Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Last night was full of chocolately, pretzely, sprinkly goodness.  We spent the evening with one of the sweetest couples we know!  Meet Wes and Brittany!  Wes is a 4th grade teacher, and Brittany and I thought his class Valentine's party was the perfect reason to get together and make goodie bags.  The guys were willing participants, although they didn't seem to share the extreme enthusiasm for super cute sprinkles, cute cut out hearts, and the beauty of purple, pink and lime green bag embellishments ;)

We put the boys in charge of the chocolate and sprinkles.  And you might wonder why there is a power tool on the counter...don't you use power tools when you are making chocolate pretzels?

Cory and Wes created the perfect assembly line.  Cory dipped the pretzels in chocolate with excellent precision and Wes would follow up with the sprinkles. 

Of course the assembly line was more like a relay race.

Aren't they super adorable???

It took forever for the chocolate to dry..until we had the profound realization that the sub-arctic temperatures outside would probably freeze them quickly.  So 5 minutes outside (after waiting an hour for this profound realization to occur) and these precious pretzels were ready to be packaged.

So while the boys were in charge of pretzel production, Brittany and I were in charge of the cuteness factor. Although we intended to actually help them with the pretzel production, we were to busy being insanely fascinated with my new Silhouette Cameo and its ability to cut out the cutest hearts ever known to mankind.  

We had sooooo much fun hanging out last night! Thank you to our dear friends for making a snowy, Sunday night so much fun!

Baby Feet Christmas Tree

***Update*** 

This blog post has become a big hit on pinterest! But this isn't where I am blogging anymore!  If you would like to join me on my new blog, head over to 

crayonmarksandtigerstripes.com

Hope to see you there!!!

And now for my favorite little Christmas creation to wrap up my Christmas postings.

Baby Feet Christmas Tree!

I simply took a wooden frame that I got at Walmart for like $2.50 and modge podged some of my cutest scrapbook paper onto it.

I then cut another piece of scrapbook paper to fit the piece that clips into the back of the frame.

Carefully, ink one foot at a time and press your little one's foot onto the paper.

I have to admit, as a nursery nurse, I have become a footprint professional!

Finally, embellish away.

And enjoy's its cuteness.

Afterall, there is nothing cuter than baby feet!

Scrapbook Paper Christmas Tree

Well, I know Christmas is technically over, but if you are like me, you leave your Christmas up til February. ;)  So in my eyes, I still have some time for Christmas related posts!  So here's another Christmas goodie :)

Hello, my name is Stephanie and I am a pinterest addict.  I found the idea for this little beauty on pinterest.

A scrapbook paper Christmas tree

Here are the supplies you need.  One canvas, Christmas scrapbook paper, scissors or paper cutter, something tubelike to roll your paper on, hot glue, embellishments, baby monitor (because of course you are doing this during naptime!), and some coffee (because you are a mom and need all the caffeine you can get!)

Step 1- Find a tube with your desired circumference.  I found this extra piece of fuel line from my husbands mistress 1973 roadrunner.  It was perfect.  Roll your paper and use hot glue along the edges as you roll.  The hot glue ensures your paper holds together quickly.  

Step 2- Repeat step 1 as many times as you need to reach nearly the top of your canvas.  Using various Christmas paper, create a tier of scrapbook "paper rolls" by making the next roll slightly shorter.

 

Step 3- Embellish with buttons and a topper! (as seen in the first picture!)

2011 Christmas Card!

Merry Bright Greeting Holiday

Create holiday photo cards that create smiles.

View the entire collection of cards.

I just had to share my precious little boy on our 2011 Christmas card! Love those baby blues!!

Crafty Christmas Continues!

Holiday Greetings!

I bring you more Crafty Christmas gifts!  

I found this next project on an adorable blog called Cupcakes with Sprinkles (click on that link for the tutorial!).  I adore her blog! It is so cute!  This could be personalized in just about any way you can imagine as a gift (sports themes, baby themes etc)  I introduce you to:

The Baby Food Jar Christmas Tree 

Here is how mine turned out! Pretty darn cute! I simply saved Little E's Earths Best baby food jars, hot glued them in a tier, stuffed them with garland and put some little snowmen ornaments in strategic locations (because we all know I am obsessed with snowmen) 

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 And wrapped a ribbon around the jars.  You can also punch holes in the lids and use a strand of lights to light up the jars. See Cupcakes with Sprinkles fantastic tutorial for the How To.  SO CUTE!  Thank you for the inspiration Cupcakes with Sprinkles!

A snowman upon closer examination! 

And now onto another fun project: Handmade gift card holders brought to you by

A Little Space Called Home 

Here's how mine turned out!

I found these wonderful velcro dots that I used to keep them closed.   These are great because they can be made to stick to a present, or hang on a tree or just to be handed to someone! And it is SUPER inexpensive to make! 

And I will leave you now with some really cute FREE printables!  Just click on the following links to check them out!

Free Printable Christmas Tags  by Living Locurto

Hot Chocolate printable for a small bag of hot chocolate by LollyChops.

A very Crafty Christmas!

It only took me two weeks but I am finally about to post the creations I made for MOPS (mothers of preschoolers). Sorry ladies, I left my camera at home on accident while I went on vaca for 2 weeks to visit family. :( So get ready for information overload!


On November 19th, I had the opportunity to share two things that are near and dear to my heart. 1) Battling Negative Body image and 2) crafts!  If you are interested in my health journey and battling negative body image or if you need some inspiration or just to relate to someone that has been thru some crazy difficult body image issues, you can check out my fitness blog at www.rn4fitness.blogspot.com or you can follow my facebook page at www.facebook.com/Rn4fitness and look for the fb page titled Faith & Fitness: Living Healthy for Him.  


But for this blog, we will be focusing on the crafts!  I LOVE to browse the web (and now totally obsessed with pinterest) for ideas. I do love to make my own creations (if and when they pop in my head), but I also love to be inspired by others creations and make them to fit my own personality!  Over the next few blogposts, you will see a variation of both.  So let's get started!!


The theme was "A Very Crafty Christmas!" and I showed the girls a ton of different homemade Christmas gift ideas that are inexpensive.  

Let's have a look at what you can do with jars!  

One of my favorites was the Petite Pie in a Jar.  Look how cute they turned out!!  My engineer husband would like me to note that he did the lattice top.  These little cuties are made in canning jars so they can actually be frozen, then popped into the oven and baked inside the jars.    Here is the tutorial !

Here is another idea I just came up with while I was out gathering materials (and I'm sure this has been done before.)  I came across a gingerbread mix bag and thought it would be great to put in a jar and decorate it with a gingerbread theme.  The cooking directions are on the back of the tag.  It turned out so cute! Funny story though.  See the cute rope around the fabric?  I went to the garage and thought I would steal a small piece of a large thing of rope that was hanging near all the other rope my  husband has collected.  Snip. Snip.  Later, I show the hubby my little creation.  Turns out that rope I cut off was from...his hammock.  Oops....

And yet another jar of goodness! Cookies!  Mine turned out pretty cute but check out this tutorial to make your own Cookies in a Jar! And if you haven't ever used sticker paper before (that's how I made the Cookies for Santa tag and cooking instructions), you are missing out! 

oh so much you can do with jars! I have several more crafty christmas gifts to posts, but the little one just woke up.  I'll be posting more this week! 

Happy Tuesday!

A "pretty" grocery list!

So I honestly don't know how I would (or ever did) live without my smartphone. I have an iphone4 and like they say, there is an app for everything! Recently, I discovered this awesome app called "GroceryIQ" which is basically a grocery list app. What's so awesome about it is your other half can add to the list on his phone and the list will sync on both your phones. So when you add something to the list, he can see it on his phone and vice versa. I thought this was so great...until my husband would never use it. Prior to this app, I had a little boring notepad that had a magnet on the back of it that lived on the fridge. The hubby was very good about adding to the list when he noticed we were low on something. So back to the notepad, except this time...not boring.

I had these loose grocery list papers sitting in my office, that I had forgotten about. So I simply stapled them together and at the same time stapled them to a piece of scrapbook paper.

To get it to stick to the fridge, I tacky glued an old mat (garage sale for like 5 cents, cheapo!) to the back and then stuck some magnet strips (.97 cents for a huge pack at walmart!) to the mat.

And Waalaa! A cute little grocery list (no boring notepad) that cost me pretty much nothing that my husband will actually use. I would call that a success. And please note the cute picture of the baby on the fridge. Ya, that's my baby boy...he's pretty much the cutest baby in the world ;)