Family Thumbprint Tree - 50th Anniversary Gifts

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this past summer.  It's so hard to buy gifts for parents, right? I searched all over Etsy for the perfect gift. In the end, I ended up getting them several gifts.  

I made them a Family Thumbprint Tree. I found this free PDF file online (click here). Then I edited it by adding a new heart on the tree trunk with "R+C" inside the heart.  I also added their anniversary date to the bottom of the image. I was able to get all of our family members' thumbprints, including my mom and dad's, and then I found a cute frame on sale at Michael's.

My parents renewed their wedding vows so my brothers and I surprised them with this 50th anniversary Unity Candle Set from Things Remembered. 

I took pictures during the ceremony and the dinner afterward and made them a Shutterfly photo book. I scanned photos from their actual wedding for the book also.  This was my favorite gift :)

I have one last gift for them that I'm saving for Christmas. I don't think my parents even realize that I have a blog so the odds of them seeing this is slim to none. But just in case, I'm going to wait to post it.  It's too good to ruin!!!!  Be sure to check back after Christmas!  If you're looking for an anniversary gift and want to know about this mystery gift, leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you the info. 

Happy 50th Mom and Dad!!

xoxoxoxo

Meet the Teacher Gifts & the Leukemia Lymphoma Society

It's Back to School time!!  So much preparation goes into the start of school. Not just for us parents and our kids, but for teachers too. My oldest is starting 2nd grade and my middle one is starting kindergarten.  The teachers at our school have been so good to us and have so much care and concern for my girls. They really try hard to make the kids feel important. They even give them little "welcome" gifts that the kids LOVE and each year I think to myself "I wish I had thought to give the teachers a little gift." 

This year I remembered!  My cousin, Cindy, is the BEST baker I know. She could honestly open a bakery she's that good. She is also a fantastic IT Consultant and has her own IT staffing solutions company so she doesn't have time to open a bakery. 

Cindy's claim to fame are these fabulous sugar cookies that she bakes and decorates. She takes orders from friends and family and friends of friends, etc. I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to order cookies from her and the time has come!!  Here are the "Meet the Teacher" cookies that Cindy made (and packaged!) for us.

Aside from these cookies being beautiful and delicious, Cindy does not ask for payment for her time and materials and talent. Did you hear that???  She does it for FREE.  All she asks is that you make a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. How amazing is that??!!??!!

If you're looking for gifts that "give back" you can Google "Shop with a Purpose" for more ideas.  I can't wait to give these cookies to the girls' teachers.  And I need to get them out of my house soon or I'll eat them all myself!!

DIY Guitar Picks

I have to say that I was pretty impressed by the Father's Day gift that the girls and I made for Tim this year.  It was hard to beat the Daddy Date Cards we  made a couple years ago, but I think we did it.

Ever since we discovered Shrinky Dinks, the girls have been begging me to do them again. I found a DIY Shrinky Dink tutorial online and we made these cute little guitar picks for Tim.

Two things amazed me: 1. It was so inexpensive and 2. It actually worked!

Here are the supplies you'll need to make your own Shrinky Dinks:
- permanent markers (we used Sharpies)
- foil
- paper bags to cover your table when coloring with permanent markers
- nail file or sand paper (optional)
- template (I found my guitar pick template online here. To make a different template, enlarge a picture to 250% and cut it out.)
- #6 plastic (This can be found in many food packaging materials, such as clear takeout containers. We used disposable cake pan lids that we purchased at Dollar Tree. Look for the number 6 inside the triangle.)

To make your Shrinky Dinks:
1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

2. Make a template.  We were making guitar picks so I found an enlarged image of a guitar pick online here and here. You could also copy a pick at 250% of its original size. Cut out the enlarged image and traced it onto sturdy paper (to make for easier tracing on the plastic).

3. Cut the plastic into a flat sheet and trace the guitar pick template. I used a thin black Sharpie to trace the pick.

4. We did not sand the plastic (I didn't like the way it looked scratched up when sanded), but if you lightly sand one side of the plastic and color on that side, the marker will adhere better. Without sanding, the marker will likely start to scratch off after awhile unless you are also planning on using a sealer on it.

5. Cut out your picks and start coloring with your permanent markers.  Remember that the designs will shrink down considerably so you may want to make smaller, more simple designs. I traced along the border of the picks with a thick Sharpie, which gave it a nice border and "erased" the thin black Sharpie lines that remained after I cut out the picks.

6. Place the picks on a “cookie sheet” crafted from foil. You can also use a regular cookie sheet lined with foil, but it makes the shrinking process take a little longer.

7. Place the picks into the oven (we did two at a time), and after about a minute they will start to bubble, shrink and curl up. Don’t worry about the curling – they will flatten themselves out as the shrinking process finishes.

8. Carefully remove them from the oven – if you’re still concerned that they’re not perfectly flat, you can place something flat and heavy (we used a book) on them while they cool, but you’ll have to work quickly as they cool very fast.

Rock on!

Last Day of School Gift - Teacher Fingerprint Tree

I have such a hard time coming up with gifts for teachers.  This year was made much easier by Balancing Home and their free Classroom Fingerprint Tree printable.

I used SmallPDF to convert the file to a .jpg file so that I could crop it and edit it in PicMonkey to add the school year (2014 - 2015).

I packed one "grass green" stamp pad, an Ultra Fine tip black Sharpie, a clipboard for a hard surface and a container of wipes (for the kids to wipe their hands) and stopped by school during recess to get all the kids' fingerprints for the tree. Here's the finished product:

I used my paper cutter to cut down the tree picture.  Then I double stick taped it to a piece of green card stock and put it in a black 8x10 frame.  Hobby Lobby's frames are always 50% off and they have a pretty good selection.  I also found a metal butterfly in the craft section at Hobby Lobby to dress up the frame.

I can't believe the school year is over already.  We are really going to miss our wonderful 1st grade teacher.

Valentine's Day Gift for Teachers

Ava wanted to give her teachers a special Valentine so I looked on Pinterest and found this cute idea!  Ghirardelli brownies are a favorite of ours.  You can find red spatulas at Dollar Tree and World Market.  The spatulas pictured above are from Sur La Table.  I made the card, posted it on red card stock and used red tulle to tie it all together.

Click here to download a PDF version of the image above.

Ava also added her Valentine's Day Bookmarks to the gifts.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Dollar Crafts: Valentine's Day Bookmarks

The girls wanted to give their teachers a Valentine's Day gift.  Not just a card, but a real gift. I saw some felt Valentine's Day stickers at Michaels and Valentine's Day ribbon in the dollar bins at Michaels (score!) and thought maybe they could make some bookmarks to go with a gift card to Half Price Books (one just opened by us!).

To make the bookmarks, we cut a piece of ribbon and stuck to matching stickers together over the ribbon on both ends.

Then you just stick the ribbon in the book to mark your page!  I probably could have found a cute Valentine-y book, but this was what I came up with when I dug through Tim's nightstand books.  

We'll just string this bookmark through a gift card envelop and hope the teachers appreciate the thought!  My girls LOVE their teachers.  A good teacher really makes a difference in a child's life.  And I just love them for loving my girls.  Valentine's Day is such a great holiday to remind teachers how important they are.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Snowball Cookies

Snowball Cookies are probably my favorite homemade Christmas cookie.  I double the ingredients this year so I'd have some leftovers after I package our gifts for the neighbors. No amount of exercise could possible compensate for the number of Snowball Cookies I have consumed!

I've tried a few online recipes over the years.  Here is my version:

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature 
1 ½ cups powdered sugar 
2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
¼ teaspoons salt
2 cups all purpose flour 
½ cup ground slivered almonds
¼ cup ground pecans
¼ cup ground walnuts
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.
2.  Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. 
3.  Add ½ cup powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until well blended. 
4.  Beat in flour, salt.  Grind nuts in a food processor then add to mixture. 

5.  Divide dough in half; form each half into ball. Wrap separately in plastic and refrigerate until cold, about 30 minutes, until the dough is chilled but not hard and is no longer sticky to the touch.
6.  Whisk remaining 1 cup powdered sugar and cinnamon in pie dish to blend. Set cinnamon sugar aside. 
7.  Working with half of chilled dough, roll dough by 1 tablespoonfuls between palms into balls. 
8.  Arrange balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing ½ inch apart. 
9.  Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 10 minutes. 
10.  Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. 
11.  Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. 

12.  Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. 
13.  Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. (Cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature; reserve remaining cinnamon sugar.) 

14.  Sift remaining cinnamon sugar over cookies and serve.

Yield: 2 dozen cookies

The Snowball Cookies completed the Treat Trio that I gave our neighbors!  I arranged the cookies on a rectangular holiday plate with a doily. Then I wrapped them in clear cellophane and tied them with red tulle.

Peppermint Bark

I have some pretty generous and talented neighbors who like to bake treats for us around Christmastime, which is why every year I make my kids suffer through my endless baking for other people!  It kills them that we don't keep everything that is baked (even though Ava is the only one who can eat any of it!).

This year I'm baking a treat trio!  Rolo Pretzels, Snowball Cookies (more to come on this) and Peppermint Bark.  The Pioneer Woman promised that the Peppermint Bark recipe was easy and I'm happy to say that she was right.  This recipe only calls for 3 ingredients and the hardest part is waiting for 2 hours while it hardens in the fridge.

Ingredients:
3 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk
Crushed peppermint candies

Instructions:
1.  Line a square 8x8 pan with foil and smooth the surface.  Spray foil with nonstick spray.  I just threw out my 8x8 pan so I used some heavy duty foil to form a square-ish shape.

2.  Combine the chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk in a double boiler over medium heat.  Heat until melted, about 5-7 minutes.  Don't leave it on the heat for too long or the chocolate will ruin.  I don't have a double boiler so I fit a ceramic mixing bowl over a pot filled with boiling water and inserted a baking thermometer between the bowl and the pot so that the steam could release.

3.  Remove from heat and stir until smooth, then immediately pour it into the foil-lined pan.

4.  Use a spatula to smooth the surface, then sprinkle on the crushed peppermint.

5.  Refrigerate for 2 hours, then cut into small squares.  I trimmed the edges before I cut into squares.

Father's Day Gift Ideas

If you're like me and you're running out of time to come up with a Father's Day gift, I have the solution:

The Teachers Pay Teachers website has tons of stuff you can download.  You don't have to be a teacher.  You just need to create an account and then you're free to download as much as you want.  There is A LOT of free stuff!  Here are some of the great, free printables I downloaded:

Click here to search for the perfect gift for Dad on the Teachers Pay Teachers Website.

If you want to see the Daddy Date Cards we made last year for Father's Day, click here.

And this is an easy Father's Day card you can make with your kids.

Have a Happy Father's Day!!!

DIY Gift Tags

I was putting together a baking gift basket for my cousin who's getting married and I made her some gift tags like these with her married name.

To make them, I downloaded some free clip art and formatted everything on a Word document.  Click here for the file.  I printed the file on colored card stock.  Then I used my large gift tag craft punch to punch out the tags.  Lastly, I hole punched them and strung a thin, white ribbon through the hole punch.  It was so easy that I ended up making gift tags for a bunch of friends that enjoy baking like me!

I also have some crafty friends that sew, which prompted me to make these tags:

Click here for the file to make your own gift tags!  These are so easy to make.  I think I'll make some generic "Happy Birthday" gift tags for all the kid birthday parties that my girls are invited to.  Stay tuned!

Christmas Treats

I can't believe Christmas is only 2 days away! I just delivered some Christmas treats to my neighbors.  Got it to them just in time!  This year I made Rolo Pretzels - very quick and easy. Click here for the recipe.  I wanted to make Cupcake Bites again but I ran out of time.  Click here for the Cupcake Bites recipe.  They are so cute and yummy!

I found some fun candy tins at Hobby Lobby and a huge roll of red tulle.  Here's how they turned out.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!