Little Beane Boutique

I just got the mail and opened a fabulous surprise! The labels I ordered from Little Beane Boutique arrived today! Check out her etsy shop by clicking on the link! She had much more than these, but I thought I would share a few of my faves! I love all of the kids party stuff too!

Sorry about the size of the smaller pictures. It wouldn't let me delete them when I was going to change them to the bigger ones, but oh well.

Since I give away baked goods so often, these are perfect! I also bought some for a fellow baker's birthday coming up, but I don't want to show those and give away the surprise. ;) Check her out on etsy!

Red Cake Stand

Since I am hosting a couple of Valentine's Day parties, I thought I would make a cake stand to go with the decor. I came across this red plate at Marshall's on clearance for $3. They also had the salad size plates for $2. I bought one big one and had a crystal candlestick at home from my thrift store stash. I seem to always have at least one on hand ready to go.

I used Amazing E6000 to attach the candlestick to the plate and let dry overnight. I think it will be a cute addition to the Valentine's table I will create!

Oval Chalkboard Frame

The oval frame was $1 at Rescued Treasures. I took out the ugly picture and gave it three coats of chalkboard paint that I already had from previous projects. There was a bubbled piece of plastic instead of glass on this frame, so I just removed it. I painted it Heirloom White with about 4 coats of spray paint. I simply inserted the chalkboard back into the frame and since The backing of this frame wasn't going to told it firmly in place, I hot glued it into the frame permanently.I can hang it vertically or horizontally. I am going to hang it as the top picture shows, near my craft station so I can jot down supplies as I run out of them.

This is a smaller version of my first chalkboard project... and it only cost me a buck!

Thrift store frame makeover

On Friday morning while the kids were at elective classes, I hit up a couple of thrift stores. I found these two frames worth buying at Rescued Treasures. The large one was $1 and the smaller one was $2. I have a can of Heirloom White that I bought last week for a different project. I took out the insert and painted it. It took about three coats.

I think it turned out pretty cute for $2! It matches well with my 10 cent chalkboard frame that is in the same bathroom.

A taste of Orange Blossom

On Friday the hubs and I had to go to dinner at what we call "elderly time" because our sitter needed us home by 7. The choice was eat super early without kids and cut date night short, or take the kids with us. You can guess why we chose option one. We were there before the owners were there, so we did not get to try the specials that night, but I took a picture of my regular meal that is always on the menu so I could share it with you instead. These are Almond Prawns with Tequila Lime Butter and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. It is actually an appetizer, but I like to get it as my meal. I ordered the sauce on the side...it is FABULOUS, but my tummy has issues with too much butter so I need to be in control of how much I use. ;)

They are panko breaded, with sliced almonds as well and believe me when I say they are perfect! The sauce completely makes them! It is rare at a restaurant to find shrimp that are not overcooked and rubbery, and just an all over fake taste to them. One bite into these and you will taste the difference!

My husband doesn't like sweets {weird, I know!} but his one weakness is chocolate ice cream. They make all of their ice cream and sorbets homemade! The hubs actually suggested the ice cream this time and let me tell you ...it is SO GOOD!

Even though we had to eat early and be home early, at least we made it count with a trip to OBJ! Our taste buds are never disappointed. These are entirely my opinions and I'm not being paid to share them...we just believe in their quality of food that much!

Young Authors Faire

Our teacher at Charter Home School Academy told us about Tulare County Office of Education's Young Authors Faire. I talked to the girls about it last night, and they got SO excited that before bed, they wanted to go to the school room and start pre-writing for their books! They were literally jumping up and down the whole time they were spouting out sentences for their books. I couldn't get them to sit down. This morning, before breakfast, they went straight into the school room to work on their books! We have to turn in their books to our teacher by the end of next week, and the faire is the week of Feb 28-Mar 4.

The public can come, read and make comments on all of the books. They will hold a reception for the authors {I was told with cookies and punch}, to celebrate.Emma's book is titled "Bunny Time".

Cami's book is called "Kissy the pink poodle finds a friend".

We laminated them and bound them with ribbons of their choice. They are so proud of their real books.

Lost Socks

In an email today there was a promo code off of Makia Creations craft kits. I ALMOST bought the "lost socks" kit because of the sale price, but the shipping cost more than the kit! To be fair, later on I went back and changed the number of kits to a higher number, and it was the same shipping. SO if you were ordering several for a craft group it would be more reasonable because the shipping would be split by many people. I love that the kit comes totally prepped...no wood to cut, it also comes pre-sanded and with everything you need to make it. Since I didn't want to pay the shipping, I went to Hobby Lobby today to see what I could come up with on my own. I found a wood plaque for $2.99. I bought twine, and I had all of the other supplies.

First, I spraypainted the wood heirloom white. Don't worry about the middle, it will be covered up. I needed 2 coats.

Cut your pretty paper to size, and after the paint is totally dry use mod podge to adhere the paper. Apply a thin layer of mod podge on top of the paper as well.

While that was drying, I cut out "LOST SOCKS" using some vinyl scraps and my cricut.

I knotted up 3 pieces of twine at both ends, to attach to the back for hanging.

Make a gob of hot glue on the back and push the knot firmly in.

I used one strand of twine and a few mini clothespins and did the same thing...knot both ends, and glue. This time since it's on the front I used smaller amounts of glue to hide it.

All that's left is finding those mates to the missing socks!

Crepe paper flower balls

I must say...this was a painstakingly annoying craft that I wouldn't do again. How's that for tempting ya into making them? Ha! I saw them here at the Idea Room. I thought they would be easy enough. I didn't finish the back or bottom of the red one, and just put it somewhere where you couldn't see the back. THAT'S how time consuming these were for me!

The directions {if after all that you still want to make them!} are on the Idea Room link. They are cute, but sheesh!

Pixie Pinwheel Valentines!

I came across these sometime last year, here at All the Small Things. I instantly fell in love and added it to my favorites folder for Valentine's Day! I bought all of my paper on sale at Hobby Lobby for 0.30 each. One of the papers I bought was all rectangles with different sayings on them. I used that one to cut up and mat on a plain piece of paper to use as the centers. I also cut some hearts from my cricut. I followed the folding instructions, except that I made mine bigger. Each strip of mine was 4 inches wide. I should have made them smaller so that I would use less paper.

This one is hard to see in the picture, but it's a vintage style V-day paper.

Here they all are...ready for the girls to hand out at their Valentine party! I love them!

L.A.-Supercross Weekend

This past weekend, my husband and I got to drive to LA to go to the inaugural race at Dodger Stadium. I must say, I'm not a fan of this stadium, and next time we will return back to our usual Anaheim. This stadium is old so it's not easy to get around in, and the traffic to get OFF this mountain that night was completely terrible. Angel Stadium is SO much better! Thankfully, the great race made it worth it. We've been going for years. We arrived early in the afternoon and went on the wild goose chase to get monster energy cans so that we could get our hands stamped to go in the pits. Last time we went to Anaheim they sold them right in the parking lot so it was easy. Like I said, Dodger Stadium, not so easy! No one seemed to know what they were talking about and I know we walked multiple miles by the end of the day! FINALLY we found a vendor that was selling some and headed to the pits.

This is the man everyone is excited to see...James Stewart, the fastest man on two wheels. When he is on, he will literally blow your mind at how fast he is! We weren't there early enough to get the ticket to wait in line for an autograph, so we just snapped a few pics.

We try to watch his show online sometimes {because we don't have cable}. It's called "Bubba's World". Brandon leaned over the railing and asked him a question that got his attention and made him laugh..he asked where his friend is that messed up his house and kinda drives him crazy on the show.

This is Chad Reed, another of the top 5, but he is probably talking to that man at how terrible he has been racing so far...totally not like him, but not good at all!

Carey Hart, with his H & H race team. Again, we didn't want to wait in line so we end up with the pictures of the famous guys along with strangers that actually waited in line to take pics, lol. We also got to see Travis Pastrana up close, but his pic is on my phone.

We bought cheap seats this time, and we're gonna do this from now on. It is better to be up high at this kind of race, because you can see the whole track, and see all the action without having to rely on the big screen and replays. You also get to see all the crashes. They do a laser light show in the beginning to announce the major riders, and fireworks and flame throwers too.

It was a great race, the top 3 spots kept getting switched the whole way through with people passing each other back and forth and falling. It was great! Ryan Villopoto won the race. Everyone kept crashing in the turn closest to us so that made it extra exciting.

The next day, we drove to the Marshalls nearest our hotel in Hollywood. It ended up being right across the street from the Beverly Center. I found the shoes that I searched 3 stores for-finally in my size! They are so cute, and were worth the trouble! After that, we drove to Burbank to go to lunch at our favorite PF Changs by Ikea. I had to hold myself back from going into Ikea because a few of my girlfriends and I are driving down for a special Ikea trip this Saturday. SO, after lunch Brandon let me do some shopping at the Forever 21 in the mall. I love how cheap they are! Then we headed to Starbucks and drove to Santa Clarita on the way home to track down a hobby shop that has a big RC track in the back. Brandon is now planning on taking a trip down one day with one of his RC friends to drive their cars. We headed home, out of the beautiful 70 degree sunshine, and couldn't wait to see our babies! It was a great weekend!