Framed Pin Cushion from Pine Creek Style

My mom is visiting us again today. She made me the cutest pin cushion.  I shared it on Instagram and a few people asked how to make it. My mom was happy to share it with us. Read below for her how to.... ;)

I have seen some cute things done with picture frames lately. And they have been on my "To Do" list for TOO long!

 Picture Frame Pin Cushion...Functional & Cute!

 *See the above items you'll need.
**I used the back cardboard from an old tablet to attach my padding. It was just the right thickness; sturdy but not to thick!

 Cut several thicknesses of quilt batting to use as the pin cushion. I cut two pieces larger than the rest. The larger batting is the backing for the cushion. The smaller pieces fit just inside the frame opening allowing thickness on the inside/open part of the frame. i used 8 smaller pieces for my thickness.

 I used burlap for my outer material and a thin piece of muslin for the backing. This way, none of the batting would come through the larger weave of the burlap fabric.

 Neatly fold the fabric around the batting closing in the cardboard backing. You may glue, tape or sew it in place if you wish.

Then I replaced the back to the frame. That simple, that fast.

I sent a cell phone photo to my daughter who replied; "I want one!"

So the one on the left is Tara's (from Trendy Treehouse) and the right is mine!

**Note my scissors....After years of having many scissors ruined by being used for the wrong items....I NOW mark my territory! 
Haha...I feel your laughter....IN agreement! :)
There's more...See what Tara DID to my gift!!!

Update:
I gave Tara her gift (pin cushion frame) this past weekend! She loved it! 
She also loves StringArt! 
Using straight pins, she created a pretty StringArt Style pattern on her pin cushion. 
Then she sent a "Thank You" photo to Me!
Very, Very Cute! Of course I had to share!

Would love to hear your comments!
Just Framing MY Style...

Tara had fun with her photo apps! :)

Thanks again MOM for making this for me and helping ChaCha make one too!

Make sure you stop by my moms blog and say hi and thank her for this tute! You might want to also click that follow button too. She has some pretty cool posts over there!

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Hello! and some ideas for something fun!

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you all are having a fantastic weekend. We are! We had family movie night, took a drive to Sacramento and browsed the mall with the kids. They loved it! We had Johnny Rockets for lunch and let the kids buy some fun stuff too! The big hits were the Hello Kitty store, Lego Store, Disney Store and of course the Pretzel place. Today we are lounging around and have some more fun plans to go swimming with the kids at Nana and Papas house. What did you do this weekend?

I have had some ideas lately for something I think would be fun to do here on the blog.  I just haven't really figured out how to do it without making it a big production. LOL So I wanted to get some of your feedback on the idea.  And would love to have you share with others, because I think it would be awesome!

Gift Exchange Anyone?

Here's the idea.... I am thinking of hosting a "Crafty Pal" party.  I am going to start with 1 and see how it goes.  If its a hit, we can host more.  

So basically, we, you and other fab crafters would link up a gift they would like to exchange with other party linkers.  The party would be open to anyone, not just the crafty gals. We don't want to leave anyone out if they want to participate. Some people had mentioned they are not crafty but still want to participate. So they suggested linking up already made gifts or gift cards. YES! Of course, that works too! 

Although, I would like to see some craftiness for the most part! My goal is to share our talents with each other.  I know a lot of you out there are fantastic at sewing, painting, cooking, pattern making, ect.  So I would love to see what you can do!

...Party Rules...

Link up your exchange in the linky party time limit. I will keep the party open for 48 hours.

Gift value should be a minimum of $20 

(however, higher value is great too. I personally want to offer more)

If you link up a gift....send it! Don't be a party pooper! LOL

(I know you would hate to send something and not receive, right?)

After the party closes, I will contact and match up people randomly and then you can get to sharing!

These are my ideas! What do you think? Holidays are coming and I thought this would be a fun time to get started with a gift exchange! Share your thoughts below and share with anyone you think might want to join in. Lets make this a fun party so we can have more just like them.

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Decorative pics for your Fridge

I have been wanting to make-over my fridge for a long while. I love the kids artwork on there and I am sure they will have new art on there again very soon, but I cleaned it off for today to make room for some new things I made. Last week I shared my daughters collage for school. We stitched photos together with scrapbook paper and it turned out so adorable. I knew I had to make some for my fridge.

This is my before pic. It's not horrible, just a little messy. But yes, again I love clutter of kids art!

So we picked out some of our favorites (there will be more, a lot more, just haven't finished them yet) and some scrapbook paper. We then sat down at the sewing table to put them all together. After each photo was sewed, we also used some fancy scissors to give the edges a fun look too.

Here are some up close. We used different stitches and also multicolored thread.

Next we added some magnets to the back. I just picked up a roll of magnet tape that already had the sticky backs. Just trim them to fit your photo.  You may need to add two strips if you have a larger photo. And look....even the back of these look cute. LOL

Now all you have to do is put them up on the fridge. Doesn't that look much cuter?!? What I really love is now you don't have a magnet covering up your photo. You can see the whole thing. YAY!

Here are a couple more shots a little closer up. Just because I want to show them off. ;)

Sorry if they are a little fuzzy. I admit, these are phone pics today. 

So? What do you think? Love it? I do!

And you know what else is fun about these?  

You can easily change them out for each season or holiday. Just rotate in the photos you want. 

You can even use....

 greeting cards with messages on them

make the alphabet so the kids can spell things out

numbers and math symbols to work out equations (lol)

add your kids favorite animals to use to hold up their artwork

make it a matching game by sewing photos on the back (the kids can turn them over to match)

GIFTS....these would be so fun to make up to give as gifts too!!!

Obviously you can make endless magnets for your fridge. Have fun and please share what you did.

Have a great day everyone! Tonight is my daughters first volleyball game ever! Wish her and her team luck. Me too! I am helping coach the team. Eeeekkk! So excited!

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Cake Batter Cookies

So last night I made some yummy Cake Batter Cookies. They turned out so, so good.  And it kills me because I am trying to eat better. Lower my calories, workout more, you know. But one little bite won't hurt? right?!? LOL

We made two batches of these goodies. Some to keep at home, but mostly to share with family and friends. I just wanted to try something new. Kids love them. We took some out to my hubby and our employee and they loved them too. Hubby said he could eat up 4 more right then. So I am sure you will like this recipe. 

As I said above, I made two batches (recipe below) but then separated them into 3 bowls. I wanted to try 3 different mix ins.

First one was just the batter with milk chocolate chips mixed in.

Second was batter, white and milk chocolate chips and walnuts.

Third we mixed in white chocolate chips, walnuts and dried cranberries into the batter. (my favorite)

They all kinda look the same though. ;)

After cookies these delightful cookies, they looked like this.

Who wouldn't want to gobble them up. My own little Guilty Pleasure!

Now for the recipe! I know you all want to know the secret! No secret here. I just used Paula Deen's recipe for Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies that I found on the Food Network site. 

...what you will need for one batch of cookies...

1 stick of butter

1 - 8 oz. block of cream cheese

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 - 18 oz. box of cake mix

Powdered Sugar

...Mix ins...

don't mix in all, these are just suggestions to add in

milk, white or dark chocolate chips, nuts of your choice, dried fruits, coconut, toffee chips, peanut butter chips, candies, ect.

Before you get started, you will want to set out the cream cheese and butter so they get to room temperature. Once they are ready cream the butter and cream cheese together with your mixer.  Mix in your egg then add in the vanilla extract. Beat well until smooth. Lastly, just mix in your cake mix until you have a gooey, sticky batter.

The batter is too sticky to work with, so you want to refrigerate the batter for a minimum of 1 1/2 hours so it is workable. I made mine late, so I only baked a few after the 1 1/2 went by.  I left the remaining batter in overnight and they just as good when I cooked them.

Note...after 1 1/2 hours the batter will still be fluffy and soft. Overnight batter will be stiffer but just as easy to work with. They both cook the same, so don't feel bad if you have to leave the batter in the fridge until later. I just don't recommend more that 8 hours.

Ok, now your batter is ready to work. This is when you will use the powdered sugar. YUM! Set your oven at 350 degrees. Then roll the batter into balls, about 1 tablespoon size for small cookies and 2 tablespoon for larger. Just remember, larger cookies may take a bit more time to cook. Coat the balls in powdered sugar and place on a greased cookie sheet. I tried with out using greased and I don't prefer it. Cook for 9-12 minutes depending on your oven.

Once cooked, the cookies will stay soft and gooey. Yes they are cooked through. Just in case you were curious. Let cool and sprinkle with more powdered sugar. They are ready to enjoy and share.

We made enough to share and will be taking them to friends and family today. If we kept them all here, we would be in trouble. Ha!Ha! So go to the store and get the ingredients, you will want to make these today!!!

Don't forget to pin this recipe! ;)

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Father's Day shirt ideas

5 years ago when Micah was merely 3 months old I started a tradition that at the time I didn't know was a tradition. But the tradition continues...and it's something I love to do. I have been creating shirts for the kids to wear on Father's Day, for 5 years! First let's take a trip down memory lane (maybe giving you some ideas) and then I'll show you what I've made for THIS Father's Day! Each shirt is linked to my original blog post so you can see additional photos!

2008 Following in Daddy's footsteps

2008 - My dad is a perfect 10

 

2009 - My dad rocks

 

2010 - My dad is the bomb

 

 2011 - My dad is my hero

2012 - I've got an AWesome dad

This years Father's Day is all about beer...seems kinda strange since the kids are the ones "giving" the gifts right? Well, I needed a good excuse to get Greg some of the gifts he's getting and didn't want to wait till Christmas! Since I didn't want the kids wearing some sort of "beer" logoed shirt, I decided to go with root beer, and what better root beer than Greg's favorite A&W. I first saw this A&W idea on Nothing But Country's blog and downloaded the printables last year knowing I'd use them at some point.

Here's a tutorial on how I made the shirts!!!

Step 1: I went to the A&W website and downloaded their logo desktop photo to my computer and then got to work personalizing it. I changed the "since" date, added "dad" to the bottom, used the "esome" from the free printables on the original logo and then added "I've got an". I printed out my new logo and got to work.

Step 2: First I taped the logo to my window and then taped my prewashed fabric right over the logo. I traced the logo with my pencil three times (one for each kid)!

Step 3: I ironed some freezer paper onto the back of the fabric so that the fabric would be more stable while I painted and also so that the paint wouldn't bleed through onto other surfaces.

I used paint that was made for fabric. Yes, you can use acrylic paint (and I have in the past) but it cracks much more easily and it becomes pretty hard on the fabric...but in a pinch it will do. These bottles of paint cost $1.50 each at JoAnn's...

BUT, this four pack of fabric paint cost me 97cents! I could hardly believe it when I saw it and bought two different packs! So I ended up buying 8 colors for less than the price of the two colors I really needed! but don't worry, they will get used!

Step 4: I started painting the fabric pieces and painted the color with the least amount of coverage first. I painted the same color on all three shirts at a time.

Step 5: Paint the gold part of the logo. There was no "gold" so I had to mix colors and come up with one. It's not perfect but it'll do. That's the charm of a homemade gift right?

sorry about the lighting here and color distortion!

Step 6: paint the brown. I didn't do two coats on the brown but probably should have. I did do two coats of paint on the other colors. I just made sure to get really good coverage with the brown the first time!

I'm going to try and go back and erase my pencil lines (I hope it works).

Step 7: I carefully cut out the logo right on the outside dark brown area and then removed the freezer paper.

Step 8: Iron on double sided fusible web

I found that if you put the top piece of paper back over what you are ironing you won't have anything stick to your iron and you won't have to cut anything out...the iron will melt  the areas you don't need.

Step 9: Iron the logo onto my brown t-shirts for the kids. If there are little pieces of the fusible web your iron will just melt them away! You may have to clean your iron when you're done but not a big deal!

Step 10: Sew around the edges of the logo to prevent it from falling off! (I still need to do this step!)
Step 11: Put the shirts on the kids and take cute pictures and surprise daddy at church!

The littlest one wanted to put it on right away...so I obliged and took a few photos...but then she didn't want to take it off!

I can't wait for Greg to see the shirts! I think he's gonna love them. And you better believe I'll have photos to share! I would tell you everything that I've got up my sleeve for Greg but on the off chance that he stops by here before Father's Day I better not...just in case!

I will be having the kids fill out one of these questionnaires about dad! And if you need some more ideas, head over to my pinterest Mother's Day and Father's Day board to see what I've pinned. I'll be sure to share photos of what we ended up doing for Greg's gifts in a week or so. I just wanted to get these shirt photos up in case you're still looking for ideas! Have a great weekend and we'll see ya next week!

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