Add flare to onesies and T-Shirts!

My baby just turned 3 :-(
 I can't believe how fast time is flying!  There are so many projects that I intended on doing when she was a baby and just did not ever do! 
My sister in law is expecting a baby in October and had her baby shower a  week ago.  In deciding what to do for a gift I remembered that I had onesies in my craft room that I never did anything with.
I really liked the ruffle butt idea I saw here.  So here is what I came up with.  I wish I had a baby to display it on, but I think you can get the idea :-)

And I did this cute stitchery on this Onesie a while ago,

 but I had never done more with it and it has been sitting in my craft room waiting to be given away. I felt it needed more added to it though so I added this ruffle skirt to the bottom of it.

Here is another fun Idea I found @ Sir Bubbadoo.  Freezer paper stenciling!  This looks so fun and easy!

And check out this idea using bleach!

you can find this idea @ Home maker.

Do you have blog envy?

I have been blogging for 2 years now and I often ask myself why do I blog?
I want to believe that I blog so I can share some creative ideas that I might have that would be helpful to others out there, but I will admit like anyone else out there in the blogging world I do enjoy getting a pat on the back and seeing comments on my posts.  I do check how many hits my blog gets each day. And I am always happy to see a new follower :-)
  I love being creative, but it can be a little discouraging when I follow other blogs that they are clearly more creative than me.  It makes me question if I have anything worth contributing.  That may be why I have not blogged much over the summer.  But when I think back over my summer I have done a lot!  And because I have decided it probably is  not creative enough or interesting enough to others out there I have not shared.   And so I have decided that I don't care anymore!  I am just going to be me and I am not going to worry if others think I am interesting enough or not :-)
So I am going to share the things I have been up to over the summer through out this week.
 I love this post by Marta @ Marta Writes. It really hits the nail on the head about how I feel about blogging and blog envy.

Weekly Menu board

I think this is the cutest thing ever!

 I am such a sucker for this kind of stuff!  I am wanting to make something like this.  or turn my exsisting magnet board into something like this. You can find this idea @ Here.

Blueberries! and home grown Oregano!

I meant to post this in July, but my summer has gotten away from me!

So anyway one of the thorns in my side is

You can't grow blueberries in Utah! Something about the soil being too acid or alkaline I can never remember which.  It is very sad :-(

However my Dad was visiting my sister Paula in Nashville and They picked a bunch for me after much begging from me!

 They picked them at this Church that has tons of blueberry bushes.  You can pick as much as you want, but they encourage you leave a donation.
These blueberries were so yummy!  I made all sorts of blueberry recipes!  Blueberry muffins, blueberry waffles, blueberry syrup etc.

 Then I decided to flash freeze the rest of them so I can use them the rest of the year.  If you have never flash frozen fruit before here is how you do it.  You spread the fruit out in one single layer on a large cookie sheet.
Then stick it in the freezer and let them freeze until solid.  Then pop them off the cookie sheet and put them in a bag.  by doing this they do not stick and freeze together.  You can do this with any fruit. I do not have the patience for canning fruit so I just freeze it.  I froze my apricots and peaches last summer.  It sure beats buying expensive frozen fruit at the store and it tastes better too :-)

Another thing I did earlier this summer was pick and dry my Oregano.  I had just run out of my oregano from last years picking and so it was perfect timing :-) I have a big Oregano plant in my rock wall garden in my back yard.  I clipped the whole top of the plant.  Then I rinsed the clippings and let them drip dry on a paper towel. 

Then I tie the end together with a string and hang it from my pot rack. I let it hang until it is all dried out ( like drying flowers).

Once it is all dried out I crumble off all the  leaves from the stems and store them in an air tight container. I put mine in a zip lock bag.

 It has been nice to have a new batch of Oregano to cook with :-)

Love this Birthday idea!

 
I have two daughters having a birthday within a week of eachother.  While looking up birthday ideas I came across this one.  I think it is so clever!  Although I wont be able to use it I thought some of the rest of you might be interested. Paula I especially thought of you.  I could totally see Ben enjoying this Birthday party idea :-)  Find it here at Plucky Momo.

A million dollar pie!

A few years ago I was watching one of the morning news shows and they featured the million dollar winner of the Pillsbury bake off contest. This lady (Suzanne Conrad) won with her Oats and honey granola pie. This recipe looked so good and so easy to make I knew I had to try it! So I did!  And I loved it!  Well the recipe got lost and forgotten in my recipe card file until Monday night.  I was looking for a good family night treat and  I came across this forgotten recipe and remembered how much I liked it.  I had most of the ingredients minus a couple so I decided I could improvise with what I already had in my kitchen.

here is the original recipe from the Pillsbury website and then you will find my tweaked version below:

Oats 'n Honey Granola Pie


.INGREDIENTS:

Crust1box Pillsbury® refrigerated pie crusts, softened as directed on box

Filling1/2cup LAND O LAKES® Butter

1/2cup packed brown sugar

3/4cup corn syrup

1/8teaspoon salt

1teaspoon vanilla

3LAND O LAKES® Eggs, lightly beaten

4Nature Valley® Oats 'n Honey crunchy granola bars (2 pouches from 8.9-oz. box), crushed (3/4 cup)*

1/2cup Fisher® Chef's Naturals® chopped walnuts

1/4cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats

1/4cup Hershey's® semi-sweet or milk chocolate baking chips

Whipped cream or ice cream, if desired.Show Directions

Hide Directions

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 350°F. Place pie crust in 9-inch glass pie plate as directed on box for One-Crust Filled Pie.

In large microwavable bowl, microwave butter on High 50 to 60 seconds or until melted. Stir in brown sugar and corn syrup until blended. Beat in salt, vanilla and eggs. Stir crushed granola bars, walnuts, oats and baking chips into brown sugar mixture. Pour into crust-lined pan.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until filling is set and crust is golden brown. During last 15 to 20 minutes of baking, cover crust edge with strips of foil to prevent excessive browning. Cool at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled with whipped cream or ice cream. Cover and refrigerate any remaining pie.


High Altitude (3500-6500 ft):

 
And here is my tweaked version :-)  Shh!  Don't tell anyone, but I think I might like mine better :-)
 

 Follow the above recipe, but this is what I did different.

-Instead of butter I used coconut oil.

- Instead of oat and honey bars I used 2 cups of granola with almonds in it.

- I am not a lover of walnuts so I did not add them.  I would have used pecans or almonds instead, but I did not have any on hand. So I figured I had few almonds in the granola so I called it good enough:-)

- I also added 1/2 cup of coconut flakes and about a 1/2 a tsp of Cinnamon.

- Instead of 1/8 tsp. I added 1/2 tsp. of salt.

- And for my last change instead of  fitting all the filling into one 9 inch pie crust I distributed the filling  into too pie crusts.  In the past I think having so much filling in one pie made it a little too rich.  and by putting it into two pie crusts the baking time cut to about 30-35 min.

Oh and I also used frozen crusts instead of the refrigerated crusts.  I find that they don't get to brown and overcooked as the refrigerated ones seem to do.

Ta Da! here was the result.  We served them with Vanilla ice cream, but they are good enough to hold their own without any extra ice cream or whipping cream if you want.

This pie is so yummy! And they did not last long at our house. I thought we could save the second pie for the next day, but everyone liked it so much we had to cut into the second pie also :-)

And like I predicted by dividing the filling into two pies it made them a lot less rich.  Which I liked.

I promise you that you will love, love, love this pie!

So good luck making it :-)

Fresh lettuce,spinach and peas!

The hard work is starting to pay off!  I am starting to reap the rewards of my garden!  This week the peas came on. ( My favorite veggie straight from the garden!)  I have such fond memories as a child sitting in the middle of the garden eating all the peas.  I am sure my mom never had enough to can or freeze because my siblings and I ate them all before they even made it to the house :-)  I took these pictures a few days ago.  and only a handful of peas were ready, but there are a lot more now :-)

My lettuce and spinach are ready also, but I just picked some of the spinach this day.   Notice the eggs in the upper left hand corner?  I gathered them at the same time.  Fresh peas, fresh spinach, fresh eggs, what a life!

My corn, beans and squash are coming along nicely too!  Like I said before I took these pic a few days ago so my corn is much bigger now. Remember I am going to use my corn stalks as bean poles that is why I have the corn and beans next to each other :-)

and in the mounds in between the corn and the beans I am growing squash, pumpkins and melons.

These are just babies right now, but hopefully by October we will have some cute pumpkins to carve!