I have a new crush! Cupcakes!

I've found and fell in love with a new blog. Kimberly at Attempting Creative is a genius in everything she does. Cooking, crafting, sewing...heck even at being just plain adorable! She may not know me from the other 100+ followers she has, but I am now consider myself loyal. Kinda like a kid asking over and over "are we there yet?" I find myself checking her blog throughout the week wondering when the next post will come! Maybe i'm a bit of a blog stalker? First step is admitting it...right?

So go check her out. She's got a Cupcake Carnival with oodles and gobs of good receipes and amzing photos to get your mouth watering and sweet tooth begging for mercy! Click on the button below!

Graduation party decorations

I was asked about a month ago to help with and make decorations for a friend's daughter's High School Graduation party! I am so excited to help! So after putting together some ideas, it was decided to go with pinwheels for decorations on the tables and as cupcake toppers! School colors are red and black and Ally (the graduate) wanted to throw in some bright pink as well! At first I was worried at how the three colors would come together...however, after my first trip to Hobby Lobby to grab paper for the projects, I was S.O.L.D!




I made 30 pinwheels for the table tops, spray painted soup cans filled with play sand. I put the pinwheels on small dowels painted white and called it done! It was a lot of time spent cutting, punching, taping and painting. But all in all, it was very easy and very inexpensive! Easy enough to do infront of the tv! lol. My kind of craft!

I also crafted a penant banner spelling out Congratulations in the same paper colors and sewn directly to a ribbon. This was hanging on front of the food bar. I'm having a hard time getting a good picture of it. This was the best I got. But let me tell you! It was soooo cute!


The cupcake toppers are a mix of pinwheels and some cut outs I made. Of course the foil cupcake wrappers put a little "bling" on the plates as well!


Now...onto the next paper crafting project for a friends benefit!

GW lamp, GS shade

So after seeing sooo many good GW finds in everyone else's home in blog land, I've started to frequent the store more often. I've found some little glass dishes and candy bowls that I love, a framed canvas pictured that I bought just for the frame (I'll cover the canvas and do my own bit) but this lamp was my gem! Well, doesn't look like much to begin with, but for $4...I could risk it not working!


Here is my end table in the livingroom with the old lamp. Too spindle-y and not enough "GERTH" if ya know what I mean! Something chunky, something a little more...me!

So because the wall behind my couch is chocolate brown, I knew I would need to paint it. I have alot of white and cream accents with my big lantern, newel post, ceiling tins on the wall and my shutter with the flower boxes in them. So it was only right to continue with the cream.

I roughed it up with some sandpaper, and used my Warm Scones sample from Ace Hardware and threw two sloppy coats on this baby! It already had some pits, cracks and knicks in it, so I just made ure that the paint did not fully cover those!

Um! Super happy with it...even without a shade. Gotta find a shade! So yesterday while out snooping around garage sales, I found this pretty little thing! Vintage, retro, original...LOVE HER! I prayed the whole way home hoping it would be the right size for the lamp! But at only $2 there was no way of passing her up!


So whatch think? Is it a right fit? Look at her details! I. love. her. Yes...Its a her! Just the right amount of whimsy with the vintage, rusty, chippy accents in my livingroom...and even the more modern couch!

I'm linking up to the following parties! Click on the buttons below and check out the other great ideas! You'll be sooooo inspired!

Pencil Holder & Note holder!

I had this super spectacular idea to come up with a crafty and cute, yet handy caddy for pencils to help my Mom organize her desktop for Mother's Day. She is super helpful and always helping my family and my sister to cart around kids before and after school, helping me while I recovered from knee surgery and getting herself, My dad, and me to Dr's appointments the last couple of months. With all the appointments and responsibilities it became difficult to keep track of all the schedules. This homemade gift would be a perfect compliment to the Day Planner that I also got her for Mother's Day!


I started with a clean jar, cork, jute, fast drying craft glue and for something a little extra, a little picket fence!

Now...I apologize, as I am horrible at taking "in progress" pictures. But the steps are pretty easy to follow.
Measure the height of your jar you are covering. Cut the cork to that measurement and roll the cork around the jar, glueing as you go. I did two layers to give plenty of depth for pins/tacks to stick into later.

I have to admit. I wanted to just leave it with the cork only. However, I was so excited to get going that where the lip of the jar was smaller than the rest, it left a void between the cork and the lip and looked funny. So...what to do next? How can I fix this flub up?

JUTE! Wrapped it all in jute, then Hot glued the little picket fence around the container. I'm including two pictures of the finished product. Plain, and with Mom's "REMINDERS" to help her keep track of her day! Pretty enough to set on the kitchen counter, desk top or next to her chair with her pens and paper!



I hope you enjoyed! Click on the buttons below to visit other sites and more great ideas!

Banana Cream Sandwhich Cookies

First thing is first!
Happy Mother's Day to all the selfless, dedicated, and wonderfully perfect Mommas out there!

This year we decided to pass on the big elaborate meal and save some moola and eat treats instead after lunch! Eat...thats what we do best in my family!

I've been inspired by so many wonderful posts out there in blogland with tempting treats, and decided to make my own!

This particular recipe was inspired by the packaging of Bakerella's Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies and the melt in your mouth flavor of the Banana Cream Frosting recipe from Kara's Cupcakes! These two ladies have outstanding sites that share thier creativity and passion of all things sweet and fun! Check them out if you haven't already!

Now...I just hope I do the inspirations proud! Try out the recipe and share your successes...or flops for that matter! Cause I have more flops than I can list and would love to be comforted by yours! lol. Oops Did i just say that?

I'm starting off with the following ingredients that you probably already have in your cupboards...ok, maybe not the Banana Extract. But it was less than $2 Walmart.

1 yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp banana extract
powdered sugar for decoration

Combine and blend the cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil and banana extract. (disclaimer..picture below shows lemon extract from a previous recipe with same steps. Saving space on my computer from uploading another pic)


Drop teaspoonsfuls of dough in to a bowl of powdered sugar. Roll around until they are lightly covered.


Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 6-9 minutes in a preheated oven.

The bottoms will be slightly browned on the bottoms and slighlty chewy on the inside.



FANTABULOUS BANANA CREAM FROSTING
1/4 cup butter room temp
4 oz package of cream cheese room temp
1/2 of a 1 lb box of powdered sugar
1/2 box banana cream pudding mix

In a mixer, cream butter, cream cheese and vanilla.
*This is where my mixer died...sniff sniff!
Gradually add sugar and pudding mix until smooth


Turn one cookie upside down, and spread your frosting as thin or as thick as you like before the guilt sets in! Place another cookie on top!


This recipe is just enough for 10 sandwhich cookies. And actually, unless you are serving a ginormous crowd, that should be plenty, cause these little cookies are delicoulsy sweet. However, If you wanted to double the frosting recipe, it would be just enough to top all 20 of the cookies individuly rather than as sandwhiches!

Let me know if you try them!
I'm linking to the following parties! Click on the buttons and check out the other wonderful decorating, partying and cooking ideas!

For the love of all things louvered and weathered!

First of all... Kudos to my mom for the idea and to my Super fab Dad that put it together!

Dad tore down a barn several years ago and salvaged these out of the rafters I believe! Not knowing what to do with them at the time, but being smart enough to know not to toss them...he keeped them in the rafters of his own rafters. They are now lining my fence on the side of our house giving extra texture, height and color to my most shaded spot! But wanting to do more than just lean them up against the fence Mom came up with this idea.

Dad used 2 shutters, and cut them each midway up. He nailed them together at the corners and used a small block on the inside of the frame.

This is so we could put a false floor in the bottom (we put 2 bricks in the bottom incase a strong wind threatened to blow the piece over) and again about 6 1/2" from the top rim. (that measurement is so that I could place the fern pot down inside without seeing it. You could change this measurement to fit your containers. Both floors have a hole drilled for drainage as shown.

This is the finished peice! the height is just right so that if I wanted to hang something above it I still can!

Yep...thats me in the reflection!


I'm linking to Funky Junk's Saturnight Special! Click on the buttons and check out the other great projects! There is a whole section just for awesome shutter ideas!

Dreaming up more ideas!

Sitting on my backside for the last 2 weeks has provided me PLENTY of time to dream up more projects to keep us busy. That is once I'm able to put weight on this leg of mine and can move a little better!

So I've said from the day we moved in, that Tim and my bedroom is the least attractive in the whole house. However it would be the very last room we would touch because no body would ever need to see it. Its on the 2nd floor and there is no reason for company to see it or be upstairs, unless we're showing it off!

Currently, it looks very Swiss Chalet style. Dark 70's paneling on the bottom of the walls, and dark brown furring strips trimmed out on the top portion of the walls every 16" or so all the way around. Very original to the 1975 date they built the house. But to take off the paneling, and tear off the strips of trim would leave a mess of the popcorn texutred walls and ceiling. So why not cover it up again!?

I've found my inspiration! Wide plank horizontal paneling!

I love the look. Very cottage-y. I think it would make our bedroom look more like an attic conversion than an after thought!

The painted finish is yummy too! Love this blue/green. Not sure on color scheme. Heck, by the time we finish all the other projects and are ready to tackle the bedroom, I may change my mind completely. But today....this is what I want!

Whatcha think? Yes, No? How to go about it? Paint the planks before installing? Or after they are up and attached?