sunday showcase #3

We have been enjoying a laid back weekend here. Yesterday, my husband planned a little informal dinner, cleaned the house (the downstairs at least) in preparation for a few friends to join us, bought some delicious steaks, a few other accompaniments were brought by friends and then, he cleaned up afterward! Yea, me.

Now for the good stuff:

***Insta Snow link now corrected***

Insta Snow--this stuff was way cool, even for the above 7-8 year old crowd. I highly recommend this for schools, parties, magic shows....
DailyDigi.com--A new, super well done site with a daily, worthwhile message + fabulous pictures and layouts.
credit card/debit card/ business card holder--The tutorial begins as a tea bag holder, also cute, but I love the small changes noted at the end to create another version. I have this on my to-do list.
Lorna Doone 100 calorie pack--these are so yummy, but yes, they are very small. I could eat all 6 packs at one sitting. I haven't. But I could. Pin It

my valentines...and a thank you never goes out of style

Yesterday, both girls had parties at school. The top pic is my cutie Shelby. Below, is Olivia with her tongue out, surrounded by other classmates. They were playing a snowball game where the kid opposite you was throwing a marshmallow and trying to get it in their partner's mouth. Totally simple, totally fun. I am the room mom for her class and some times, I just feel down and overwhelmed. I did more of a "snow day" theme vs. hearts and love. It is nice to see the kids really enjoy what I have chosen, discovered, purchased and/or invented...to do. I will share the BIG hit of the party during my Sunday Showcase. And this is a really great ego booster...not 1 hour after the party, a parent called to thank me AND say what a superstar I was b/c her kid was totally thrilled. I thanked her for calling b/c it meant that much. It might save me from a planned early retirement from this whole room mom occupation! Seriously, a phone call, and a written note, never go out of style.

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i am a rock star...

If you have girls, you can probably sing right along with those lyrics "i'm not usual, not so typical...i might even be a rock star!" --Hannah Montana

So back to the pics. Olivia was given the assignment to make an instrument and last week, she made a flute from drinking straws and was satisfied until...the other second grade classes showed up with their much fancier instruments yesterday. Then she declared she wanted to make a guitar, on the night before it was due, the same night that we needed to prepare for 2 Valentine's parties. So, I assigned the task to her father and handed him the most recent Family Fun magazine. Oh, I also secured the cardboard box from a neighbor. A few hours later and Voila--an over sized, pink, electric guitar!!! I guess it was a big hit at school too.

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vintage sewing notions and a valentine table runner

Very near my house resides a store called Gayle's Vintage Clothing. Sunday was a fabulously, sunny, warm day so I took myself down there and found these wonderful notions. The place is JAM PACKED with treasures. My heart started racing when I saw drawers marked: buttons, rick rack, seam binding...! What I like best about these are the packages and old school prices. I spent $4.
Next, I made a heart runner for my table. It took awhile so it will be on display for a whole 4 days at this point. I am really perfecting the binding but there is just no quick way to get it done. I drew this heart by hand onto card stock and them simply cut it from 3 fabrics. I machine stitched those onto the white background and then did some machine quilting through it all. All the fabric is from Hobby Lobby.

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a good, quick dinner

photo from Campbell's site)

I just made this up very quickly for tomorrow's dinner but I had a very delicious sample--yum-o! The recipe can be found here: Campbell's Beef Taco Skillet. I am thinking this would make for some great nachos, just leave out the tortillas and spoon it over a platter full of the crispy kind instead. I am about a week late on that for Superbowl, huh?! Pin It