Cute craft website

Check this darling craft website for kids.  Love it!

Double Coupons at Kmart

So I just found out that Kmart will be doubling coupons this week. This is BIG. They will be doubling any coupon up to $2.oo and I am planning a trip tomorrow. I hope to get some soap, shampoo, and other items for free, so wish me luck. If anyone is interested in joining me, I'll have plenty of coupons to share. Just let me know!

Good Luck!!

Just wanted to tell the 2nd year families that we're all thinking about you tonight as you find out where you are going for rotations!!!! If you'd like, you should all post up where you are going or give us a call because we're all dying to find out where you're going. :)

Oreo Turkeys

Turkeys I made...

Picture of the turkeys from the internet...

We are going to make these tonight with the Garrett's for FHE and I thought I'd pass it on to everyone. This is a tradition in my family to make these & we use them as "name cards" at Thanksgiving dinner... we write each person's name on the bottom oreo or attach a name card to each. They are fun & easy! Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

What you need:
Candy Corn
Double Stuffed Oreo Cookies
Whoppers
Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
chocolate icing
white icing & food coloring to use to decorate the turkey

Directions:
Prep:
Put your Peanut Butter Cups in the fridge to cool. If you have cold hard chocolate to work with it makes it a lot easier.

Squeeze some of the white icing into a bowl. This will be your orange. Mix red and yellow food coloring with the icing to create your desired orange. Then put that into a plastic bag and set it aside for later.

Creating:
First you will be creating the tail using 1 Oreo cookie and 6 Candy Corns. Gently, poke each candy corn into the white filling on on Oreo cookie to make it look like feather (about 6 or 7 candy corns).

Take your icing and squeeze a generous amount onto the top back of an Oreo cookie. Take the other Oreo and put the bottom into the icing to have it stand up.


Remove your Peanut Butter Cup from the fridge. Take your knife and cut off the very bottem so you have a flat surface. Put icing on the bottom of it the bigger flat. Bump it up against the bottom and back of your Oreo cookies. See picture.

Next take your Whopper and squeeze more icing on it on one side. Place the whopper on top of the Peanut Butter Cup to make your head.

Find a piece of Candy Corn that has a nice big white end. Using your sharp knife cut the color off leaving you with the white end. Place some icing on it and stick it on your whopper as the beak to your Oreo Turkey. Hold for a moment.

Take your icing and place two white dots as eyes. Get your tube of black piping gel and place a black dot on each eye to make them come alive. Grab your bag of already created orange. Cut a very small hold in the corner of the bag. Now, pipe feet.

Okay so I have to know

Alright, so you have to admit that today was such a blast!! I loved going to see Twilight, it was so fun to sit around and see something played out that we have been fantacizing about for a while (me a few months, others a lot longer...hmmm.. Andrea). So I loved these books, and so I thought it would be fun to post what we all thought about the movie in the comment section.

(Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the movie)

For me, I must admit that it was a lot better than I expected. I heard horrible reviews, so I must admit that I really enjoyed the movie a lot. I don't know if this is because I read the books, but I didn't feel the chemistry between Edward and Bella. If I hadn't read the books would I really get what is going on? He hated her and then suddenly they are declaring themselves, I don't know if they connected the love and intensity between them. Bella was much better than I thought she would be, although I did imagine Bella to actaully smile every once and a while, which movie's Bella was a little more "uncomfortable/awkward." I love the cullens and I wish they had given them more lines, when they came in they were so cool (I hated that they were all cuddly at school and their peers viewed them as perverts), but they did look gorgeous and beautiful and I loved that!! Now I must say this was very cheesy though, was I really supposed to laugh so hard when Edward was tormented by Bella, he just looked like he ws about to blow chunks all over, and the "angle wings" behind him.....super cheesy. But movie Edward was really cute and I liked him. I hated the very end when he had to suck her blood, hello that made the whole thing really cheesy...Edward would never look stupid. I was dispointed that the meadow scene and the wondeful days of "getting to know each other" weren't there, and pretty much that the whole movie was out of order, oh and that Bella wore leggings and tennis shoes to the prom...(Hello, Alice ((who really wasn't even in the movie)) would never allow this). But I think I would like to see it again, and most likely I will buy it. I also heard that they announced the production of New Moon, now my big pondering question is....will they get a new Jacob because he was short (and cuter than Jacob should be), or will they do like Lord of the Rings and make people super big and super small?

Anyways I thought this would be fun, please do tell I want to know what you think!!! Love all of you and thank you for a fabulous adventure!!

Free Oatmeal

Just wanted to spread the word that you can still get great deals at Kroger this week:

(Listed is the price after the coupons)
Quaker oatmeal (old fashioned or quick cooking): Free
Breyer's ice cream : $1.50
Welchs 100% grape juice : $1.50
Dannon activa yogurt : $0.50
Betty Crocker Frosting: $0.50
Quaker Rice Cakes: $0.50
Fleischmann's yeast (3 ct): $0.59
Domino's Sugar (5lb): $1.00
Smucker's jam: $1.30

Let me know which ones you want to get and I'll have the coupons ready for you. I won't be using them as I have plenty already.

Pumpkin Muffins

My mother-in-law made some yummy pumpkin muffins yesterday for breakfast & to my amazement it was the same recipe that I use for the pumpkin cookies. I was so surprised. They were such yummy muffins & are on the healthy side. They take only 2 ingredients:
-1 box spice cake mix (just the mix, don't add anything to it)
-1 can pumpkin

Mix them together & scoop in muffin pan. She made jumbo muffins & I believe they cooked at 350 for 30 minutes. If you do regular muffin size, you should cut the time down to maybe 15-20 minutes.

Just thought I'd share this good idea. They make your house smell so good.

BOM

90 Day Encounter with the Book of Mormon
reading schedule

One of my Mom's friends in her ward got a challenge from her son's mission president. The challenge was that the missionary & the parents were to read the Book of Mormon 3 times in 3 months. Wow! Doing this made such an impact on their family that they are doing the challenge again & she shared it with my Mom.

Each time that you read the Book of Mormon, you're supposed to read it with a different perspective. The first time, you're supposed to mark in pencil all the "stories" of the people. The second time, you're supposed to mark in red pencil all the references to the Savior. The third time, in blue pencil you liken the scriptures to yourself and mark anything that strikes out to you personally.

My Mom passed out paper back copies of the Book of Mormon and challenged us to do this last night at FHE. I thought it was a neat idea & wanted to pass it on to all of you. I put the link on the top of this post and you can print out the directions & there is a reading schedule too. You can change the time length and read it 3 times in 6 months or whatever works.

The very end of the directions gives a promise which is: "This Book of Mormon read will change your life. You and those who read with you will never be the same. You will come closer to Jesus Christ. This experience will energize and spiritualize your life. It will transform you and all those who participate with you."

Russian Chicken

2-3 chicken breasts

1 envelope dried onion soup mix

1/2 jar apricot jam

1 small (8 oz.)  bottle Russian salad dressing

Cook in crockpot for 4-5 hours.  It is great served just as breasts over rice.  I just barely tried this shredded.  That was our favorite.  We cooked it for 4 hours, then took it out and shredded it.  Then we put it back in the crockpot for another 1-1 1/2 hours to let the shredded chicken absorb the juice.  This might be really good as a salad too with lettuce, beans, cheese, rice, tomatoes, etc.  This is our favorite smell to come home to after church!   

Deals in town

I am amazed by the creativity and talents we have in our little group. The Lord has blessed us with some great gifts!

Just wanted to drop a quick note to let those interested know about the great sale Rite Aid is having this week. Many of there things are free after Mail in rebate. You can see if you would find anything useful by checking it out here. Also I just went to Kroger and they have some Gerber 2nd foods on clearance for $.49 each. The varieties I bought were garden vegetable and mixed vegetable. They are in the center aisle by the frozen juice and ice cream.

Make a statement without breaking the bank

So my mom came out and suprised me and we worked on things around my house! As you can see from my table, things are not quite done yet, but you can get the general idea. So from a medical school salary and watching way to many home design shows, I did some super fun tricks to make things look cooler and nicer than they really are.

The first one was kim's idea, but I spray painted a table that I found at the flea market for $50.00, added some toile on the seats (all but one and spray painting the table), but I think it looks nice overall.

The curtains are just a piece of fabric sewn down the sides, I then found curtain hooks that clip on (not making button holes) and tada!!




Another trick is art work, yeah so I know that little pic is not very spectacular, but it is something that adds color to the walls, and all I did was make stripes on a $5.00 canvas.

The last prodject was from a Lowe's magazine. I needed something really big to fill the space on my wall, and did not want to spend a could hundred on a picture of a mirror. Their idea was to take a 4X4 board (I cut a few inches off of mine), choose 2 colors for a background and boarder (I did black and gold) and then glue mirror tiles ($8.00) into a pattern. It's not magnificent, but it makes the room larger and gives it the effect I was looking for!

So there are a few of my design on a dime idea!! Any one have any more tips?

YES!!

Hey Y'all!!
I just wanted to let everyone know (maybe you already do) but today is the last day for Deseretbook.com to get free shipping!! They have lots of cute christmas stuff! Use the promo code: freeshipoct when you check out.

Also I got a free $10 off when you spend $50 if anyone wants to use it. The code for it is 8CCDIR just post a comment if you are going to use it becuase it is for a one time use only.

happy shopping!!

Scandalous!!!

 

So I thought this picture was too cute!! Chaney came down last Friday and we had a slumber party. I was giving Mekynzie a bath and Chance jumped in her little bath tub too. It was so cute, we had so much fun!! After the kids were in bed, Andrea came over and the three of us had so much fun!! Yeah!! Thanks to all of you guys for being such great friends!!

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

This is the world's easiest recipe & it is healthy too! When I was at BYU, one of my roommates was on Weight Watchers and she always made these cookies & I loved them. I guess they are only "1 point". Diet or no diet, these are really yummy cookies and you can eat as many as you'd like! :)

Ingredients:
1 box spice cake mix
1 can pure pumpkin (15oz. can)
Chocolate chips, or mini chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray cookie sheets with non- stick cooking spray. In a large bowl mix together the cake mix and the canned pumpkin. Add chocolate chips. Drop cookie dough onto cookie sheets and then bake for around 10-12 minutes.

P.S. Michelle- can you re-post your bread recipe? I didn't get a chance to write it down, that's such a great recipe!

Nothing gets better than pumpins!!

So i found these cute pumpkins!! I am in the process of making some for my kitchen table!! I am doing the fake ones so I will have them for next year!! I thought you guys might doing this too. Hopefully the directions are ok becuase I cut and pasted them but the blog is anenchantedcottage.blogspot.com if you want to check out her other cute things aswell!!

Photo Pumpkin InstructionsComment Response: This project was done on artificial, store-bought pumpkins. I'm not sure how it would turn out on real pumpkins, but feel free to try. Unfortunately, the pumpkins would need to be tossed at the end of the fall season as I doubt they'd keep from year to year...

So here we go with the step-by-step instructions! Be sure to let each step dry completely before going on to the next step. (See yesterday's post for the list of supplies needed for this project. I sure wish I could have found white pumpkins rather than orange to start with - it would have saved me a few steps!) (you can click on any of the photos for a larger, detailed image)

Step 1) Gather your supplies. You can use any size pumpkins, but be sure the copies of your photos are smaller than the height and width of your pumpkins. Trim your photos, leaving a thin white border around them. (Tip: I printed mine on my inkjet printer. You may have some color bleeding with inkjet copies, just as I did, during the decoupage step. I believe there's less chance of bleeding if you use actual Xerox/photocopies from a print shop or photos printed on a laser printer.)

Step 2) Seal the entire pumpkin to keep the color from bleeding through. (Note: The orange of my pumpkins still bled through the new paint job a bit, visible if you enlarge my photos... I don't know if there's a way to stop this completely...Maybe use 2 coats of sealer? I only used one. Luckily, the orange peeking through here and there adds a bit of unexpected character!)

Step 3) Paint the pumpkins Black. It will give you better coverage when you apply your final color over black rather than trying to paint over orange. Originally I was going to leave the stems natural, but then decided to paint them black. It's a personal choice. If you plan to paint them black, you can do so at this point. (Lisa at The Pickled Hutch said they'd look great having photos added at this stage of the game, too! Now why didn't I think of that? So yes - you could put your photos on now and where I embellish later with Black paint, you could embellish with white or orange or any color!)

Step 4) It's now time to paint the pumpkins with your color choices. I chose white, green, and pale blue.

I like a 'distressed' look where some of the black shows through, so rather than going over areas to get complete coverage, I leave little bits of black peeking through.

(I should have left some just like this - it looks like a bundt cake with icing dripping down... okay, now I'm hungry...) Here's a sample of what it looks like painted a creamy white.

Step 5) Choose the first photo you want to use on the pumpkin....

Put it face down on a clean surface and apply a generous coat of decoupage to the back of the photo... Just eyeball the photo to center it from top to bottom and left to right, and then press the photo onto the pumpkin. While the decoupage is wet, you'll be able to move it around to straighten it. Because of the ridges in the pumpkin, the photo will not lay completely flat. Just do the best you can to press it down into the ridges, and to press the edges down flat. (Sometimes a folded paper towel is easier than using your fingers to press and rub.) Repeat this process for as many photos as you are putting on the pumpkin (I did one on the front and one on the back). If you enlarge some of my photos, you will see that there are slight creases and wrinkles in the photos due to the pumpkin's uneven surface/ridges, but that won't ruin the overall look of the finished project.)

Step 6) Apply a thin (but complete) coat of decoupage over the photos so they are completely sealed. (Note: The photos may initially look milky white/foggy. Once the decoupage medium has dried, the images will be crystal clear.)

Step 7) Once the decoupage has completely dried, it's time to apply a coat of high gloss varnish to the entire pumpkin including over the photos and the stems. (I forgot to take a picture of the little varnish bottle!)... I used Delta Interior/Exterior Gloss Varnish, a craft varnish that easily cleans up with soap and water. (Note: No cats were starved during the drying portion of this project... Additional cans of cat food were still available in the cupboard.)

Step 8) Now it's time for you to get really creative! I chose to just paint some simple black lines and 'vintage' style photo corners around the photos so they'd stand out. But you could do anything at all - vines, flowers, wavy lines, dashes, dots. You could even paint a silhouetted scene around the pumpkin (I want to try that next year!!) You could also paint polka dots or stripes all over!

Step 9) Optional Spattering: I'm doing this a bit out of sequence as I wish I had done my spattering at this point. But as you can see from my previous photos, I spattered before varnishing (bad move!) I wish I'd spattered after varnishing because while spattering, I ended up with a few great big blobs of black that were VERY hard to clean off the pumpkin (after varnishing it's a snap to clean mistakes off with a damp paper towel). Just be careful not to spatter your photos since they've already been applied at this point... To spatter, I dip a stencil brush or toothbrush in slightly watered down black paint and then just run my finger or thumb across the bristles to 'spatter' the paint (very messy on the fingertips - you might want to wear rubber gloves)...

Step 10) It's now time to varnish your pumpkins again in order to seal any spattering or decorative painting you did around the photos...

And We're BACK!!!

Okay, so hopefully nothing will get messed up like last time. I changed things a little bit with the layout, if you guys want anything added let me know... (like cute blogs to follow for ideas "tiffany you are the queen of cute blog sites," )polls, etc you want added. Also I stole some pics off of some of your other blogs so there would be a picture of everyone. Now since all the past month was erased we can add new stuff, but anything anywants reposted on there just put it in the comment section. Like I want the recipies, please!! Have fun blogging, let's hope round two goes better!!