I love Saturdays!!!!

Saturday 7/30 checklist

1. Cinnamon tea with honey! check

2. Make Sugar Donut Muffins (recipe found at Pintrest). check

3. Go for a 45 minute bike ride. check

4. Get a 1 hr massage and sugar scrub with a 50% off Groupon. check

1. Started my Saturday morning with delicious Mexican Cinnamon tea and honey!! I love this stuff just as much as my Starbucks Skinny Vanilla latte and it is less expensive! I found the tea at Rancho San Miguel Mexican market. So far this is the only straight cinnamon tea I have found. If you have found a good one elsewhere please let me know.

Then it was on to trying a new recipe I discovered while perusing pintrest.com. Had to make these Sugar Donut Muffins. We all liked them and I will be making them again! Perfect to make for breakfast or brunch! You can find the recipe here: http://bakingbites.com/2008/09/sugar-donut-muffins/

If you have not discovered pintrest yet, you have to check it out! I am totally hooked. It is a site for everything creative, photography, wedding/event planning, recipes, and everything else!!!

I am still figuring out how to navigate through it, but I have already found great wedding ideas and several recipes I have to try. I even found an origami star pattern for my son to make.

(pintrest.com)

Next it was on to a nice cool morning bike ride. I have been taking advantage of breezy mornings and evenings to get lots of bike riding time! I love riding my beach cruiser!!!!

Then after a quick shower I headed off to take advantage of a wonderful groupon that I purchased a few months ago. I got a total body sugar scrub and 1 hour massage for $40.00!! Score!!

It was wonderful and much needed!!!! Another site you have to check out if you haven't already, groupon.com. You sign up to get daily emails of great discounts in your area.

After the massage I noticed Kat's Cakes was accross the street and was able to order our wedding cake.

I love Saturdays!!! I hope you had a great one too and have a wonderful weekend!!!!

Talk to you soon!!

Getting back into the swing of things

I haven't posted since before Easter!!! What the heck?

I have let my job stress me out and keep me from doing some of the things I love!!

No crafting, no blogging make me a crazy girl!!!!!

I haven't even kept up on checking in on my favorite bloggers!!! Nor have I made any effort in the arrangements for the quickly approaching October 9th wedding!!!!

I can say that the big project at work is coming to an end!!! The stress should go way down by the end of the month!!!

Tonight I perused a few of my favorite blogs and this is what I found!

My friend Emily is back up over at Bunch of Scrap! Glad to see her back!

I also had to print out recipes that I must try from Crafty Sisters (Apple Toffee French toast bake, Blueberry Pecan french toast bake and Breakfast Egg Casserole) and Lick the Bowl Good (Chewy lime coconut sugar cookies)!

And I see my friend Julia at Julia Luvs 2 Stamp is making some great cards!!!

Hope you have been having a great summer!!! I am loving these cool evenings!!!

Hope to get back to you soon with some recipe reviews and some wedding favor creations!!!

Be back soon!

An elegant egg!

This picture just does not do justice to this beautiful elegant egg basket! Went to Lynn Hampton's monthly Stampin' Up club last night and made this beauty! This is gold paper with gold embossing powder. We added the egg tag with a couple of gem brads to finish off our elegant egg basket. I have been afraid of embossing with a heat tool, but found that it wasn't so difficult after all. All of the supplies were from Stampin' Up of course. We used an egg stamp, the lovely swirl stamp, heat gun, gold paper, double sided adhesive, gem brads and gold embossing powder. I think I have officially overcome my fear of embossing with a heat gun and look forward to using the technique to make wedding invitations. Have a wonderful weekend! Be back soon!

A Crafty Sisters Jelly Bean Topiary

Spotted this lovely jelly bean topiary over at Crafty Sisters Blog and had to try to make my own!

For this project I needed 1- 3" craft ball, floral foam, a wooden dowel, floral tape, 1 12" piece of ribbon, 1 small clay pot, off white paint, pink paint, 1 bag of jelly beans, hot glue gun and lots of hot glue!! The most time consuming part of the project was gluing the jelly beans. (got everything except the jelly beans at Joannes, purchased the jelly beans for $1.00 a bag at Super Wal-Mart)

It was worth the time! I have supplies to make 5 more! Can't wait!!!

A big thank you to the Crafty Sisters for all of the great projects they share! They have a great variety of projects and an Etsy shop! Head on over to their blog, you will not be disappointed!

Springy Pastel Mini Milk Cartons

Here are the finished milk cartons (batch #1). Didn't have any Easter stamps, but had some pretty flowery scrapbook paper and the butterfly stamp and punch from Stampin' Up. The die cut for the milk carton is from Stampin' Up as well. The die cut machine used is the Sizzix Big Kick from Michael's, purchased today with a 40% off coupon. Score!!! These little milk cartons are absolutely adorable! Looking forward to making many more of these little cuties. I am loving these spring colors!!! Really perk me up after all the rain we have had the last 2 weeks!!!!

Pancake Batter = Funnel Cakes who knew!!!!

My daughter loves to watch The Cake Boss. She recently saw an episode where he said that funnel cakes were pretty much pancake batter fried!!! I never knew!!! She wanted to give it a try and made some for dessert last night. She has a pic of the finished product on her cell, but I didn't get a pic!!! She made regular pancake batter per directions on the box and added a dash of cinnamon. She heated up the oil and then put the batter in a sandwich bag and cut off a small tip of the bag. Then she made squiggly messy lines of pancake batter in the hot oil and behold she had funnel cakes!!! We topped with powdered sugar and strawberries. The only thing we were missing was the whipped cream! Darn! Next time! I am sure that there will be many next times because everyone enjoyed them and they were easy to make!!! I will take pic's the next time! I had such a nice visit with my daughter! We did some shopping together and made dinner and dessert together. (We made a baked mac and cheese from scratch that was a big hit as well-- I will post the recipe and pic's next time I make it) Today I started working on these tiny milk cartons. Still looking for ideas for the embellishing. Do you have any ideas? I am going to make these in pairs. Come back soon for the finished product! Hope you had a great weekend! Be back soon!

The 50th Anniversary Cruise & Moving On

My parents 50th anniversary could not have been more memorable! The cruise was wonderful. The weather was great! Everyone had a wonderful time on Catalina Island and Ensenada.
The actual Renewal of Vows ceremony and celebration were beyond my expectations. Carnival took really good care of us! It was worth every penny and more!!!!
Here's to many more Mom & Dad!
John took all of the photos on our trip. We love this Catalina shot! Blew it up to 11X14 and it now hangs in our bedroom as a lovely reminder of our wonderful vacation.

I loved this one too!!! This is the sunrise in Ensenada taken from the ship.

The vacation is over. We are getting pretty settled in our new place. Garage is almost ready for my craft spot! Hoping to get to some Easter creations this weekend.

Now that life is getting somewhat back to normal hope to be posting more!

Hope you have had a good week despite all the rain!!