3 Gifts of Christmas...TAGS

This is a tradition that really has personal meaning for me. My husband and I heard about this a few years ago but last year was the first year that we started it in our own family thanks to our first child being born and these tags I made. Christmas has a more spiritual meaning for us then spending money and time in malls. Three gifts were given to the Christ child when he was born, hence the meaning behind our three gifts of Christmas. Each person receives three gifts at Christmas. Plus a stocking. Each different gift is pictured below. This tradition not only takes the craziness out of the holiday but it helps us to remember the true meaning of Christmas and that is of giving and thoughtfulness towards others. This teaches your children that it is not in how much they get but in what they give and the meaning behind it.

Let us remember the Reason of this Season!

The gift of Wonder: something from Santa can be given for this gift, possibilities are endless here.

The gift of Usefulness: give something like tools for a husband, sewing supplies for a wife or clothes for a child.

The Gift of Meaning: (my personal favorite).....something handmade or something that would have personal meaning for both people.
I made my tags out of circle chip boards (found at any scrapbook store), covered them with scrapbook paper, I punched a large whole at the top and added an eyelet, then punched small holes around the circle. I printed out on paper sack paper from my computer the Three gifts of Christmas and glued it on top the scrapbook paper. Added a few buttons. I then mod podged the front, let dry and I then sewed embroidery floss around the edges for extra detail. Tie a piece of rick rack to the top and there you have it, tags that can be reused every year as part of this wonderful tradition.
*A great thing to do with your kids would be is to have them make there own tags that can be used year after year.
May we enjoy the real spirit of Christmas!

Missing for a good reason...

Hello Everyone! WOW! what a few weeks it has been around here. Thanks so much for being patient and for still checking in to see if I was still alive. I am....barely! haha We just got the Internet back up and running so now I have a way to communicate.

Besides being extremely pregnancy sick and having the most terrible sinus infection that decided to revisit after already staying 3 previous long weeks.......the move still went well. Thanks to family and friends. Now I just need to find everything. And I have to admit I have been trying to take it much easier lately. Have you ever tried to pack up and move after being put on a firm no lifting guideline?? Not as easy as it sounds!

Thank goodness it's Friday again!

Have a great Weekend everyone!

Anytime Beef Stew

Stew is just not for Sundays anymore. In your roasting pan you want to add the following:
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken
2 tbs of soy sauce, A1 steak sauce, Worcestershire sauce,
1 pkg of brown gravy mix
1/2 pkg of Lipton onion soup mix
2 soup cans of water
seasoning salt, garlic powder, basil and parsley, salt and pepper
**mix this all together then add your veggies

10 - 15 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
6-8 carrots, peeled and diced
1 lb of round steak, cut into cubes

Mix this all together. Cover and place in a 250* oven. Cook for about 5 hours. Serve with rolls.

Vegetarian substitute: Add 2 cans of cream of Mushroom soup and instead of stew meat use whole mushrooms.

Nut free Banana Bread and muffins

What do you do when your counter starts producing really black and smelly banana's????

You make Banana Bread and muffins!! Why, because the more ripe the banana the better the bread!

This recipe is for 4 small loaves, 1 large loaf or for 60+ mini muffins

(I make several batches of each and then freeze them......works great!)

1/2 cup margarine

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup mashed banana's

mix wet together, mix dry together in separate bowl then mix together. Make sure to grease your cake pans or muffin tins well before cooking. For loaves cook on 350* 40-45 minutes. For muffins cook on 350* for 10-12 minutes. Use a toothpick to make sure either is done.

Once the loaves are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool on a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes before you remove them from the pan. If you try to remove the bread when it's hot it will crumble instead of coming right out. Happy baking!!

Last minute Halloween Ideas

Hi everyone! There were sooooo many things I wanted to do this year for Halloween but between my extreme morning sickness that lasts 24 hours a day, a really bad sinus infection that has now gone on for almost 2 weeks and not to mention getting ready to move in a couple of weeks all of my crafty time has taken the back seat. BUT no worries! Here are a few pictures I pulled out of storage from last year's Halloween. Hope this sparks some last minute help for any of you!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

Frankenstein Cards: notice the boy and girl versions. Circle punches and a scallop punch is what I used for the eyes.

Little Witch Tutu: I used some fun fabric instead of tulle and it turned out super cute!

Mini Carmel Apples: Use a melon scoop to scoop out 8 balls from a large apple. Then dip in Carmel. yum yum.

Sock Puppet Caterpillars

Let the kids have fun putting together their very own sock puppet or in this case a caterpillar. All you need to do is be there to hot glue the pieces to the sock for them, they do the rest!

What you need: socks, pom poms, googly eyes, pipe cleaner, hot glue gun

This is a great way to let their imaginations go wild!

Gift ideas....and links

WOW! 2 posts in one day.....consider yourself lucky! The way I have been feeling the last few weeks this is truly amazing for me :) Here is a look at the boutique I participated in last week. Happy to say that all the work getting ready for it is over. yipppeeee! It was a lot of fun meeting some amazing crafters and creators.

And yes, we are in the basement of a model home where the boutique took place and that is my adorable and HOT hubby who was willing to come along with the sick lady and help.

Thanks babe!

I had chicken wire frames, owls, magnets, clips, pencil rolls, card sets, gifts tags and more for sell. It was a lot of work as most of you know but a great experience for sure.

Want one of these owls: click HERE

Want an owl template to make your own: click HERE

Want to make your own cute magnets: Click HERE for the free tutorial !

Easy Apple Crisp....personally portioned

Personal portion sized apple crisp....so fun and so easy!

Each Pyrex dish holds 1 large gala apple, sliced thin and add 2 T of orange juice to each one. In a separate bowl, take 2 cups granola and a couple of tsp of melted butter and about 1/4 cup of brown sugar and mix it all to together. Put some topping on each serving. Cook in the oven on 350* for about 4o minutes, or until apples are soft. Top with heavy cream or my favorite is vanilla ice cream! YUM! Happy Fall everyone!

Halloween Table Runner

I used this tutorial as guidance to make this table runner!

I LOVE it!

Holiday Boutique

This is what I have been busily getting ready for :

For those of you who live near or know where Hooper Utah is....come see us!

It will be a lot of fun!

Old shirt is now a Cinderella costume

When I asked my 2 1/2 year old what she wanted to be for Halloween she told me a princess. Well the only princess that she knows right now is Cinderella. So we went on the hunt for a costume. Either I am a little naive or I was just extremely shocked at the ridiculous prices of costumes this year!! NO WAY was I going to buy a $30 dress for one evening. So here is what I decided to do.

I found a shirt that we already had, made a skirt out of 1 full yard of fabric (yes this seems like a lot but it really helps to make it nice and full and puffy) and I sewed it right to the shirt to make a dress.

I then found some ribbon and added it to the dress to cover up the seam, tied a separate bow and sewed it to the back.

I then turned up the bottom to the length I wanted and sewed that finished. All done! simple fast and easy. I LOVE this so much more then the other store costumes. She can wear this to church as well as play in it and if anything so happens to happen to it....like grow out of it in a month it only cost me $7!!!

Happy mom and a VERY happy princess indeed!!!

Minestroni soup

It SNOWED today......so look what's for dinner tonight!

The first official soup of the season.

I have made this minestroni soup..TONS OF TIMES...it is by far one of my favorites. I just wish you all could smell my house right now!!

Here is the recipe:
1/2 lb cooked ground beef with minced onion
20 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 can of each drained and rinsed: garbanzo beans, kidney beans and green beans
diced fresh carrots, 1 cup of grated zucchini
some oregano, basil, garlic salt, 2 beef boulion cubes and 1 20 oz can of water(the tomato can) salt and pepper, (you need to season it to taste)
Simmer covered on Medium heat until carrots are cooked. turn off and let it sit...that is the key and don't let it hard boil-that changes the taste. Enjoy!!

Portable craft station for the kids

I am the first one to admit how glad I am to see the HOT summer days go. We all know that with fall comes some unpredictable weather. So why not make a portable craft station that can easily be taken outside on those few good days but can easily be brought back in when the weather changes. For example, our high today is 89* and our high for Wed will be 58*.......I love fall weather!!

I took something I had but no longer used for it's previous use and turned it back into something usable.

If you don't have a designated craft area for the kids (like myself) this works great since it's portable. I had long since out grown my scrap booking case for myself so instead of giving it away (because those things are not cheap) I turned it into my kids craft station. They can come and go in it as they need and everything is right there for them. Hey they can even do all the work in getting the stuff :)

I filled it with everything.....but the kitchen sink of course! Stickers, scissors, scrap paper, play dough, coloring books, pipe cleaner, pom poms, paper towel rolls and so much more. I love having their mess contained just a bit and they know where to put everything when they are done. So go pull out that case that you are no longer using and turn it into something fun!


other uses for this case could be: 72 hour car kit, camera station for the busy photographer, place to hold stamps, teacher's bag to transport homework to and from school and more!

Owl scrapbook pages and more

In my etsy shop I sell the template to these Little Whoo Owls so you can make your own or you can buy an already made owl, ready to add to any scrapbook page! The template is also great for appliques on a shirt or bag or the cover of a Quiet Book or add it to a frame and give it as a gift. The template is emailed to you within hours with free shipping! SOoooo many fun uses!!!

Here are a couple of pages I did for my very own family scrapbook.

(yah I noticed the typo late last night after it was to late to fix it :(

Crayon Rolls

A few weeks ago I was finally able to cross these off my to-do list. They were so simple and fun that I was able to make 7 of them to sell at an upcoming boutique. Of course 2 of them are for my kids to keep.

I made several that fit coloring pencils, twistables or regular sized markers.

Then I made ones that fit crayons of course. I added a Made with Love by Mom label to the ones for my kids, the others received there very own LittlePolkaDot labels.

I did come up with my own pattern but all you need to do is google crayon roll tutorials and a bunch will come up. Choose the best one that works for you! Good luck! Remember these make the perfect gift too.