Burlap Banner Tutorial

Hey there!!

Recently I took you guys on a little tour of my cheaply inexpensively decorated fall home.  One of the stops was my fall mantel.  It really makes me happy every time I walk in our family room.  Even when the pumpkins I so artfully set up are scattered all over the floor.  Can you tell I live with little people?

The banner that I added was super easy to make.  All I needed was a good movie, and what better movie to get me in the fall/Halloween mood than Hocus Pocus?!? Love Love Love that movie!!!

This was way easy to make.  So it hardly needs a tutorial, but I'll show you the steps I took to make mine anyway.

You'll need:

1 Burlap.  I bought 2 yards at Walmart.  1yd is enough, but I have plans for my leftover.

2. Some pretty ribbon to hold your pennants together.

3. Stop Fraying (I'm pretty sure glue would work too)

Things I already had on hand: Card stock, Marker for tracing, acrylic paint, hot glue gun

I started by printing my word.  One letter per page on card stock.  Sorry, I can not for the life of me remember the size, but I used Century Schoolbook for the font.

Next, I created a card stock template for tracing pennants.  Mine was 8 inches across the top and 12 inches down each slanted side.  I had to play around with sizing to be sure my letters fit.  Next I traced a pennant for each letter.  I chose autumn because I feel like fall wouldn't have been long enough for the size of my mantel.

Once the pennants were all traced, I cut each one out.  Be ready for some serious sweeping and vacuuming, as there will be strands and burlap particles all over.

Then, I immediately applied this Stop Fraying solution.   I used this entire bottle.

TIP: I used a paint brush to help spread it along the edges.

While I waited for the Stop Fraying to dry I cut out each of my letters.  I wish I had one of those awesome Silhouette cutting machines, but I don't.  So very carefully I cut out each letter, be very sure to keep the surrounding paper in tact.  I laid my letters out on my pennants one last time to ensure they all fit nicely.

I used double sided tape to hold my letter templates down while I sponged on my brown acrylic paint.

Mostly I only had to do one coat, but there were a few I went back over.

Once they were all painted,  I lined them up.  I left about a fingertip's worth of space between each one.  

Last I used my hot glue gun to glue on a pretty crocheted ribbon I picked up from Hobby Lobby.

I have since fixed my rose, that appears to be unraveling. 

After I had hung my banner I decided it needed a little something, so I made cute little ribbon roses.  I hot glued them on, then added a small brown pearl accent to the tips of each pennant.  I had those in my stash.

I finished a little before the movie went off, but missed the ending due to the fact I was staring blissfully at my new banner.  Sigh... I'm in love.

Cheap Fall Home Decorations

Hey all!! 

October is well under way and I am loving the crisp fall air and beautiful colors.  I have not always been a fan of the fall.  I typically only saw it as the end of summer, that glorious season in which I was off work and basically played at the pool or beach.  However, as I have grown, so has my love for all seasons, including the fall.

As a child I loved dressing up for Halloween, but as a young adult, the holiday lost it's appeal.  Now, this mother of three, loves it all over again.  I can't wait to dress my kiddos up, take 65,000 pictures, and go Trick or Treating!! This will be the first year I get to be creative during Halloween.  Ace wants to be a Spy, not the trench coat and sunglasses kind, a secret agent spy with cool gadgets.  He's kind of obsessed with SpyKids.  I've got some great ideas up my sleeve for him!  Bear keeps saying he wants to be a pumpkin.  If he gets his way, it will be his 4th... yes 4th year as a pumpkin.  Haven't decided on a costume for CJ yet, traditionally I've dressed the youngest in the pumpkin costume we have, but that may not work out this year.

Thanksgiving is another fall holiday I have a new found love for.  As a foodie, it has always been dear to my heart (especially while in college).  I have so many things to be thankful for and I love a holiday that celebrates all of those things.  This year will be extra special because my little turkey (CJ) will be turning 1 very close to Thanksgiving this year.  We brought him home from the hospital last Thanksgiving.   I've decided to host a huge Thanksgiving this year so our family can all give thanks and celebrate my baby's first year together.

In years past, I wasn't a huge seasonal decorator.  When the Christmas holidays rolled around my husband and I would go all out, 13ft tree and all, but the fall was typically passed over with the exception a Jack-O-Lantern on the front porch.  Last year I began collecting and making fall decorations for my home.

Today, I want to share some of the things I've made and collected.  Hopefully in the next week I can do a tutorial or at least point you in the direction of some really good ones.

These little scarecrows welcome guest at the front door.  This is one of the few items I've had for a few years.  It's seen better days, so I spruced it up with some Dollar Tree glitter accents.

I added simple little metal pumpkins on this table.  I bought them for $3.99 at the supermarket.  I have yet to add little tea lights.

I've been in love with burlap banners since I've seen them popping up all over the blogosphere.  Of course I had to make one.  UPDATE!! Here's my Tutorial!!

A closer look.  I love this, especially since it was pretty simple and inexpensive to make.

I added mini pumpkins to a cylinder vase I already had, and topped my candle sticks with  dressed up Dollar Tree pumpkins.

I made these last year (or was it the year before last?).  Quite simple, I painted them the same color as my family room walls, applied a crackle medium, then topped with white paint.  The jewel and ribbon came this year.  I thought they needed a bit of bling.

Moving on to the kitchen, I made and hung a new burlap wreath on my pantry door.  All my searches for burlap banner tutorials lead me to burlap wreath tutorials and I couldn't pass this up.  They were both so easy and like I said before, cheap.

I found these happy little guys at Walmart for $1.99.  I love them, of course I had to get three!! I added them to one of my kitchen windows.

I added 3 little pumpkins to my window by the sink.  They make me happy.

I put together a small platter of candles (which I already had), small pumpkins, and foe leaves for the kitchen table.  At some point I know I will be making a fall flower arrangement, but for now this will do.

I made a similar platter in my dinning room.  I bought those pumpkins last year from Hobby Lobby at %50 off towards the end of the fall season.  At the end of this fall season I will be going back to shop for cheap decorations again.

I had to add these pictures of the two Softsoap dispensers I bought.  I added one to the kitchen sink and one in our downstairs powder room.  When Ace first saw the Jack-O-Lantern, I was promptly given the best mom ever award.  I gladly accepted of course.  I love this age when it truly is the little things that make them so happy.

September Wrap-Up

Hello there! I can not believe October is upon us! September flew by, probably because I was planning  one event after another.  

My efforts to plan a month's worth of preschool activities and lessons in a few days totally paid off, with the highlight being G is for Grape squashing!

Two Birthdays, which resulted in two really delicious cakes and two really bad pictures of those cakes. 

I did get a chance to share a new recipe, YUMMY SALTED CARAMEL FROSTING I made for the boxing party.  Moving forward I think I'll try this on a caramel cupcake!

My head is spinning from all the planning and excitement that September had to offer, now on to OCTOBER!!!!

Chocolate Cupcakes With Salted Caramel Frosting

As promised I will share a recipe for chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting.  I have been wanting to try my hand at salted caramel frosting for a while now.  The initial plan was to make them for my hub's, or Bear's birthday cake.   Of course they had to act like it was their special day and make cake requests of their own. He he.  My next opportunity to make the cupcakes I wanted to make, was for the boxing party my hubs and I hosted.  I know, cupcakes don't exactly scream boxing party food.  However, who can resist sinfully rich chocolate cupcakes, topped with a healthy sized amount of salted caramel frosting, with a piece of caramel candy smooshed into the top? Not many.

I have made the these chocolate cupcakes many a time and topped them with everything from vanilla butter cream to Italian meringue white chocolate butter cream (yes, I about died too). But never, have I tried the creamy sweet, nutty flavored caramel frosting on top.  I searched pinterest and google to find the perfect recipe.  There are quite a few recipes that are simple, basically melting caramel candies and adding it to butter cream.  I needed more.  I really wanted the challenge and taste of a from scratch caramel frosting.  I found it here.   Anything that includes heavy cream, butter, and sugar has to be good, right?

Right! 

The frosting was perfect!  So creamy and perfectly... caramelly(?)  The way the caramel frosting complimented the chocolate cupcakes was pure bliss. 

Beatty's Chocolate Cake Recipe (Ina Garten)

Salted Caramel Frosting
Ingredients
1/2  cup salted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 cups powdered sugar
10 - 15 caramel candies, cut in half
Kosher Salt for sprinkling

Instructions
Melt the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan over low heat.  Add heavy cream.  Stirring constantly, increase heat to medium.  Add salt.  Allow mixture to bubble for 2 minutes.  Allow to cool. Once mixture is completely cooled, transfer to mixing bowl and beat in sifted, powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.  I used all 3 cups, but it tasted wonderful after just 2 cups.  After piping frosting on all my cupcakes, I placed a caramel candy on top then sprinkled with a little kosher salt.  Um... Yum!

Enjoy!

Preschool At Home: Stamping, Stomping, and Silly Sentences

Whoa!! I feel like I just got off a crazy roller coaster ride.  It's been a super busy week.  I mentioned in this post that we celebrated two birthdays, and a sick (possibly teething) baby.  Well, on top of all that we hosted a huge boxing party.  My husband is really into boxing and is a huge Mayweather fan so it was fitting.  We had about 30 people here on Saturday.  It was loud, messy, and down right fantastically fun.  

Even with all the planning and prep work, I still managed to squeeze in some preschool time.  Here are some of our highlights from the last 2 weeks. 

Theme: All About Me

Letter: Gg

Sight Word: is

Focus:  My Feelings/ My Birthday

We continue to follow the Zoomin' Movin Alphabet.  It's perfect for my little guys, whom are obsessed with all things that go.  It's free from Royal Baloo.  While, I don't do everything that comes with each unit, I use it as a guide to help with my planning.

I like to do sensory activities with the boys, so when I saw this grape sensory idea on Play Learn Love, I knew I had to try it.  I started by laying down some plastic to cover the floor, then grabbing an old bin, last, I gave each little one a container of grapes to harvest.  This took a lot of patience for them.  Bear lost interest in it pretty quickly so I took over his container.  Ace, who loves all things messy, moved quickly knowing that he would soon have the time of his life stomping and squishing grapes.

Bear played in the grapes for a bit, but he is not as interested in sensory play as Ace.  I'm trying to get him more and more interested in things like this.  At one point he disappeared and returned with his fire truck and just drove his little truck through the grapes. 

Once upon a time, Ace couldn't stand getting his hands dirty or icky.  Now, He'd swim in messy sticky stuff if I'd let him... hmmm.

CJ had fun exploring in the grapes too.  While the boys played we talked about the sound that g makes, and other words that start with g.

Love these baby feet.

I was really excited to get our new Melissa and Doug letter stamp set.  We have a few stamps the boys like to play with, but I really wanted a full upper and lower case set, and a non-toxic pad.  I gave Ace some of his sight word cards and he practiced stamping them.  Bear is obsessed with the letter B so he did a lot of B and G stamping.

These pictures are really dark, typically my back doors give great light, but not on a dark and stormy afternoon.

By the way, the sight word cards come from the Zoomin' Movin' Alphabet Units.

Using salt on a tray was a great sensory activity for Bear.  He was able to get his hands "messy" then quickly dust them off if he wanted.  I let the boys do what ever they want in their salt, and just allow teachable moments to occur.  Bear typically asks me to write a B, although today he asked for an A.

 Ace was drawing different types of faces (happy, sad) because we had been discussing feelings.

I made a feelings lapbook for the boys to explore.  The printables came from 1+1+1=1, you can download them for free here.  

I was really excited to use the sight words Ace knows in sentences.  He was so proud of himself for reading them.  Of course he had to make some of his own.  It was interesting watching him put the cards down.  He first began just laying the in random order and telling me his own sentence (even if it didn't match what was actually on the table).  I started to rearrange his sentences so they would make sense and I think we both got a little frustrated.  Him, because I was messing up his sentences, and me because I wanted him to make sentences that made sense.  We compromised in the end and I told him he could make "silly" sentences (thanks mom for the good idea!).  He was totally okay with that.  I find that I am constantly struggling with balancing fun, creativity, and learning.  It's helpful to keep reminding myself he is only 4.

We finished out our week by decorating cupcakes.  I had this activity planned for the afternoon of Bears birthday since we weren't having a party or anything.  My hubs decided to take the day off so we spent a great day as a family eating pizza and visiting Chuck E Cheese.  We ended up doing this activity in the evening and Bear was burnt out, so it ended up just being Ace.  In hindsight I should have just saved it for the next day.  Oh well.

As always, thanks for reading!!

Leiah

2 Birthdays, And A Sick Baby

Hello folks!  September is a very busy time for us.  Mainly because we start the month with 2 birthdays.  My hubs and Bear have birthdays on consecutive days.  When my little brown bear was born the day after my husbands birthday, I promised myself I would make them both their own cake each year, as opposed to one cake with two names.  This should be pretty simple, but since I'm such a cake and icing snob I make them from scratch, and decorate them as close to professional as I can.

My husbands cake turned out fabulous!  He requested the red velvet and cream cheese cake I made him a few years ago.  Since I have made it before, it was pretty simple to recreate.  For Bear I had planned on keeping it simple.  We decided that we'd have a quiet birthday no big party.  Maybe share cake with my mom, and our neighbors, but that was about it.  I figured a simple round cake would be fine and I'd throw a toy train on top for fun.  MY little guy simply requested a "chotet tate" for his birthday.  For some reason in a moment of mom guilt I decided to make a train cake.  I made a train cake for Ace when he turned two that was super cute.  I mistakenly figured that since I've made it, it too would be easy to recreate.  Wrong-o!!!

My first mistake was using a super moist chocolate cake.  Moist cakes are NOT good for carving.  The second problem was my little sick CJ.  Ever try to complete a baking marathon with a baby who can't be put down.  Poor little guy was extra cuddly, something he's not been into ever since he started cruising.  I did love the extra snuggles I got from my warm and sniffly baby, but it was a huge hindrance in my cake baking, and decorating schedule.  Sigh.

Anyway, I finished all the baking Sunday night, and moved onto creating a chocolate train cake for my soon to be 3 year old.  The final product was not my favorite cake at all.  it tasted great, and resembled a sad little train.  In fact my husband actually agreed with me when I said I thought it was ugly.  The nerve!! Of course when I picked up my sweet little boy to show him his "train" cake in the fridge, a smile spread from ear to ear and he exclaimed "My train tate!".  Suddenly my attitude about his cake changed and I realized it truly is the thought that counts.

Now, the bad blogger that I am, I didn't snap any before pictures of my two cakes.  Instead I'll share with you what they look like after two days of getting picked on.  NO slices here after guests leave.  Straight off the cake with a fork... that's how we roll people!

I'll leave you with some links to other cakes I've made in the past and a promise to share my next cupcake conquest with you once it's complete.  Chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting!  Sounds delish right? Can't wait to try it!

Chocolate Cake With White Chocolate Buttercream

A Much Better Train Cake 

Banana Birthday Cake

My First Fondant Cake

Friday Five... Organized Refrigerator!

Hey people! I've been pretty quiet this week... I know, but for good reason.  We've decided to keep Ace home for one more year of preschool at home with mommy.  It was a last minute decision, which has had me scrambling to plan out the coming months of fun learning activities.  I want to make sure my "baby" is ready for kindergarten when it's time.  More on our preschool at home to come.

Today, I want to share my organized fridge with you.  I know some people might be thinking... enough already!  Organizing the fridge is just one small step from being OCD, but it's really not.  Lot's of good can come from having an organized fridge.  For one, less food is spoiled.  If you always put your leftovers in the same place and clearly label them, you are more likely to not forget about them in the back.  Also, with an organized fridge you will (or should) spend less time looking for things with an open door, which lowers you fridge temp, and causes it to work harder, therefore jacking up your electricity bill!

Yes... I absolutely see the irony in this picture with the doors wide open.

Now that you know why organizing the fridge is a good thing, lets talk about how to organize your fridge.  As with any project in my home (or anywhere for that matter) I start off with some research.  Turns out, I am not the only one into fridge organizing.  I have gained lots of newfound knowledge in terms of where to store things.  The last time I did a fridge shuffle I kind of winged it and just moved stuff where I thought it looked best.  This was not conducive to long lasting food, which is why I did so much research this time around.  There is tons of info out there, But I will keep it simple and share just 5.  So here we go...

Friday Five: Tips For Organizing a Refrigerator.

1. Milk.  When I was mentally planning out my new organized fridge, I was thinking of placing my milk on the door along with our OJ.  I just thought it would look good there and be a good use of space.  I figured that would be the best place, Wrong!! Milk is supposed to be placed as far to the back of the refrigerator as possible, and is best kept at a temperature of between 38 and 40 degrees F.  

2.  Meats and Cheese.  I keep my meats and cheeses in the same drawer.  Keeping them together makes for easy sandwich making.  Ziplock storage bags are my best friend.  We don't go through meat super fast.  So when I buy it, it is separated and frozen into smaller portions.  I keep only small amounts in the fridge at a time, and the rest is kept in the freezer.  It is best placed in the lower section or where ever is closest to the freezer.  

3. Fruits and Veggies.  While people often group fruits and veggies together, these two healthy food options should be stored separately.  Veggies do best in high humidity.  In my fridge I have a humidity controller, and it is now set to its highest level.  My berry type fruit (strawberries, blueberries, and grapes) get a water and vinegar rinse before being sliced and placed in glass containers for easier snacking.  This is great for the kids, because they basically want what they see.  Too bad I have a problem seeing the chips I hide from them, or the cookies for that matter.  I have recently begun storing my other fruits out on the counter.  This again is so they are in the kiddos (and mine and hubby's) faces.  If you were going to store your fruit in the fridge it should be in a low humidity drawer often called the crisper.  I used to think the crisper was the place for veggies since crisp lettuce is way more appetizing than wilted... turns out I was wrong.

4. Labeled Leftovers.  I always store my leftovers on the top shelf, so they are in my face and I am more apt to use them.  Even then, sometimes things don't get eaten, or I forget how old they are.  Then I had an idea.  To all you Pinterest junkies out there, ever see a great tip and file it in your brain under one of these days?   I do, all the time.  A while back I saw a cute idea to use chalk on a lid for labeling the date of leftovers.  While cleaning out one of my school drawers in the kitchen I came across one of my chalk markers.  HELLO!! I immediately tested it out on my lids.  It didn't work quite so well.  Then I tried it on the actual glass and it was perfect.  Even my hubs was impressed, which is not easy to do.  Generally, leftovers are good for 4 days, although I typically give my leftovers a week in the fridge before tossing or eating them.  Now we can clearly see when something needs to be eaten, no more guess work!  FYI - I've been using this system for about 2 weeks now.  It works, but the glass tends to sweat so the chalk is always wet.  It doesn't bother me, or the hubs, but I can see it bothering some people.  

5. Containers.  Don't be afraid to containerize in the refrigerator.  Putting like items together makes grabbing things quickly, easy.  Again, we need that fridge door to be open for as short a time as possible.   I use a fridge binz for juice boxes and another bin I grabbed from my pantry to contain my refrigerated snacks.  Now it's packed with Danimals yogurt smoothies for the kiddos.

Take a look at my organized refrigerator... isn't she pretty?

One more bonus tip - I read this tip years ago, before I ever owned a home.  When one of your shelves is getting slightly low on food, move the few remaining items to another shelf or area.  Give that section or shelf  a quick wipe down (2 minutes... seriously!!).  I use a vinegar and water solution.  If you do one shelf at a time as they begin to empty it's easier to maintain a clean fridge.  I use this strategy and it really helps.

Thanks for reading!

Leiah

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