Emery Board Holder

I used this tutorial at Sherry's Simple Blog to make this cute emery board holder. This would make a nice little gift. They are easy to make.

I made a couple small adjustments. I used velcro as a fastener instead of buttons. Also, I decided to decorate it with flowers. Love this quick, cute craft!

Flower Cupcakes

It's so easy to make these white chocolate flowers.
I just melted vanilla chips in the microwave, stirred it, put the melted chips (careful, that is HOT!!!) in a Ziploc baggie, cut off a small corner, and created flower shapes on wax paper. Then, before it got hard, I put some sprinkles on the flowers.

Once they are hard (that goes pretty fast) you can use them to decorate the cupcakes. You could also make them ahead of time.
A very easy way to make simple cupcakes look really cute!

Kids room toy organization solution: Picture Tags

Sometimes the mess in our playroom drives me up the wall.
Often, everything that is in the boxes pictured above is laying on the floor.

I have learned that kids like to dump boxes of toys on the floor.

I used to have a "theme" for things that belonged in every box,
but most of the time we end up just stuffing toys in the boxes,
just making sure they are not on the floor.

But that doesn't really help much, because next time when they are looking for something,
they end up dumping everything on the floor again.

So I got this idea, nothing genius, but hope it will work:
I labeled the boxes, so that they can see what belongs in there.
Not just that: we organized the boxes,
then I took a picture of the contents of the box.

I made tags using these pictures, so that my kids (who can't read yet)
can see what belongs in which box.

I uploaded the pictures to my computer,
and used Photoshop to add a nice background and titles.

I printed and cut the tags.
Then, I used clear packing tape to laminate the tags.
With a hole punch I made holes in the tags.

Then, I had my girls match the labels with the right box,
so that they would get the idea.

They did great!

We tied the tags to the boxes with ribbon.

And, now I hope I won't find all these toys on the floor anymore :)
So far, so good...

I linked up to:

Fresh Salsa Recipe

One of my favorite summer recipes:
Fresh Salsa!

If you have a lot of tomatoes from your garden,
this is a great way to use them.

It is so simple to make, and healthy and delicious.

You need the following ingredients.
Usually I get most ingredients from my garden,
unfortunately this summer I had to buy a few of them
But it is still very tasty!

The amount of ingredients is just a matter of taste,
so I will just list the ingredients, no exact quantities.

• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Jalapenos
• Cilantro
• Lemon juice (just a little bit)
• Salt
• Pepper
  

Just chop your ingredients, mix in a bowl,
add some lemon juice and salt & pepper to taste,
and enjoy with chips or your favorite Mexican dish.

Kids craft: pom pom animals

I am a big fan of simple, cheap kids crafts.

So here is another one we recently did!

The only ingredients needed:

• A bag of colorful pom poms (Dollar Store)
• A bag of googly Eyes (Dollar Store)
• Glue (washable!!)
  

My kids had SO much fun creating soft, furry creatures.

I started out by helping them, but realized I should let them do it.

The perfectionist in me often wants to 'help' and let them create something that lets pretty.
But I am trying to learn to let them do their thing, and not worry about it looking good.

They enjoy it, and it has been good for me to see that they can do it on their own, even if it looks a little (or a lot) different than I had in mind.

Kids craft: flower purse

Here is another quick craft that little girls will enjoy!

What girl doesn't 'need' a cute flower purse?

All you need is"

Small craft purses ($1 for 3 at JoAnn's)

Foam Daisy Stickers

Rhinestones

Use the flowers and rhinestones to embellish the purses!

My girls liked to stuff them with little books, notepads and crayons.

I have to say that they played with them much longer than it took to decorate the purses.

But I love to see how proud they are of their own creations!!

Fresh Strawberry Jam

I always thought making jam was very difficult and time consuming.
Then I learned about freezer jam. It's quick and simple and I love it!

We made a load of freezer jam.
It's so simple. I used Ball instant fruit pectin, strawberries and sugar.

I used my blender to crush the strawberries and followed the directions on the package.

Now we have our favorite jam for the months to come!