Bunnies and Bums Banner

Bunnies and Bums Banner My girls and I did a crazy easy, craft project today that we wanted to share. 

You'll need:
 Crafting foam or heavy construction paper
 Scissors Glue craft and hot glue
 Pompoms
 Ribbon
First, I cut out a bunch of bunnies out of the foam. For me I just drew a simple bunny silhouette, but you can easily find one on the internet that you can print too.

I cut out about 12 of these in various colors. Next pull out that ribbon and make a swag over your window, cutting it to length. Glue those little bunny ears to the ribbon. You want to make sure you are putting more of the bunny under the hang of the ribbon than the top or you will have some hanging issues.

Next, bring on the kids let them decorate those bunnies! we decided to have the ones facing forward would have pink noses and hold carrots. Make sure your glue is completely dry. I recommend hot glue for gluing the bunnies onto the string.

I tied little loops on the ends of my ribbon and I like to hang the banner with these Command strips.
They even work great for twinkle lights. They are great because they are clear and tiny. I leave them up for all the different season and all the little banners that we make.
Happy Crafting!

Spring is here! Time for all the yummy berry treats to be back in season.  I made this Strawberry Rose Cake the other day for a Cub Scout auction and I wanted to share the recipe with you today.  At the bottom I show you how I cut Strawberry Roses!!!

My Cake recipe I found a  few years ago off a website alittlebitfunky  Here is the complete link: http://www.littlebitfunky.com/2012/09/what-i-made-for-monday-perfect-cake.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+alittlebitfunky+(Little+Bit+Funky)

It comes out with a really moist and yummy cake! I have made it close to 10 times at least and every time it is wonderful.  I have made it in cupcake and cake form,  and it makes about 35 cupcakes.

Preheat oven to 325

1 box white cake mix 

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

3/4 tsp. salt

1 1/3 cups water

1/8 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

4 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Put all dry ingredients together mix it up, then put in all the wet ingredients together with the dry, mix well. Pour into greased and floured cake pans, I put wax paper in the bottom of my cake pans too so there is not sticking, or cupcake tins lined with papers.  Fill cupcake papers about 3/4 of the way full. 

Bake for 18 minutes or so for cupcakes and a little longer for cake. Close to 30 mins depending on the oven.


For my American butter cream frosting
I take 1 cup of butter AT ROOM TEMPERATURE very very important. if you forget put the butter in a bag and stick it in your pockets for a while.

Now whip it! with a stand mixer or a hand mixer for at least 3 minutes it needs to be light and super fluffy. Once it is silk pour in 1 tsp of vanilla.  Then slowly add in 16+ oz or so of powdered sugar until it reaches the right consistency. I like to add a little bit of heavy whipping cream to make it silky smooth about 3 tbsp.

Toasted coconut simply open a bag of sweetened coconut and throw it under a broiler for a few minutes till it is light brown. pull it out and let it cool completely before pressing it into fresh frosting.

I put finely chopped fresh strawberries inside my cake.  I cut the strawberries into tiny pieces and pressed them lightly with paper towels to take away some moisture.  I then tossed them in 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar and put a thin layer between the cake layers. with a thin layer of the buttercream frosting.

For the Strawberry Roses please refer to the video below!

Never throw away a shoe box!

I have been saving shoe boxes so that I could organize Brielle's clothes.  It turned out just how I wanted.

I was going to take a picture of her crazy drawers before the organizers, but Riley heard I wanted to rearrange Brielle's clothes and she came in and dumped them on the ground for me.  I have all of these and a laundry basket full too.  Now lets get started!

 First cut of the lids of the shoe boxes if they are attached.

Save those lids my friends!!! we are going to use them!

I placed the boxes in the drawers then measured how big of strips I would need for extra compartments.

I cut extra strips, the same height of the boxes. to make my own little compartments.

Make sure to remove the little mold strips and packets, so your babies/ kids don't get a hold of them!

So when I was done the first drawer has pajamas in a small shoe box on the right, a large one with hoodies in the middle, then the strips made four little compartments for hats, tights, socks, and swimsuits.

Next drawer has two large boxes one with pants, the other with shirts.  I decided to leave the side open so I could leave the skirts flat.

This opened up the third to be completely empty!  Yay!!!

Now I can see all her clothes and I don't have to go digging around for anything! Maybe if I get one more box later I will put it where the skirts are, as for now we are good to go. 

Happy organizing!! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!


I have a super simple fun craft for toddler to little kids! Actually I kind of enjoyed doing it too.. ok here is what you need. 

picture of a 4 leaf clover
green and gold kid's paint
colored paper 
white paper
scissors
two pencils with erasers
tape

Here is what we did.  I took the clover and cut out 5 small clovers out of the colored paper. If you want to cheat like me I layered two colors on top of one another when I cut it out so I only had to trace once. 

I cut them out for my girls, but you can let them cut them out if you want.

Next, take tape and have the kids tape them all over the white paper. We used this paint for the next part. 

We used three different greens and one gold. just squeeze it on a plate. The kids just dip the eraser side of the pencil in paint and dot all over the place. Make sure to get all the edges of the clovers super well. You can have the use their fingers too!

Let it all dry, then peel off the clovers and you have a fun clover picture for St. Patricks Day!

Riley wanted to trace one of hers with a pen too.  You could also do horseshoes too...

We have this fun banner to make today. I bought it last year after St. Patrick's Day at Michaels Craft Store.

Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?

With 3 little girls, a window box,
4 Terra Cotta pots in a row.


I started my veggie/ herb garden at the beginning of February.  I wanted to get a jump start on our garden this year so that I could start cooking with fresh herbs again. I have a love the smell of fresh herbs in the house too.

It is like Christmas morning everyday for the girls to wake up and check on the little plant starts.  Riley loves to see what plants are the tallest and which are the smallest.  It is also fun for us to point out that different plants have different leaf shapes, smells, and stems. The first week and a half were torture for them not see anything happening.  Once they sprouted it has been awesome to see the girls light up.
 

The first steps for our little garden. I had to eat a bunch of eggs.  I have done egg cartons to start my seeds in the past and it worked really well for me. (You can crush up your clean egg shells really small and put them in the bottom of the egg carton with the dirt for extra nutrients for your plants)

With my experience it is worth dropping by a garden center and picking up some potting soil to start seeds.  I have used soil from my gardens in the past and I get significantly better results from actual potting soil.

This time around We started with Thyme, Basil, Cilantro, Green Onions, Lavender, Butter Lettuce, Scarlett Runner, Spinach, and Hollyhocks.

As far as seeds I just picked up seed packets from Walmart Garden center and a few from Ace Hardware.  Some of them I have had for 3 years and I use a pinch of the seeds then save the rest for next year.  My basil packet I think I have had for 4 years and the seeds still grow. Just make sure you keep them in a dry dark place. This is my first time for the Scarlett Runner and I'm super excited to see how it grows.

It took us about 1.5-2.5 weeks before we started to see our little seedlings.  I kept them in their little egg cartons for about 2 more weeks until they started to get a little too big.

To upgrade my plants inside I decided to put them in some inexpensive pots and a window box. This is easy with the egg cartons I simply take a table sized spoon and scoop the little plant right out of the egg carton with the soil and place it gently in it's new home. I noticed with a few of my little plants the roots started to grow into the cardboard so I very gently raised them out and the cardboard released the little roots.  You could also we the cardboard a little to get it to release.

This is where they are going to stay for a while.  I love having home grown lettuce, for some reason I have a hard time buying lettuce from the store.  It is so easy to grown.  I like to give my plants a little fertilizer at about this stage right after I transplant them. The one I am using now is. MiracleGro all purpose plant food. I have had the MiracleGro for two years now and I have more than half a bottle left.



 In a few weeks I will start soaking my pea seeds and get them ready to live outside. 

Michael started prep for my outside garden.

Since we are renting I couldn't go through and tear up the whole (tiny)  back yard.  I also didn't want to throw a bunch of money into a garden that I would be leaving.  Therefore, after some research.. we are attempting a straw bale garden stay tuned to see what happens with it!!

One ton of straw bales, all lined up in a row!

Easter baskets part 2!
Basket ideas that are under $10



My girls love to draw and do crafts so I went on the hunt for the best deals for craft and drawing kits. Some of these are add on items so make sure you place them with an order of $25 or more. 





Next up those adorable stuffed animals...




Please note that I am not responsible for changes in price, I am only posting what I find.

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 Ideas for Easter Baskets, that you won't be throwing away in a day!

Part #1

One of my biggest pet peeves is spending an arm and a leg on things that only last a week.  I've decided to share some of the great things I have found for their baskets this year that you won't be throwing in the trash super fast. Best of all most of it is off of Amazon.  Making it to the store without one of my 3 kids is impossible with my husband's work schedule and since I don't want to ruin the surprise...   Amazon it is!  I know that not everyone wants to spend hours looking through amazon for all this stuff I did all the work for you.  All the links are below! Happy Easter.

The first thing I always put in my girls Easter baskets are books, books are awesome for one they take up a large amount of space! yep, they are a great space filler.  Books are one of those items that doesn't get used up in a week and thrown away.  They last for YEARS! For my 1 year old I found these little board books, super easy for her to carry around with her and flip the pages around without being able to tear them up super fast.
*YOU NEED TO READ MUSTACHE BABY* if you just need to go to your library and check it out to read it you should. Seriously, it is hilarious!



Now if you haven't read The Pout Pout Fish, it is awesome! I can't wait to read the Happy Easter Pout-Pout Fish.  I won't be buying all of these things for my girls but I hope you can find things that you like!

For my 3 year old and my 5 year old I wanted two things, and activity book that we could do together and a book before bedtime.



Activity books:

If you haven't seen Melissa and Doug's water wow you are seriously missing out! This is one thing that you need.  You can sit with your younger kids and talk about the animals, number, and alphabet or just let them loose in their car seats, church, or boring lobbies with these.  The best part, they are reusable.  Yes, another one of those magical items that won't be thrown away in 10 minutes. Or a coloring book that the kids will scribble in and throw away the next day.




Of course it is time for the super cute Easter outfit.  Once again I found the perfect thing!  Amazon has this great Disney section that have tops and bottoms for super cute.  Roll them up together and you have a fun outfit that wasn't too expensive. Ok, look at the sizes you need.  DIFFERENT SIZES ARE DIFFERENT PRICES!!! So you can score some of these outfits from $8-$15 if you are lucky! Also, when I buy these clothes I tend to go one size up, sometimes they are fitted a little small.

Size 6x is only $7.71


Size 4 is only $15.00 



 If you get this Minnie Mouse outfit in 24 month it is only $11.06


These two costs a little more but they are soooo cute I couldn't resist!



The last thing I found that doesn't last a terribly long time but I wanted to throw in are:

 Stickers and temporary tattoos are great they are also great if you don't want your kids to have a crazy insane amount of candy in all of their Easter Eggs. My kids love them.  I personally love temporary tattoos, they go on the kid and I am not spending hours of my time pealing them off of my furniture or floors.  I found these super cute ones!  We have the rule that you have to let your old ones wear off all the way before you get a new one one.  So they do last a few weeks.




Lastly I wanted to put a little toy for each of the girls.  My oldest daughter is collecting Tsum Tsums.  I thought this set with Thumper would be adorable.



If you want a few more I found this set on Sale too!


I would probably open this set and stick the tsum tsums in my oldest two daughters Easter Eggs.

More ideas are coming soon. Subscribe and I'll be scouring places for more ideas for you!

Good Luck with those baskets!!!

*Please note that all prices are subject to change*

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