Beaded watch bands

This weekend my mom decided it was time to do something I’ve been trying to do for a while. Every time I venture into a craft store I look at the beads and contemplate making a beaded watch band. I even bought a sale price watch face, but still haven’t been successful at finishing a band.

So, Monday- with hubby and Dad gone to St. George- Mom and I took the little guys and headed out to find some beads. We hit three different stores and finally found a little package of beads we were happy with (price being most important here…) at Sierra’s. We later discovered that we should’ve tried Scrappin’ Essentials because they have a large selection for very cheap. (We were in Pocatello.)

Nevertheless…. we found some cute beads. Here are my various attempts at combinating beads into a band that I liked.

I took pictures as I went, so I could choose and go back to a certain combination if I wanted. I ended up going with the last one… almost exactly.

My mom’s turned out really awesome!

My cousin Megan, who made them recently for her Mom and Mother-in-Law for Mother’s day, was there and kind of showed us how to do it. We still had to experiment with tying the string off and various parts… but it really wasn’t that hard.

I think I’ll definitely be making more! Especially if I can find more cheap faces to use as gifts!

Here’s my finished product! I had left my watch face home (since I didn’t know we would be doing this!) and was bummed because I thought the battery was dead. But when I got it out this morning and attached it, I realized it was working like a charm!

Animal Cookies

A spontaneous treat turned into a fun activity:

Animal crackers, frosting and sprinkles; plus two hungry little boys:

I microwaved the frosting for a few seconds first, and it was way easy to dip the crackers. Christopher thought this was the coolest thing ever- and it’s definitely cheaper than buying animal cookies.

Baby girl quilt

This is the first patchwork quilt I have tried, and I have to say it didn’t turn out too horrible. Most of it was probably just luck- that it turned out the right size and everything.

These are some of the “blocks.”

Here is the finished top piece:

I machine quilted along most of the straight lines, and added flower buttons in the six main intersections. I binded it first, pillowcase style, by turning it inside out and sewing the edges, then making a border…. here’s the finished product:

I just LOVE the green floral print flannel that I found for the back.

Megan is supposed to have her baby this week, probably. She’s already seen the top quilt, and loved it. I’m excited for her little cutie to have it! (And I’m excited to see and hold and kiss and love on her little cutie!)

I think I’ll definitely be trying more quilts… even more pink.

Sweet Potato fries

My mom talks about how delicious the sweet potato french fries are that she gets at Costco. I decided to make some from scratch.

They were easy.

Cut up the sweet potato into fries.

In a bowl mix: vegetable oil, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper. (just a little of each… turns out I couldn’t taste them all that much anyway.)

Cover the fries in the sauce.

Lay the fries out on a sprayed cookie sheet, then sprinkle sugar on top.

Bake at 400 for about 25 minutes, rotating once.

They turned out delicious!

Fondant Birthday cake!

My baby turned 1 yesterday! I wanted to try to decorate his cake using fondant- and it was easy with the new Make it and Love it, Make a cake series!

I started with two frozen round cakes that I made the day before.

I frosted one of them. (Most say to use homemade butter cream, but I just used store bought cream cheese frosting… I figured I can only be sooo domestic at a time right?)

I made a blueberry filling using sugar, flour and milk… and blueberries. (I’ll let you know how this tastes after we eat it tonight.)

Then… I made the fondant. (Actually, I think I made the fondant that morning- and let me tell you, it was invigorating! I thought I was going to fail miserably once my hands were stuck with melted marshmallows and goo- but it all came together and I was so proud!)

(Note that I had 2 helpers for this part… later I had 4 helpers, oy!)

I colored some of the fondant, rolled it out and covered the cake.

It took me a few tries to decide how to decorate it. (remember, I had 4 helpers… we figured out that fondant is basically like yummy, edible play dough.) I finally decided on this:

I still need to get a big 1 candle for behind the bow. But I was pretty happy with the finished product. I think it’ll taste good too.

This is what the fondant looked like when the kids were done playing with it:

We all had fun. And learned a lot!

Fantastic Fish Tacos!

Another new one… turned out yummy!

This was definitely a “new” recipe and idea for all of us. I’ve always been told that fish tacos were good, but never actually tried them. (yes, I do like seafood, we both love it.) So, I decided to go for it.

I used tilapia, because it was cheapest. I got a bag of frozen filets and it was surprisingly inexpensive. Cut into 1 inch pieces. Dip them in beaten egg (with 1 tsp of water beaten in), then into a mixture of bread crumbs and lemon pepper seasoning. Fry them on a skillet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.

Before all of this (I did it hours before) make a sauce to put on top: 1/2 cup mayo, 1 tbl lime juice, 2 tsp milk. Mix and refrigerate for later.

Then, it’s easy: place fish on warmed up corn tortillas, top with coleslaw mix, tomatoes, cheese and cilantro. Drizzle with mayonnaise mixture. Yum! I ended up adding some spicy taquera salsa on my second and third taco, because it needed a little more pick me up. I really, really liked the effect of the coleslaw mix, and the mayo mixture. The crunch added a lot. And, I am now officially sold on the fish taco idea.

Brant said the tilapia strips tasted like fish sticks. So, I guess I could have just used fish sticks huh?

Taco Pizza

I’ve been trying all sorts of yummy recipes lately. I got this one from the Taste of Home cooking school magazine. I got to go with my friend Tallene to this cooking school. It was fun to go out and I got a ton of new ideas from it.

So, I tried one!

Basically, you take a pizza crust from the store, pre-cook it, and make an open faced taco on top. I changed the recipe up a bit and layered it like this:

1-refried beans

2- taco meat

3-ranch

4-salsa

5-lettuce

6-tomatoes

7-avocado

8-cheese

9-broken tortilla chips

It was a pretty big hit with my hungry boys who had been outside working playing in the dirt.

Pac Man Easter Eggs

Wouldn’t these be fun to make with your kids in anticipation of Easter? I had fun with my son. He’s only 2, but he helped me make these.

All you need is some Easter eggs, popsicle sticks (cut in half) buttons and glue. I used hot glue- because I got a new glue gun, but other glue will work too.

 

It’s as easy as it looks. Glue the sticks on first, making sure to center your egg so that the hinge is in the back.

Then, choose your accessories and glue them on too.

The Alien guy is the one Christopher made. Cute huh?

You can even make a whole family! Very fun once you put candy in their mouths. (The trick is keeping the candy there…)

Have fun, and Happy Easter!