Personalized IPad and a GIVEAWAY!!

     I love a little personalization!  So, I am super excited about how cute my IPad and IPad cover look with their new, super cute decals!!!

    Enter Kati, of Daisy Decals.  She and her Mom have a new Etsy shop that specializes in selling retro and vintage decals.  I fell in love with Daisy Decals when I found out they are a mother daughter duo (a stay at home mom & a struggling college student).  I have been both of these things and so I can completely relate!  Then, I actually got a peak at their designs and they are darling.  They sent me my favorite, which was the vintage camper.  And they sent me an extra one to boot, a cute retro flower decal they are still in the process of working with!

You must peruse their Etsy shop, as they have many other super cute decals for sale!

Check out this Retro typewriter, that I am in love with!

Or this View Master brings back so many memories for me!

So, Kati is going to give one of my readers a free decal of their own!  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post.  The giveaway will end on March 27.  I will randomly pick one winner on March 28!   You can get an extra entry by tweeting, and/or blogging about this giveaway (so really that is two extra entries you can get).  Just leave me another comment (or two) letting me know you did.

Make sure to check out Daisy Decals’ Etsy shop and give them some love!

Rebecca

An Announcement and Out of This World-Party Invitations

Well, I’M BAAACK!  It is official!  After so many years of going to school at night, after putting my amazing kids to bed, I have my Teaching Degree!  I cannot believe it!  Now I just need to get a paying job!

So, I’m ready to dive right back into sharing my fun world with everyone. 

My Son just had an Alien Party.  It was so much fun!  I drew up about 12 different Aliens to use for his party.  I cut out the Aliens and flying saucers with my cutting machine.  The above were the invitations that I came up with.  Those fun flying saucers were 3D because I used pop dots to pop up the dome part!  Then, of course we had to add googly eyes as the finishing touch!

*A quick tip! 
-I cut out the blue rectangles with my cutter (though if you don’t have a cutting machine you can cut the rectangles out by hand and round the corners with a corner punch or by hand).
-Then, I go into my printing program and print up the words that I want to use, on white paper.  Make sure to space your words so that the actual rectangles will fit on the paper.
-Next, I gently tape my rectangles onto the white printed paper, using that as my guide as to where to place the rectangle.  (Where you printed the first time will be directly underneath your taped on rectangles).
-Run your white paper, with the now taped on blue rectangles back through the printer, printing up the exact same thing you did the first time. 
-This will give you any cutout shape you want, with any words you want, printed right onto them!
I do this ALL the time and love it!

We went with bright green, bright blue, and black for my Son’s Birthday colors.

Check back with me to see how the rest of his party turned out!  I will also show you more inspiration for you to host your own Alien party!

Rebecca
PS  I can’t wait to catch up with everyone!

Cupcake Stand Like You’ve Never Seen

What would you do with acrylic and access to a laser cutter?  Here is what my friend and I did.

Check out this amazing cupcake holder!  My friend and I are collaborating on some really cool cupcake holders!  We would love your feedback!

My friend has a laser cutter and so together we are brainstorming some innovative designs that we hope you have never seen somewhere else before.  Isn’t that flower shape fun?

Check out the details on this like the top of the flower curling outward.

The bottom is 1 inch high to support anything you want to fill it up with.  We used one small bag of Jelly Belly’s to fill this one up. 
If we had finished these sooner they would have been my teacher appreciation gifts!  They would also be fun to customize the color of the flower to the recipient’s favorite color, or to match the décor of a party!  Wouldn’t a yellow one look like a pretty tulip?
We would love your feedback about this.  We have a ton more designs that we are working on.  I am going to show you our prototypes and am asking for any and all feedback on them.  I would love to know what you think of them, how you would change them, what you like best, and any ideas you have for future design ideas. 

Thanks so much,
Rebecca

Linking up to Someday Crafts, and the fun at WhipperBerry.

, Get Your Craft On

The Great Easter Egg Hunt-Best Ever!!

So, my family has perfected the art of Easter Egg Hunts.  Seriously!  Last year and this year were the best.ever.Egg Hunts that I’ve ever been to!
Some ground rules for the Best Easter Egg Hunt ever!
1.  Everyone brings one filled egg per child (all of us went way over because each child ended up with 20 eggs to find!).
2.  Decorate some eggs.
3.  Buy some themed or shaped eggs (those bugs were dollar store!!).
4.  Fill with super fun things.
5.  Write children’s names on each egg (to help with hiding difficulty).
6.  Hide in unusual and creative ways.
7.  Have adults hide the children’s eggs because this part really is half the fun!
8.  Hide eggs depending on child’s abilities, make sure to go really hard on the teenage children!  They might scowl about it, but they are super eager to do it again the next year!
9.  If , last week, you just found an egg from last year, make sure to hide one of that child’s eggs in the exact same spot!
10.  Enjoy the amazing time with your family!!!

Some of our eggs are pretty to look at like these dangling eggs tied up with pretty ribbons and name tags.

I try not to post pictures of my kids for safety reasons.  Today’s post will give you glimpses of all 3 of my kiddos.  Here is my oldest next to Erika.  Um, Ya!  She’s bigger than me now!  I knew this would happen…just not yet!  Such a doll, too!

Can you believe Katrina?  She crocheted eggs for each kid, complete with their initial on them!  So darling!

Look closely at this picture.  Anjeanette made those washcloth Easter Bunnies!  Again, so darling!

Another thing that is so fun about our Easter Egg Hunts are what we put in them.  Last year I put Lego crayons that I made inside some of the eggs.  This year I made jean bookmarks with each child’s name embroidered on it.  We are avid readers in my family so this is perfect for my family!  Later this week I’ll show you the bookmarks and how to make the eggs I hid them in!

Nana had golden eggs that she filled with money!  Shockingly, that was such a huge hit!!

How about fun ways to get your eggs?  I made these this year.  The tags were so cute, sorry I had to ruin your view of them by blocking out the names.  Just trust me they are ca-ute!

I just planted them loosely so that all the kids had to do was pull on the tags and the attached egg came up easily.  I’ll show you how to make your own, later this week!
Did you catch those shots of my other two cuties?  I swear I could just eat them up!  They all looked so darling in their Spring-y clothes!  Mmmm, I love those 3!!

There are so many fantastic eggs out there that make Easter so much more fun!  Melissa (another sister of mine) got ones that looked like grass, stone, dirt, etc.  Too easy to find places to hide them!  Other super cute eggs were tennis balls, bugs, and camo!

The next important part is how and where you hide your eggs.  Some of the Uncles’ creativity is really what is making these Egg Hunts so much fun (plus we now have children that are old enough to actually be expected to “hunt” for their eggs).  Above is an egg that was buried with a shovel next to it.  This was from last year and it was the first time we had a buried egg.  Children were also finding the eggs up higher than they could reach!

This egg on top of the pole was passed by so many times before it’s owner found it!

Look closely at the lemon in the middle of the picture.  A hole was cut into a lemon, just big enough for a yellow egg.  The lemon was still attached to the tree, with an egg in it!  See the hole in the 2nd picture, after the egg was found!  This is still my favorite hiding of an egg EVER!!  So brilliant!

Can you even spot the eggs in these pictures?  They are there!

Holes are an obvious choice for egg hiding.  Lots of eggs are ending up on top of the house.  That one was under the roof of the second story!

You have to look everywhere, stuck to windows, and high up in the air!

OK this one is not officially my child, he’s Erika’s Son (don’t sisters’ children count as my own!?).  Such a cutie!!

I’m still on cloud nine from the wonderful time I was able to spend with my family!  It makes me so content to have quality time with my family!!

What are some of your Easter Egg Hunt traditions?  What has been your favorite Easter Egg Hunt?  Do you have any Easter Egg Hunt mishaps?  For example, one year we hid all of our hard boiled eggs for the kids.  One was on the top of an open fence…the egg slid down the inside of the fence pole and we could NOT get it out.  YUCK!!  Or another year our sprinklers turned on in the middle of the Egg Hunt going on on our lawn.  And of course we were all in our new Easter outfits!

Rebecca

I'm joining the fun at the following parties:

Orange and Lemon Cupcakes-When Life Hands You Lemons Part 2…

Arizona is full-on spring time!  The citrus trees’ produce is perfect for picking.  We keep going to my parents citrus orchard (really it’s just their backyard but they have plenty of trees!) and picking bags of citrus.  So I’ve been trying to make as many different citrus-y things as I can.  Did you see my orange and lemon rolls?

A fantastic recipe to bake inside of citrus is cake! I grew up doing this at camp. 

1. Cut off top of fruit.

2.  Take flesh out of fruit (then eat the flesh or juice it).

3.  Fill fruit shell halfway with cake batter.

4.  Put top/lid back on and put into muffin tin.

5.  Cook as directed for cupcakes.

6.  Either eat with a spoon, or peel the citrus skin away (kind of hard to do).

7.  Enjoy!

We used to make these at camp.  You make the batter and fill them while at home.  Then when they are filled with the cake batter you cover each fruit tightly with tin foil.  Keep these in the cooler until you are making dinner.  Throw these into the fire while cooking your dinner.  They take a little longer than cupcakes would.  I think they are best done this way.  Isn’t everything yummier when cooked by a fire?

This is a great project to do with your kids.  You cut the tops off and let your kids pull the flesh out.  We then ran all the flesh through the juicer and enjoyed our juice while the cupcakes were baking.

The cake totally takes on a citrus-y flavor that is awesome!  And they cook up super moist! 

 

We made these in oranges and lemons.  We also used chocolate and vanilla cake batter.  All 4 variations were delish!

 

Try this and let me know what you think!

 

I’m still searching for more recipes using citrus.  Please let me know and I will post a list!

 

Rebecca