Happy Birthday Madison!

Sunday we celebrated our oldest's birthday. I just can't believe 7 years have already gone by!

She had an Under The Sea themed party.

Little Mermaid Cupcakes

We're on a shoestring budget...family of 6 on a police officer's salary and all....so the cupcake toppers are just free Disney clipart taped to toothpicks. But the girls all loved them and that's what matters, right?

and Sea Star Cookies!

We also had star shaped sandwiches, fruit kabobs, and cut veggies. I don't have the greatest picture of all that, the guests got to the table before I could snap a good pic!

Any Suggestions?

First off, I have to apologize. I have been a terrible blogger. I am so in awe of those of you out there that can keep this up on a daily or even weekly basis! With school and dance teaching starting back up I just haven't had my head in the game. My oldest is in 1st grade now, dancing two days a week, and doing Girl Scouts. My twins are in VPK, which is wonderful, because now I have some one on one time with my youngest daughter who is 2. The only downside is VPK is only 3 hours a day so I feel like I am constantly in the car running kids all over town or running errands. One thing I've noticed since all of our activities have started is that the quality of our diet, and the amount of exercise/play we are all getting, well, to put it bluntly, sucks. OK, so it's probably only MY exercise level that sucks, my kiddos are really active. But all of our diets need help. We have already driven through The Golden Arches WAY more than we should. I have 3 days a week where we don't get home until 6:30 pm, and with 4 kids under age 7 that is just too late to start cooking a healthy meal. I've started relying on convenience foods too much, and it's starting to show in our behavior and attitudes. I don't know about any of you, but my kids and I get cranky when our diet goes down the tubes! I need help! Anyone out there have any suggestions for super quick healthy meals? Yummy, kid friendly mini meals that can be eaten on the run? I tried slow cooker meals, but my kids are opposed to anything that mixes their food up. Any comments or suggestions would be awesome!

And because I can't post this without at least one picture.....here is the one little project I did get accomplished.

Sharing at some or all of these fun parties!

Crochet Cuteness!

I've added some new cuteness to my Etsy shop, Miss Nicole Creates! My Mom taught me how to crochet some basic stitches when I was about 10 or 11, but I really wasn't all that into it. 21 years later and I'm so glad she taught me! I've gotten hooked, (pun intended!) and have been crocheting up a storm. Here are just a few things that I've been working on, and what I think are cute enough to add to my shop.

Some fun Button Flower Hair Clippies

Here's my youngest modeling the pink one, so you can see the size. Please ignore the bedhead!

And a cute Flower Headband...modeled by my oldest who complained it was WAY too sunny out to keep her eyes open. The life of a model!

These can be found in my Etsy shop, Miss Nicole Creates! Convo me for additional colors/styles!

Linking up to these fun parties!

Another Baker in the House!

It looks like my oldest daughter has caught the baking bug! She asked me today if she could bake some cupcakes. "Like for real all by myself!" So she did it all, read the directions, measured ingredients, filled the pans and even put them in the oven. (With mommy nearby of course...)

Then she patiently waited for them to cool, tinted the icing, (pink DUH) iced and sprinkled.

And the finished product!

She was so proud of herself and her cupcakes....and of course so is Mommy!

Success!

I'm so happy! This past week I made my first wedding cake! I was so nervous, seeing as almost 200 people were going to see and eat it. But luckily everything went down without any major disasters and the bride was thrilled with the outcome. So here it is, a three tiered round traditional white cake with buttercream and fondant flowers. I also made some sunflower cupcake bouquets to coordinate with her theme.

This was taken when I dropped the cake off. We were trying out the "P" topper, and unfortunately it kept falling off and eventually it landed on the floor and broke! So instead of buying another and trying to make it stay, we went with a fresh sunflower on top. I think it looked even better and fit her personality even more!

This picture was taken at the reception. Unfortunately I couldn't get in front to take a picture, too many people in the way but the photographers got a great picture that I'm going to get from them!

This is the groom's cake. The groom plays guitar so the bride wanted to surprise him with something special!

Linking up at these awesome parties!

Tutu Cute!

My good friend Jennifer asked me to make her Little Cutie a tutu skirt which of course I was thrilled to do! It's so fun to make frilly pink stuff! I had never made a tutu before so I scoured the Internet for tutu how-tos. I found TONS of tutorials for making a no sew tutu, but her daughter is 2 and if she is anything like my littlest Munchkin, she will have her tutu untied in no time. So I just decided to wing it. Kinda like I usually do. Most of my sewing is total trial and error and if it weren't for all the awesome crafty bloggers out there who are way better than me giving me free tutorials, it would probably be mostly error. Here is what I did. It probably wasn't the "correct" way to do it, but I'm really happy with the results!

First I took my three colors of pink shiny tulle from Hobby Lobby (1 yard of each) and folded them all together into about a 12 inch wide stack. I cut all the folds and then cut strips about 4 inches wide. Sorry, I didn't measure, just eyeballed it.

Then I took 2 strips of the same color and folded an inch over on the short end and sewed a casing.

I did that for the whole stack of strips. Take 2 of the same color, fold, sew casing.

Then I took some 3/4 inch elastic and threaded it through the casings. I went white, light pink, hot pink, but the pattern is up to you! I pushed it all on so the tutu was nice and gathered then sewed the elastic together.

I LOVE how it turned out!

I decided to make a little pair of matching trunks too ( I call em spanky pants, but people look at me weird) I can't wait to see how they look on Jen's Little Miss!

Linking up at these awesome parties!

Before and After...Sort of

Last week my Hubby bought a couple cans of black spray paint for a project he was working on, and ended up only using one of them. Which made for a very happy Wifey, since I had a few projects of my own to do! I recently went shopping in my parents' garage (thanks Mom and Dad!) and found an old blue wooden coffee cup tree that used to be in their kitchen when I was growing up. It had definitely seen better days. I found some other stuff too, but that's for another day.

First, I took this down...

and painted the frame. Much better. The colors really pop now!

Ok, so I realized when I was getting the pictures together for the next part of this post that I broke the cardinal rule of Before and Afters. I KINDA forgot to take before pictures. Yeah, major fail. But I can assure you that the after looks way better!

A few coats of glossy black spray paint and things are looking up!

Here's the end result and I LOVE it now! I also painted my paper towel holder to match, it used to be plain old natural wood. It looks so nice now with my white mugs and sugar bowl (which I forgot to put in the pic). See my sad knife block back there? That's getting a makeover too, but not black. I'm thinking maybe a rusty red-ish to coordinate with my valances. I really like this one from Infarrantly Creative.

Only problem? I don't have a Silhouette. Big sad face...Maybe a stencil, or scrapbook paper and ModPodge...I guess I'll have to experiment a little. Any suggestions?

More Pretty Canvas Bags!

It's funny how things happen. On a whim I made this cute Canvas Tote Bag as a gift for my daughter's dance teacher.

I really liked how it turned out so I listed it in my Etsy shop, MissNicoleCreates! I also posted it on my Facebook page and the response has been awesome! I have since added pockets to the lining and a zipper closure. These are my latest bags, for a good friend of mine, Jennifer. Hope you like them Jenn!

Linking up at these awesome parties!

Pre-Shirred Fabric!

Ok, so I'm in love with elastic thread. I've made half a dozen little sundresses now using it and absolutely love how cute they come out with so little effort. Then I saw pre-shirred, pre-hemmed dresses right off the bolt at my local Walmart. All you have to do is cut the width you need, sew up the back, and add straps. If you want them. You don't even have to do that if you like strapless dresses. Waaayyyy to easy, I felt like I was cheating, but I'll admit it was super gratifying to have two adorable dresses for my girls done in like 15 minutes. And it only took me that long because I had to change thread colors! And then we got to have fun playing outside and have a little photo shoot. (It was really sunny out, and my littlest munchkin couldn't keep her eyes open, she looks either sleepy or sad in almost all the pics!)

See? Way to easy, just sewn up the back and ribbon for straps!

Linking up at these awesome parties!

Happy Birthday!

Today we celebrated our twins' 4th birthday. The birth of these beautiful boys changed our lives forever. They may have given me my fair share of gray hairs, and some days I may look at them and think "how in the world am I going to survive this?" but at the end of the day when I look back at all the silly, cute, smart, amazing things they did and said, I wouldn't change a thing!

Happy Independance Day!

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful 4th of July! My family sure did. July 4th is also my Mom's birthday so we celebrate double every year, whoo hoo! It was so nice to get together with family and friends, eat yummy cheeseburgers and hotdogs, (thanks Dad!), and swim all day long. And what's a birthday/ 4th of July party without cake?

Homemade chocolate cake with buttercream icing, YUM! I might have snuck a second helping....ssshhh, don't tell!

Happy Birthday Mom/Grammy/Gramma/Mangie! (that's not mangy like a dog, lol, but a hard G sound...it's how my 2 year old says Grammy :)

What Am I Thinking?

I'm braving a trip to the post office AND thrift stores today.....wait for it....with my three youngest children. Yeah, I know, what am I thinking? Have I completely lost my mind? My oldest daughter had a sleepover at Grammy and Poppop's (my mom and dad) last night and is off to dance camp today, so I only have 3 Munchkins at home with me today. I have orders to ship and I'm trying to decorate my house on a tighter-than-shoestring budget. And Hubby is back to work light-duty. Sooooo, I guess I'm going to have to pull on my big-girl panties and take the Munchkins with me. Wish me luck!

Today I'm sending off an order of cute little crayon rolls!

Well, off I go!

Linking up to these fun parties!

Another Canvas Tote Bag

Just wanted to show off another version of my Canvas Tote Bag! I added two pockets to the inner lining on this one, and I'm thinking about trying to add some kind closure to the next one I make. Like maybe a magnetic snap or a zipper. Hmmm, we'll see!

Yeah For Leftover Canvas!

I have discovered the joys of canvas! My Hubby bought the biggest canvas drop cloth he could find for me to make his Surfboard Sock. Which was pretty cool, because now I have a ton of extra canvas fabric for more projects! (He also bought way too much of the fabric for the nose piece, so now I can make some new pillows. Or maybe shorts for the boys. Or maybe....)

So, anyway, I finished Hubby's Surfboard Sock at 10 pm. I was going to call it a night because well, I'm getting old and my kiddos wake me up at 6:30 am. But then I realized it was the night before my oldest daughter's dance recital and I totally forgot to get her dance teacher a gift! I'm a dance teacher also, so I know how nice it feels to get a little appreciation. Guess I'm not going to bed yet! I look at all the leftover canvas at my feet and think, DUH! Grown up dance/tote bag!

Here it is! I really like how it turned out and since I have so much canvas, I put it in my Etsy Shop

 Miss Nicole Creates!



My First Tutorial!

I love, love, love all the awesome tutorials I see in blogland. They are one of the main reasons I know how to do anything at all with my sewing machine. So when my Hubby asked my to make him a cover for his brand new surfboard, I decided to actually take some pictures of the process instead of just the finished product. Hopefully you can forgive the quality of some of the pictures, I did this project after the kiddos went to bed and the pictures were taken with Hubby's Blackberry (apologetic smile).

Hubby's new board!

Here are the materials you will need:

Heavy Duty Canvas Drop Cloth

Home Decor Fabric or Outdoor Fabric for a nose piece

Heavy Duty thread

Jeans needle for your machine

Shoelace or rope for a drawstring

First, fold your canvas drop cloth and lay it out. Place your surfboard on top.

Starting at the nose, cut an outline approximately 3 inches bigger than your board. When you get to the widest part of your board, cut straight down to 4-6 inches past the tail, you will be adding a drawstring casing at the bottom.

Next, use the nose half of the canvas you cut out to trace it's shape onto the Home Decor/Outdoor/Decorative Canvas fabric, mimicing the curve of the nose about halfway down the surfboard and cut out 2 pieces.

(I forgot to take a pic of this, sorry!)

That striped fabric is going to be the nose piece.

Now pin each of your nose pieces to each piece of canvas, making sure you line up the top end. Top stitch your nose pieces to the pieces of canvas. You should now have 2 pieces that look kinda like ginormous fingers with nail polish.

See? Fingernails!

Now put your two pieces right sides together and pin. Did I mention this surfboard is 10 ft long?! I used a ton of pins! Sew around the entire bag, leaving the bottom open.

This last part I totally forgot to take pictures of too, yeah, I know, but it's my first attempt at a tutorial ok? Anyway, I showed the steps on a scrap piece of canvas.

Making the casing for the drawstring.

Make a 2 inch cut in the center of either the front or back bottom open end of your bag. Then cut 1 inch to the right and left perpendicular to the first cut. It should look like a T. Fold the tabs to the sides away from each other, then fold the whole thing up and pin.

Sew your casing, thread your shoelace or rope through, and you're done! I taped my shoelace to a pencil to make it easier to pull through the casing.

The Surfboard Sock

If you don't want to make your own, these are available in my Etsy shop, MissNicoleCreates, as a special order!

Did I mention this board is 10 ft tall? I did? Well, as big as it is, it still only took me about 2 hours to finish, and that's with kids distractions! So I'm thinking it's even easier on a smaller surfboard. I'm planning on making a girly one for my oldest daughter. Hubby surprised her with her first surfboard as a kindergarten graduation present!

Umm....think she was excited?