  I'm willing to try this one again with liquid food color but for now my calm down jar is just a little less fabulous than I want it to be.  That's ok it doesn't calm the kids down at all it makes them run around screaming SPARKLES!!! SPARKLES MOMMY!!!!

Homemade Gak!

I lent my camera to my mom so you will just have to take my word for it, but this morning the girls and I made Gak in our kitchen.  For your viewing pleasure I added the original Gak commercial above...your welcome.

Anyways, it's super easy and only takes a few minutes to mix up some gak.   Here is the site that I got the idea from.  They made theirs glow in the dark.  We made ours orange because that was the color of my Gak when I was as a child.

Here is the video of instructions.  It's a video a kid made for his science class and the steps are easy to follow.
You will need
1 cup Borax
1 cup water
mix that up until the borax is disolved
1/4 cup elmers glue
1/4 cup water
food coloring (optional but you know you want to use it)
Mix that up

Then add small amounts of the borax solution (the video says some drops, I used a 1/4 teaspoon) and stir.  keep adding and stirring until you get a tough slimy consistency.  Then rinse your slime off and dry it (I would recommend either a paper towel or a towel you don't care to use again, I'm still not sure if I can save my towel or not).

The kids love it and if they drop it on the carpet it doesn't get ground in right away like play dough (I'm certain that given enough unsupervised time a determined child could grind it into your carpet, so please don't come crying to me when your carpet is ruined)

Now, Violet is at school and Claire is watching a cartoon, so I'm going to go play with my Gak.

Mini workout

ok you probably can read that.  But it's a cute little pink workout list that I found on Pinterest.  This Mini Workout, may look simple at first but it will give you a nice little sweat.  For those that can't read it the workout is as follows
10, jumping jacks, push ups, squats, and crunches
9, jumping jacks, pushups, squats and crunches
8 jumping jacks, pushups, squats and crunches
and so on and so forth until you get to
1 jumping jack, push up, squat and crunch.

I'll save you the math, that's 55 of each.  But don't just do 55 of each!  The best part of the workout is the up and down between each exercise!  You see you are standing for the jacks, on the ground for the pushups, standing for the squats and back on the ground for the crunches.  That Up an Down is half the workout.

overall, I like this workout.  It's not going to replace your Ab attacks, super slimdowns, or your Burn and firms (all of which are on netflix play instantly and are awesome!) but this workout will be a good workout for those mornings you slept in and the kids are already climbing all over you and you need a workout you can do with them running circles around you.  (ok I hope I'm not the only one who needs that kind of workout).

Spring rolls

I Love Spring rolls! I have a favorite restaurant downtown that makes the best spring rolls, they are perfectly sticky on the outside and crunchy on the inside (also they put dried pork and shrimp in them and that never hurts).  So when I found this recipe for Spring rolls.  I was super excited to try it.

The hardest part of this recipe is tracking down the rice paper sheets ( I found them in Top Foods, they typically carry some nicer things and you can often find unusual things there, so if you can't find them at your favorite store, go to the nicest store in town and I bet you will find them there).

I sliced up some Nappa Cabbage, I bought shredded carrots, and I used green onions, and cilantro and Avacado.  I was too lazy to cook up any meat so we had veggie spring rolls.  I also made the spicy peanut sauce included in the recipe and it was a little bland for me so I added some garlic chili sauce, which was great but when the sauce began to cool it got a little firm, so if you want to add some spice use the chili sauce but add more water and soy sauce.

Yummy and dare I say...healthy?  I love it when that happens :)

Asian Slaw with ginger peanut dressing

Asian Slaw with Ginger Peanut dressing.  It's delicious.  I added some grilled chicken so that this could be our whole dinner and it was fantastic.  It is great for a whole meal but also a great asian salad option (as much as I love my old standby of cabbage and ramen noodles, it is nice to have an alternative).
I didn't use the regular coleslaw mix I used a broccoli slaw mix and it was really yummy.  Give it a try.

Leanne Barlow Giveaway

Leanne Barlow Giveaway!  Leanne over at Elle Apparel  is giving away one of her super cute lavender striped boyfriend cardigans.    Check out her website on how to enter!  or don't...cause I want to WIN!!1

Cajun Chicken Pasta

I don't have my own picture so I borrowed this one from the original Pioneer Woman post.

I love this recipe, it is like cajun fettucini.  I love all the peppers and the cajun spice.  It's super easy, and your kids might actually eat it!  My kids won't eat anything that doesn't end in "'n cheese" so I had no such luck but I wasn't expecting any.  Peter and I loved it though.

Dishwasher soap

 Ok I had very low expectations for this homemade dishwasher soap.  I live in an apartment that was built in the 80's and I'm pretty sure I have the original dishwasher.  I cannot use cheap or generic dishwasher soap in this machine and get anything back but food covered nasty dishes.  So I have been shelling out for the cascade/ dawn dishwasher packs, which is fine, they work great, I love them and I mean come on who isn't going to pay to have clean dishes?  But if you can get the same results for cheaper FANTASTIC!  I am always looking for ways to slash small expenses from our budget.

The recipe calls for 24 packets of unsweetened lemonaide Kool aid...umm that is like 12 bucks worth of Lemonade this time of year.  So I just bought the 3 dollar can of Country time and called it good.

You need to use a rinse aid called Lemi Shine with each load to make this work, but it is only a few dollars and you can buy it at Safeway.  Use a Table spoon of Lemi Shine and a Table spoon of the dishwasher soap in each load.   Making this stuff is super easy, just get two big bowls and divide your ingredients between them and mix them up ( you could use one GIANT bowl if you have one but I don't)The recipe makes 5 quarts and according to a calculator I found online that equals 320 tablespoons!  Given the cost of the ingredients and the lemi shine making one batch of this dishwasher detergent costs the same as one 60 load package of cascade packs.  So that is more than 5 times as cost efficient!! Oh Please work!  Please!

I really tested this stuff.  I didn't pre rinse my dishes and I had been making cranberry salsa and I had emptied out my fridge of leftovers so I had some nasty tupperwares and sticky food processor parts, plus our regular dishes and sippy cups......

It totally works!  I was so shocked! So this one is getting filed under AWESOME!

Bonus I can now cut out 15 dollars worth of dishwasher soap from my grocery budget!

Christmas book Countdown!

 Ok I am super excited for December to get here because of this Christmas countdown that our family is doing this year.  I did find this on pinterest but it looks like in all my excitement over the idea I forgot to pin it, but you don't really need the pin because it's an obvious concept :)  24 days of counting down to Christmas, and 24 books to open....one each night to read with the girls.

I am so excited about this!  I LOVE reading!  I read all the time and I have usually have a stack of 3 or 4 books by my bedside because I like to work on multiple books at once, I just can't focus on one.  my average library checkout total is 17...so yeah I like books.  I am always looking for ways to share my love of books with my kids.  We go to the library story time, and we check out a ton of books, we have story time, and I make sure that they see me reading too.

 I had hoped to buy some nice new books for our countdown supply but like everyone else in the world, our family budget is a little tighter this year than it has been before.  So I checked into the penny books on Amazon, and there were a ton under "Children's Christmas books" but shipping was 3.99 and considering I needed 15 more books to complete the 24 that was still too much money for us this year, so we will be collecting nice books a little at a time.

   I had 9 books already and so we hit the good will for the other 15.  For 20 dollars we got 15 Children's Christmas books ( they were mostly generic It's Christmas time stories, but the kids will like them) an Aladdin book and  mini Carebear for our little helpers :)  Also...sorry if you are at the Olympia Goodwill and cannot find any children's Christmas books....we bought them out.

 If you are on a really tight budget you could check Christmas books out from the library and just keep renewing them...at my library you can check the same book out 3 times in a row online and each checkout period is 3 weeks, so that is plenty of time to collect books from the library and do the countdown.  Also I'm sure everyone has family and friends that would be willing to lend some Christmas books to your cute little kids :)

This year we will be collecting The polar express for our nice book.  I am so excited, I love that book and I actually can't believe that we don't already own it because Peter loves it too.

Here is a list of books that I found on Amazon that I thought looked cute:

1. Who is Coming to our house

2. Olivia Helps with Christmas

3. Merry Christmas Curios George

4. I spy Christmas: A book fo Picture Riddles

5. Froggy's Best Christmas

6 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

7.Thomas's Christmas Delivery

8. The Night before the Night before Christmas

9. Duck and Goose: It's time for Christmas

10.  Merry Christmas Mom and Dad (Mercer Mayer)

11. How the Grinch stole Christmas  (of course)

12. A wish to be a Christmas Tree

13. Bear Stays up for Christmas

14. Merry Christmas Stinky Face

15. A charlie Brown Christmas (is it Christmas without ole CB?)

16.  Elf on the Shelf ( Holy Cow even used he is 30 bucks!)

17. Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

18.  The tale of the Three trees

19. The Polar Express

20. The gift of the Magi

21. The animals Christmas Carol