New Recipe Blog

There are a lot of recipe blogs out there and I enjoy looking at them but honestly 95% of the recipes I look at leave me thinking "Oh, I bet that's yummy...I'll never make it." Either it takes too much time, has weird ingredients, or just sounds too overwhelming.

My sister has noticed this too and decided to start a blog dedicated to cheap and easy dinners. What a great idea! She's going to post easy-to-make, regular dinners that are good for the mouth and the budget! She's interested in getting ideas too so if you have any good dinners email her at penniesandrice@gmail.com. Check out her new blog...

Pennies and Rice

New Look

What do you think of my new background, style and layout for the blog?

I can't decide what I think so I need your input! Leave a comment and tell me if I should keep this one or go back with the other one (the tan background with a faint old-fashioned music manuscript) or if I should find something totally new.

Vote! :)

Sunburst Crib Decor

I wanted to do something for my baby's room so I started going through my craft box and I found this little mirror and some blades of grass. Here's what I came up with :)...

Materials:
~small, round mirror
~blades of grass
~craft paint/paintbrush

First I cut all the blades of grass in half. I wanted to use them as sun rays but didn't need them to be as long as they were. Plus I only had a few left and I needed to stretch my resources.

Next I bought some yellow craft paint and painted all the blades of grass. I did a layer of white first so the green wouldn't show the light yellow paint as easily. I ended up painting both sides too just because the dark green would be very noticeable since it's so different from the yellow.

After the paint was all dry I glued the blades of grass onto the back of my mirror. I actually used wood glue because I was afraid hot glue wouldn't be strong enough and wood glue was the only other kind we had! Hey...it worked :)



After the glue dried I was done! Now it's ready to go in its new home on the end of crib, ready to look down on my darling baby girl.


Total Cost:
~small, round mirror: $0.00
~blades of grass: $0.00
~craft paint/paintbrush: $2.00

Sunburst Crib Decor: Total Cost ~ $2.00

Sad Day

I was cleaning my bathroom today and moved the red/black beads (see here) from the top of the toilet so I could wipe it all down. I turned around to get out the cleaner and **CRASH** my beads fell and all three glasses shattered!! I just stared in disbelief for several minutes not knowing where to begin with the cleanup! I finally pulled myself together and gathered all the beads into a bag to use again someday and then I proceeded to clean up the glass shattered across my bathroom floor.

I loved this project. It brought a lot of color, style, and personality to our bathroom. It was a good focus point and just made me happy! And now it's gone :(

In a moment of grief-stricken absentmindedness I threw away the black wire holder that held my cups. Now I can't even remake it! So if any of you have some ideas of what I could do with the beads to put back on top of my toilet let me know.


Farewell beautiful. I'm going to miss you.

New Blog to check out

I was searching for ideas on baby gifts and I stumbled across this blog. I've only looked through it briefly but it looks like it's got some great stuff! Check it out

http://projectsforyournest.blogspot.com/

Baby Block

C. and I found out that we're having a little baby GIRL :) We are so excited! I wanted to make something for my little girl but don't have a lot of big pieces of fabric in my scraps. I was going through all the baby projects on makeit-loveit.com (awesome site! See her original project here) and I found this project. Perfect for my small scrap pile!

Materials:
~ 6 squares of fabric
~ batting

The first thing to do was cut my 6 squares of fabric. I cut mine 4" x 4" but obviously you can do any size you want.

Next, take two squares and sew along one edge right sides together. Do this until you have 4 squares sewn together, all right sides facing inward.


Ok, now take a square and snip away 1/4" block from each corner. This block will become either your top or bottom and the block you snip away will help it lay nicely with the others.


(This part took me awhile to figure out!) What you want to do is pin your top/bottom piece so that you will have a 1/4" seam all the way around. The raw edge of your top/bottom piece and the raw edge of the side piece should be sticking out. Their right sides will both be facing inward and will be facing each other for that 1/4" that will become your seam. I hope that makes sense!

Now turn it inside out, stuff it with batting and hand-sew the last few inches up. I was ready to do this but didn't have any batting! I was at Ross buying maternity jeans and decided to look for some batting I could use. Here is what I found...

Isn't this gross?!? This is a dog-chew toy. I felt so ridiculous buying it, the picture doesn't do it justice!

I quickly pulled out my seam ripper and went to work tearing this thing apart. I got the batting that I needed and transferred it to my block. (I only used about half of it too! I now have batting for another project down the road. All of this only cost me $3.00)

Here's the finished product!

Now baby girl has a brand new block to play with, throw around and chew on :) I just have to wait until she gets here!

Total Cost:
~ fabric: $0.00
~ batting: $3.00

Baby Block: Total Cost ~ $3.00