sweet inspiration

Whipping up some creative projects today...!

I'm feeling inspired and it has nothing to do with the delectable Sprinkles cupcakes we made!

I swear. ;)

Whatcha doin today?

(PS Thanks KC and Allison for the cupcake mix and cute toppers! xo)

I wasn't kidding...

I wasn't kidding about the snow we woke up to on Tuesday. The only 2 people left smiling in our home were Q&A. Oh, make that three including the pumpkin with his blingin' tooth.

Thank goodness it melted in a few hours.

Your costume suggestions were great. I think we figured out what we are going to be... just need to pick up a couple pieces for it.

Some of you might remember the costume cookies I posted about last year for Halloween. I am preparing some roll-out sugar cookie dough again so we can make these with our cousins tomorrow. I used a knife and hand-cut designs & then pushed in some sucker sticks before baking them.

As if sugar cookies couldn't get any better in my eyes, Cookie magazine tempts me into making costume cookies for Halloween! I love this idea because, hey, I love any excuse to eat frosting

and I like being a dork. Which is how you feel when you make your husband hold up a mustache cookie while you hold up a scary tooth cookie.

After doing a little research I need to order these cookie cutters for next year:

mask cookie cutters

mustache cookie cutter

cookie confession

Let me just start with a confession about how I've been tremendously unambitious lately. To the point of sheer boredom. ha. No scrapbooking or crafting. In fact, the closest I've gotten to anything remotely creative was unfolding a perfectly neat pile of fabric to start on a quilt, only to fold the pieces back up into a much less pretty pile.

Although we did manage to make some cookies today... that should count for something right? And we had no problem eating them up too. Surely there's something creative to be said for that. heeheee. ;)

But tomorrow's a new day and there's something in the air this brisk, fall night that has me anxious to design with the new Dear Lizzy Christmas & Enchanted lines.

Actually, this is the opportune time to test my cure for a creative rut checklist. I'll let you know how that goes...

sprinkles on top

Sometimes crafts and sweets go hand-in-hand... okay, all the time.

Especially sweets with sprinkles on top.

Especially when I've had a rather... interesting... day.

Especially when you deserve a reward with out the guilt.

Especially when such sweets include pink frosting & a tea cup of milk.

Especially when you've got a long list ahead of you to check off.

Especially when you have someone to share them with.

A few hours later a conversation with this darling went like this:

"Eat your dinner please."

"I don't like this dinner momma... but, I do like pink cookies."

We are full steam ahead for Spark. Our teachers have designed really spark*y classes!

Here's a peak at the mini class I'll be teaching.

I adore the House of 3 banner tags & I used lots of fun Sassafras papers.

Which if you noticed in my last blog post I love their Indie Girl Collection.

Also, Shimmerz has some snazzy colors we'll be spritzing on our projects to make paper flowers and to add a little sparkle.

Spotted lots of Dear Lizzy Enchanted & Dear Lizzy Christmas at 2 peas as well.

disappearing act

For my next trick, I will successfully eat a happy stack of pancakes while the kids are napping with no guilt or remorse that I could have accomplished something much greater in this amount of time or ate something much healthier... because what's the fun in that? ;)

You may have recognized these photos in my book. Thoughts today are what I was thinking over a year ago when I took these photos just for fun.

If you are local in Utah County there is a workshop tonight at Dear Lizzie by the fabulous Amy!!

today

There are some days when the morning sun warms your spirit and you find yourself dancing along while doing your morning routines.

Today is not one of those days. Today is a day where I am still in my pjs & my greatest accomplishment has been eating a half dozen berry muffins.

I guess baking them could count for something.

Although the kiddos are calm and sitting here coloring at the moment... I can sense they are scheming up intense investigations in their adorable little minds to test my mommy skills today.

I am definitely not complaining... just preparing myself. :)

want or don't want

To a 3 year old the simple difference between want and don't want can be complicated to grasp. So today at the store when I tossed some mini cupcakes into the cart as a reason to celebrate, or at least that was my excuse to buy them, I clearly wasn't sneaky enough because Avery saw them. She then had to make it very clear to the entire store...
"I don't want a cupcake. I don't want a cupcake!"
Okay. Okay. Avery, I'll eat them!
I couldn't help but laugh at the looks I got... Oh, and as if we weren't already getting enough attention click to see this photo I shared from my Twitter via twitpic.
Grocery shopping has never been so eventful.

Going back to the adorable mini cupcake, that yes I had to take a photo of--What was the reason to celebrate? We launched registration for SPARK! It's exciting to see creative woman signing up from all over the country (Florida, Ohio, California, Illinois... etc etc) Are you a Spark Girl?

Frame: House of 3

PS That cupcake was delicious.

bored+donuts

Somehow Collin's birthday that we celebrate this Wednesday has now become his 'birth week' (He said he was crowning for a week... that's when I spit out my drink because I busted out laughing.) This kills me because planning one day is already more stressful than finding the right gift at Christmas for my Greek grandma (Love you grams). I guess his birth week started tonight so he's at a baseball game with some buddies-that's when I made a turn for the worse.

When you are bored you should never ever eat donuts... especially the mini ones. The mini ones are the worst because you don't know how many of them it takes to make a regular sized donut & you just keep popping em in.

Can you tell I'm bored...

My recent favorite jeans + comfy tee + donuts + chick flick (Return To Me, Sweet Home Alabama or The Notebook)=me tonight. Wanna join me...

Does anyone know what my shirt says... ? I should probably figure that out before I wear it around town... :)

Best 4 quarters I've ever spent!

This summer I will happily hand over mucho money in return for a cup of sugar flavored ice! :)

sugar coated day

If pictures could talk, or if 3 year old kiddos could stop long enough, they would say this party was totally awesome!! Bubbles, Craft time (putting together foam animals & painting) and all you can eat cake--what more could lil fancy pants ask for?
patiently waiting We sang the birthday song Avery style... 'Happy Birthday to you... cha cha cha. Happy Birthday to you... cha cha cha!...'
Make a wish...
After the sugar kicked in... this face made it all worth it!

On the menu we had fruit kabobs and the yummiest fruit dip, chips and salsa, veggies and dip, pink lemonade... and lots of treats!
Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us!! ♥ and the rain for being somewhat cooperative!

Snippets

Random snippets of a Wednesday morning. You can get a lot done when the kiddos wake up at the crack of dawn.

Teaching this class on Friday at Scrap Etc event in Georgia.

Watching this cutie strut her stuff 10 steps at a time.

Laughing at this girl's lingo. Right now she says, "Mmmm, that smells gooooood" to everything-especially things that smell... not-so-good. Makes for a good laugh.

Wearing this watch made by Christy... how did she know my birthday was next week and I wanted a cute ticker...?

Baking these extra crispy cookies. If anyone likes overcooked chocolate chip cookies I can bring this batch right over because I like them soft and gooey.

Happy day!

springy snacks

In case you didn't know, we are snackers... we love to eat All. Day. Long. :) So when I first saw the idea of using a muffin tin to fill with snacks for the day I knew that's just what we needed to keep this little squirrel happy.

Instead of a muffin tin the silicon cupcake cups worked perfect along with a cute Cram Cream tray. Yes, you will find me digging in too.

Another page using the Scarlet Lime kit that I showed a peek of last week but now you get to see the whole enchilada.

I love the new line from Sassafras called "vintage yummy" that's where you find the cute dear paper.

I missed Idol last night. Who did awesome? Kris was my favorite last week! Happy Wednesday!

a celebration with a cherry on top

We celebrated some fun stuff on Saturday over a spectacular sundae. It was well deserved & Avery definitely wasn't complaining. :)

(cute headbands my sister makes)
I'll post the winner of the fabric onesie sometime today... speaking of fabric I ♥ these fabric journals spotted today at one of my favorite blogs Oh Joy! found at the freshly blended etsy shop. I wouldn't mind the whole collection stacked on my bookcase. :)

(Tuesday+me=American Idol)

Who's your fave? I like Adam Lambert, Matt Giraud, Danny Gokey, Allison & I do love Megan Joy's voice. It's definitely the guys' year of AI though.

PS I'm not gonna lie-I miss Norman and those legs. ;)

preheated the oven

Now all I need is a yummy, fluffy frosting recipe.

Happy Friday!

Lucky you!

The winner for the camera strap give-away is......................

.....Christine (Hicks Happenings)!!!!!!!

Email me your address and your favorite camera strap so we can send it off to you- lucky girl!

and lucky me cause this was my photo-of-the-day yesterday-a delectable stack of chocolate covered pretzels! mmmm! Definitely an indulgence while the kiddos were napping.

Good thing I didn't set any 'eat healthier' resolutions. :) Sorry for those of you who did and I am setting a bad example as well as posting an evil, tempting photo! Forgive me. :)

Snowed In

I woke up with a plan... to check off all the procrastinated Christmas to-dos on my list but mother nature had something else in store. Lots of fluffy white stuff! There is no way that we are going out in this!

Since we are officially snowed in we decided to make sugar cookies.

Which was really fun until the flour was more interesting than the cookie cutters & cookie dough. Now the kitchen is as white as outside! :)

Please say I'm not the only one with a list of things to do! :)

Here's the recipe:

Sugar Cookies

1 cup sour cream

1/2 t soda

3 eggs

1 c butter

1 t vanilla

1 t salt

Large t baking powder

2 c sugar

4 3/4 c flour

Cream butter and sugar first then mix in sour cream and soda.

Roll out cookie dough with rolling pin then use cookie cutters.

Bake at 375 for 8 min

'Snowed in' Betty Crocker style

Yesterday snowed like crazy!! I was even surprised when they canceled our church because of it. What would the pioneers think about that?:)
So, what do you do on a Sunday afternoon when there's 2 feet of snow outside? Make snow angels? No way it's freezing! Shovel? Nope. Make some yummy chocolate on chocolate cupcakes that's what you do! MMmmm mmm!