Lemonade + Chicken = Lemonade Chicken!!

Super yummy!

I got this recipe from one of my friends' cookbooks. It was a slow cooker cookbook.

I love slow cookers because I just throw everything in a pot when the baby takes her nap, and let it cook. Not another thought about dinner. Great for busy moms!

I unfortunately don't have any pictures for this. We forgot to take some before we ate. So these will have to do...

Ok, ok, ok. Enough pictures. Here it is:

6 Chicken Boobies (halves)
3 Tbs Ketchup

1 Tbs Cider Vinegar

2 Tbs Brown Sugar

3/4 c Lemonade Concentrate

2 Tbs Cold Water
2 Tbs Cornstarch

Put first 5 ing in pot, cook for about 2.5 hours on Low. 

Mix the water and cornstarch till smooth. Take chicken out and set aside. Add water and cornstarch mixture to juices in pot. Cook until thickened on H, and add chicken till warm.

Diaper Cakes

We still are not settled in, but what was I expecting. 

In between unpacking and organizing (and decorating for Halloween, of course), I've been making a few things to add to my store. Though, I have yet been able to post them. I'm still needing to go to UPS to figure out the cost of shipping. 

Well, here are a couple of the diaper cakes I am selling at a flower shop in town.

These cakes include 2 receiving blankets, 1 6-9 mo onsie, 2 silicone 0-6 m pacifiers, bath toy, Johnsons travel pack, and a toy. These will soon be posted at my Etsy shop. If you are interested, you can go here!! 

These are some past cakes I have made ( I forget what's inside)

I made this one super girly because I knew my friend would LOVE it!!

This is the very first one I ever made. I have a better picture of it, but it's stuck on my old cell. My friend sent me this picture of them "unwrapping" it.

It's funny, but the way these cakes are posted is the way I made them! Most recent on top to oldest on bottom!

Well, I better get me some sleep. I've got a teething baby on my hands.

The Mothers' Christmas Presents

I've been MIA lately. We just got done moving into our new place and are somewhat unpacked.

I am so excited to be out of our itty bitty apartment. 

Before we moved out, I was ablt to get two Christmas gifts finished. Yes, Christmas gifts. This year I decided I was going to make all my gifts. 

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE MY MOTHER OR MY MOTHER-IN-LAW!!! If you continue, your gifts will be spoiled. Just trying to warn you...

I am making this gift to go with another, but I just haven't had a chance to make the second part yet. 

I wanted to give them a little bit of my baby for Christmas since they are so far away from her. I decided to make them shadow boxes. These are so simple and if you go at the right time, you can get the boxes on sale. I am debating about making myself one.

I picked out some paper that I really lied. I wanted something green and pink and I found these.

I cut out the pink and green paper the size needed to fit in the shadow box. Then, cut the pink glittery paper to border the photos I wanted to add. 

I used a few stamps to stamp her name under her photo, and I sewed a few buttons to the corners of the page. Added a glass dream ornament and a few stickers. To give it a more personal touch, I stuck on one sock and one mitten of hers that she has out grown. 

It didn't take me as long as I expected it to.

Now I have to figure out how to wrap these so they don't get beat up on the plane ride home. 

Gifts 2 out of 18 complete!!

Books I Want

Unfortunately I have not been able to work on any new crafts lately.

I am currently working on my cousins onesies at the moment. I am hoping to finish tonight or tomorrow. I really want to get them sent out tomorrow (knock on wood).

Then, I have to pack because we are moving in a few days. 

SO.... whenever I see a book that I really want, I take a picture of the cover with my phone and later look the tittle up on Amazon.

So, here is my list!!

Crafting Books

Has some awesome ideas, especially for those who are beginners.

I'm always looking for new things to make for my baby

These books are pretty AWESOME!! Their website is nice, too. They have some neat tutorials.

BABY STUFF!!!

Definitely a book to review if you have forgotten some of your basics

Scrapbooking Books

And other miscellaneous Books

I want the WHOLE collection. One of my dreams is to travel to each state and reference the books as I go.

Good Info for tortoise lovers. I always find info on aquatic turtles, but not so much a tortoise.

AMAZING sandwiches!!!!

Well, I'm definitely going to have to save up if I want to get all of these!

Onesie Revamped

It's been a crazy past couple of days. I'm loosing sleep and I'm a little stressed. My body responds to this by annoying me with a constant twitch in both my eyes. It's driving me nuts.

Good news, though! I think I found someone to sell my diaper cakes at their store! They want me to make a boy and girl cake to show. I have a lot of work cut out for me these next couple of days.

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, my cousin is having a baby. I bought some onesies for my baby and got the second pack half off. So, here is a short how-to on how I revamped one of the onesies I will be giving her.

I begin by getting my stencils out and tracing the letters I need onto wonder under. Remember, this needs to be done  backwards so the words come out correctly when ironed on the onesie or shirt you are using.

Once you have traced out what you want, you have to iron on fabric, cut, and peel. The peeling is the tricky part, especially if you have tiny letters like I did. For some, I had to use a needle to remove the paper.

This one was a but easier to peel because the piece was a bit larger

So I know my sister in law is going to roll her eyes at this, but I did the butt ruffles next. I wanted to match the fabric so I got red and pink lace and pinned them together to sew onto the onesie. This part was the hardest for me. It is very difficult to get this type of lace to stay in one place. I ended up sewing it by hand because it kept shifting from where I wanted it placed.

Oh, and I forgot to mention...on the heart piece, I stitched a border around it so it wouldn't look so boring.

Final Product:

Front

Back

Tag Blankets

I wanted to make something for my little girl that was bright and colorful with different textures. Taggy toys and blankets have become very popular lately because babies really love them! I was at my friends house in Florida a few months ago and it came to my attention that his daughter REALLY loves cleaning care instructions that are tacked on to stuffed animals and blankets. Well, I decided to make a homemade one for my baby, but just not as big. Just something small she can carry around with her that won't make her hot.

Front (I LOVE this pattern. I may have to go buy more.)

Back Fabric

I found some ribbon i really liked AND it was on sale! Beverly's always has some good stuff.

After spending FOREVER trying to remember how to place my bobbin back inside the sewing machine I was ready to sew. Then, my thread kept getting stuck. I started this at about 11 thinking I would be done at 12. No. I stayed up till 3 trying to get the stupid thing to work. Eventually I figured it out. You don't know how proud I was of myself.

Today, I gave it to my baby, and she looked at it, played with the ribbons for all of two seconds and shoved it right in her mouth. Now it's sitting out to dry....gross.

My cousin is having a baby so I decided to make her one, too. This time, it didn't take me nearly as long to get it done. Even with my baby awake.

Michael's Crop "Night"

I signed up for Michael's crop night (which was really in the afternoon) a few weeks back and the day finally came! I had been looking foward to this day FOREVER! I left baby at home with daddy (but still thought about her every second I was away from her). I packed my suitcase, and loaded it in the car along with the rest of my stuff. 

It was really brigth outside.

At first I felt silly walking thorugh michaels with ALL that stuff, but didn't regret it! I used most of what I brought. Once I got there, I was so scatter brained! I forgot to bring my actual scrapbooks, I forgot to bring my craft idea book, and my headphones (I am listening to an audio book).I'll bring it all next time...

I was working on my baby's scrapbook

Belly Page

It was a blast! There were only three of us, so all the machines were available to us whenever we wanted them. Speaking of machines, I fell in love with the Cricut! I knew I would like it, but I didn't know it would be this awesome!! We used the imagine, but I am thinking about getting the expression Anniversary Edition. 

I watched a tutorial on youtube that shows you can use imagine cartrdges in the expression machine, and it looked way cool to me! If you are interested, check it out here!!

Anyways, had a good time with it, cut out some ducky's, a few sea horses, palm trees, and of course awesome letters. 

After a while, it was time to pack up and go! It took me a while to figure out how I was going to put all my junk BACK into the bag...

As I was packing up, I was told there was a prize giveaway! Woo Hoo! Who doesn't like free stuff?! I got first pick, and chose the bag with the prettiest paper. This is what I got:

Decorative clothespins and a canvas pen and pencil

One thing I like to do with gift bags is turn them into pages for my scrapbook. The ones we got for the baby shower were so darn cute that I just didn't want to throw them away. The Result...

The green and blue ones are not from bags

Awful Birthday Cake

So my husbands birthday was this past month. I made the WORST birthday cake in the entire world. I wanted to do an ice cream cake since my husband isn't a big fan of just cake on it's own. Well, I realize my mistake. The whole process is supposed to take about 2 days to complete. However, having a baby and no time to do anything ever, I decided I wanted to do it all in one morning. 

Love these but they are NOT mine (and I wish they were):

Look how perfect these layers are!!

I fell in love with this one when I saw it

I had to laugh at this one. Me younger sister would LOVE this!

Maybe I'll take that cake decorating class they offer at Michaels. My friend took all of the classes and she makes wonderful cakes!! 

This is my catastrophe

I like confetti cake and so does my hubs, so this was the mix I used. Makes fun cupcakes too! I was disappointed, however, that they changed the sprinkles. They used to have great sprinkles!! matched perfectly with the inside of the cakes. Now they are pastel and longish. 

 I went to a few grocery stores to find strawberry ice cream, but nobody had any! I don't know if they sold out, or what! So, I decided to make my own strawberry ice cream!! I went to the farmers market and got a BUNCH of FRESH strawberry's a couple days before.

If I had to say one good thing about moving to CA, it's the fruit! (except their watermelon)

I had some left over ice cream from when my friend wanted some pie. So I scooped it ALL out and put it inot a bowl. Sliced the strawberries into many pieces and stirred till the ice cream was pinkish. It was pretty yummy! I thought everything was going so well at this point!

Yum! My husband loved this!

Oh, I forgot, while I was mixing the cake was baking in the oven. Once I finished mixing the ice cream, i put it in my 8x8 baking dish, covered it with foil and stuck it in the freezer to harden. I did the same with the cake.

My mistake was that I didn't let it cool long enough!!! The cake broke into sooo many little pieces!!

My husband HATES icing. I'm not a big fan, either, but I had to make the stuff stick back together somehow! Talk about a HUGE mess! Well, once, I demolished the cake, I somehow got ice cream shoved inside. I added food coloring to my icing, decorated, threw on some sprinkles ( I was really VERY upset about this) and pecans and threw it back in the freezer. What a nightmare. It finally cooled down. The ice cream no longer dripping out of all the cracks. 

The final product (I'm a little embarrassed to be sharing this)

With Candles Lit

UGGGG-LYYYYY

 

My baby shower cake was pretty awesome though, but that's prob because I didn't make it.