Valentines Day!

Valentines day is coming before we know it!  In January I always think I have  a long time before Valentines day and then It always sneaks up on me.  This year I don"t want to let that happen! 
One thing I did manage to do last year for Valentines day was borrow this fantastic idea for a personal Valentine for your kids to take to friends. 

You can find that post from last Valentines day here.
This year my goal before Februrary comes is to make a cute Valentines day Door Decoration. Last year this Heart felt wreath from the idea room was all the rage.  I want to do something similar, but different.  I also want to make another cute Valentines stitchery (This was on my list last year, but it never happened). I want to use one of these rubber stamp designs as my inspiration.  Rubber stamp designs make great stitchery patterns!

   I also want to come up with another clever idea for my kids Valentines to pass out at school. Do any of you have any good ideas?

My daughter the artist!

My 14 year old daughter is a very talented artist.  She as been surprising us with her talent since she was a toddler.   This week she painted her first art piece that someone paid her for.  Her friend wanted her to paint this for a birthday present for another friend who apparently loves this singing group.    It is not really her style to draw and paint skulls.  She tends to draw and paint animal life mostly like this. (she did these with her electronic drawing pad she got for her birthday this year.)

 but I think she did a good job anyway. here is a couple of pictures. One of her painting it and one of it finished.  She had to paint it on  our living room wall because it was so big.

She also made a Coloring book this year to earn Christmas money.  She sold them all, but I will have to post some pics. of that when we make some more.

Another Scrabble Tile Necklace!

Wednesdays the Youth (teens) in my church get together to do activities.  I am one of the leaders over the 12 and 13 year old girls (beehives).  Last night we made scrabble tile necklaces with the 2011 theme on it.

The girls really had a fun time making them!  I got the free file from Sugardoodle.net.  Angela Casperson was kind enough to do the foot work and share it with the rest of us :-) 

Here is how we  made our Necklaces.

If you are new to the whole scrabble necklace thing here is a link to a great tutorial on to how to make them.

I was out of the silver bails that I normally glue to the back so I drilled holes through our tiles with a small hand drill I have and then we pulled the cording through and added a decorative bead (like I do with washer necklaces). Doing it this way these necklaces look really cute as choker. 

 I also made a bead clasp in the back. To do this you tie a bead to one end of the cording and then make a small loop on the other end of the cording.

Then you just put the loop over the bead and now you have a cute matching clasp for your necklace!

Here is the one my 12 year old daughter made. So simple,but so cute!

Cake Mix Cookies

Today I made 4 dozen cookies for my son's  Cub Scout  Pack meeting tonight.
I love these cookies and thought I would share the recipe with all of you!
 I found this recipe years ago in one of my Taste of Home Quick Cooking magazines.  These cake mix cookies are so yummy and easy to make!  And they are a perfect solution when you need to make something quick for a bake sale or church event :-)
The original recipe asked for a German Chocolate cake mix, but a regular chocolate cake mix works just as well.

Recipe

1 German chocolate (or regular chocolate) cake mix

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

2 tsps vanilla

1 cup oatmeal

1 cup chocolate chips

Nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all the ingrediants together.

  Scoop generous tablespoon size scoops of dough onto cookie sheets.

 Bake for about 8-10 minutes

January 2011 Bug a boo book pick!

Happy 2011!  I am excited for the new year and I am so ready to make my new years resolutions and hopfully make some improvements to my life!  I decided that for January I would pick a self improvement book.   "I don't have to make everything all better" by Joy and Gary Lundberg.

 I am not one who usually has much patience for self help books and  more often then not I don't make it through the whole book (besides the Scriptures), but this particular book held my interest the whole way through.  It's concepts will help you with any relationship you have.