Nana Strikes Again-Lovely Lip Coasters!

The amazing Nana strikes again!  Look what fun Lip Coasters she just left at my house!  Actually she made a set of these for each of her children’s families!  That is a lot of work! 

 

While you are enjoying these beauties be sure to check out some of the other fun posts that show Nana’s amazing crafts and ideas!

They are made out of that counted plastic canvas and yarn.  She also backed these with red felt.  These lips are so cute and perfect for this month!  Love them!

 

Thanks, Nana!

 

Rebecca

Healthy Heartfelt Lunch and Snack

Let’s be honest.  We all receive those heart shaped chocolate boxes for Valentines Day.  If you are a crafter, you know you think about saving it.  Now you actually have something you can do with these!

This was lunch for my kids (and will be again on Valentine’s Day).  There are so many healthy red foods out there!  Here is what went into the above lunch:

Babybel Cheese with heart cut out

Cherries

Red Grapes

Cherry Tomatoes

Red Apples

Strawberries cut into hearts

Dessert:  Red Chocolate Covered Heart Shaped Bananas

                   Heart Shaped Brownies with Red Chocolate on top

Other Ideas:

Red Peppers

Raspberries

Watermellon

Pink Grapefruit

Guava

Beets

Pink Meats

Raviolis (or pasta) cooked in red food coloring

Cranberries (dried would work too)

Here is my children’s after school snack (notice my cute heart shaped cups):

Red Grapes

Cherry Tomatoes

Red Applesauce (It’s actually Homemade Red Hots Applesauce!)

 

Every day I’m serving up my children’s afterschool snacks in a different heart shaped container like this one (yes, I may have saved too many of these containers with no idea of what I was going to do with them).  Even if the foods weren’t red or pink this still gives it a little something extra fun!  In the divided containers you can also put things like chips and dip, regular fruit and veggies, crackers, pretzels, goldfish, raisins, etc!  I love this idea.

 

There are so many easy ways to make sweets for Valentine’s Treats.  Heart shape anything makes it super cute, add red food coloring, or dip it in red chocolate.  I’ve done plenty of those things this February.  However, I think these healthy meals and snack are just as fun (well almost)!

 

Rebecca

Valentine Chips and Salsa

Every day for February I like to try and make our foods Valentine-y.  This is an absolute favorite of my children’s now!

Heart Shaped Salsa and Chips. 

I actually made 2 versions.  This is the first version.  
Salsa (really it’s more of a pico de gallo):
Diced Tomatoes                                     Fresh Cilantro
Diced Onion                                            Lemon Juice
Fresh Minced Garlic
  This is my favorite, go-to salsa to make.  However, I’ve been changing it up with a bit of a Texas Caviar twist to it by adding canned black beans, canned black eyed peas, corn, splash of red wine vinegar, and a little olive oil.  I’m trying to get more beans into our diet and this is a perfect way!  Over time I am also going to start adding red and green peppers (which my kids do not like).

This boy melts my heart!  Look at those adorable fingers, complete with bitten nails and dirty (stained from paint) fingers!  He downs these chips because they are so tasty!

Chips:  I use heart cookie cutters to cut different size hearts out of tortillas.  Then, I oil them and sprinkle salt on them (on both sides) and bake in the oven @350 for 5 minutes or until golden brown (on a large cookie sheet).  Make as big of a batch as you can because they wont last!

I used this salsa in burritos, too!  I just added roasted chicken and avocados.  Oh, heaven!  OK, who am I kidding, I put this in everything; a soup, on bread, and even straight up.  So yummy.

I put this in my children’s lunch with a dessert chips and salsa!  I saw this sweet fruit salsa with cinnamon chips on Our Best Bites and have been meaning to make it ever since I saw it.  It was worth the wait because it is tasty!
Fruit Salsa:
Kiwi                                    Strawberries
Blueberries                     Blackberries
Peaches                           Pears     
Raspberries                   Apples
Honey                             Granulated Sugar
Lime Juice
Dice up your fruit (you can use anything you want but these are my children’s favorite fruits) into small pieces.      Pour some honey and sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top and mix well (I keep this light because I paired it with highly cinnamon sugared chips).  I like to refrigerate this for a bit before serving.

Chips:  Cut out heart shapes out of tortillas, as with above chips. Brush melted butter onto heart shaped torillas and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (again on both sides).  Pop in the oven @350 for 5 minutes (or until golden brown).
These cinnamon sugar chips with the fruit salsa are heaven!!

I made three batches of these because the first batch went into lunches and didn’t get photographed (early morning=bad light and no extra time).  The second two batches just disappeared before I could take pictures!   But yum, we enjoyed them!

Rebecca
PS The other day my Son got a taste of something that was very yummy.  Quick as can be he said, “Oh that tastes like HEAVEN!”.  So, yup, I do realize that I say things are heaven…a lot.   But really, I think that description is pretty accurate for a lot of things.  Even that little boy of my is heaven.  I’ve only nibbled….

February First Idea

This morning my kids awoke to Pink, Heart Shaped Pancakes.  I always try to start the month off with a theme.  February’s theme is easy-Valentine’s Day! 

They will also come home to some valentine snacks every day until Valentine’s Day.  Today they will also find their Valentine’s pillowcases on their beds, when they get home from school.  Check back through my archives to find great ideas for celebrating every day until Valentine’s Day!  And keep checking back here as I share what I am doing this year with my kids!

Happy February everyone!

Rebecca

Happy Valentine’s Day!

  
We all wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Valentine’s Day!  We are so thankful to everyone who supports us by visiting us and checking out what fun new things we have going on, leaving comments, linking to us, and all the rest that goes with this wonderful blogging world!  Thank you for sharing your love with us!
I also want to thank my family who I LOVE!  Love is what makes this world go round, and what makes it worth it! ;)  I have so many people in my life that I LOVE and adore and am so thankful to (you all know who you are)!

Love,
Rebecca
PS  That purty heart above…well, that is a preview of what I have been busy working on.  A new technique that is so much fun and will knock the socks off of people! ;)  That heart is metal.  It was formed with things you either have around your house or can get at Walmart!  Things as basic as salt water…seriously.  With this technique you can etch on metal, or as above, it even cuts out for you!  I am still tweaking the tutorial a bit and will be posting it soon.

Valentine Food Tip/Trick

It is so easy to turn everyday foods into Valentine Foods.  During the whole month of February almost every meal I make is love themed.  It is so easy to do by either making red foods, making foods red, or making it heart shape (or all 3)!

Here is my first tip/trick.  These are those chocolate squeeze containers (that’s the official name).  I actually use these all the time.  On the weekends I make up batches of things for the next week’s meals.  I like serving hot meals for breakfast and these containers make that easy.  I make up a double batch of pancake batter.  I cook up one batch and refrigerate (or freeze).  The next batch I pour into these containers and put them in the fridge.  In the morning I can pull these out and make pancakes just as easily as I can pour up 4 bowls of cereal! 
Oh an extra tip here is that we LOVE Betty Crocker’s pancake recipe.  Seriously it’s so yummy.  I keep the pan greased up with butter, so then I don’t butter my kids pancakes (it really does end up being less butter this way, so much healthier).  My kids can either have chocolate chips in theirs or they can have syrup on them, but not both (I have my standards!).  I usually use whole wheat flour and have just substituted it straight out for the regular flour.  It is dryer, doing this, but in this recipe we like it just fine.  The pancakes just are not quite as fluffy.  My kids have never commented on noticing the difference!
 
The real reason I use those squeeze containers is to make shapes (using them to prepare ahead of time is just the bonus).  This month we are going with all hearts.  It even makes baby hearts so easily.  Is it just mine or do your kids LOVE to have baby anything?!  I always make up miniscule pancakes and they call them the babies.  I divvy those up equally. ;)  It’s the little things in life, isn’t it?
 
Don’t those hearts look great?  The reason they have tails on the bottom is that for some reason that is the way I draw hearts.  On paper I think it’s cute.  In pancakes…well, not so much.  But I couldn’t get my hand to “draw” these hearts any other way. 
I also always do my kids initials too.  I’ve been known to make animals as well.  Though my drawing skills are not the greatest.  So they are more just shapes, and then my kids decide what they look the most like.  Someone with mad drawing skills could really rock these pancakes though…that would just not be me.

Last tip.  Those awesome markers.  They are edible!  Well, not the markers themselves but the ink you write with.  Be creative.  Anjeanette wrote on her banana peel!  How awesome would that be?  These write on just about anything (I didn’t say anything, because not so much with writing on saucy things, etc).

Rebecca

I am linking up to Fireflies and Jellybeans Party and Poppies at Play, and Skip To My Lou!

Welcome to my house-Valentine’s Decorating

I know that not everyone loves decorating for Valentine’s Day.  However, I am my Mother’s Daughter and so I decorate for EVERY holiday (and then some)!  And I thank her for passing the fun onto me!  The above is what you see when you enter my home.  I made the hearts years ago.  I’m now thinking they need some glitter!  I change out the dangly part (this month it’s those hearts) every month.

Ok, this one is a weird one.  But I love my “hands”.  They are concrete copies of my daughters’ hands.  You can even see their sweet fingerprints!  I know they are kind of creepy, but I just LOVE them.  It was my oldest daughter’s idea to be holding a cup when she did it, so that the concrete version could hold treats in a cup!  Pretty smart if you ask me!  The lantern I did just because I pretty much filled up any container I can, with themed candies.
  
Remember my heart boxes?  Here is a variation of those.  I took one paper towel tube, covered it with paper and then just cut 1/2 inch (or less) pieces off.  It made a TON of small hearts!
 
See them all?  I swear that pile is from one toilet paper towel tube.
 
I have them dangling from fishing line, over my dining room table.  They look sooo neat, I wish you could see them in person!
 
You don’t even see the line (in the real world, unlike here in pictures) when you are looking at them.  My kids were impressed with this one.

A quick and easy addition to a window in my kitchen was my cookie cutters and pretty heart ribbon.
Do you get the theme of my decorating?  I like quick and easy.  I also don’t like storing lots of big or heavy stuff.  My favorite decorations, though are the ones my kids make from school (and what we make at home).  Those creations have become the bulk of my decorating now that I have 3 kids in school!

I made those lips and SWAK letters out of cereal boxes and glitter!  Can you tell I love glitter?    Again, you should see those letters in real life, totally covered in glitter.  Swoon.
Sorry for the quality of pictures on these ones folks.  I was fighting with windows in all the wrong places for good lighting.  And, Anjeanette is out of town this week so she can't save my photography skills!  So, thanks for bearing with me on those photos.  But they still gave you the idea…I hope! ;)
I do have tons of other fun Valentines decorations but these are some of the ones I made.   I have been enjoying getting a sneak peak into other people’s Valentines crafts and so I thought I’d do up one post for my decoration crafts for Valentine’s Day!
Rebecca

I am linking up to Fireflies and Jellybeans Party!

Valentine’s Activities

I am so excited about these baskets.  They are filled with craft kits to do with my kids.  My kids and I craft pretty much every day, so I know these will be a big hit with my kids.  There are more than enough kits to keep us busy every day this month!    I am going to share with you a sampling of the kits that are in my baskets.
Most of the kits I put together, using things that I already have.  Here I separated out Perler Beads in Valentine’s colors.  I also included the star board and an example of how it can turn into a heart.
TIP:  I love those little containers.  I use them ALL the time.  I buy them from the party store, in their catering goods section.

Another of my kits is for making Valentine Cards for other people.  I cut out scalloped hearts of all sizes, in pink, red, and white.  I am so excited for them to use these doilies, too.  I also have beads and ribbons that they can use but there are too many to fit in the kits.  Those are readily accessible at all times.

Here is one craft my kids have already done.  These Valentines are out of those awesome foam hearts.  I love how sweet these are.  We are mailing these to all of my Children’s Great Grandmas!

Another craft that my kids have already done is this bottle cap craft.  On the backside these are pins or magnets.  I so love them.

I have pictures ready to be put in these cute heart frames.

Another route that I went with these kits is premade kits from Oriental Trading.  Sometimes you just cannot beat what Oriental Trading has to offer!
 
I am especially excited about these boxes because we will be making a lot of goodies and these boxes will be perfect to give them out in!
One last kit from my baskets.  I have a ton more kits that I made up (like I said, there are enough for the whole month!).  Some other kits are crochet hearts, sewing embroidered heart bean bags, tissue paper hearts, wax paper and crayon hearts, coloring pages, canvases to paint, bugs made out of hearts (caterpillars, bees, butterflies, etc), and more.
I am enjoying doing these things with my kids already.  One reason I am trying the basket full of kits version this year is that the kids can look through them and decide what they want to do each day.  Some days my kids are more in the mood to paint, then to sew.  So this will hopefully add to the fun factor. 

Rebecca

Handprint Valentine Hearts

I know that you have seen these before. 

Super sweet hearts, made from handprints.
Don’t you LOVE the sweet girly nails?

I made these with all 3 of my kids.

This picture is so sweet to me, with their different sizes of hands!  Who doesn’t melt when they see these kinds of things?
 
But did you realize that done in the red and white…

These are also faux Woven Danish Heart Baskets?

See how you get the same red/white pattern?


I love simple things that are so beautiful!
 
This tiny hand was the hardest to hold still!
But the oldest one, reminds me the most of the Woven Danish Baskets.
I was not going to put Valentine’s Decorations up until February 1st.  I like to surprise the kids with decorations all of a sudden being up one day.
But I had to hang these as soon as we made them.  And they will stay up for the whole month of February.
Don’t forget to put their names, ages, and the year on them.  I put those things on after I took the pictures for this blog! ;)
Rebecca

I'm linking to Trendy Treehouse, Twice Remembered, and DIY Day.

Valentine’s Activity

I come from a line of AVID readers! Actually, that’s quite an understatement. We all have wall to wall, floor to ceiling bookcases in our homes. In fact, I think we all dream of having vaulted ceilings with those bookcases with a rolling ladder to get to them all! We love books.

An important tradition that I do for Valentine’s is to have Valentine books out. I use these books to read from for our bedtime story, reading a different one each night. I love putting thoughts of Valentine’s Day into my kids heads, from morning until night. In our family books are often given for gifts. If you do this, make sure to sign who the book is to and from, and a short comment is nice as well. We love seeing our personal messages in our books. I love knowing that not only is “Love You Forever” a super sweet book (that I’ve read a million times and still cry every time) but that I received this from my Grandmother (another avid reader)! I did not go out and buy all of these books at once, they accumulate over the years. I try to buy a themed book for the kids for each holiday. These can cheaply be bought from book orders (look in the corner as there are usually $1 books there!), and after holiday clearance sales!

I found one of those school pocket things, from a garage sale. This is where my kids will find their Valentines books, on February 1st. I actually do this tradition every month. It used to be just for the holidays, but now I like to have a theme for those months without a holiday. For January, this was filled with books about Winter time. It is amazing how much the kids will automatically pick from these books to read. I have bookcases in every room of my house (literally). Yet, the books in this book display are the ones the kids will most read from (except my oldest who has her own, much harder, books to read! ;) It is also a good way of rotating books. It always feels like Christmas when I go through and pull out all of my books within one theme (in this case, my Valentine’s books). I find it makes the books more fun, each time we put new ones out this way.

I saw a lot of people are starting to have a Christmas book a day. I hope you can see why it is a great idea to do for Valentine’s Day, as well. My kids love picking which Valentine’s Book we will be reading for bedtime, though I’m sure you could wrap these up the same way many people did their Christmas books. For us, picking out which particular story for tonight, is half the fun for us. We rotate who’s turn it is to pick the story.

Rebecca

Katrina here:

I love this idea and have been doing the same for years. I started doing it as a way to prepare my autistic child for an upcoming event like Valentines Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I used them like social stories. This way he knew what to expect when the time came. Not only is it a fantastic way to spend some quality time with your children but books like these can give your child a deeper understanding of what the event really means.

And YES I have always dreamed of a traditional library. I picture deep rich colors, dark woods, leather chairs and floor to ceiling bookshelves with rolling ladders. Oh and a fireplace because curling up with a good book infront of a fire just sounds like heaven. ;)

Heart Box Tutorial With A Secret Cheat

If you were with us last year, you know that I do a Valentine’s Day Countdown with my children. I have Valentine’s Surprises every day for my children, starting on February 1st. This year I am trying to have everything ready to go by the end of January (wish me luck on that one!). These Heart shaped boxes are just one of the surprises I have planned.
I tried a bunch of variations of 3D hearts, to use for decoration. When I figured these out, I realized they would also be great as a container for some of the treats that I have.

Ok so now you see the secret cheat that I used. Toilet Paper tubes! Some people are grossed out by this…I’m not. They are perfect for helping the paper to hold it’s heart shape and make the boxes more durable! I figured out the easiest way to turn that regular roll of toilet paper into a heart shape. I thought I was brilliant and told my Mom about it. She had that figured out before I told her. See, this is why we are the way we are (my Sisters and I). We get it from this brilliant woman!
So the easy way to transform your toilet paper roll is to take the regular roll (1) and flatten it (2). Make sure to crease the folds well. Then, take the top fold and bend it the opposite direction to make the crease in the top of your heart (3). That’s it! Easy peasy, right?!
Then, I played around with the scrapbook paper I wanted to cover the boxes with. I made myself this handy dandy template. I needed it to go around the heart, but already have creases in the paper, because the paper I used was pretty stiff and would not easily conform to the heart shaped toilet paper roll. Notice that one crease will fold in along with the crease of the heart, and the other fold will go out(meaning fold it the opposite direction from the first fold) to go around the bottom tip of your heart. The side flaps/notches are what will make the top and bottom of your heart and keep in your goodies! I found you needed a lot of notches because of the heart shape. This is what worked best for me.

I then painted a nice layer of modge podge onto the backside of my paper (but only the center section that will be glued directly to the toilet paper roll) and wrapped the paper around the heart shaped toilet paper. The paper will not stay put on its own and it is quite helpful to use those large clothespins, to hold everything in place while the modge podge is drying.
Seal up one side of your heart shaped box. Fill your container with goodies that you scored in the after-Christmas clearance sales! Oh yeah! These ended up costing me 10 cents each for the bags of red and silver foil covered chocolates. Yes, the outside packaging was Christmas, but the inside packaging was perfect for Valentine's candy. Then, seal your last side of your box. I tried using modge podge and then I tried double sided tape to seal the ends up. Both seemed to work well.

I can not wait to have these waiting for my children in their Valentine Mailbox! Though, this year I am changing the mailbox idea up a bit. You'll have to keep coming back to see how that will change. Do you see that awesome skull and heart paper? That will be put into use for my Son! He’s starting to think some things are a little too girly, so I hope this fits the bill for him!
These would also be great to make with your kids, for their friends for Valentine's Day. I think I will be making them with my kids! I could also see making them during other times of the year, maybe as party favors. Who wouldn't love a heart shaped box?
I can’t wait to show you more of my Valentine’s Countdown surprises, so keep checking back!
Rebecca


I linked up to Today's Creative Blog, and My Frugal Family, and DIY Day.