Easter Potluck Zucchini Muffins

Tomorrow is Easter! Hooray! I love what tomorrow stands for. Is there any more important day, I ask you? Well, not to me and to my family. :) I want to make sure to tell you all that I hope you have a wonderful day celebrating with your family and friends. We are off to Easter service at church with an egg hunt and brunch to follow. Then in the afternoon we are off to my brother's house for another egg hunt and dinner. Should be a wonderful day with wonderful weather (in the 70's with a light breeze) and hopefully the kids don't eat too much candy and get along well with their cousins. (We can hope at least...) 

Zucchini Muffins

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

3 cups grated, unpeeled, zucchini

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 3 muffin pans with cupcake liners or lightly spray with cooking spray. Set aside. Mix together all the dry ingredients and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar and oil and beat on high until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time and blend well between each addition then add the vanilla and blend until combined. Add half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and blend well. Add the last half of ingredients and blend again. Spoon evenly into muffin cups. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Linking up to Shanty 2 Chic's Super Supper Party. Check it out!

Pink Beads on Organza Ribbon- Jewelry set

So the other day I was doing some shopping and came across this string of beads. They were pink and sort of frosty and had a pretty shape. I liked them. Best part about them was that the whole strand of about 20 beads was only $2. I seriously love a good bargain!! (Thanks to Big Lots craft section. Ever been there?? I have gotten some really good deals when I least expected it. I always make it a habit to check there every month or so.) Anyway, during my blog trolling, I mean reading, I keep coming across some really cute necklaces that are done up with nothing more than satin ribbons, pearls and/or various beads and, of course, I had to make some myself. Since I had time on my hands and nothing good was on tv, I made myself a super cute jewelry set. I am excited to wear it this Sunday to the Easter service at church. 

Rag rose headbands

Hi. My name is Jennifer and I am addicted to those rag roses. It's true. If I have a scrap of fabric laying around, it is sure to become one of those rose embellishments. I am attaching them to anything that will stand still. It is kind of getting ridiculous actually. lol. Well, last night I decided to attach some to a couple of those stretchy headband things, you know, the Goody brand stretchy ones that are, like, 6 for $3 at Walmart?

 I used some of the leftover fabric from the purses I have recently finished and I think they turned out pretty cute. Today is a vacation day for the kids and I am thinking I might make a cute little skirt for my Sophie to wear that matches one of the headbands. Seems like a good idea, especially since I haven't made any "attire" plans for Easter Sunday for my children. (Bad mom...) So, wish me luck. I am hoping to have a productive/creative day!!

Spring Garland

I bought some wooden shapes at the dollar store not too long ago and they have been nagging at me to make them cute so I finally did something with them. They didn't quite turn out the way that I had planned, but you just gotta make the best of things sometimes. I started by mod-podging (is that a word??) some cardstock onto the shapes and then ripped the edges, just to give it some kind of color and to begin the weathered look I was going for.  Then I embellished each letter in various ways. 
I kind of just let the designs be flexible and played with them until I liked the way they looked. 

Then I attached them to some stretchy ribbon type material (I actually think it was technically waistband type elastic,) and it was a pale yellowish beige color. I loosely wound some ivory tulle around the shapes and the elastic ribbon. I thought it looked great! Until... I tried to hang it up and it was so dang heavy that the letters kept tumbling forward and then twisting around. I found my poster putty and ended up having to use that to attach to the mantel. I was relieved that it decided to stay up after that. I am pleased with the way it turned out. It is a nice little touch to the spring mantel. In retrospect, I probably could have achieved the same effect with cardstock flower backgrounds. Oh well. You never know until you try. 

My First Angel Bag and Die Cut Flower Pin

I have been in tote bag and purse mode for a few months and came across a free pattern at Lola Again's blog. I just had to see if I could make one myself!

I loved that it didn't take much fabric to make it, only 1/3 yd of 3 different patterns plus some fleece and interfacing. It seemed easy enough, so I printed out the pattern and got started.

I cut out all the pieces and began fusing the interfacing to all the parts. I Be sure to be extra careful lining them all up when you are ironing them on or you will have to do some frustrating trimming of the excess. (Not that I would know much about that...) ;-)







Then you assemble and stitch the main pieces and make the handles. Then attach them to the front of the purse.

Sew the sides and bottom of the lining and attach the magnetic closure to the underside of the fabric.









Next, you make the pocket and attach it to the right side of the fabric in the lining.









The next step was tricky for me and, of course, I neglected to take pictures of it. The way that you deal with the corners of the purse, in both the body and the lining, caused me a lot of difficulty. For some reason my brain couldn't wrap itself around the instructions. I sewed, ripped out stitches and re-sewed a total of 3 times. WAAAAY more than I am used to. I finally found the tutorial that explained the miter a lot easier. Let me share it with you so you will have an easier time of it. Easier miter tutorial can be found here.

The next step is to turn the main body inside out and place the whole lining inside the body with right sides together and sew around the whole outside of the bag, leaving a little whole in the edge to turn it out.








You are basically done! Unless, of course, you want to make the flower. That is a different tutorial altogether. If you would like to know the basics for this kind of flower pin, you can watch this video tutorial of a flower pin. I have already bought fabric for 2 more of these cute little bags. They are so much fun!! 

The tooth has left the building!

I just thought I would give a quick update since something important happened recently to my ultra fabulous youngest son. I would like to report that Mr. Bravest Boy Ever, AKA Mason, has successfully pulled his first big tooth all by himself. I am soooo glad too! Because, between you and me, he kinda looked a little funny since his tooth was perpendicular to his chin, it was sticking out so far. You know, it was being pushed out of his mouth by his brand new tooth and he was just pretending that it wasn't. (Too much hassle to deal with, I guess.) When I would mention to him that it was time to get that puppy out, he would exclaim that I was simply wrong and that was just how it had decided to grow. Couldn't possible be that another tooth was wanting to take its' place. (Moms never know what they are talking about, right??) Anyway, he finally decided that maybe that silly looking front tooth needed some attention. I made sure that I told him what a great decision he has made and that his other teeth will surely thank him later. ;-) So, he sat on his video game chair with a raggedy old towel firmly on his tooth and wiggled and twisted and wiggled and twisted and proclaimed LOUDLY that "some blood was coming out." We all got very excited. He got very serious. He said "that must mean that it is really loose." I said, "yep." I didn't want to over excite the overly excited situation. lol. So, to shorten the story, the tooth was extracted. Funny thing is, as has happened with my other tooth losers, it was out in the towel before he even realized it had been pulled. I actually had to point it out to him. Funny kid. We have never made a big deal of the tooth fairy so he frankly asked me, right then and there, "does this mean you're gonna give me Slurpee money now?" (ooooh, busted...) I told him that, yes, indeed, he would be the recipient of Slurpee funds and that when he was ready, I would take him. Of course, he was immediately ready (I kinda figured it would play out like that,) and so off we went to get his reward Slurpee. He was very proud that day, of his giant accomplishment, and I was very proud to have a son with one less wacky tooth. Now on to the next one...