Backyard Chalkboard

Today I did the backyard chalkboard. I bought a 4x4 board at Home Depot for $7. It's about 1/4 inch thick. I am a total chick in a hardware store. Basically, I just wander around until I find something that I think will work! No clue what kind of wood it is, what a 4x4 piece of wood like that is used for....it was smooth, a size I thought would work and I could lift it and fit it in the Suburban. Also, at HD I finally bought the non-sanded tile grout that I had pinned for adding to any paint color to make chalkboard paint. Just in case you are like me and had never heard of such much less tried to find it in the flooring section of HD, I'm including a picture....

It was $4.98 for a box that will enable me to make enough chalkboard paint for the rest of my life. Seriously. I added 2 T. to an 8oz bottle of green paint and went to work on the board. I don't know how many coats I did, I just kept going over it until I used it all.

You could stop here. But, I found some small 1x1 accent tiles on sale while strolling thru HD, so I glued them around the edge to give it a more garden feel.

Huge hit with the kids!

Blessings!

Easter Garden!

I had never even heard of this before I saw it on pinterest. I LOVE the idea. Mandy and I headed to Walmart this weekend and bought all of our supplies there. I think the total project cost $25. She had a great time putting the dirt in the pot, arranging the rock path. Thomas pitched in and climbed the tree in the backyard to bring us some twigs to make our crosses. Had a great conversation about the meaning of Easter while we made it! Great weekend mommy/kid project for very little $$!

Blessings,

Leslie

Herb planter

I saw this idea on pinterest using painted terra cotta pots. So, I headed to Home Depot and bought three in small, medium and large. The pin suggested buying a smaller plastic pot and turning it upside down inside the bigger ones to build up the pots. I did this with the largest of the pots and simply used some extra bricks we had lying around in the medium pot.

I painted them first in a black acrylic paint with a glossy finish. It didn't take much paint at all to do all 3 pots. I decided to add a bit of scripture detail to mine with a white paint pen.

You don't have as much planting space as you think, but I still managed to plant basil, oregano, parsley, mint and lavender!

Dr. Seuss Party!

After pinning every Dr. Seuss idea on Pinterest over the last 2 1/2 months, yesterday was the big day! Everything turned out really cute and the kids seemed to have a great time. I have to admit this was one of the most fun parties we've done.Dr. Seuss is so colorful and whimsical, that I had a lot of fun planning it.

I had bought colorful, hats, wigs and boas and when the guests arrived, we took everyone's picture! Our older daughter dressed as the Cat!

The cupcakes were easy. We did red velvet and white that I colored into green and blue. We did white with a chocolate circle for "green eggs and ham", blue tall frosting for Thing 1&2 hair, white with a pink dum dum sucker for "Horton Hears a Who." And, some that were frosted in yellow with cupcake picks. I couldn't find any cute Seuss picks, so I made my own using toothpicks and foam stickers I found at Michaels. Very bright and colorful.

My favorite was the candy buffet. My original goal was to only have one in red and blue, but there was so much cute stuff that in the end I did a smaller one with green, yellow and orange for "Green Eggs and Ham." Tip: Party City sells popular candy in bins for something like 15 for a $1. I bought my pixie sticks, laffy taffy and stuff there, so I could pick thru for only the colors that I needed. The wall decals are from Target.

We made a ton of these tissue paper poofs. They look just like the top of the Truffula trees found in the Seuss illustrations! They added lots of color and whimsy to the party. So easy to make that our 10 year old and her friends made all of them. We hung them with fishing line and clear thumbtacks.

Goodie bags were just red sacks with their names in cute Dr. Seuss letters that I found at our local teacher store. Inside were Dr. seuss pencils and bookmarks. A small snacksized carton of the colored Goldfish crackers and homeade soap tinted blue with a plastic goldfish inside. I'd never made soap before, but I bought all the supplies at Hobby Lobby and just followed the instructions. It was so easy and turned out really cute.

Yink clip-art printed on a sticker sheet made a cute label for the sparkling pink lemonade.

We wrapped the water bottles with red duct tape and added circle of cardstock punched out with a decorative 1 1/2 inch punch with a Dr. Seuss sticker in the center.

"Hop on Pop"-Popcorn

All the food had fun descriptions that I put in clothespins with foam Seuss stickers. The clothespins will stand on their own and make great placecard or food card holders.

I didn't really get any good pics of the games because I was so busy! But, we had pin the heart on the Grinch, we tossed a ping pong ball in to fish bowls, and play the Cat in the Hat game that I bought online from Amazon. Lots of fun was had by all, but the best part...

One happy birthday girl!!

Christmas Teacher Treat

We did a small treat for each of the kids teachers the last week before Christmas break. This was my favorite! Tiny bottles of Sprite, printed an address label and used the Cricut 50's cartridge to cut out a small soda bottle and BAM...a super cute holiday teacher treat!!

Red Velvet Gooey Butter Cookies

Yes, they are every bit as good as their name sounds!! This has become a favorite for our family. The best part is you can use any flavor cake mix. The lemon is amazing! They barely make it out of the oven around here!!

INGREDIENTS:

8oz. (1 brick) Cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 c. Butter, softened (1 stick)
1 egg
1 t. Vanilla
1 (18-ounce) box red velvet cake mix
Powdered sugar, for rolling/dusting

HOW ITS DONE:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth.
3. Beat in egg, then the vanilla.
4. Beat in the cake mix.
5. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up.
6. Roll batter into tablespoon-sized balls and then roll them in powdered sugar.
7. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and "gooey." Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners' sugar, if desired.

50's Party-Root Beer Float Cupcakes