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!