day 113: home-made tarter sauce

perfect for the scallops!

day 113 and we are having some lovely fresh scallops for dinner tonight ... my favourite thing from the sea!  i have alway's wanted to make home-made tarter sauce and if i knew it could be this easy i would have started doing it a long time ago.

you simply add mayonnaise and a green relish together ... yes that is it!  this wonderfully easy recipe comes from easy to be gluten free! i pinned the directions to my recipe must do's board on pinterest.

creating doesn't get easier than this!

outcome: totally quick, simple, and very delicious.  i love with things like this you can make it to suit your family's taste.  i used a gerkin pickle because we love gerkins and fish together ... and this home-made tarter sauce absolutely rocked and as a bonus it was easy on the fat content too :)

my thanks to the easy to be gluten free website for this no fuss way to make the best tarter sauce ... the best part is you too can make it to suit your families needs and taste buds, love that!

update on the emergency kit: still going strong, today i added the lighters :)

day 112: apricot and white chocolate cookies

day 112 and i wish i could tell you there was a special occasion today and i am baking for that but actually its just because the picture of these looks so good and i love white chocolate!  the recipe from lindsay and taylor at love and olive oil is pinned to my recipe must do's board.

it's not quite apricot season here so i used dried apricots for these cookies ... the rest of the recipe was carried out exactly as the recipe suggests :)

ready for the oven

a tin overflowing with cookies ... the kids were stoked!

outcome: it was hard to wait for an hour before cooking these ... the kids were hanging around like vultures ... they love white chocolate too!  was the wait worth it? totally if you love apricots and white chocolate, steve who prefers brown didn't love them as much as other cookies i have made, but still had four!  can't have been that bad aye!  they do spread and i had a couple of causalities off the side of the cookie sheet but luckily the recipe makes heaps (about 40) so it was a disaster to lose two to the bottom of the oven.  totally yummy, am going to try them with milk chocolate for the next batch :)

my thanks to lindsay and taylor at love and olive oil for sharing this recipe ... it's a winner with the kids and i and the combination of white chocolate and apricots works REALLY well ...  so very very yummy!

day 111: crayon art by the peeps

ben's finished work, he was so proud of it!

polly chose to decorate her card as well!

day 111 and its time to use some of these wonderful pinterest inspirations with the peeps.  today the peeps made crayon monograms inspired by the really cool one made by lisa from the blog well, how nice.  what i really liked about her monogram was it didn't have really well clean, defined edges, something i figured the kids would appreciate!  don't get me wrong, i absolutely adore the crayon monograms with the clean crisp lines (totally suits my personality) but i new the kids would grasp the project better and not worry about the need for perfect crayon placement so much when they saw the pictures of lisa's ... i love that hers has a more organic feel!

the peeps are currently looking at sculpture so this fitted in nicely, what better way to sculpt crayons than into your initial!  when they sat down for art they assumed they would be colouring in when they saw the boxes of crayons on the table ... ben looked at me and said "how much colouring do we HAVE to do?" he doesn't love art as much as his sister so the thought he was going to need several boxes of crayons was a little overwhelming for him!  and this was another great learning idea the kids took away from this project - looks can be deceiving, and what one item was designed to do doesn't mean it's the only thing you can do with it!

materials required

the actual project took two boxes of 24 crayons for each initial with very few left over.  we used a craft glue which they dunked the crayons into before attaching them to the cardstock.  i used a yellow sharpie to quickly draft each of their initials onto cardstock so they had a simple template to work to.  i helped them cut the crayons according to their specifications with a stanley knife.

such attention to detail!

her colours had to be perfect!

pollyanna's finished artwork 

benjamin's finished artwork

outcome: love that the peeps were totally fooled on what the art project was going to be!  they thoroughly enjoyed the process which probably took them an hour to complete.  it's amazing how much attention they paid to the crayon placement, i was totally stoked they gave this project such attention to detail.  tomorrow when the glue has set fully they will be an awesome addition to the classroom wall ... full of colour and each shows characteristics of their personality which is awesome :)

my sincere thanks to lisa from the blog well, how nice ... i love her monogram letter and these would be the perfect gifts for teachers and librarians ... especially if you get the kids involved to help!

day 110: tooth fairy bag

the finished tooth fairy bag :)

day 110 and we have some wriggly wiggly teeth around here!  to be fair the tooth fairy has never done a very good job around this house, we do holidays REALLY well but the tooth fairy often takes days to arrive and with ben's teeth we mostly forget to even get them under the pillow!  i have seen some really amazing parents do some wonderful things around the tooth fairy process and it has encouraged me to make a little more effort ... especially as both kids have teeth they will loose in the very near future given the wobbliness of them :)

i thought making this gorgeous little bag by molly at the purl bee might remind us more about - one, putting the tooth under the pillow and, two, hopefully the tooth fairy being a little less delayed in turning up ;)  i plan to safety pin it to the side of the pillow so its a visual reminder there needs to be a visit later in the night!  i pinned molly's creation to my sewing diy board on pinterest.

molly, who made these gorgeous tooth fairy bags even provides you with a template for the tooth pocket ... yeehaa!  i chose a light blue felt figuring it would work for both gender kids. you also need some ribbon, white felt, and some embroidery floss to complete the bag.

the bits and bobs required

ready to attach the tooth pocket

the finished bag with cute tooth pocket!

outcome:  i made this watching the rugby on tv tonight and it was a joy to make.  so much so i plan to give one to every future new born baby i know so their parents can do a better job of the tooth fairy thing than steve and i did!  really cool outcome, hopefully this will spur steve and i on to do a better job of remembering this childhood tradition.

my thanks to molly at the purl bee, i absolutely love this website.  its full of such wonderful diy craft's and this is not the first creation i have made from a tutorial on this site!  molly's sketchbook tutorial is brilliant and really comprehensive which makes it doable for anybody, regardless of crafting ability :)

day 109: button card

today's button card

 day 109 and i am still hooked on buttons today!  playing with the buttons yesterday making those bobby pins was so much fun, i wanted to use some more buttons in today's creation.  when you put "buttons" as a search in pinterest you get so much wonderful inspiration it was hard to know what to choose!

i decided on making a simple card as monday's are always a busy day around here with schooling and hockey and it's even more busy than usual with our house on the market and polly's broken leg!  today's creation is from jessica at how about orange.  jessica is REALLY creative and i have pinned several of her diy's to my pinterest boards!

she is very giving of her talents and has included a pdf so you can print your own stems and just add the buttons, how good is that!  i had five of my gran's vintage buttons i really wanted to use so i made up my own little stems in powerpoint using the basic shapes.  for christmas i plan to use jessica's pdf and print off a whole lot for the kids to add christmas buttons to for their christmas cards ... perfect christmas crafting for kids!

for this card i have printed it out on parchment coloured cardstock to give more of a vintage feel.  the parchment colour also matched the patterned paper i wanted to use which is always helpful :)  i used a craft glue and some heavy weight card for the base so the buttons wouldn't warp and bend the card when it stands up. i also inked all the edges to give even more of a vintage look.

my five flower template

materials you need :)

the finished product

outcome: easy and cute and i am really looking forward to the kids doing this as a christmas craft using jessica's pdf  template.  its achievable for them and they still have heaps of design input with regards to how and what buttons they add where.  i haven't put a sentiment on this card as one of the things that really appeals about the design is its versatility.  whether i use this card for a birthday, thinking of you, or as a note card it is still going to work!

thank you so much jessica at how about orange, not only is it a wonderfully designed card but also you give people the ability to achieve making it even if you aren't crafty ... i beat even my sister could do this with her one and only craft item, the glue stick!  this is the item i used and then had to replace while we were in singapore ;)

day 108: button bobby pins

these were a little addictive because they
were so much fun and really easy to make!
i ran out of bobby pins before buttons ;)

day 108 and its time for some embellished bobby pins!  i was totally inspired by the bobby pins christina from a homemakers journal made herself with a collection of vintage buttons.  as i am currently considering growing my fringe out i thought these might come in handy! that and there is an upcoming holiday which i thought polly and i could have some homemade bling in our hair for ... really who doesn't want some halloween bobby pins!  this great idea is pinned to my general crafts board on pinterest :)

i did sew the buttons that had visible holes with thread before hot gluing them to the bobby pins.  for the pins with loops on the back i used a stanley knife to take the loop off, leaving a flat surface to adhere to the end of the bobby pin.

my gran's button stash ... it was a treasure trove of cool
buttons i wanted to adhere to clips!

a couple of reasons i took this photo: it shows the back loop
of the button i took off with the stanley knife and also
if you are making "sets" of clips make sure you set them
out facing in different directions then you won't need
to put a cat upside down in you daughters hair if she
wears one each side!

the pile of finished clips!

outcome:  i love vintage things so the ones with the vintage buttons on are my favourites and they will definitely come in handy for sweeping my growing fringe out of my eyes during summer!  as for the holiday ones, i think this a really great, cheap, easy option for having a little holiday bling for the girls in your life!

my sincere thanks to christina from a homemakers journal for posting about making her bobby pins when inspired by some she saw at a local market ... i love when great ideas become real :)

day 107: the space between your fingers

love this saying AND its so true, i always feel so protected
when i'm holding his hand :)

day 107 and its time to head outside into the sun and get some chalk on the concrete!  i have been wanting to do something with a picture on concrete for ages ... absolutely love all the inspiration on pinterest where people have used concrete, chalk, and picture taking all in the same creation!

what better thing to chalk on concrete than an inspiration saying like the one pinned to my likes from here on google:

the spaces between my fingers are where yours fit perfectly

luckily my husband was happy to contribute ... love him so very much! 

and this is him!

outcome:  happily ever after ;)

we are off to see the all blacks play france, so nervous should be a really awesome event though

kia kaha all blacks :)