Before & After

I got inspired by some banners that I saw on the Cherry's Jubilee blog (there's a link in my list of favorites on the right), so I decided to get some chipboard shapes, dig into my paper stash, and see what I could come up with. Here's the before:

and here's the after:

I love how this turned out. I may need to make more of these -- kind of like the paper wreaths that have proliferated for all seasons..... But next up, I think I have an idea to put my excess stash of felt flowers to use. Keep you posted!

Easter Surprises

I made the girls a little special Easter surprise. They each got a decorated egg-shaped box. Inside was a bunny soap, and several little pink chenille birds. The boxes were plain cardboard that I painted, and then decorated with vintage millinery flowers, trim and buttons. I love the way they turned out, and the girls really seemed to like them.

More Easter cupcakes!

The girls are off from school today for Good Friday, and we needed a project! I had already planned for us to make cupcakes to take to our play-in-the-park birthday celebration tomorrow for Mimi and GrandDad's birthdays. Then I saw the basket cupcakes on Bakerella's website. Wow! I immediately knew that we had to try them. So, here are the results. I think they turned out darling! I couldn't find the right gummy strips for the handles, so we used Twizzlers, which are ok, but a bit heavy. All in all, a fun and relatively easy project. The girls loved each step of these, but especially creating the baskets at the end. I think they will be a big hit at the birthday party!

Bunny Cupcakes

I needed a project on Friday afternoon, so here's what I came up with: strawberry cupcakes (from a mix) with vanilla buttercream frosting (from scratch). YUM!

Fruit Trees!

I continue to be super-excited about the progress of our backyard orchard/garden. :)
The picture above shows my lemon tree, which is covered in lemons! We check on them every day, and can't wait until one turns yellow so we can pick it. I was equally excited about my lime tree, but then some varmit ate all the teeny tiny limes. Still not sure what's up with that.

We also have a cherry tomato plant that's doubling in size almost every day, and

an orange tree with teeny tiny orange buds on it. Hope the mystery varmit doesn't like oranges.

We also have a berry garden, with blueberries, blackberries and strawberries. Of course, something has been feasting on our berries, so all of the strawberries and blueberries continue to mysteriously disappear. I've got my fingers crossed for the blackberries!

Round Top/Warrenton: Creepiest Item of the Day

Last weekend, Kari and I went on our spring buying trip to the fields of Warrenton. We had a great day, and actually brought home some nice finds. We always keep an eye out for "weirdest item of the day" -- and this year, there was no competition: the booth pictured above won hands down. It also won "creepiest item of the day," and "most inexplicable item of the day." I mean, severed doll heads on sticks? Really? Had Chloe been with me, she would've been scarred for life!
I snapped the pic and then we moved on, and quick. I didn't want the creepiness to rub off on me. Ick.

New Favorite Layout

This page didn't photograph very well, but I loved these pictures, and I'm happy with the way this 2-page layout turned out. The day that it snowed back in December was such a fun day; it's nice to document it with a sparkly, pink page!