Easy Valentines Day Treats

Happy Valentines Day!

Here are some quick and easy ideas that you still have time to do today!

My kids woke up to these treat bags this morning.  I was not very excited about the gifts they had at the stores, and for the price I decided to make my own.  I bought the little cans of soda, the cute bags, and a bag of Valentines Hershey Kisses.  I grabbed a few extra items out of my pantry and some secret stash (M & M cookies they hadn't found yet).  

One of our almost traditions is that I try to make pink pancakes for Valentines Day.

Last year I bought some metal heart cookie cutters on clearance, after the Valentines Day, and I used those on my griddle to make my heart shaped pancakes.  Spray come cooking spray inside the cookie cutter and be prepared that the cookie cutter will get hot.  I used some little tongs and a spatula.  

I found that just flipping the pancake and cutter over together worked best.  Then I gently pushed the pancake down to touch the griddle.

 Since I think I get to go on a date, I wanted to do a special treat for the kids for after supper so I whipped up these cupcakes quick.

This time I totally cheated and used a box mix for the cupcakes.

I then made some cream cheese frosting and grabbed my sprinkles.

I put some sprinkles in the glass bowl and turned my cupcake upside down and dipped it into the sprinkles to decorate the frosting.

The great thing about cupcakes is that usually there is some extra frosting.  This is why I absolutely love to make cream cheese frosting for cupcakes.  My kids will then use up the extra frosting as fruit dip.  I have to admit, it is pretty good that way.  

I love these new papers that don't fade!  Three Cheers, I will definitely be looking for these on clearance.  They are the Reynolds Stay Brite Baking cups, 36 count.

This worked awesome!  No huge sprinkle mess to clean up afterwards.  

Ok, so your thinking to yourself that you really don't have time to do this today.  So keep it in mind for next year.  The great thing is that kids love having pancakes for supper as well as breakfast.
Make sure you do hit the stores though to pick up sprinkles, cupcake papers, treat bags, etc.  I even buy the kids' Valentines for the next school year and save them.  Put it in a Rubbermaid and label it Valentines and then, if you really think you'll forget, set a reminder on your phone for next February 1st to go and open your Valentine bucket and scope out your loot, enjoy how much money you saved since you bought it on clearance and enjoy less stress since it's already in front of you and you don't have to schedule that trip to the store.
Happy Day!

Cute Pants

"Mom- I need new church pants." my son tells me yesterday.

WHAT?! I honestly just bought those pants, most likely in October but dang it, they should last longer than a couple months!  I saw the other day that my youngest daughters pants look like high waters now.

Who says my kids can grow up?!

On top of that, I don't ever remember having to buy my kids new pants in the middle of the winter.  They usually make it right to the end of the school year.

Having bigger sized kids in the house makes clothes shopping a challenge.  For my son, I have to buy husky with the adjustable waist and cinch those babies up, since the regular are a hair too tight around the waist.

My son out grew his 12 H jeans that I know I just bought for school this year in August so I thought to myself, this is easy, I just need to get 14 H in the same style and brand and we'll be good to go.

He puts them on and comes out of the bathroom.  Short of the pants falling off of him while he's walking he's telling me they are way too big.

I ask him, did you tighten them?  Yep so much that the grouping up of the fabric would hurt your skin.

So frustrating!  

Anyway, I can still find pants for my son, but for my almost 6 year old daughter it is a whole different ball game.

The most creative pants solution for her is what my post is about today.

If I'm lucky I can find cute girly capri pants in her larger size and they end up being cute jeans. 

 Otherwise

I buy my baby girls pants at goodwill, or other used clothing stores, garages sales, etc.  They have Gap, Childrens Place, Old Navy and other brand names that look awesome and have held up well, and look like they have lots more miles left in them, and I can be as picky as I want.  Ultimately I'm just going to take the scissors to them, so if the hem is rough from dragging on the ground, don't worry about it.  The pants I have on here are 12's for the 5 year old.

I take them home and cut off the extra 8 inches or so of pant legs and re-hem them.

Re-hemmed pants (sorry, she's a little dirty-it's kinda hard to get her to stop for a minute for a picture)

These brown sweat pants are my favorite.  I love the hot pink seams on 

the brown so I stuck with that and hemmed with a zigzag stitch.

 The shirt my little sweetie has on in these pictures is also a 12.  Shirts are another whole issue.  Lets just say 3/4" sleeves are wonderful!

Happy sewing!
 

Glue Stick

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We had an awesome Christmas!  We took the family up North and we got to learn something new.  Cross Country Skiing.

I sent my cards out late this year...on purpose!  I wanted to make sure everyone got a copy of this picture of our family.  We had an amazing time and stayed at the most amazing place.  But that is a story for another time.

So why do I have a post on glue sticks at Christmas you wonder? 

 Well, because I absolutely cannot stand to lick envelopes.  Yuck!  I always spend extra money to buy the self adhesive office envelopes but for my Christmas cards I never did.  I always worried about having enough cards for a cheaper price.  This year I had to add a few extra cards to the ones I picked up last year so I actually found self-adhesive ones and smiled when I put them in my cart.

For the envelopes that were not self adhesive I grabbed a half used glue stick that one of my kids brought home at the end of a school year.  It was wonderful!  So much easier than a wet towel.  And easier than bribing the nearest kid to lick them. (They are all getting too old now so it doesn't work anymore.)

I am all about recycling when possible.  Especially since 3 of the 4 kids bring home about half of the ones I send to school all half or barely used.

 Some other uses I do with these are:

Christmas projects for the kids!

I keep one in my bill box, just in case I have to actually use an envelope these days.

Office.

I put a few extras in my scrap booking caddy, since even at my most prepared I might run out of my favorite tape runner, or I can step up and help out a friend when they might have no adhesive.

The kitchen junk drawer (you just never know).

My youngest daughter has an old school box with scissors, washable markers, and glue sticks to glue all her scraps of paper.

Budget/Organizing Tip:

This is also the time of year that I dig out the old school supply list that has just been laying around under a stack of other papers, make a copy of it and stick it in my purse.  Why, you ask?  Well, I have 4 kids to buy school supplies for.  I have found that if I start to buy a couple things a week during the school year it doesn't seem to hurt as bad when school starts back up.  

I like to start after Christmas.  I try to dedicate no more than $5.00 per week.  I have a 10 gallon plastic container I keep all the supplies in.  (Put a copy of your list in the bucket too, not much changes year to year) Then in July or August my kids can shop in the container and we load the backpacks.

My school supply store

Yes, somethings are cheaper that week before school starts so save out for those items if you want.  I tend to grab items like glue sticks, binders, pencils and pens from Sams Club when we are close to one.  (My last package of glue sticks from Sams ended up being a few cents cheaper per stick than the sale ones before school started.)

If you take on this idea yearly, make sure you check your inventory and cross off what you don't need, then you don't have to worry about it, unless it's a really good deal.

I also buy the big package of Kleenex's at Sams Club and divide it up per kid.

It's just so nice to not have to deal with the stress of it all before school starts when you are dealing with so much other stuff, as well as other school expenses that take an unexpected chunk out of your wallet, for example...school lunches, pictures, snack fees, sports fees, shop fees, parking fees, you get the point.

One thing to consider as well, I hit Menards a couple of weeks after school started and they still had school supplies on sale for .85.  Then they had a .50 rebate.  Limit of ten items.  These were great items like pencil sharpeners and colored pencils, as well as other things.  So I loaded up.  I find that you always need colored pencils.  My sophomore even needed some last year for Geometry and this year for Biology.  I was surprised, I thought once she was in high school she wouldn't need them anymore.   My final cost was .35 per item.  WOW!

Good luck.

Diaper Baby Cakes

No, you don't eat it!  

On top of this one I put on a pair of paper booties in lavender.

This is a wonderful baby shower gift that I have been enjoying making lately.  In fact, I made these two before Thanksgiving and I am making two more in the next few days. It is a great centerpiece for the gift table, then afterwards the future dad can disassemble it to be used after the baby arrives. 

Supplies:

Box of size 2 diapers

hot glue

1 wide colored ribbon

1 thin colored ribbon

3 spools of  10 ft length 1/8" thin white ribbon to tie diapers with (you can also do a coordinating color instead.)

1 large cake cardboard circle

1 smaller cake cardboard circle

decorations such as tulle, flowers, paper booties, baby bottles, pacifiers (whatever your mind can imagine)

To start out I cut my ribbon into strips to tie the diapers with.

Cut your 1/8"  ribbon into about 12 1/2 inches long pieces

To save on hot glue, I roll up the diaper and tie the ribbon around it to hold it closed, it's looks cute too.

You could even recruit some helpers to roll the diapers while you tie.

Cake cardboards,  I use two different sizes.

First layer

For the first layer I start with the cardboard and put a little hot glue in a small area to stick a couple of diapers down with.  I continue this process all around the outside edge of the cardboard until I have my circle of diapers.  Yes the diapers will stay standing up if you let the glue set.  I stick a few diapers in the center to hold the shape and then I add the wide ribbon and hot glue that on as well.  I go all the way around the diaper layer and give a little dab of hot glue here and there to hold the ribbon in place.  Once the ribbon is secure I fill in the center with more rolled up diapers.  

Adding the other ribbon color.

I hot glue the smaller ribbon right on top of the wider ribbon.

This becomes the back.

These pictures are of the bottom layer.  To jazz up the cake a little bit I glued some coordinating tulle to the diapers so it will stick out past the next layer a little bit when you place the next layer on top.  I do keep the bottom and second layer separated.  The cardboard sits nicely for the final display but it is much easier to move around when the two cardboard layers can sit, and travel separately.

 For the second layer, use the smaller cardboard and repeat.

Then make one more layer on top of that one.  The third layer is glued right to the second layer.  For the very top, I like to lay down two diapers and glue, then angle a couple more over the two laying down and glue those on.  Then jazz it up with a bow that has some long tails, or some tulle.

Some flowers to decorate with.

I even had extra supplies to made the momma a diaper corsage.

Not the best picture but this is the top of the diaper cake with the booties.

Then you just hot glue all your decorations on, just a little dab goes a long ways.

Have fun!

Gift Tags

Wouldn't a homemade gift tag look great on that special gift?  This is a fun project to do.  You can even use your scrap paper to make all kinds of tags, for all occasions.

I bet your thinking, who has time for that???  Well, you do!  It doesn't take too long and it's even better if you would like to make a lot you can assembly line the steps.

I made this as an example for some make and takes, so I cut lots of paper and got a lot of stuff coordinated for everyone to make this and it might have taken an hour.

Start out with your largest piece of paper 2 1/4" x 4".

Your next piece of paper will be 2" x 3" and you will want to round off all 4 of your corners.

And your last piece of paper is 1 3/4" x 2 3/4", round those corners as well.

My tag is intended for Christmas so I punched out a snowflake to jazz it up.

With your first piece of paper you want to pick one end to trim the corners off.  I kept the piece I cut off and flipped it over to use as a guide on the opposite side so my corners are the same size.  Hole punch the middle.

This is the paper you will stamp on as well.

Pick a coordinating ink to rub on the edges of your smaller two papers.  I like to add a little extra ink to the top too.

I used my glue runner to stick the smaller paper to the larger and I also gave it a squirt of Glimmer Mist before I added my last piece of paper.

Wrap your ribbon around the tag 3 or 4 times and use tape on the back to hold it in place.

Cut a ribbon about 5" long and insert through the hole.  

Stamp your tag.  You can use anything, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Congratulations, etc....

Be sure to let the ink dry well before you do too much more with it.

Use a glue dot to adhere your decoration.

I also had a self stick gem I added to the middle of my snowflake to give a little extra sparkle.