Valentine's Monster Mailbox

This year Mr E's teacher asked the children make their Valentine mailbox at home. This was a first, so I went to look for ideas. I discovered over at The Polkadot Penguin an adorable idea for a monster style mailbox. I thought this was a great idea for a boy. Mr E was feeling the Valentine ideas were a little too girlie for him.

Tonight, I stopped off at the Dollar Tree and picked up supplies, except I forgot googly eyes -- so I just made some with a marker and made the pipe cleaners on top some antennae.

FYI, Dollar Tree has solid white and solid red wrapping paper. I think I'm going back to get another roll of each. There is so much you can do with solid wrapping paper. It's pretty nice wrapping paper, too.

This is what I came up with, and he loves it! I like the signs. I think that's my favorite part because it rhymes, lololol. It's super easy to make, and you can probably make it with what's lying around the house.

Click the link to The Polkadot Penguin above to take you to the super easy tute!

I'm trying to catch up on housework since everyone is finally on the mend. I will be posting new tutorials this coming week. See ya!

Sock Baby Dolls

My darling 13 year old cleaned out her room awhile back and got rid of an entire grocery sack of socks stuffed full. Some of them she hadn't even worn.  Children of the 21st century.  I feel the need to explain to her that just 100 years ago people were darning their only pair of socks.  Not only their ONLY pair of socks, they were also more than likely hand knitted by their mother and/or sisters.  

I digress.  I've been reading way TOO many dystopian teen novels lately.  

I wasn't going to wear them and neither was anyone else in the house.  I decided it was best to upcycle them into something crafty.  

Luckily for you guys, I happened to remember my phone nearby and took pictures of the process so you too can make these little sock babies.  Here is the tutorial in pictures, pretty self explanatory.  Have fun!

 

 

 

 

This last step I was worried would be hard to understand in just pictures, so here is a little explanation.  After you make the little round arms and legs.  Cut off as much excess of the end of the arm/leg.  Next, place the arm/leg where you are to sew it with raw side facing the body.  Then, squish it into the body (as my finger is doing in the picture) so that you can whip stitch it against the body while hiding the raw edge.  Make sense? I hope so.  I'm not sure how else to explain. 

Done in one episode of Fringe!

I got this idea in my head to make these little dolls. I even added arms and legs.  What does everyone in this house say? They look like snowmen.  No, no, no.  They have arms not made of sticks.  They have legs.  These are not snowmen.  My dear husband says it's the hat.  Did Frosty switch to a ski style hat instead of a black top hat in his last Xmas special?  Whatever.  Enjoy!!

Preschooler Busy Bags

A long, long, time ago, in a galaxy far away I was a member of this cool website called Swap Bot.  When I left my husband I completely forgot about it.  I had no access to my former email and with all the things going on, it just slipped away.  I came across it recently again and decided I'd give it another try.  I signed up for a Preschool Busy Bag swap.

Busy bags are basically ziplock bags of fun for your child, that have everything in the bag to do the activity.  Prior to the swap, I had never heard of these and had to google them. They looked like so much fun, I decided to join the swap. I go volunteer at Mr E's school and I always bring a bag of fun stuff for Miss Molly.  I thought busy bags would be extra fun for her to play with while I'm doing projects or copies for the teachers.

Our theme for the bags was "winter," but I found this wonderful little cupcake busy bag instructions at Money Saving Mom's blog.  To keep it winter, I tried to stick with "winter" colors like blues and whites and sparkly felt.

If you want to make your own, it costs little of nothing.  Hobby Lobby has felt sheets for 4 for $1, 4 is enough for one busy bag, plus raid your own pantry for a large ziplock and a couple of small ziplock bags for the sprinkles and big toppings.  I added a glue stick to each bag, but these can easily be done without glue sticks so you can use them over and over.  Then print off the instructions from the link above and create your own.

Yummilicious Thanksgiving Dressing

One of my favorite meals is turkey and dressing.  In fact, I made it Tuesday night. I actually cooked an entire turkey with homemade dressing plus gravy and veggies for a week night dinner.  Yes, I am crazy.

My family has a secret recipe for dressing that is to die for.  We are from Texas.  We like cornbread dressing in these parts, and we don't do the weird apples in the dressing thing.  In fact, we tend to put things like jalapenos in the dressing.  We also don't call it stuffing, it's dressing.  I don't know why these things are the way they are, but I just go with it.

If you love cornbread dressing, then you will love this recipe.  It actually comes from my aunt's sister in law, whose name is Honey.  So, we call it Honey's Dressing.  Everyone who comes over for Thanksgiving and tries it, LOVES this dressing.

When you put it in the oven, it's almost like a soup, but it comes out so wonderfully moist and delicious.  I even converted my husband who tends to prefer "Stove Top" to the real made from scratch thing.

It calls for lots of broth - more than you think is necessary, but it works.  I usually use 1 of those 32 oz chicken broth containers plus about 2 or so cups of drippings directly from the turkey.  You want it to look very soupy and runny when you put it in the oven. 

Honey's Dressing

1 tube of biscuits
2 pans of cornbread
1 onion
1 stalk of celery
1 tbs sage

1 stick of butter
3 eggs
lots and lots of broth

Chop onion and celery into tiny pieces, saute in butter.  Crumble breads.  Mix everything together until soupy.  Bake at 325 for 1 hour. 

Delicious Taco Soup with Turkey

Sorry I've been gone for awhile.  Between the kids' school work, dh's in college and needing math tutoring, and sewing for my first craft fair, I decided the blog would take a back seat for awhile.

I hadn 't told you guys, but it's so exciting! My first craft fair!  I was selected to be apart of this Handmade Harvest Etsy craft fair in about 4 weeks.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to blogging regularly.  We go all out for Halloween around here, and we have decided to go as an entire family of zombies for Halloween.  So...I've got costumes to zombie-fy in addition to all my other duties.   

On to the soup!

This weekend was our first big cold front.  It dropped into the 50s for the highs, and we're in Texas, so that's seriously cold weather in these parts.  I was getting that hankering for a warm soup or stew to fill our bellies for dinner tonight.  A taco soup recipe caught my eye a few weeks ago, and I wondered how well something like that would go over with the whole family.  Em hates Mexican food.  The baby eats 2 bites of anything and spits out most of it, and Mr. E and dh are essentially human garbage cans.  Those two will eat anything, I think, lol.

I whipped up my own recipe from things I had on hand, and OMG it was so darn good.  Everyone, including the baby, cleaned their bowl.   So I thought I'd share.  This recipe is super easy and super quick.  You can be serving it in 20 minutes.

Taco Soup

3/4 lb ground turkey (or beef)
1 cup of crushed tomatoes
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 pkg of Knorr's taco rice
6 cups of water 
1/2 pkg of taco seasoning
crushed tortilla chips
shredded cheddar cheese
Opt. sour cream

Brown the turkey.  Heat up the dutch oven on high and add crushed tomatoes and both cans of beans.  Add the meat and stir.  Next, add the package of rice.  Add the water.  When it starts boiling, add the taco seasoning and stir until it's all well blended.  Simmer on medium until rice is tender.

I topped each bowl with crushed tortilla chips and a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese.  I was out of sour cream, or I would have added it as well.

Mr E and dh both added taco sauce and jalapenos to their bowls for extra spiciness. 

I served it with corn muffins I made from this recipe. 
It was a perfect balance of spicy from the soup and sweet from the cornbread.

Two things for the cornbread recipe:
   1.  I didn't have buttermilk, so I added 1 tbs of lemon juice and filled up the rest of the measuring cup to 1 cup with milk.
   2.  Since I made muffins, it only took 15 minutes for baking while the soup was simmering (the recipe calls for 30 minutes for a pan of cornbread).

This served 5 with a bowl or two to spare for leftovers. 

Fleece Sunflower Pillow Tutorial

I was inspired by the fleece pillow tutorial I posted about over the weekend, and I had this vision of a sunflower version I could not wait to try.  So, while Joann's was having their blizzard fleece solids super cheap, plus the extra 25% off your entire purchase ($3/yd!!), I ran up there 30 minutes before closing and got the supplies.  Then, it took me until today to complete my masterpiece because I've been awake for the last 3 days with my poor 2 year old and her nasty stomach bug.  Toddlers and puking do not go well with anything.    

I have to say, I love how this came out.  Even my almost 13 year old liked it, and that's saying something!  Woohoo!  The only thing I'd change was that I used a mustard yellow fleece and I'd probably do it in a brighter yellow if it was for a child's room.  This darker yellow just gives me harvest gold 1970s afghan on the back of the couch vibes.   It's perfect for a hipster's couch ;).

Below is the tutorial, I will make it into a printable PDF and put it on my website and Craftsy.com later today.  For the time being, you can download my petal template at the link under the materials list.  

Materials:     

1 yd of yellow fleece

1/8 yd of orange fleece

1/8 yd of brown fleece

¼ yd of black fleece

½ lb of Polyfil stuffing

Hot glue gun

Hot glue

Pinking shears

Thread

Sewing machine

Find the Petal Pattern here.

Instructions:

1.       Take a large dinner plate and trace it (roughly 14 inches in diameter).  Then, using the template cut out two circles of yellow fleece.

2.       With WRONG SIDES TOGETHER, using a ½ inch seam allowance, sew around the circles, leaving a 3-4 inch opening.  This could also be done with hot glue. 

3.       Stuff the pillow until satisfied with it’s shape, then sew the opening closed. 

4.       Pink the edges of the seam to get a uniform look.

5.       Cut 3 strips of the fleece 4 inches in length by the entire width of the fabric (usually about 60 inches).  Cut petals from the yellow fleece.  You need enough petals to make three rows.  The pattern piece is at the top of these instructions. 

6.       Using pinking shears, cut circles about 1.5 inches in diameter from the orange, brown, and black fleece.  You will need 3 or 4 times more black circles than orange and brown.  They do not need to be perfect circles. 

7.        Begin with the petals.  First, take a handful of petals and put a 1 inch line down the middle back and fold them in half as shown. 

8.        Then, when they have dried a little, I take one at time and add glue at the edge and a dot at the end of the line I previously made and glue them to the pillow.

 

9.       Place the glued edge of the petals about 1.5 inches above the pinked seam.  Begin overlapping the petals just slightly as shown in the picture. Complete an entire circle of petals.

 

10.    The second row will be placed about 1.5 inches above the glued edge of the first row as shown in the picture.  Then, the third row will be about 1 to 1.5 inches above the second row’s glued edge. 

 

11.    Take the orange circles, place some hot glue in the center and then pinch them into a trifold as shown.  Then, begin gluing them in place around the raw edge of the inner most petal circle until they are an entire circle around the petal edges as shown. 

12.    Next, make trifold circles from the brown and begin interspersing them between the orange circles as shown. 

13.    Then, begin the next inner circle with both black and brown trifold circles, as shown.

14.    Lastly, fill in the rest of the inner most part of the flower with black trifold circles until you cannot see anymore yellow underneath.

 

And you’re done!!