Luck O' the Irish

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day and you all got to spend it w/ someone you love. We had a romantic dinner for 5.

 I wore my new apron and baked a bunch of Naan for dinner.

Last time I made it 1/4 whole wheat and so I tried 1/2 this time.  It wasn't as good, but still okay.  I even made a few heart shape ones to be more festive.

For dessert we had chocolate covered strawberries.  

My daughter decided to skip swim practice so we all stayed home and played games.  Maybe not the most romantic night, but it was wonderful to be with those I love.

Are you ready to think about St. Patty's Day yet?  Here are some of my projects from last year.

Coolest Pillow Ever

St. Patty blocks

Folded paper flowers

St Patty Mantle

 St Patty's Wreath

St. Patty Pillow

1 Hour Maxi Skirt

Green ruffled Sweater Upcycle

Yoda Place Setting

(he may not be Irish, but he sure is green)

Bloomin Green Tee

Pant's Leg Tee

Favorite Spinach Salad

Linking up here.

Organize your Life

Let me introduce you to Clipix.  It is a brand new tool that will help you organize your online life.  It solves the problem of helping you keep track of all those things you find online.  You can set up a clipboard for each category of your online life:
recipes
books
shoes
craft ideas
parenting tips
funny quotes
vacation ideas
Really, the possibilities are endless.

My favorite thing about clipix is that I can set my own privacy settings.  I set up a a clipboard for "gifts for the family".  Now when I see a fun craft or product, I can clip it and keep all my ideas in one place.  I can set the privacy settings, so no one else can see them and all my ideas remain secret, until after I give them the gift. I will also use this to plan our vacations-I don't really want the world to know that we will be on vacation and there will be no one at our home.
Of course, if you want to share your clipboards, you can also set your privacy settings to share them with whoever you want or even the entire Clipix community. You can share or comment on other's clips as well as share your clips on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
There is even an iPhone App for those of you with smart phones.

To learn more, please watch this video
I think this is a great tool that will help me be organized.
Promoted Post

Will Craft for...Free Jewelry

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  How about some free jewelry from:

Maddy and Co is an etsy shop run by two sisters who make amazing jewelry.  They sell earrings, pendants and rings.  Here are some of my favorites.  

 

They are generously giving away a pair of their brown wooden lace dangle earrings (pictured above).

You can enter in any/all of the following ways:

1. Link up a project

2. Like Maddy @ Co on Facebook

3. Tell us your favorite item from their shop

4. Leave a nice comment

There were lots of great projects last week-I added quite a few to Pinterest. Thank you all for the great inspiration. Last week's most viewed link was: The Space Between's gallery wall-it was hung using only 1 screw! Impressive!

Please only leave your e-mail if you would like to sign up for weekly e-mail reminders.
Link it up!

Ombre Sweetheart Apron Tutorial

I signed up to be part of the Crafterbowl Competition@ Pinkapotamus. I was assigned a V-day project made with the secret ingredient of tulle.

In a perfect world, this is what I'd look like each day, as my family returns home.   I wouldn't own things like "good sweat pants" and I wouldn't have ruined all my make-up brushes on a stenciling project. There would  always be fresh baked cookies cooling on the counter and a well-balance meal cooking in the oven.

This ombre tulle apron with a sweetheart neckline turned out really fun.  Wearing it makes me want to bake dozens of light and fluffy cupcakes.

Thanks Amie for hosting a fun competition!

Please continue reading to see how to make one of your own or click Here to vote for me. (voting over I didn't win)

Step 1: Cut a rectangle 22x18.

 Step 2:  Cut strips of tulle 10 inches wide.  Fold them in half and run a gathering stitch along the edge.  Gather to 18 inches.

 Step 3: Fold top edge over 1/4 inch.  Press.

 Step 4: Fold down 2 inches. Press.

 Step 4:  Pin top ruffle to apron. Fold fabric over ruffles and top stitch.

Step 5:  To make the top of the apron, fold 2 (15X 12.5) pieces of fabric in half. Trace a large circle on top of fabric and cut out to make heart shape.

 Step 6: With right sides together, sew apron tops together.

Step 7:  Clip along the curves all the way to stitching line. Turn. Press. Top-stitch.

Step8:  Sew top to bottom along waist.  Attach ribbons at top at waist to tie. Try it on and admire yourself in the mirror.


My daughter, Mom and Aunt Barb thought it was "adorable".  However, my 11-year-old son went into shock for seeing me in something besides brown or black and fell off the couch laughing.

Linking up here.

  

Happy V-Day!

Random.org chose #61.  Congrats Loopy Loop Creations-your Valentine Gum containers just won you 3 patterns from Sew Sweet Patterns. Please contact them here, to let them know which patterns you choose.

Turkey Won-ton meatballs

The kids aren't huge fans of eating healthy.  So I went searching for something fun and found this recipe at DisneyFamily.com.  I figured kids like anything that comes w/ dip and luckily I was right-huge success! (For the record I also tried some Greek style ones-epic fail and so not blogworthy)


Meatballs:
1 lb. ground turkey
2 scallions-finely chopped
1 Tb. Sesame oil
2 Tb soy sauce
1 beaten egg or 1/4 cup egg substitute
optional 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley


Dipping sauce:
1/4 cup splenda
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tb rice vinegar

Preheat oven to 400. Mix all the meatball ingredients with your hands and form into Tb sized balls. Bake on lightly greased cookie sheet for 20-25 minutes. Serve with dipping sauce.

Linking up here.

How to Organize your kids chores and allowances

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of DoughMain.com for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

We have unsuccessfully tried several allowance and chore programs at our house, but nothing has worked for us. I think I finally found something that will work-doughmain.com.   It is a new free website that contains lots of  family organizer tools  to help manage my family and even online games to teach the kiddos about money and financial responsibility.  Here are some features I am most excited about:

Chore Charts:

 

You assign each kid a color.  You can assign chores on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  I also love that when tasks are completed, you can reward your kids with either monetary allowance or "dough points".  "Dough points" are virtual currency your kids earn to spend on privileges.  For example, by doing their chores, they can earn "dough points" to trade in for computer time, television shows, trips, treats, or special outings.  You set it up, and doughmain.com keeps track of everything online for you.

doughmain.com  also has an family calendar.  It is color coded for each family member, so with just a quick glance you can see what everyone's schedule is.  You can also import community calendars.

In addition to all these great organizing tools, doughmain.com also has several financial responsibility games.  There are fun online games (SandDollarCity.com, The FunVault.com, and IRuleMoney.com)  especially developed depending on their age.  They'll think they are just playing a fun game, but they will actually be learning important life skills.

If you want an easy way to organize your family and teach your children about financial responsibility, sign up today at doughmain.com. If you enter "dough" as the reference coded, you will be entered for a chance to win a $500 Visa gift card.

Good Luck!