Wall Projects

I think I mentioned that i was making a wall collage for each of my girls. I am waiting for my dad to come and visit to get them up on the wall, but until then here are some of the other pieces that I have been working on.


I have seen these felt flowers on Pinterest and thought they might be fun on some fabric and a stitching ring (is that what they are really called?). I love how they turned out. One took about an hour to make. It was a lot of cutting and hot gluing, but super simple. Here is a tutorial on how to make the felt flowers.



I saw these on pinterest too and thought they were cute and easy to make. So, i made one for both girls and where they were born. I got the canvas at Michaels, use Martha Stewart's new paint (the color is Surf in Satin). I used the technique in the tutorial to get super crisp lines and it worked like a charm. Such a cute way to highlight where someone was born. Here is a link to the tutorial for the canvas state.

Halloween Pumpkins

I just love Pinterest!!!! Such cute ideas to copy! Yes, sometimes I just plain, straight out copy someone else. And that is the case with the spider pumpkin. I saw it and thought, so cute and simple and classic.... just my thing! Here is a link to where I got the idea from. As you can tell, I literally copied her. I got the a white pumpkin at Michaels, used Martha Stewart's new paint (in Pearl) and painted about two coats of paint. Then stuck the Martha Stewart Spider (I think it is MS) and added some other rhinestones for the path. So cute, right?

The other pumpkin I made up on my own (not that everyone else hasn't seen them all around the web). But I painted the smaller white pumpkin Martha Stewart metallic (this time i had to do 4-5 coats of paint) and used black vinyl and added the BOO!. Again, so simple, cute and classic. Two easy projects done in a day (and the only reason it took a day was because I had to wait for the paint to dry in between each coat and I had to do my day job.... life :-)

Latest Logo Designs

It has been awhile since i have showcased any logos on this blog, but i thought I would do one big post of the latest logos I have designed. And if you are interested in having a logo created, check out my logo site here.

My Project Table and the letter H

About September every year, my dining room table becomes to project station as I prepare for the holidays. I wish i had another place to put everything, but this is it. And here is a look at the table these days.



It is one big mess of finished and ready to finish projects with a lot of Halloween stuff thrown into the mix. One of the projects i have been working on is the cute yarn covered letters that have started popping up everywhere. They are so cute and so easy. Here is the letter H I made and I have an E done too. You can find tons of tutorials online, so I am not going to reinvent the wheel, but I will share a few tips I learned.



* the thinner the yarn the longer it will take. I think it looks nicer, but keep in mind it will take twice as long. Just be aware of the yarn thickness, it makes a different.

* I used a glue gun. I used it around all the edges of the letter and then about every 5-8 wraps to keep the yarn in place.

That is about it... they are so simple, yet so cute.



And I had these tiny shadow boxes that I bought from ebay years ago. They were an had ugly butterflies in them. So, I decided to rip off the ugly butterflies and cover with paper and add my own cute butterflies. I am going to be using these for a wall collage in the girls rooms. Good thing I saved the frames years ago. They are now coming in handy.

Halloween Poster

The Primary is in charge of the Halloween party this year for our church. I and a friend was put in charge of marketing and advertising. Here is what we did for the posters. We were so happy with the end result, I had to put it up on my blog to share.

And here is the flyer I designed too.

Hallowen Treat for Friends

My kids love Tic Tacs. Especially the orange ones. They get them every time we go to Target. So, when I saw some inspiration over at Pinterest using Tic Tacs, I knew I was going to do something with Tic Tacs for Halloween. I thought that might the a fun little treat for Hannah to pass out to her friends on Halloween. There are a ton of cute ideas to decorate the tic tac container, but I kept mine simple. (I'm just that way). Super cute and easy and cheap. What's not to love!

For everyone that is looking for the tags to use, please go here and you can download them. thanks

So Many Projects

I have been working on so many projects. I don't know what has gotten into me. I can't seem to get my house clean, but i have time to work on a project here and there. I will show you my projects as time goes on, but the first one is a fun and wonderful idea our ward is doing for the month of October. It is called Mosiah in a Month. The bishopric asked the ward to read the Book of Mosiah during the month of October. So, as part of the primary here is what we are doing to motivate the kids to read!

* We introduced the challenge during opening exercises and passed out little buttons. The buttons had different pictures of prophets from the Book of Mosiah. All the leadership in the ward wore the buttons that Sunday and the kids got there buttons to.

* Next week, we are passing out mini-M&M packs with a tag attached to it reminding them to read their scriptures.

* We are having the talks in primary during the month of October relate to different stories in the Book of Mosiah (and prayer, since that is the theme for the month of October).

* Each week we are having a Mosiah Moment in Opening Exercises. We have a jar of M&M's and a few kids can come up to the front of class and share what they read in the Book of Mosiah that week. Those that share will get a little handful of M&Ms.

* We were also going to have a man come in during Opening Exercises dressed up like a prophet from the Book of Mosiah and share who he was and his story. (I am not sure if we are still doing that). But it is an option.

Also, I was asked to design a bookmark for the ward (adults and youth) to help them keep track of their progress and remind them to read. Here is what I designed and what was passed out last Sunday to launch the challenge.

Disneyland Once Again

We went to disneyland this weekend. It has been 5 whole months :-) since we have been. We missed it so much. Here are a few pictures that captured the highlights of our trip.


The characters love when they see these photos of themselves. We still take postcards (like all these pictures) and have the characters sign them. They love to see who is "playing the character" in the photo. I am assuming they all know each other, so they get a kick out of it. It always gets us a little special attention.

We have never seen these guys in the park before. So, we had to get their picture. Even if the kids have never seen the movie.

Ella was crying during this photo opp. But love the picture.

Always a favorite with the kids.

This is my favorite photo. I love Jake's smile. Ella's awe-struck pose and Hannah buddying up to the cowboy!


Hannah was so excited, because she thought Fawn was Rosette at first. That is her favorite fairy at the moment. But Fawn was a nice alternative, as you can tell.

Jake's in love.

Some random girl came up to Hannah and asked her if she wanted this cool balloon jet pack. Hannah in amazement said "YES". She wore it around the rest of the night. Everyone kept commenting on it. It really was a cool contraption.

We went on the canoes for the first time in all our visits. You definitely get an arm workout. And yes that is me in all my pregnancy glory. Not a fan of pregnancy photos of myself.

Labor Day Salad

Here is my new favorite salad i made a few weeks ago and we are having it again for Labor Day tonight. It is packed full of flavor and yumminess and it looks great too.

Here are the ingredients (in case you couldn't tell)

lettuce, chicken, corn (fresh from the cob), black beans, avocado, jicama, egg, bacon, tomatoes, and blue cheese. Served with BBQ sauce and ranch dressing. And then I made these to go with it. and of course watermelon.

Happy Labor Day!

Wedding Project

My Brother in Law is getting married and we are beyond thrilled about this. The wedding is coming up and the bride-to-be has asked me to help design a little something for the wedding reception. The food at the reception has a theme. It is food that you can find around the Disneyland park. You see my BIL is a big DIsney fan (or should I say fanatic :-)

So, the request was to make some signs to hang above each food section highlighting what the food was and how it relates to the Disneyland. So, my mission (as I saw it).... was to make these signs "blend into the reception" while portraying Disneyland without being to obnoxious.

So, here is what i can up with. I used the vintage Disneyland tickets. You know when you use to have to buy tickets to ride on the rides (back in the 50's - 70's) and then I changed the wording to tie into the food.

Here is what the tickets used to look like.



And here is what I created:





You will notice the first section is the land in which the food comes from. Then it lists all the eating establishments in that land with an asterisk next to the restaurant the food comes from. Underneath is the name of the food with a description. And lastly, the ticket number is their wedding date.

I had a ton of fun coming up with this idea. I can't wait to see what it looks like on their wedding day!

More Teacher Gifts

So, I never posted these teachers gifts that I gave during Teacher Appreciation week last year. A little late, huh? I made them all before I got sick with morning sickness and then when teacher appreciation week hit, I was to sick to post about it and then just forgot. But I wanted them to be on the blog for future reference, so here are some simple gifts for the teachers in your lives.

For Hannah in Elementary school, the teacher got a gift each day during TA week. For Ella in preschool, the teacher got something each day she went (MWF). The one gift the isn't there is a glass container full of pencils. I do this every year.... here is a picture from last year.
There are packets of Crystal Light in the water bottle.
There are swedish fish in the box.

I got these fabric apples at JoAnns for a dollar two years ago.

I gave this gift to Ella's preschool teacher at the end of the year. I forgot to share this one.


Here is the tag I used.

Last Utah Trip Post

The last fun thing we did while in Utah, was go to Snow Canyon State Park for an evening Hike. My parents live outside of St. George and minutes from Snow Canyon. It is one of the prettiest canyons to drive by, so I know that going on hikes there will become a tradition with our family. This time we took the Lava Flow Trail and Overlook. It was an easy walk with lots of big lava flows and caverns. The kids had a blast and Jakey even found a desert turtle. How cool is that!

We saw this pretty rainbow.

And these dramatic clouds!

Hannah and grandma.

This is everyone next to a lava flow.

The girls giving their "to infinity and beyond" pose.

The little desert turtle!

That is it. Our summer vacation in a 6 post "nutshell". Now on to other things in life. I have a month and then life gets nice and busy with the holidays! I am already giving the Halloween costumes some thought. We will see what happens.

First Day!

Today was the first day of school. The kids were pretty excited... .Ella more than Hannah. Hannah was excited to see friends again, but not for the school work. And Ella is just excited to get out of the house and play with other kids. It all went smoothly and well... no tears or nervousness (me included :-) I was thrilled to run errands with just one child. Ahhh!

Also, for our first day of school treat to the teachers I bought them each a Rocky Mountain caramel apple and attached a tag to it. Simple and who doesn't love caramel apples. They are my fav!

Utah Trip Part V

After Ephraim, we headed south to St. George, Ut. Grandma and Grandpa Brimhall live there. We went to the town splash park and rode the carousel. And then we headed to Tuachan Outdoor Theater and saw The Little Mermaid. On Tuesday, Chris and Grandpa took the kids to Zions National Park while I spent the day shopping with my mom. Here are a few pictures of the kids at Zions.







And then we spent an afternoon making and decorating cookies.