Wordless Wednesday

That's my boy!⚽

#BearNakedGranola... Have You Tried It Yet?

Have you heard of Bear Naked Granola? No. Well, let me tell you, it's a delicious and healthy snack. I personally love the Sea Salt Caramel Apple Crunch. I eat it by itself, but I hear its pretty good to add to yogurt. My kids love to put mix-ins in their yogurt. It's a perfect snack to take on the go with you, anywhere. With real apples and caramel pieces this snack will trick you into forgetting how healthy it is. A 1/4 cup only has 120 calories and 3 grams of protien!


I received a free sample of Bear Naked Granola in exchange for my honest review.

Minion Birthday Gifts and Cupcakes

This post is long over due. Back in August my nephew Tater turned 7. And he was really into minions, those little cuties from Despicable Me. He said he wanted me to make him minion cupcakes and I thought it would be fun for him and I to make them together. When I asked him what he wanted for a gift, he said a minion jacket. What?! Where am I going to find one of those? He says, "You can make one." Simple as that. Naturally all sorts of alarms went off in my mind. I can't make one, and it actually turn out nice. No way, no how! So I said, "Sure Buddy, if that's what you want, you got it!" Then I freaked out forever. I googled so many pictures trying to find one that I could copy. I found a good one and I set out with my fabric and Heat-n-Bond, on a mission to create a minion jacket for my little pal. For the record, I bought the jacket, a plain black hoodie from Wal-Mart. I basically just made a giant minion iron on patch. And since that actually turned out nice, I got a little cocky and made him a bottle with some vinyl and a Dollar Tree bottle.

This is Tater decorating the cupcakes. As you can see, we thought it would be cool to color our batter to match the minions too.

So here's what we did:

1. We baked our cupcakes.

2. We frosted them with blue icing and set them aside.

3. Tater cut the twinkies in half.

4. I put dots of frosting on for eyes and Tater stuck white Smarties on them. (I'm sure he only ate about a pound of smarties while sorting out the white ones)

5.Tater put long chocolate sprinkles on the top for the hair.

6. I used gray and black frosting to finish the eyes and goggles.

7. Tater placed one Twinkie half minion head on each frosted cupcake.

 

And this is our finished product. Aren't they adorable? No, they don't look like they came from a posh bakery. They look like a 7 year old got to have a blast with his favoite aunt making cupcakes. They were absolutely PERFECT!

 

Turned out pretty good, huh?

 

How to make your own:

What you need: Heat-n-Bond Ultra, yellow fabric,blue fabric (I used old jeans), scraps of black,brown, white and gray fabric, 2 buttons, hot glue gun

1. Prepare fabric according to Heat-n-Bond instructions.

2. Draw complete outline of minion (hands,gloves, shoes included) on paper to make a stencil. (I had to do mine freehand but I would recommend tracing a copy if you can.)

3. Trace the complete outine of minion on yellow fabric and cut out.

4. Trace and cut out the overalls, gloves, boots, each layer of the eyeball, goggles, mouth and the pocket of the overalls.

5. Iron the yellow outline on your jacket.

6. Iron on the pants, gloves, boots, goggles strap and mouth.

7. Iron on the white of the eye and the jeans pocket.

8. Iron on the brown of the eye and the gray ring of the goggles.

9. Iron on the pupil (black dot in the eye).

10. Hot glue 2 little buttons on the minion's overalls.

11. Enjoy your creation!

 

   

I think this last minute idea was absolutely perfect. And he really loved it, too.

 

You can make one too!



Here's what you need:

Cheap yellow bottle or cup, adhesive vinyl (black, white, gray, brown), something to cut with e.g. scissors I cheated and used my Cricut.

1. Cut black strip about 1 inch wide and long enough to wrap around your bottle/cup.

2. Adhere strip to bottle.

3. Cut 2.5 inch white circle, 1 inch brown circle, .75 inch black circle

4. Cut 2.75 inch O ring shape

5. Adhere black circle on to brown circle, then brown circle on white circle. Now you have an eyeball!

6. Adhere eyeball to bottle on top of strap.

7. Adhere the gray ring to the eyeball.

8. Cut a mouth and adhere it under the eye.

9. Fill it with your favorite beverage and Enjoy!

 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed my minion projects. Come back soon.



 

When You Finally Realize Your Baby Sister Can Kick Your Butt...

Hey there! You all may remember a while back I had a Wordless Wednesday post of my favorite military person. Well, in honor of Veteran's Day I thought I would bring her back and share some more with you all about her. She's my younger sister, by 17 months. (The way our birthdays fell, we were 2 years apart in school.) But I've always felt super protective over my siblings. She'll always be a bratty baby to me.
About her:
She's in graduate school at one of the top schools in the country for her field. She spent 4 years in active duty in the United States Air Force and has since been in the reserves. She currently holds the title of  Technical Sergeant. Although she would kill me if she found out that I told you this; she just got picked number 1 for an officer training scholarship program. EEEEEEP! My baby sister is going to be a Lieutenant!!!

This is her accepting the offer on Veteran's Day. Isn't she beautiful?!

Yep, she's on her way back to active duty. While we don't live in the same state now, I still get to see her almost monthly since her reserve base is in my state. Once she's stationed, I'm going to see much less of her and I'm going to miss her terribly, but I can't help being so excited and so  proud of her. Since I've never written about her, I never gave her a name. So I guess we're going to call her Lulu (for lieutenant). Pretty cute, right?

On a more serious note, if you see a vet today or any day, Thank them. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS PRAY for them. 

Candy Bouquet for Boys

Yesterday was my sweet little nephew, J's 7th birthday. I don't see him very much. Mostly just at holidays. He's my brother's son and I don't see him much either. I usually go through J's mom to see him. Anyway, J's Mom invited us to his birthday party and I really had no clue what to get him. So I made him a candy bouquet. I was a little worried that bouquets seems so girly, but I think I BOYed it up pretty good. Yes, BOYed is a word, even if I just made it up. Besides, what 7 year old doesn't love a cup full of candy? I just hope he doesn't have any food allergies...

 

Here's how you can make your own candy bouquet.

1. I bought Laffy Taffy, Smarties, M&Ms, and Cookies and Cream Hershey bars. Then I bought a yo-yo, 2 little planes and 2 Hotwheels cars. One of the Hotwheels cars looks almost just like J's dad's car.
2. I taped all of the candy and little toys onto cake pops sticks. Well, Banana and I did.
3. I put a little bit of newspaper in the bottom of one half of the super cute Disney Planes cup. Only half because I wanted the back pieces to stick up higher.
4. I put all the sticks in the cup.

 TA-DA!

The finished product! 

 

This is the car that looks like J's Dads. 

 

Who else likes to give candy gifts? This is my 3rd candy gift this year. I made candy cakes for my bro-in-law and my 14 year old nephew back in April and May. Not sure I blogged about those yet. Maybe I will soon... Leave me a comment and tell me about your candy gifts.

 

Banana's Kindy Rest Mat

As you know, my Banana started Kindergarten this year. I'm not sure how it is where you live but here, it's all day. Ugh. I know, right? Anyway, after lunch they have a 30 minute rest time. They all have to bring in a large towel to lay on. So naturally I wanted to put her name on it in a cute way. When I did Monkey's towel, 2 years ago, I used my YUDU. Yep, another Provocraft item. But this time, I was out of time and feeling to lazy exhausted to fool with all that. So I grabbed my folder of stencils and some fabric markers and sat down to work at the dining room table. Of course since I chose to work at the dining room table, privacy was out of the question. I had intended to just put her name on and maybe one image. But Banana could not be satisfied with one image. She really wasn't happy with 3 images but I had to cut her off. This is what we came up with. (Sorry, I had to cover up her name)

The butterfly was all her! 

And I think the fabric markers worked really well.

I think she likes it, don't you?

Wordless Wednesday: Snaggletooth

My Banana lost her first tooth!!

WW! Our Story Isn't Over!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

2 Generations of Best Friends

Wordless Wednesday: Trip to Build-a-Bear

 

 

I Won! from Kim's Kreations

This is the beautiful BLOG CANDY I won from Kim's Kreations. She has some fabulous projects on her blog. So hop on over and check her out.

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!
~Ms.Random

Wordless Wednesday

29

Boys Dresser Makeover

     So Monkey's dresser has been kinda falling apart a little so I had to do some work on it. I
 had bought this "real" camo fabric to make him some curtains out of. He picked it out himself. After I made the curtains I had quite a bit of the fabric left and since I had his dresser drawers down in the craft room already, I though, "What the heck? I'm going to decorate these drawers too. So here is what I did.

 

1. I used my trusty drill and removed the knobs from the drawers.

 

2. I cut 4 pieces of fabric slightly smaller than the front of the dressers drawers.

 

3. Now then fun begins. Lather the front panels with a generous helping of Mod Podge. (pictured below) 

 

 

4. Smooth on the precut fabric.

 

5. Apply another coat of Mod Podge on top of the fabric.

 

6. Allow to dry.

 

 

7. Reattach knobs.

 

8. Put drawers back in.

 

9. Take pictures.

 

10. Blog about it.

 

Thanks for stopping by to check out my project.

~Ms.Random

P.S. Monkey LOVED it!

Wordless Wednesday

Snow Day!

Wordless Wednesday

We had a first this last Sunday... SKATING!
The pics are kinda blurry since they were moving and I was taking them with my phone but you can see what we were doing and that they were having fun! My cautious little Monkey had to bring his elbow and knee pads and his helmet. But he got too sweaty to keep them on after he got the hang of it.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

~Ms.Random

Peanut Butter Apples



      Hey there. Tonight my little Monkey asked me when I was going to make peanut butter apples. Huh? "You know Mom, like you do with the caramel." I've never heard of this but eh, I'll give it a try. And guess what, it worked! And they loved it! Here's what we did:

First put a clean craft stick in the bottom of the apple. Then cover it with peanut butter:

     Then you just have to add sprinkles:

And ta-da! Simple Delicious Alternative:

     

     The kids really enjoyed making and eating these. Do your children have any simple favorites? Please share them. And thanks for stopping by!

~Ms.Random

Wordless Wednesday!

Future Paper Crafter trying out Mommy's new Sizzix Texture Boutique

How to: Glitter Walls

     As you all know, I have been a busy bee working on making this house our home. And Banana's room is no exception. She had 3 requirements for her new room: 1. Blue
                                                                                      2. Glitter
                                                                                      3. Zebra
Quite a list for a 4 year old, huh? But I am proud to say: NAILED IT! Lol. While shopping at Menards one day I found the blue paint. In the mis-tint section, no less. Cha-ching! Yes, every Menards has one. They sell the colors that have been tinted and put back for $5 a gallon. And here is how to glitterise the walls.

What you need:
Paint
Glitter
Glitter Gun (I rented one from Just Ask Rental inside True Value Hardware store)

• First you put your paint on. ONE WALL at a time. I put the first coat on all at once then did the 2nd coat one wall at a time.
• Next fill your Glitter Gun with Glitter. Any kind of glitter you want. This is the glitter I used:

 If you look close you may be able to see that I only used about 30% of this 1 lb bottle.

• This is the Glitter Gun: the top opens  or the glitter to go inside. The circle is a crank handle. When you turn this handle glitter sprays out of the gray upturned "nose".

• On your wet painted wall; stand about 2 feet back and start cranking the handle and the wet paint will catch and essentially glue the glitter to the wall.
• Repeat on remaining walls that you want GLITTERISED.

 You should know that more glitter ends up on the floor than on the walls but it comes up easy enough with a vacuum. Well as easy as glitter comes off of anything.

So now we have the blue and the glitter but we are still missing one of her key elements. ZEBRA.

She also wanted pink but it wasn't a must. And I do believe I incorporated it in a very nice way. We picked out the pink curtains and I made the zebra valances out of the flat sheet that came with her bedding. Then at the last minute she and I picked out some hot pink and zebra Duck brand tape to use as a border. Yep, that's how this country girl rolls. 

And here is the finished product with one happy little girl showing it off.

     Have you done any home projects? I'd love to see them just leave me a link in the comments.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!

My Beautiful Floors

     It has only been 3 days since I shared my home with you but quite a bit has changed since then. Crazy, I know.
It all started Saturday morning when i was shampooing the carpets in the living room and dining room. I had gotten the living room done and half of the dining room shampooed when it occurred to me that the previous owners left some laminate flooring down in the basement... So I called Hubby in from the garage and asked what he thought about pulling up the dining room carpet and laying the laminate. Maybe I was thinking that if he wanted to do the floor, I could stop shampooing, but I'm not admitting any thing ;) Anyway Hubby loved the idea. He got on the phone with his bro and had him over to help within minutes. I'm going to call his brother Plumber, use your imagination on that one. Plumber is also married to Carmen. Just a little back story. They worked hard all day and even had Fil (father-in-law) come help. And the results are FANTABULOUS! I'm in love with our new dining room. I only wish I had a before pic to show you.

Doesn't it look beautiful?!

     They did such a wonderful job that I woke up Sunday wanting the kitchen done too. I had everything figured and priced before Hubby even got out of bed. I thought he would be too sore from the day before to want to do the kitchen, but NO. He was ready. He showered and got dressed in record time then we were off to Menards. We got in and out of there in under 30 minutes. Somehow he convinced Plumber to come back and help again. Thankfully! And once again they were back at it. And the kitchen floor looks just as fantastic as the dining room.

                                      

And I can slide in my fuzzy socks really well.

     Its a mess but they didn't get done till bedtime and I just didn't care. They did awesome and I'm super excited. Next project: Bathroom; flooring and paint. Can't wait! Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.

~Ms.Random

           

Welcome To Our New Home

     As you know we moved recently. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving. And I must say... I am in love with my house! We have lots of rooms. Both kids have their own rooms, Hubby has a room for his music equipment and I have a craft room. Well, I will, as soon as I get it cleaned and organized. But hey, I have a room for all my stuff. Lol. We have a basement!! A walk out basement at that. And Hubby has a garage. And a nice big deck. Our last home was beautiful too, but it was a manufactured home. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I really wanted a basement and there is no resale value in manufactured homes. We definitely have work to do here to make it our own and I can't wait. But hey I got Pinterest for ideas, right?

This is the living room. Its kind of a mess. I didn't think to clean up before I took the pic. Oops:)

 This is kitchen, which is also a mess. But hey, we actually live here.

And this is the deck where I plan to have Hubby cook all of our meals when it gets warm out.

   
     The kids have adjusted to the move so well. We still live in the same town and they go to the same school so that really helps. We bought our last house when Monkey was 7 months old so he and Banana didn't know any other home. I was nervous that it would be hard on them to move but, they both love the new house as much as Hubby and I do. They even have a play room in the basement. Not that they actually play in it, but it's there and they can if they want to. There is a concrete floor down there leading to all the rooms that they just love to ride their scooters on. And did I mention it is within walking distance to "the big park"? There are 3 small single piece of equipment parks in our town and on larger park that the kids have dubbed "the big park". (Our town is pretty small.)

    This is just a little bit of our home I hope you enjoyed seeing it. Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.
~Ms.Random