Burlap Banner

I cannot wait for Fall! I may or may not have gotten some of my fall decorations out today. I have made my first fall craft of the year and I'll share it with you today. I made a Burlap Banner!

I've been wanting to make something with Burlap for awhile now, but never knew what. Burlap seems so fall-ish to me so I thought a banner that said "fall" was perfect. Here is what you need to make your own.

Frozen Breakfast Burritos

Once a month/week cooking to HOT right now and I'm being lured in with everyone else. It is so convenient! Weather it be doing a big cooking day, or having a swap with some friends, it is cheaper, easy, and healthier. No more take out because you don't know what to cook!***

***Confession, sometimes we still get take out either because I forgot to throw something in the slow cooker or because we just feel like going out!

Why should Once a month/ week cooking be limited to Dinners with leftovers for lunch? I'm working on some different breakfast recipes. The burrito is my favorite! So many choices and so easy!

It took me about 1 1/2 hours to put together 22 breakfast burritos. It wasn't bad at all. I set up a table by the computer and watched Netflix.

This is what was in my burritos.
Tortillas- 22
Cheese- Probably 2 Cups
Eggs- 8
Sausage- 1 lb
bacon- a few strips leftover
ham- No idea
sauteed onions and garlic (Hubs claims to be the key ingredient)- 1 onion, 4 garlic cloves
Tator Tots- 1/2 large bag
Franks Red Hot

Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach costumes

To kick start fall posts I thought I'd start with our Halloween Costumes from last year. We were Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach.

I like trying to avoid store bought costumes. It is so much fun to throw together yourself and sometimes cheaper. Here is how we made them. Goodwill was our friend:)

Mario: We found a pair of NEW overalls at Goodwood for $1.50! Also the red shirt. The hat is an Elmo hat we bought at a kid resell store. We made the buttons on the overalls out of yellow felt, we just taped them on and they stayed pretty well. The "M" symbol on his hat is made from felt. My husband just drew it and cut it out. The mustache was drawn on with eye liner. I think we ended up buying costume make up for Halloween, this picture was taken at a Neighborhood carnival a few days before the 31st.

Luigi- Basically the same as Mario. We found the overalls at Savers and a green dress shirt and hat at Goodwill. For his 'stache we used felt and taped it on with double sided tape. It stayed on ok. It did come off a few times. It got pretty sweaty...

Princess Peach- The dress was my PROM dress from High School. It didn't quite fit still hence the jacket (It's not zipped up all the way) also the sleeves aren't very modest. The pendant on the chest was made with felt as well as the crown. You also can't see it in this picture, but I had blue felt earrings taped to my ears.

Treat bucket- I loved this and everyone thought it was the perfect touch! I just found a square box and covered it with yellow construction paper. I then drew out a question mark on white paper, cut and glued. I attached a handle from ribbon.

Everyone loved our costumes! It was a great First Halloween for Ryder! How do you think we did?

Photo courtesy of geeksugar.com

Something fun to consider. Ryder was only 10 months old for Halloween, obviously too young for candy (But he wanted it!). We saved all of his candy and used it in the favors for his Birthday Party 2 months later.

Want more Fall/ Halloween ideas,  follow me! I have a few different projects lined up:)

~CJ

EKK! Halloween Card

I saw this sketch on Twisted Tuesday Challenge and knew I wanted to participate. I love this layout! So simple and yet the possibilities are endless. The twist was no ribbon or trim could be used. Here is my take on it...

 To make this card I used white solid card stock and black and white patterned paper. (Perfect use of scraps) I cut the ends of the pattern to form a banner type look. The Ekk shape was cut with the cricut. I handwrote EKK in black marker. And added googly eyes with glue dots. I inked all the edges in black. I'm falling in love with this technique thanks to my Sister-in-law Ashlee.

I love the googly eyes and the spookiness it brings to the card!

I'm so ready for Fall and Halloween. I have a Fall decoration coming up soon that is cheap and easy! 

~CJ

Time Out!

Oh boy! Are we hitting the "terrible twos" already??? We are starting to put Ryder in time out, mainly when it's something we tell him not to over and over again. Or when it's something really bad that we really don't want him to do.

We use to have him fold his arms. That lasted about a day, I didn't want him to feel like he's always in trouble when we tell him to fold his arms for prayer. We then switched to putting his hands on his head. So we'll have him stand up against something (wall, couch, cabinet etc.) and put his hands on his head. We leave him there for around a minute (if that) and have him say sorry and explain why he was in time out.

I feel like even though he is only 18 months old he understands. My proof... after he gets out of time out he will go and do that thing that he was just in time out for and then put himself in time out.

 Aye aye aye, do any of you have time out success methods? I'm not quite sure he is really getting it...

~CJ

Guest Poster

Hey all! I'm looking for a guest poster. Hopefully get my numbers up a bit. If you would like to or know of anyone who would let me know craftsbycjg@gmail dot com. It can be anything from recipe, crafts, DIY projects, back to school lunch ideas, I'm open to everything!

Frozen Apple Bites

My little bug is 18 months old. It is nice because he can pretty much feed himself without making a huge disastrous mess. However there are a few things I wont let him feed himself such as yogurt and apple sauce. I found a solution to the yogurt while looking at Pinterest. I don't know what link I first saw, but it's everywhere. Frozen yogurt dots. Interesting...

I wondered if the same theory would work for applesauce. I decided to give it a try and make Frozen Apple Bites.

More after the jump...

Lettuce Stamping

I know this isn't a new concept, but hopefully if you run across this it may remind you and you can try this with your little one(s). My little bug really enjoyed it!

Today while making lunch I was cutting up lettuce and saw the stub and thought we should do some stamping. I've been wanting to do more "arts and crafts" so this was perfect. Besides instead of just throwing it away, why not play with it first.

More after the jump..

Toilet Paper Tube Necklace

I found this website this morning called no time for flash cards. It has a ton of activities for kids. I came across one using toilet paper tubes. I love this idea because we need toilet paper, but don't really have a use besides filling with dog treats for the dogs. (Need another idea for dogs see this ice lick I made)

Here is what we did. Color the tubes. My little bug was kind of young for this. He mostly just stuck the colored pencils through the tube. Still a fun activity. We even added some stickers!

 Then I cut the tubes into 4 pieces and strung them onto a piece of yarn for a necklace. He loved it!!!

 He especially loved to crumple them together. 

He actually ended up wearing this all day!

~CJ

Lemon Ranch Chicken

Long time no post... Sorry about that! I've been busy/ lazy/ uninspired. I really haven't been up to much lately. The Hubs was off of work for the month of July so with him being home I didn't really do much crafting. Now that he is back to work since school started I can get the creative juices flowing again.

I was looking through some old pictures and realized I never posted this recipe I made up for lemon ranch chicken. I don't know about you, but I LOVE chicken! It is so easy and usually is the cheapest meat. I'm always looking for new ways to make it to change things up. So one day I came up with this Lemon Chicken Ranch recipe.

More after the jump

Bridal Shower: Games

  Not everyone likes games so I wanted to pick ones that didn't require guests to do much. Here are the few "games" that we did.


20 Questions: The groom was asked 20 questions before hand. At the shower the bride was asked the same 20 questions. The goal was for them to get the same answer. If she got it wrong then she had to chew a piece of bubble gum. To involve the guests I typed up the questions and answers and had each guest read one. It worked out great. Poor Amy, she ended up with 8 pieces of gum.


Here are the questions we used,

1. When did you meet?

2. When & where was your first kiss?

3. When (Bride) was little what did she want to be when she grew up?

4. If (Bride) could burn one thing in your closet what would it be?

5. If (Groom) could burn one thing in (Bride's) closet what would it be?

6. How many guns does (Groom) own?

7. If (Bride) could be any animal what would it be?

8. What is (Brides) best feature?

9. What did you do on your first date?

10. What was (Bride's) first job?

11. What is (Grooms) shoe size?

12. What is (Brides) average bedtime?

13. What is (Brides) least favorite food?

14. What is (Grooms) favorite TV show?

15. Who made the first move?

16. What is (Bride's) favorite Holiday?

17. What is (Grooms) best feature?

18. What are the names of the Bridesmaids and Groomsmen?

19. Who said "I love you first?"

20. How many kids does (Bride) want?

With the invites was sent a recipe card. Guests were asked to fill it out and bring to the shower. We then picked out 2 recipes and they won a prize. Easy peasy!

At the entry way there was a piece of paper for guests to write down their Wedding Anniversary or Birthday on. The closest one to the Wedding date won a prize.

Bridal Shower Bingo- Each guest was handed out a blank BINGO card. I use this website for all my Bingo card needs. Before gifts were opened they filled out their card with what they thought she would be opening (Couldn't write there own) first with BINGO won. We did blackout too, but no one got that.

Bridal Shower: Candy Buffet

I recently threw a Bridal Shower for my best friend who is getting Married in August. It turned out so nice! I decided I wanted to do a "Love is Sweet" themed shower. What is more perfect than doing a candy buffet???

 Luckily I had plenty of help with this otherwise it would have cost me an arm and a leg. Candy is expensive!!! We wanted it to be the colors of the shower which were yellow, brown, and purple. Instead of wasting money on just getting the right colors, we bought the normal bags of candies and just picked out the candies we wanted. The men were willing to help sort for a small fee... a handful of candy of course! It looked so pretty:) I love having the different jars. We also put boxes underneath to give different heights.

I had a couple of the jars on hand, plus borrowed from my mom. I bought about 5 jars from Goodwill for about $5 on half price day. 

 The candy we used was

Cow Tails (One of the Brides favorites [with the wrappers off])

M&Ms

Tootsie Rolls

Lemonheads

Whoppers

Skittles

Rootbeer Barrels

Reese's Pieces

Kisses (Regular, Dark Chocolate, and Camel)

The favor was for the guests to fill up a container and take it home with them. I bought them at DollarTree it was $1 for 12 boxes. I was going to wrap them with leftover paper from the invites, but decided not to since it's just going to be thrown away. Instead I stamped "thank you" on it with some flowers.

It was a hit and The Hubs is loving the leftovers:) Have you done a candy buffet? It's becoming my new favorite thing! I'd love to see yours to get ideas for my next party:)

~CJ