So I give in to a little Obsession once in a while....

That's perfectly normal right???

My Mother-In-Law asked my a couple weeks ago if I knew how to crochet the top to those hanging dishtowels, I don't know what their politically correct name is, and I had no idea but I knew they didn't look to hard. So with the help of Google I came up with these tutorials

http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/towel_toppers.php

and with their help I became obsessed with making these fun, and totally functional, little beauties.

Now after I had made a few of these I began to wonder if I could do this in the bathroom, some how my bathroom hand towels are always on the floor.


And it did!!! Now as to whether they keep the hand towels off the floor we will have to just wait and see. Hand towels aren't my only obsession, did you notice the monkeys in my bathroom?? Yep, they are all over the house :)
While in my search I also came across these-

which I also had to make :)
Here is an awesome tutorial for these, it made the whole process Easy Peasy Lemon Squeazzeee as Miss M likes to say-

http://treyandlucy.blogspot.com/2009/12/hanging-dishtowel.html

Talk about your perfect 10 minute gift :)

Gourmet Popcorn Remix

I received 2 more awards, I am such a lucky girl :)
There is this one-From Holly at 504 Main she also has a wedding design blog that is Wonderful if any one is looking for ideas.
And this one-
Also from Holly and from 5th Sister who's Wonderful Blog never fails to uplift and inspire me.

I am passing these on to, again, all of my commenters who I hope grabbed that last one from the previous post as well! I am going to list you all just to be safe :)
Kys- from Stir-fry Awesomeness
5th Sister
Kim- from Stirring the Pot
RG- from Who's got the Thyme?
Betty- who no longer is posting about her Corgi :(
Holly- from 504 Main
Purple Hoodie Chick- from Bashful Toast
Willoughby- from This Stop Willoughby
Holly- from In the Kitchen with Holly
Nonna- from Mom's Loot
Chicago Mom- from What's for Dinner?
Lee- from HHH
Kristina- from Pulsipher Predilections
Monica- from Lick the Bowl Good
Donna -from My Tasty Treasures

Thank you ALL for your support and kindness to me, you are all such Wonderful Blog Friends :)


Today I did a remix (make) of my Gourmet Popcorn and 5th Sister this one is for you :)

Gourmet Andes
Chocolate Mint Popcorn
Ingred;
Andes mints- about 1c. before melting
1/2c. white almond bark
green food coloring
4c. popped corn

Here we go-

Folks , the arm is just a decoration, not a missing ingredient so please disregard.
Enlist a helper or 2 to unwrap all the mints- make sure you watch them though to keep pilfering to a minimum.

How many of these do you think ended up in her mouth?

I'm not sure, I looked away for a minute, my bad.
Melt your Andes Mints first, pour over the popcorn while stirring. Spread out onto wax paper. Melt the almond bark and color it with your coloring, now the almond bark doesn't pour, it blops. So I put it into a small baggie, snipped off the end and squiggled it over my popcorn.
There you go, very VERY tasty and beautiful too and it took me less than 10 minutes.
Now if you will excuse me, I need to go pick the popcorn hulls out of my teeth.

Gourmet Popcorn the Easy way

Miss M and I went to a craft fair the other day and suffice it to say that I spent WAY more money than I should have! In my defense there was a lot of really neat things so see, and touch and smell and eat. I didn't expect to see so many food type things, and we were hungry, not a good combo :)
One thing that we tried that I thought I could make myself was some Gourmet Popcorn. There were lots of different flavors but my favorite one was a Peppermint popcorn, which was very odd because I don't like white chocolate or peppermint flavored things. But I LOVED this. So later that afternoon I picked up some ingred. from the grocery store and begin my experimenting :)
Here we have our ingredients-

I used half a pkg of almond bark, it melted down to about 1 c.- I melted it in the microwave. and used about 1-1/2c. of peppermint candies and ran them through the food processor until they were a powder.

I cheated for the popcorn because I hate how the kernels get stuck in you teeth and hey this is an experiment remember??

So I mixed about 1/2c. powdered peppermint candies into the 1c. melted white almond bark and divided 6 cups of my (fake) popcorn into 2 gallon zip baggies. I poured in half the chocolate mixture into each and shook and gently smooshed each one around until it was mixed.
Then I dumped them both onto a cookie sheet and spread out to dry.

This was YUMMY, I think it would be better with regular popcorn, this had a really strong butter flavor that was a little odd, but not bad. I can't wait to experiment with this further : )

Volcanos and Scrubs

Body scrubs not the show Scrubs, I have never watched it.
Today I made a couple of scrubs for my Lil' Sisters B-day present, a Lemon hand/body scrub and a Peppermint Foot scrub. They both smell yummy yummy yummy!

So here we go-

Lemon Hand Scrub
1/4c. coconut oil
1/4c. almond oil
1t. liquid lanolin
1t. vitamin E oil
15 drops lemon oil
about 1c. epsom salts

Put the salt in your container, once again I am thanking Goodwill
for my 2 cute containers. Melt the coconut oil in a heat proof glass bowl or cup. I love my glass Pyrex measuring cups for this. When that is melted stir the remaining ingred. Pour slowly over the top of your salt, I used a fork to stir mine in. It's what I had handy and it worked pretty darn well :)
Close it up and label.

Peppermint Foot Scrub
1/2c. coconut oil
1/2c. almond oil
1t. liquid lanolin
1t. vitamin E oil
15 drops peppermint oil
1-1/2c. epsom salts

Follow the instructions from above. You could use all Almond oil or all Coconut oil, you could even use Olive oil ( but I hear it smells funny after a bit). You don't REALLY need the Lanolin, it's just an extra bonus for extra softness :)
You don't even need the Vitamin E oil, it does help to preserve this so it keeps longer. But if you are making small amounts or are sure it won't last long, couple weeks, I wouldn't bother with it.


I received a sweet award from Lee over at I want to Make that! Seeing all the fun things she's been making always inspires me to get crafting! Thank You Lee!For after school snack today we tried something different, it's a volcano pancake. I have never made one frankly they kind of scared me, what if it doesn't rise???? What then?
Well I finally made one and hurray! It rose just fine, I did have some tense moments early on in the cooking time but waited it out :)
I got my basic recipe from Allrecipes it's here- Volcano Pancake.
But I did a little altering (big surprise) and here is my version-


Volcano Pancake with Strawberry Sauce

Ingred;
3 eggs
1/2c. milk
1/2c.flour
pinch of salt
2T. butter
1t. rum extract

4T.strawberry preserves
4T. o.j.
1t. lime juice

Heat oven to 400, put butter in a 8x8 pan and set in oven until butter melts.
Beat together by hand the eggs, milk, flour, salt and extract.
Pour over top of the melted butter and return to the oven for 30-35 min. While its baking, whisk together the preserves, and juices. After the pancake is done cooking, let it cool a couple minutes then drizzle with the sauce and serve warm.

This was delicious, this is definately a keeper, and it has so many possible ways to change up the flavor! Good Stuff :) :) :)

Krafting with Miss K- Knitting

Miss K finished a project last night that we wanted to share, she made this

for her baby doll

I can not knit to save my life, last year my Cousin introduced me to these, they're called the Knifty Knitter Loom. I have actually knitted scarfs with it!!! This year I plan on making hats for all the kids. I have posted more about this, and sites with patterns, on my other blog.
All of my girls love these, the two older can do it without any help, Miss M needs a bit more supervision :)


Moving on, I made these last week but have been slow in posting it.
I read about lotion bars on a blog a few months ago, there was even a link to
where you could buy them. Which I bookmarked,
we all know how I bookmark everything :)
I really wanted to buy one, lol, or two, but they are 15$ each!!! Add in the shipping and there was no way I could justify spending over 30$ on 2 little lotion bars. BUT I found a site online that had instructions to make your own! How cool is that?!?!!
As you can tell I was a little excited :)
So I made my own, actually I made about 6 of them,
Christmas is coming you know!
So here are a couple of them, I still need to come up with something cute to put them in-

And here is the recipe-

Sweet Bee Lotion Bars

Ingred;
1/4c. beeswax
1/4c. coconut oil
1/4c. cocoa butter
1/2t. vitamin E
1/2t. honey

Place beeswax in a heat proof bowl and microwave for 2 minutes, works best if you break it into pieces first, then add in the coconut oil and cocoa butter. Heat it in 30 second intervals stirring after each until its all melted together. Stir in the remaining ingred. Set in the fridge for about 15-20 min to cool it down a little. Pour into your molds, I used soap making molds- because they stand up to high heat. Make sure whatever mold you use isn't going to melt, this is very hot!
Let set for about 6 hours, or overnight then unmold.

These are really nice, but the next batch I make I am going to try using a little bit more beeswax so they are a little more solid. This recipe is pretty close to perfect though :)
In place of the honey, you could use any essential oil you like, or for a cold time bar use 1 T. of Vick's vaper rub. That is my next project, cold season is coming up quick.

Homemade Sugar and Salt Scrubs

Since I had the coconut oil I bought I decided to make some scrubs with it. If you have never used/seen coconut oil is has kind of the same look/consistency as shortening.

I wanted to make a sweeter scrub for a body scrub and also one to keep by the kitchen sink for my hands. So here we have our ingredients-

For the Salt Scrub I used-
Sea Salt
Coconut oil
an oil mixture of grapefruit, eucalyptus, peppermint & lavender.

For the Sugar Scrub-
turbinado or raw sugar
coconut oil
vanilla extract

To make this you need to fill you container about 3/4 of the way full with your sugar or salt. Melt the oil in a glass cup in the microwave, about 30 sec. a little less maybe. Add in your oils(5-10 drops) or extract(1t.) Stir it in. Slowly pour the oil over the salt/sugar and stir it in until you get the consistency that you like. Cover and enjoy! :)

The vanilla sugar one, oh boy this stuff smells good enough to eat :)

I put some of each of these in cute little glass containers that I bought at goodwill. And labeled them to give as a gift.

Since we moved here there is a lady from church that made an extremely kind and thoughtful gesture to my family. Long story short she arranged a big get together, spur of the moment, to introduce Mr. K to some other boys his age so he would feel more comfortable here- which he now does.
So I packaged these up with the body butter I made,

and a couple loaves of Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread.

To give to her as a Thank You. When someone does something like that to help your child it really touches your heart.

Homemade Beauty- Yummy Body Butter

I stumbled upon a really fun blog, she has great projects and a wonderful sense of humor- it's called- I want to Make That! One of the posts she does are called Make me Monday, where she makes a fun project and shows you how.
A week or 2 ago she tried out a recipe for Body Butter that didn't set up because she substituted an ingredient, you can read all about it here. It sounded so good that I really wanted to try it, so I picked up the ingredients for it. Here we are all lined up-

I went with a mixed oil of clove, birch, rosemary, cypress & marjoram, from my oil box.

I really liked the idea of a clove smelling butter. I placed the coconut oil and cocoa butter in a glass Pyrex measuring cup, and placed in the microwave for about 30 seconds then stirred together well.

Then I stirred in about 10 drops of the oil mixture, -You could use any oils you like I would just make sure that if they are NOT ones that are mellow (and that is not quite the word I wanted but the brain isn't thinkin real well) enough to put straight on your skin don't use more than 10 drops. If you use a milder (ahah! That's the one I wanted earlier!) oil like orange, lemon, tea tree, you can use more. Just add a few drops, stir and sniff, if it's not strong enough add a couple more- thats how I measure things around here :)
This did have a bit of a chocolate smell that seemed odd with the clove smell, but I didn't smell it after it had set.
Now pour it into your container- I got mine at Ross for 2$, it had some mints in it. I just washed it, dried it & decorated it a little- Wallah!

Since I am a bit impatient, after this had cooled I put it in the fridge with the lid on to see if it would set faster, and it did :) in about 1 hour. The oils seperated a little on top, but I just stirred them in a bit, with my finger, then rubbed some on my hands. YUMMY, smells good round here!

Next batch I am making with a little bit of Almond extract, sigh.
Good Stuff, Thank You for sharing this recipe Lee!

Fleecy Fringed Fun- Krafting with Miss K

I'm sure everyone has seen or made one of these-

This is one Miss K made herself, I cut the fringes and she tied them. It is a really great way for your kiddo to "make" their own blanket. These also would be a great gift for your child to make for a friend or relative. All you need is some fleece material and scissors.
For a 2 layer blanket I use 1-1/2 yards each of 2 coordinating fleece, or for a single layer blanket just 1-1/2 yards of fleece.
It only took Miss K and I about 30 minutes from start to finish to make her new blanket. I didn't take pictures while she was making it (mom was being lazy :) But here are a few really great sites with instructions for making them.

Double Layer Fleece Blanket Instruction 1

Double Layer Fleece Blanket Instruction 2

Single Layer Fleece Blanket Instructions

Paper Cups with Miss K

Today Miss K and I learned how to make paper cups, so we thought we would share our new found knowledge with you all.
First you need a square piece of paper, our piece was 10"x10"

Then you fold it in half

Fold one of the corners straight across

Then the other corner straight across

Fold down both top flaps

Here is her finished one

And here are the rest of the ones she made

These would make great little snack cups or party favor holders, the possibilities are endless-

Candy Crazy!!!

I was totally excited when I checked out Monica's post on
Candy Cakes
Hers is beautiful you can check it out here -> ->->
She even did a step by step post on making one yourself, which is wonderful.
The reason this got me all excited, is that all Miss K asks for her Birthday or Christmas is gum, candy, & mints. How perfect of a Birthday Cake would this be for her!?!? So I did a picture search to see what other ones I could find, these were my favorites -

























































How much fun are these!! :)