Feather Tags....

I love these layered Feather Tags found on Fellow Fellow. You can purchase your own set of 9 here.

Take it with a Grain of Salt....

 

I'm not typically one to go for phrases or sayings as home decor but I do love this beautiful "Take it with a Grain of Salt" print from the Etsy shop OnePlusOneDesign. I think it's the simplicity of it and the hand written look that I like the best. Amazing!

Apple Pop....

 I had Sidral Mundet Apple Pop on the weekend. So delicious. I may be addicted now.

Moustache Cookies....

Um, moutache cookies are pretty fun....and delicious by the looks of it! Found on the great site The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.

Hippity Hoppity....

I love this little Sir Hopsalot Rabbit from the shop forestblue on Etsy. I have no idea how these pictures were taken but they make me so happy. Talk about good product photography!

Valentine's Day and a Freebie.....

Well yesterday was a busy one around here. We're not huge Valentine's Day people but with the boy in preschool this year I found myself making treats and Valentine's like a mad woman.

Since Halloween I've been about up to here with candy so when I saw many variations of Valentine's using Fish Crackers on Pinterest I knew I'd found a good alternative. Here are two super cute examples, TammyMitchellPhotography and TheHappenings. For ours we used clear party bags and a fishy saying I couldn't get out of my head, "There are Plenty of Fish in the Sea but You're the Only one for Me". The boy helped put a cup of crackers in each bag and wrote his name on the back of each tag. I made the tags of course and tied the ribbon. Done and done! 

And because it's Valentine's Day I've included a free download of the tags. Yay! You'll have a great head start for next years craziness. : )

I also signed up to take a treat. My friend Lynette made these adorable Jello Boat treats she found on the amazing site SuperMomMoments for her daughters birthday party. I saw them and "You Float My Boat" popped into my head and I knew what the preschool treat would be. Aren't they the coolest?! You can see the whole amazing Tangled party that these boats came from here on SuperMomMoments.

Now mostly because I can't help myself I decided a sweet treat was in order too so I made these heart shaped brownies. I added my Butter Cream Icing recipe to them along with the red heart candies I received from sweetestelle. There was a whole tray left over which I'm pretty happy about. Yum!

First school year done......14 more to go, times 3 kids, times at least 3 more holidays.....oh I'm tired just thinking about it. : )

Time to Celebrate....

This month marks my 3 year Etsyversary! Crazy to think I've had my shop for that long! A huge thank you to all of you for your support and encouragement. I appreciate it so much! 

To celebrate I'm offering 30% off in my shop today only.  Use coupon code ETSYVERSARY3 at checkout. Oh and Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Icing time again....

 I know I've posted my icing recipe a few times but I can't help it. It's so tasty and cupcakes are kind of staple around our house so here it is again! I made these french vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing yesterday (sound fancy but it's just a box mix). The little hearts are from sweetestelle on Etsy. 

Click here and here for the icing recipe. Warning, you'll get hooked! : )

Paper Chain Backdrop....

Oh the paper chain. Who knew it could be so fun, bright and beautiful! Me thinks something similar may make an appearance this year at one of my kids birthday parties. I love it! Found on Floridian Weddings via Melanie on Pinterest.

I'm sweet on sweetestelle.....

My latest order from the awesome shop sweetestelle. I loooooooove this shop! So much so that I could easily buy one of every listing if I didn't watch myself. This time around I got some awesome striped cupcake liners (my favourite), some paper straws and the wonderful Jennifer threw in some Jumbo Candy Hearts too. She's awesome! I'm not even sure what I'm going to do with all of this but I do have a few birthday parties coming up in the next few months so I'm sure I'll put them to good use. Eeeee, can't wait!

I'm in love with this White Cloud Concrete Necklace. I love seeing the texture of the concrete. It makes me smile. This necklace and many other wonderful pieces can be found in the shop DrCraze on Etsy. 

Found via Kristin on Pinterest.

Valentine's for the Star Wars lover....

Yoda Best

Check out these super fun Star Wars themed Valentine's Day cards from Dingbat Press. My husband would love them!

Vader Valentine

Mmmm....Eggs....

I want to make Deviled Eggs and then serve them in this fun dish! Found in the awesome shop SaltandGinger on Etsy.

 Then I want to eat them while playing my new Pegboard Game. Found in the fun shop becaruns on Etsy.

 All while enjoying my cool new wall art. Found in the cool shop PamelaJoyceDesign on Etsy.

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Photo Wall....

 The photo wall is done, the photo wall is done! This past Saturday marked our 1 year anniversary of being in our new house. I can hardly believe it's been one year. Not only does the time go by so fast but the house still looks bare in many rooms. We still need to buy furniture and hang a lot (I mean a lot!) of pictures. I was bound and determined that by the one year mark I was at least going to get something up on the walls in our dining room and I did it!

It took a long time to decide what to do on this wall. It's a bit strange as it has these two high, square windows in it. Finally after seeing many photo walls on Pinterest and loving them I decided to give one a try. Now I'm not going to lie, it was hard! Way harder than you'd think. In fact I'm not sure I'd attempt another one but maybe I just need to give it some time. Lol.

Step 1: trace the frames you're going to use onto craft paper and then tape the craft paper to your wall until you come up with a pattern you like (the paper in the above picture stayed there a good month). I found it helped to lay the frames out on the floor or table as I was taping the paper to walls to help me visually see what the frames would look like especially since I was using different colours, types and sizes.

Step 2: after many, many, many trails finally decide on the pattern you like best whether it's because you're too tired to go on or because you actually like it, at some point you just need to decide. Here's our winner (well almost). 

Step 3: Lay the frames out on the floor to make sure you like how they look and so you remember what goes where as you start to hang them (finding time to do this when your children won't step on or move said frames is another story). 

Step 4: figure out which pictures you want to use inside the frames. This may take awhile especially if you use the standard picture sizes in your printing program only to find out they've been cropped too small and the pictures don't fit in the frames/matts (argh!). Keep going until you're finally happy. As you'll see in the picture below I was hanging the frames as I was putting the pictures in them.

Step 5: Hang your frames! The wall slowly coming together. Now this took a bit of time as well because I decided to use a new product that would keep me from having to put too many holes in my wall (being that it's a brand new house it hurt a wee bit every time I hammered a nail into the beautiful, smooth wall). I used nails for about half the frames but the other half I used...

Have you heard of these? I love them! Love them! Basically it's like velcro for your walls except when you take the adhesive stripes off your walls they don't leave any marks what so ever! Love! 

 They're Command Hanging Strips. Basically you sandwich two strips together, remove the paper from one side and mount onto your frame. You then clean the wall with rubbing alcohol, remove the paper from the other side of your strips and position the frame on the wall where you want it. You then press firmly for 30 seconds and then carefully, from the bottom, remove the frame from the wall. One strip will remain on the wall and the other on your frame. You then have to wait an hour before putting your frame back on the wall (this is why it takes a bit longer than nails). After an hour snap your frame back onto the strip that's on the wall and that sucker ain't going anywhere!  

And now the finished product. It's not perfect which bothers me. The spacing was hard to get exactly right and a few frames are slightly croaked but honestly these are more things I see because I did it. Most people that look at the wall don't even notice. Thank goodness!

 I'm pretty happy with it and it's nice to have some family pictures up on the wall finally. Now only 20 or so more wall to go!