Addicted!

Do you have a Trader Joes where you live? I LOVE Trader Joes. Love it! I do almost ALL of my grocery shopping there. Well, minus my produce that I get from the co op.

Lately I am ADDICTED to these two little treats.

The powerberries are amazing! They are kind of like tart raisinettes. Only it isn't actually a piece of fruit. It is blueberry, acai, pomegranate, and cranberry juices condensed down to form a little gummy piece of deliciousness. THEN as if that weren't good enough they are dipped in dark chocolate! I love how the package says "excellent source of vitamin C, made with dark chocolate a natural source of flavanol antioxidants". Haha! Like that is supposed to make them healthy, which by no means are they healthy. But they sure are delicious and in terms of calories not all that bad 180 cals for a 1/4 cup which turns out to be like 18 pieces...not that I'm counting or anything!

The dark chocolate nutty bits are just that. Sweet crunchy nuts, dipped in smooth dark chocolate with a hint of Fleur de Sel (which is a nice finishing salt). They are sweet, crunchy, and just a bit salty. SOO delicious! These ones are a bit higher calorie 190 calories for 3 pieces. But come one these are nuts and nuts are really great for you right!?

If you've got a TJs near you, you should definately check them out!

Anyway sorry to be a bad influence....just had to share my latest addiction!

Love and hugs, 

PS. By no means did Trader Joes pay me to speak so highly of their wonderful little grocery store or amazingly delicious products! I truly adore them!

White Elephant Wednesday Volume II

This week when I went to The White Elephant it was CRAZY! They were having a sale of some sort. I was too flustered to look at what was actually on sale...but I spent less than $20 so I wasn't real worried about it. I checked out the clothing section and didn't find any good quality clothes to refashion. Maybe next time!

The haul...minus the cough syrup bottle, forgot that one in this shot?!

I did find more Ball jars so I scooped those up.

As well a vintage cough syrup bottle. Same as the ones I told you about last week. They were still there and I had dreamt about it all week so I thought I should go ahead and get one. Look closely it says cough and colds, the brand name is creolemulsion (btw spell check tells me that isn't a word, ha!). Maybe I'll get another one next week and start a collection of sorts. Even though I'm not real sure what to do with it?! Any ideas? Maybe a couple long stem flowers in it would be nice!

I checked out the kids toy area...nothing great.

Checked out the "housewares" area and found Candy Land the board game for $0.50! I opened it up and inspected it the best I could and from what I can tell it was rarely used and still has most if not all of the pieces.

In the same housewares section they had cool outdoor lanterns that looked kind of vintage to me. The first time I walked by they had 2 green, 2 red, and 2 silver. After I mulled it over and decided I wanted one they only had 1 red and 1 silver left. (Yeah! It was that crazy in there! Think of the Jerry Seinfeld wedding dress episode!) So I grabbed a red one.

See it up there?! I think she found her new home!

I think I'll put it up on top of my cabinets in the kitchen with all of the other nick nacks I've collected. Oh yeah, that is another larger version of this cupcake tower. It still needs distressing. Yes, even The Planner procrastinates at times!

I got a couple more hankies (I LOVE the white lacey ones!) and one scarf that I was thinking of using to make this necklace.

In the sewing area I found some random piece of fabric. Not sure what it would have been used for maybe a tea towel? All the edges are hemmed it isn't just plain yardage but not big enough to be a table cloth or sheet or anything. I thought I'd use it for a dress or skirt or something for the girls. Definitely with a liner because it is kind of sheer.

In the notions section I found some lace in fun colors! Brown, blue and black! Some of the black (there is 6 yards of it!) already has plans the others I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking I'll wait until the perfect project comes along!

I also found a couple little square crates that I was thinking of using this tutorial to make them liners/covers and put them in Hailey's closet or on her hutch somewhere.

This week I worked on painting that big popcorn tin I found last week. But we are going on a stay-cation soon so it'll have to wait until we get back to be finished and filled with rice! I am super stoked because there is supposed to be this AWESOME thrift store where we are going, which will make for an awesome Wednesday next week!

Have you guys done any thrifting lately? I love finding things to repurpose and reuse! All for a fraction of retail. What can be more fun and exciting than that?!

Love and Hugs,

Appliquéd Foofa shirt

Do you watch Yo Gabba Gabba? Isabelle is OBSESSED with Gabba (how we shorten it in our house). Her second birthday obviously was Yo Gabba Gabba themed. I made her this shirt and thought I'd type up a little tute on how I did it. Because it turned out awesome...if I do say so myself! I made one for Belle and of course last minute Hailey said she wanted one too. Eventually I made one for Nona (Tracie's youngest) for her birthday. Super quick, simple, and amazingly cute!

I found this image on NickJr.com specifically for making t-shirts so I didn't feel like I was infringing upon any copyright laws.

Materials List:
A blank t-shirt
small pieces of either felt or fleece (yellow, light pink, dark pink, white, red)
Foofa print out
black fabric paint

I printed out the image on just regular printer paper and cut out each of Foofa's features (flower, middle of the flower, head in a teardrop shape so you can overlay the flower, petal collar, eyes just the whites, nose, and mouth). Then pinned them to the coordinating fabric and cut out each feature.

Then carefully stitch down each piece. I used a zipper foot so I could go right to the edge. Since you are using either fleece or felt you don't have to worry about it fraying and stitching ripping out. Start with the head because it is the largest piece and everything else will be layered over top of it. Add the flower (on top of her head) and petal collar. Finally the white eyes, the yellow middle of the flower, nose, and red mouth. This will create a nice layered puffy effect!

Finally when everything is stitched down get your fabric paint out and paint on the outline of her eyes, eyelashes, and iris. Let it dry and watch your child's face light up with happiness!

The shirt in action! Belle's 2nd birthday.

Belle's flower hair bow, just like Foofa!

And a few more pics from Belle's birthday just for fun! 

Mommy and Belle being silly...well Mommy being silly!

Belle digging into her cupcake...you can tell she is totally smiling! Love it!

As I'm finishing the post I am realizing that this shirt is kind of hard to photograph. I think it is because it is somewhat stiff. Trust me it looks WAY cute! You could really use this technique to make ANY character your child's little heart desires. I wont tell if you wont!

Love and Hugs,

White Elephant Wednesday

So I think I will try to do a weekly post called White Elephant Wednesday! The White Elephant is our local thrift shop. A thrift shop like NO other! This place is huge and they have everything! This week when I first walked in there were no shopping carts. So I just grabbed a little hand basket (like the ones at the store when you only have to grab a couple of groceries). Next time I'll bring my stroller in with me!

So I looked around a bit and immediately stumbled across this lovely little case! Upon later inspection I came to realize it is an old kinda beat up well loved pilots case. I think I'll clean it up and use it in some photo sessions with the girls and keep it up on top of my cabinets somewhere as a decoration!

Then I came across this HUGE popcorn tin. My SIL gave me one but it is a newer one and not nearly as big as they used to come. SO I've been looking for one for awhile to store our rice in. I think I'll paint the outside something fun!

In the same area I found some quart sized Ball jars. We all know why I need Ball jars! With all of the tins Belle found this little tiny tin she wanted. It was 50 cents so I let her keep it! I'll paint it for her as well and she can keep all of her little trinkets in it.

I then headed over to the toy section and my eyes locked in on a cabbage patch dolls. I don't know about you but my girls LOVE cabbage patch dolls. This one has stamped on the back of her head "first edition 1990". I KNOW they were around much earlier than that but it makes this little lovey a bit older than the rest of our cabbage patch dolls. I took her home cleaned her face with a wipe and stuck her in the washer and she looks brand new! She also looks very similar to my cabbage patch doll that I had when I was little. His name was Roger and he had chicken pox. Not sure how or why but he had chicken pox! Then Belle found a glow worm and had to have it! It was $1 so I just let her carry it around with her.

I ventured over to the glass cases where they had the higher dollar (ha!) items. If you consider $5 a high dollar item! They had baskets and baskets of vintage handkerchiefs. I picked out the fun ones and looked around some more.

They had these really cool old milk bottles but I wasn't sure what I'd do with them so I passed them up. They also had some blue glass medicine bottles that said "for ingestion" on them. I passed these up too because I was running out space in our little hand basket and Belle was tired of holding her glow worm and little tin.

She did spy this little pony behind the counter nothing special but she wanted it and I'm a sucker for that sweet little face. And a good bargain!

I didn't even get to look at clothing to refashion but there were racks and racks of it. Next time I will alot more time for thrift shopping!

Here is a pic of everything I got! All for $11.25! WOW! Oh AND that straw wreath form in the back. Almost forgot about that one! I have a BIG idea for that form for Halloween.

Love and Hugs,

THIS is what I've been up to!

Jam making, jam making, and more jam making! Mix in some canning and I've been one busy girl! I bought bulk blueberries, cherries, tomatoes and pears from our produce co-op, Bountiful Baskets. Seriously they were unbeatable prices! I got 9 pounds of blueberries, 24 pounds of cherries, 24 pounds of tomatoes, and 36 pounds of pears.

Pear Jam...never had it but tried some out of the pot and it was de-licious!

Marinara Sauce

I made 5 pints of blueberry jam (all of which have been given away or eaten), 4 pints of blueberry pie filling, 8 pints of cherry almond jam (3 have been given away), 5 pints of cherry pie filling, 9 quarts of marinara sauce, 2 pints of salsa (not pictured for whatever reason I forgot them in the pic), 8 pints of pear jam, 4 quarts of canned pears! And there are still about 1/4 of the pears left...

Did I mention somewhere along the way I was feeling like I had missed something...I totally did! Strawberries. I missed the amazing strawberry guy at the farmers market this year. Luckily they are on sale this week at Basha's for $0.99 a pound. All of our Basha's closed awhile back so I had Walmart price match it and was surprised at the quality of strawberries they had! I got 4 pounds and made 8 pints of strawberry jam as well!

The cherry was the most time consuming! These were raw cherries, that means not pitted or stemmed I had to do it all! Luckily my Step-Mom had given me this amazing little cherry pitter! I never knew there was such a thing but it made my job significantly easier and much more efficient. Even still I spent nearly 6 hours pitting and stemming these little suckers!

The blueberry was the easiest and tastiest so far. You don't have to seed, stem, skin, or pit blueberries! Just wash, mash and cook! SOOO delicious on pancakes. This was the first batch to be made so the first to set up and be given as gifts. We gave some to our local ACE Hardware because Ms. Christine orders me random things I want/need so I don't have to drive into town, our neighbor (who traded me some peach jam), my good friend Monica (Chloe's Momma from this post), we ate 2 and are finishing up our 3rd jar! Mmmmmm... Somewhere along the way we found out Belle is allergic to blueberries :( It only took 3 days of puking after breakfast for me to get the point!

This week we got 2 kilos of mangoes from the co-op and will be working on those as well as peaches. Which are on sale at Safeway this week! When I saw a kilo of mangoes I instantly thought of a kilo of drugs?! Huh? But no...a kilo basically equates to 5 pounds so we are getting 10 pounds of mangoes! I LOVE mangoes so much and so do the girls! I am looking forward to find new and exciting ways to use them.

I am by no means a canning expert I just read the Ball Blue Book of Canning and follow the directions. Seriously follow the directions! You do NOT want your food to spoil or your family to get sick along the way.

I really enjoy canning all of these things. Some people may not, it is time consuming and kind of warm. As you generally have at least 3 burners going in the kitchen. But not only are we saving money (as we will use this throughout the year), home canned foods are more nutritious have very few preservatives in them and you KNOW what is going into it. We are big on not doing processed foods or anything we cannot pronounce. I can pronounce sugar, water, pectin and fruit!

If you are lucky enough to have a Bountiful Basket co-op in your area you should really check it out! We started getting the baskets almost a year ago and have yet to be disappointed with the amount of produce we get each week for the price! You can check out some of the hauls on my good friend Alysa's blog InspiredRD as well as a bunch of fun nutritious recipes! Just scroll down a bit, she does a post every week on what we get in our baskets here in Arizona.

I think my hubby thinks I've gone a little coo coo :) Maybe so... but at least we'll be a well fed crazy family!

Thanks to my wonderful cousin who picked the book and pot up for me! She knew this would be right up my ally. And it definitely is!

Love and Hugs,