Back in March, I found a tutorial through Pinterest on how to make a “bandana dress” and I instantly fell in love. I made a visit to Joann’s (like I need another excuse…) and dusted off the old sewing machine. And then busted out five or six dresses for friends with daughters. I made the mistake, albeit a good one, to post pictures of the finished dresses (most are in my last blog post) on Facebook and the response I got was amazing – and before I knew it, I had taken orders for more dresses! Over a dozen, actually! Thankfully my dearest husband gave me a new sewing machine for my birthday…I’ve been putting many hours on this thing already. And I’m happy.
Last weekend, the cutest five-year-old I know said, “Oh, Mom! I know what you should do. You should sew a bunch of dresses and put a stand outside with a big sign that says, ‘Get Yer Own Dress Here!’ That would be great!”
So, here’s my “stand”. If you or anyone you know would like a dress (or a top for an adult), send me a note at aprilperis@hotmail.com or comment below and we’ll talk color, size, and price.
Back in January, I posted about my love for Pinterest. And as cliche as it is, this website really has changed my life, from meal changes (macaroni & cheese with hot dogs on a regular basis was starting to lose it’s luster) to creating home decor and even clothing. For the past few months, I’ve found my love for creating again – something that was repressed with the birth of Nixon – and my thoughts are consumed with projects and lists for my next trip to Hobby Lobby, Joann Fabrics, and Michael’s (all three within a stones throw of each other, so cool). And I’m happy.
So, here’s a few (ok, a lot) of pictures of some of the things I’ve been working on…
My Easter Wreath
My Mother-in-Law’s Easter Wreath
Bandana Dresses
Mason Jar Cupcakes for my Dad’s Birthday – shipped to Denver!
Wood Flowers (from Pickyourplum.com) that Nixon painted for his classmate’s birthday
My Valentine Wreath (the picture is much darker than the actual colors)
My Mom’s Christmas Wreath (that I finally mailed in March!)
This morning on a local chat board I’m a member of, a fellow member posted a recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. Looking through the ingredient list, I knew I had everything needed, including a freezer shelf full of bananas (from before I knew how to properly keep bananas). Nixon was still fast asleep…we had a late night from seeing a local high school’s performance of the Wizard of Oz, which was amazing, and inspired me to possibly watch the movie someday. He loves banana bread and chocolate chips, so this breakfast would surely start his day off right (until we had to break the news that a nap was in the forecast for later)…
About a week ago, my husband and I decided to make a very important change in our lives and start eating “heart healthy”. I’ve avoided baking anything, since baked goods usually require eggs, butter, milk…cholesterol and saturated fat. Looking over this morning’s recipe, I noted a few things that I could tweak to possibly entice my husband to try one. He’s really taking on our new eating style and I’m so proud he’s sticking to it (I might not be quite as dedicated yet). Anyway, the final muffins turned out delicious! And even the hubs ate two.
Here’s the recipe with the changes I made. I didn’t take any pictures because, well, they looked like muffins and my photography skills are lacking to say it nicely.
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup fat-free Half and Half
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large ripe bananas, mashed
• a handful of semisweet chocolate chips (I only used them in half the batter)
Directions
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, Half and Half, and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas and chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.
With the big V-Day quickly approaching, the big kid and I turned the kitchen and dining room into a Valentine factory last night and this afternoon, filled with crafts and Valentine goody bags for his party at school next week. Our first craft was something I found on Pinterest the other day – Melty Hearts, adorable hearts made from melting beads together in the oven. And then hung in a window or as decoration somewhere. This project reminded me of one of my favorite songs…so I digress for a second…
In the basement was an unused bag of mismatched beads I bought years ago from Michael’s as an activity Nixon and I could do during his toddler years to work on motor skills, and I thought Melty Hearts would be a great gift for Nixon’s teachers, using supplies we already had on hand. Lord knows, I cannot afford another trip to Jo-Ann’s, Hobby Lobby, or Michael’s for “just a few things,” so this was perfect. I found the beads, brought them up, and got to work. In the very far back of my baking cabinet, I discovered a little heart-shaped cake pan that I purchased years ago but never really used. The original craft idea calls for cookie cutters, but this pan would work well. Setting the oven to preheat at 400º, Nixon and I began sorting through the beads and tossing in “Valentine-colored” ones until the little heart pan couldn’t hold anymore. Into the oven it went and after 20 minutes or so, we had our first heart. However, I messed up and didn’t leave a bare spot to thread a ribbon through, so we’ll have to figure out something else for that one. Anyway, it turned out so super cute that we did it four more times, with all different colors, sizes, and textures. A friend suggested trying it with buttons. So, I did. No bueno! The buttons didn’t melt at all, and let off terrible fumes. Don’t do buttons. Later, I used up the last few beads with a star cookie cutter and a butterfly cookie cutter. Both turned out cute, but I really like the hearts better.
The before
The first heart – my favorite of them all
The whole batch
Hanging in the kitchen window
After the hearts were done, we moved on to making dish towel aprons for some of his good friends. This project was so easy and I have to say, they turned out ADORABLE! The other day at Target, I found a package of 4 white dish towels – awesome, since he has four friends in mind for this, and even awesomer was the price of $3.99. In the home cleaning section, I grabbed a package of cheap sponges, and then a quick trip to Jo-Ann’s was needed to gather up some fabric paint – red, pink, purple, and white. At home, I ironed each towel and then strung a ribbon through the top seam. Nixon and I then sponge-painted hearts onto the towels using stencils I made from the sponges. After a few little touch-ups, they were all done. I’ve been saving those little plastic reusable containers that lunch meat comes in for the past couple of weeks, and they happened to be the perfect size for the finished aprons. Wrapped in heart-printed tissue, the aprons each went into their own container, and then I made cute cooking related Valentines that I found online. Each container is labeled for shipping and ready to dropped off at the post office tomorrow (hopefully).
Heart Printed Dish Towel Apron (even the mean looking skeleton head can't detract from the cuteness of this apron! and yes, we need to paint the walls...someday.)
Ready to be wrapped
Boxed up
The last thing we worked on was Nixon’s Valentine goody bags for his classmates. I totally went overboard with this, but Target had the cutest V-Day stuff in the $1 aisle at the front of the store and I couldn’t resist. So, we filled each bag with a pencil, a couple of heart easers, and a candy bracelet. The only trouble with this project…getting Nixon to write out his little cards, which I found online at UCreate to match the theme of Valentine owls. I’m sure doing 18 seems like a huge task when you’re five, so we broke it down into half today and half tomorrow. I’ve been swept away with this Valentine season – even purchasing the boys two new Luv Pup Pillow Pets as their presents from us…but I love making and giving, so it’ll all be just fine.
Valentine Goody Bags
And I almost forgot! My good friend and wonderful photographer, Collene Rose, did an amazing Valentine session for the boys this past weekend, and I must share some of the teasers she’s posted for me.
We’ve all had “duh” moments…some of us (meaning me) more than others. Being born a blonde, it’s not entirely my fault; I come by it naturally. And then during childbirth, I lost most of my brain function – everything that doesn’t revolve around feeding and cleaning little people. But between yesterday and today, I had the longest lasting “duh” moment of my life.
Last Friday, the boys and I stopped at the Redbox machine at the grocery store to pick out a couple of movies for the weekend. I selected Rise of the Planet of the Apes for my husband, since it was his birthday (someday I’ll finish my post about that and the awesome dessert it involved) and then I let Nixon pick out a kid movie, Dolphin Tale. Late Friday night, Brian and I watched the ape movie, which was very good but utterly terrifying. If you saw it and didn’t think so, then you haven’t watched The Dark Side of Chimps…Saturday night, I returned the movie during a near-seizure-inducing trip to Wal-Mart with no problem, but we kept Dolphin Tale since the kids hadn’t gotten a chance to watch it yet. Fast forward to Tuesday, and three days worth of charges, I stop at another grocery store (that I refuse to actually shop at) to finally return this movie, which was pretty cute and I may have cried a little during the last few minutes that I got to watch. From the parking lot, I spot the Redbox machine just inside the entry doors, so I snagged a spot close by, jumped out, ran in, and stuck the movie in the machine. But, it wouldn’t go and the machine wouldn’t accept it. What the? Oh, I see. The cover on the movie in the little picture is different from the cover on the movie in my hand. Must be this grocery store (the stupid one) doesn’t accept movies from other machines, even though it says right on the movie cover in my hand that they can be returned anywhere. I growled (literally), cursed the grocery store for giving me another reason to hate it, ran back to the van, and took off with plans to return it to another box that night. Well that didn’t happen, so today after school, I finally make my way to another box that I know for sure will take the movie…Brian does it for me all the time. We pull up and wait, as some other Redbox customers take their sweet-ass time going through every selection. But at least we’re in the car and it’s warm (and the doors are locked because this is store is sket-chy). The box frees up. I jumped out and locked the boys in even though I’m standing right there (seriously sketchy). I jam the movie into the return slot on the machine but it won’t go. What the?? I am not paying for this movie one.more.day. Once again, I study the movie cover, looking for any clues as to why this isn’t working. After a little more jamming and no returning, I dialed the number on the machine to customer service on the celly and drove the van into a parking space, as the fire lane is not a good place to conduct business. The line rings, I press 1 for English, then 3 for customer service, and then wait, listening to a combination of hold music and Nixon in the backseat telling me how he’s losing his patience and he can’t take it any longer (being 5 is so rough). A minute or two later, a very nice girl answers and I explain my problem. I politely say, “I’m trying to return a video but I can’t get the machine to accept it and I’ve tried two different machines.” She says, “Huh. Did the touch-screens work on either machine?” Me squinting: “Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t hit the screen.” Oh.My.God. The freaking touch-screen. Gah! I KNEW that! In the background, I vaguely remember her saying, “You have to hit the ‘return’ button on the screen before it’ll take the movie back.” Through my laughter, I apologized for wasting her time and thanked her very much for the information. Two minutes later, the machine happily accepted my return…after I hit the button on the screen. Tomorrow, I start the interview process for a nanny…for me.
Sometime over the past year, Zombies have taken over…they’re in movies, video games, cartoons, and even toys. At one point, they were even supposed to take over the world…We have the Zombie Lab on top of the fridgey (Nixon speak) that was a Christmas must-have. It makes gummy bugs, vomits something, and has a recipe for Zombie skin. We can even buy a nose so it can make snot. Yay. It seems that everywhere we turn, something about Zombies can be found. Since I’m not a fan of them, I easily ignore all things Zombie; however, Nixon, the five-year-old, is completely enamored…Last Friday, I woke him up for school and he immediately started talking about a scary dream he had in which one of his little friends was kidnapped and being held by Zombies. It was Nixon’s job to fight these Zombies and save his friend from certain death. Our regular morning routine was interrupted a few times with more details of this dream. Off to school he went, and the house was free of Zombie talk for almost six hours. But after school, immediately upon him stepping foot in the minivan, he picked up where he left off in the details of this dream. We had an errand to run and all the while, Nixon talked Zombies. In a moment of Zombie-induced exhaustion and parenting weakness, I told a lie. It went like this: “Nixon…did you know it’s actually illegal for five-year-olds to talk about Zombies? Did you know the police can arrest you for it?” Of course he didn’t, but was rather surprised to know he was “breaking the law”. After he asked a few clarifying questions about said law, the van grew silent. And that was the last I’ve heard of Zombies.
The other day at the dollar store, we picked up a package of strawberry heart-shaped marshmallows on display for Valentine’s Day. I couldn’t resist – even if they were terrible, I was only out a buck. The boys and I snacked on a few when we got home, but they didn’t make a huge impression and the bag was stuffed into the cabinet (literally stuffed – I’m lacking organization in there big time). My husband even said they were gross. So, in my quest of not being wasteful, I concocted a plan…
A few months ago on Pinterest, I found a recipe for Cake Batter Rice Crispy treats and tried it out. The treats were super delicious and we haven’t made them any other way since. And actually, we’ve been making this recipe a lot. It takes just a minute to throw it all together, and viola! Someday I’ll learn to stop licking the spoon straight out of the pan – that marshmallow goodness gets HOT.
So tonight, I hit the kitchen and mixed the remaining heart marshmallows with regular mini-marshmallows and then added in strawberry cake mix. The result, lightly pink and oh-so-good strawberry rice crispy treats. I have some ideas swirling in my head for what to do next…I’m thinking of candy-coating a batch in pink, red, or white, or maybe all three and then packaging them up for Valentine presents for Nixon’s friends. Another batch might be made into rice crispy balls, coated in chocolate of course…But first, I need to hit the dollar store again a.s.a.p. to buy out strawberry heart marshmallows!
It’s rainy and cold here today…just the perfect weather for carbs (well, in my world, any kind of weather is good for carbs). A few years ago, I received a quarterly magazine in the mail from Kraft Foods and each volume was filled with great looking and sounding recipes, from appetizers to desserts, which were centered around the season. In a winter edition, they featured a recipe for Simple and Creamy Tortellini Alfredo. I tried it out and it was delicious, especially as leftovers the next day for lunch (and having leftovers is definitely a plus around here). We’ve had this dinner a few times since. Although I love it, it’s not one of my husband’s favorites, so I don’t make it as often as I would if it was just me. He complains that it’s too cheesy. WTF? I didn’t even know that was possible! I replace the cheese tortellini with chicken tortellini, which cuts back on the “cheesiness”. The “Alfredo” sauce is not the typical Italian Alfredo with lots of garlic that you’d find at a restaurant, but it’s very creamy. For something incredibly simple, as the title of the recipe states, this one is definitely worth a try.
While working tonight, one of my favorite songs played on Pandora (see below – sorry for the language) and it reminded me that I wanted to post something about bananas. Strange, I know. We go through oodles of bananas each week, as both my boys are part monkey (and part turtle, but that’s for another day). Nixon has to have bananas in his cereal, and Warren will eat one anywhere, anytime. His favorite place is the grocery store, straight from the banana rack. But we all agree that brown bananas are no bueno.
I recently learned, through Pinterest (shocking), that if you immediately break up a bunch of bananas into single units, they’ll last longer. When bunched, they age very quickly and brown within a couple of days. By separating them, it slows the chemical reaction and they last twice as long. It works…I tested it out and now I won’t keep fresh bananas any other way. This is what I often refer to in my own head as “random thoughts by april”. There’ll be many more…
If you really knew me…who am I kidding? If you only briefly met me, you’d know I am a Pinterest addict. I was invited to the site a few months ago after hearing so much buzz about this “new amazing, awesome, fabulous website” and seeing the little “P” icon everywhere, and it’s officially changed my world, with crafting and cooking, home economics and design, and even blogging.
I’ve always had a crafty side…my grandmother and I would spend hours shopping at Michael’s and doing crafts in her Texas apartment when I visited during my summer breaks from school. We dressed bears in lace and little rosettes and decorated adorable straw hats to hang on the wall…I have pictures somewhere in my mom’s basement, but that’s 1,648 miles from here. Since having kids, my personal time is limited and being crafty was pushed down the list of things to do…past the cooking, laundry, cleaning, laundry, diapering, laundry…But since I’ve been on Pinterest, I’m finding all kinds of ways to incorporate that part of my personality back into everyday things. Right now, most of my pins and then follow-through pins are in the food department, but I was able to use many ideas for Christmas presents (some presents are still on the dining room table waiting to be finished…oops). My focus now is Valentine’s Day, and with all of the heart-warming (ha) ideas, I’m wishing it was Valentine’s Week.
I hope to post some pictures here of the projects we’ve created in the near future.
Most people dream of winning the lottery so they can buy houses, cars, and luxury items…I dream of winning the lottery so I can have the time and money to fulfill my pins.
