Evening Activity...

Getting started on a new embroidering project! There's several pieces and it won't be complete for a couple months, but I can't wait to show them all to you then!

There's just something about sitting quietly and embroidering...and on this particular one its a design that I hand drew :-)

This is the color scheme, can you guess what the design is? ;)

I am so excited about these and can't wait to have them done!

Easter Lilies!

Well, I was working on making a crown of thorns out of small twigs but it just wasn't working out like I had hoped. So not only is our Church without a crown of thorns, but so is my blog! I was wanting to post about the crown but I see I'll have to find something else to post about!
I help with the decorations at Church and so this morning I bought some Easter lilies for Sunday's service, I fixed them up a little though!

As nice as the flowers are, I didn't like these cheap and not-so-pretty wrappers that they came in, so I switched mine to white tissue paper! I did cut a small piece of the above wrapper and layed it on the tissue before wrapping the pot, just because any water or dirt would probably ruin the tissue paper!
What do you think?...

 I think it helped to make them look a little nicer and brighter! I can't wait to set them up at Church along with the other flowers we'll have along with them! If I can, I'll post a picture next week.

Have a wonderful, Christ-centered Easter weekend and a very joyous Resurrection Sunday!

Handmade Birthday Gift

I was just reminded that I promised to share what I made my Mom for her birthday! Remember we hosted a surprise party for her? Well, here's what I made her...

All it required was embroidering, some stapling and then gift wrapping! As you probably know by now, I love embroidering and find it relaxing and easy to do, but now I've also decided that canvas is one of the easiest and most useful things in the world to use!! I will for sure be using it again for crafts and gifts!

I enjoyed working with this design and picking the colors to use and such! My Mom loves VW vans and I had had this idea for some time now and had a lot of fun  making these (in between secretly creating things for the party)! I am so glad they were done in time too!

Sorry about the blurry picture...phone's fault!!

What is a craft you've been working on lately??

Homemade Granola Bars

So I don't know what's quite gotten into me but I have been so interested in taking some creative work into the kitchen and have spent quite a bit of time lately looking through recipes and food pictures for inspiration! A wonderful site I just discovered has not been too bad with giving out inspiration :) Amy at fearlesshomemaker.com is truly fearless with her lovely kitchen attempts! I am still going through the pages and pages of recipes on her site!
I've now tried 2 of them myself, the cinnamon roll muffins and now these delicious homemade granola bars...
Homemade Granola Bars:
Ingredients
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups cooking oats
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips (plus an additional 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chis if you'd like a little extra chocolate!)
Directions...

Lightly grease a baking pan, set aside.

Mix the crispy rice cereal and oats together, set aside.

In small pot, melt butter, honey and brown sugar together (I cut the butter into smaller pieces) over medium high heat until it comes to a bubble. reduce heat and cook 2 minutes, until the sugar dissolves. Carefully pour in vanilla extract (it will bubble up a bit), a pinch of salt and stir. Remove from heat.

Pour syrup mixture over dry ingredients and mix well to moisten all ingredients.

 If you'd like extra chocolate version fold in 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips. Pour into your greased baking pan and press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness. If your pan isn't small enough, pack the mixture into one side (this is what I did). You really want to press them down so they stick together. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips and press down lightly.

Cool on a counter top at room temperature for 2 hours or until the chocolate chips are set before cutting into bars. Note: I put mine in the frig for a little while (not too long), just to speed up the process a little! Store in airtight container at room temperature (our's didn't make it far enough for this tip!).

My personal advise: Don't measure the chocolate chips! Ok, maybe not the healthiest advise, but goodness, its chocolate! In fact, while my bars were setting, I put some chocolate chips, little bit of butter, vanilla and brown sugar and a splash of milk in a small pan and melted them together. Then dipped a few of the bars in the chocolate, which gave them a nice chocolate layer on the bottom! They were really good ;)

Anyways, if you're a health nut, then these will suit you because you can make them healthy style with a little less chocolate and more nuts, seeds, ect. And if you're a not-so-healthy person these will suit you because you can add as much or as little chocolate to them as you'd like :)

These were delicious and were gone before the night was out :) I loved making them and am excited to have this recipe to go to if I need to make something simple, easy and what everyone can enjoy! They're great for snacks, bake sale items, gifts, and hikes/outings! Quite a good way to avoid buying any granola bars with all those wrong ingredients from the store!

Enjoy!

A surprise birthday Party!

My Mom had been mentioning how she wanted a birthday party this year, so we decided to throw a surprise one for her! And we did it!! If you know my Mother you understand my enthusiasm! My Mom is one of those people that is very hard to keep a secret from...she always finds something out :) But not this time, we had nearly a house full of people hidden when she and Dad walked in from their day in Anchorage, she was greeted with a loud "Happy Birthday" which was replied to with a scream of delight!!
It was a lot of fun to put this together for her, and I thought I'd share some of the pictures with you all...

{Setting up...the dinning room table was such a mess there for a while!}

{These silly balloon bouquets that caused some laughter and lots of fingers ;)}

{Still setting up and preparing the food, but this is the only real good picture of those scalloped streamer!}

{Happy birthday!}

{The drink table!}

{The dessert counter...favors, ice cream, cake, punch and mints!! And for this counter I cut several 6x6 in. pieces of paper and used as a runner, and Hopey came behind me and sprinkled the whole thing with green sugar sprinkle which made it all look so festive!}

{A bowl of small thank you favor pouches! I made these and filled them with a few chocolate covered pretzels each! I don't have a tutorial, but may be making another on for that purpose!}

{A delicious cake made by my sister Heather (thanks Heather!) and the punch bowl/glasses and mints!}

{I wrapped re-fried bean cans with wrapping paper and a strip of paper and stuck a pretty sticker on the front...these we used for our silverware! Note: I did tape all the way around the top ledge to avoid anyone getting cut, just a suggestion!}

Dad and I sneaked off to town a few times the last few weeks while Mom was at the shop, and bought supplies, groceries ect. Hosanna and I had fun shopping for the groceries!! We served a taco bar with cornbread muffins, chips and cheese dip, fruit, and of course our delicious dessert counter! I didn't get a picture of the table all set up unfortunately but it all went together wonderfully and sure was good!!

We had a wonderful night visiting and playing apples to apples...we never did finish before everyone had to leave, it lasts a while with that big of a group playing! We had so much fun and had people at our home till 12:30 that night!
Happy Birthday Mom :)

Next time I'll share with you what I made Mom for her present!