Trendy TreeHouse

Monday, April 11, 2011

Shutter Love Tuesdays | Bicycles

We have been loving hosting {Shutter} Love every week and wanted to thank you all for participating each week. You have all made it so fun. We enjoy looking at each of your photos every week.

This weeks theme is | BICYCLES |

To see all the rules for this fun party, please go HERE.

Want to see all the PAST Shutter Love Winners? Check out our Shutter Love Winners | Directory in the Pages above. Don't forget to check out future Shutter Love Themes too!

And don't forget to tell your friends that you entered your photo so they can come by and vote for you!

→ VOTING CAN BE DONE IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW - THANK YOU! ←

COMMENT as much as you like. Everyone loves FEEDBACK!
Go HERE to grab one of our Buttons

Tara's | BICYCLES | Photo

Here's my youngest with her big girl bike. She got this from Santa!!! All the kids got new bikes from Santa. They were so excited!! Just look at her cute lil face!!!

Jamie's | BICYCLES | Photo

Coming soon.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Shutter Love Winners | Self Portrait

Shutter Love Photo Winners | SELF PORTRAIT | - I was really looking forward to this weeks theme. I am usually one to run from a camera. I love to take pictures and am rarely in front of the camera. So this week I was able to show ME! LOL And I was so excited to see YOU too! Thank you to everyone who joined in this week!

Our Top 10 Photo Winners
#1 goes to | Jill @ Life as I see itI love this shot and the story behind it! I think we all need to join this party. Thank you Jill for sharing this photo and the link to this other great party. I know I am going to work on a post for this. The | I am Beautiful Project | is a great idea and I think we should all join in. Check it out HERE!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Cup O' Joe Cupcakes

Hey there friends, did you have a good week. My week was pretty good but not very productive (thus no photos of our house just yet). I've just now started getting to the unpacking of my things. It's too nice to not be outside with the kids most of the day, so I'll just have to slowly plug along. But not being able to sew or craft is just killing me! UGH! I needed to do something somewhat crafty related so I baked. Does that count as a craft?

I thought you all might enjoy the Cup O' Joe Cupcakes that I made...because they were very tasty and very simple to make. My dear friend Katherine sent me this "Cupcake Confidential Recipe Deck: a card deck of 100 recipes" and I've made a few of them so far. I was looking through it the other day trying to find a recipe I could make without having to go to the store...and Cup O' Joe Cupcakes it was. I gave some to my new neighbors and they raved about them so I hope you give them a try as well.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter, unsalted, softened
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules

Prepare cupcake tins; lightly grease or insert paper liners. In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar and baking powder. Mix well. Add very soft butter, eggs, milk vanilla and coffee. Beat at low speed of electric mixer 1 minute to blend, scrapping sides of bowl. Beat 3 minutes until smooth. Fill each cup 3/4 full. Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes. Cool on rack. Makes 12.

I was actually able to make 16 but didn't have enough frosting for all 16.
Here's what they look like without the frosting.

Frosting recipe:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 semisweet chocolate chips

In a food processor or blender, cover and blend or process all ingredients together, cover and chill. Remove from refrigerator 10-15 minutes before serving.

I'm not sure if the chocolate chips were suppose to get all broken up but mine didn't and I liked that they were just chunks in the frosting, made for a nice chocolate surprise.

Not the prettiest looking cupcake but trust me, it's very tasty...if you like coffee that is! And it goes GREAT with a glass of milk!!!! Make some and let me know what you think. I'm dying to try the tomato soup cupcakes...sounds interesting enough to make me want to try it at least.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Tonka Park Review

I have an exciting review for you today!

Do you have a | BIG CARTEL | Store? NO, this is not a review for Big Cartel, although that may be next because I love them too. In fact this is a review for a company called | TONKA PARK | that offers themes for Big Cartel.

If you want your Big Cartel store to look professional, Tonka Park is the place to go!

Tonka Park offers simple, classic themes for your shop. You can choose from many different themes for as little as $25. It's very simple. You make your purchase and you are sent a link to all the HTML code. If you are not very handy, like I with the code, Tonka Park is happy to help set up your store for you. Just ask for a quote. Which is very, very reasonable compared to other set up fees. I was very pleased.

If you remember how my plain shop looked before, you will be amazed at how beautiful it is now. It looks so professional. I have buttons with links, sidebar product text, an amazing home page with a photo of my 3 girls telling secrets (cute photo) and so much more. The set up for my store was so worry free. I just set up my images in my photobucket account and emailed all my info to Tonka Park. Within a week I had a professional shop to sell my goods. I would recommend using Tonka Park for your shop theme over any other. I am very satisfied with the look and service I received. Thank you Tonka Park!!!

Before I ordered my theme, I looked at Tonka Parks portfolio. A must when looking to purchase something. I love to see the finished looks on others who went there. There were so many happy customers with amazing looking shops, I knew this was the company for me. Really, I knew as soon as I opened their home page, I just love to see others results. Below are a few of the shops I visited and just might buy from. Check them out. After you view them and mine, wink wink, you will want to use Tonka Park for your Big Cartel Shop. Even if you don't have a shop, you will want to start one! It's so simple to start a store now!!!

A few of my favorite shops that I found in the Tonka Park Portfolio

CLICK ON PHOTOS BELOW TO VIEW SHOPS

You can also find TONKA PART at the below links

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

The Tonka Park Blog

Contact Tonka Park HERE

I was so impressed with Tonka Park and what they had to offer! Make sure you check them out today for your SHOP!

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by anyone. Trendy Treehouse Disclaimer/Terms of use .

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Creative Share | Features too!

Don't forget to grab one of our {BUTTONS}

I always look forward to this day of the week. It's fun to go through all the fabulous link ups.

I decided to start featuring some of my favorite link ups again. There are just so many that inspire me and I wanted to help them get seen a bit more.

So if you see that you have been featured, go by and grab a "Featured Button"

{Here are a few of my favorites that linked up last week}
Click on photos below to read more!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Shutter Love Tuesdays | Self Portrait

YEAH! My internet is back. I had no internet all weekend. So I had no way of posting winners or my Monday Review that was planned. Hubby got it working just in time for this fun party. He got some major points today!!! I had been stressing all weekend about it. So I will get the winners up ASAP! Thanks for your patience!

We have been loving hosting {Shutter} Love every week and wanted to thank you all for participating each week. You have all made it so fun. We enjoy looking at each of your photos every week.

This weeks theme is | SELF PORTRAIT |

To see all the rules for this fun party, please go HERE.

Want to see all the PAST Shutter Love Winners? Check out our Shutter Love Winners | Directory in the Pages above. Don't forget to check out future Shutter Love Themes too!

And don't forget to tell your friends that you entered your photo so they can come by and vote for you!

→ VOTING CAN BE DONE IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW - THANK YOU! ←

COMMENT as much as you like. Everyone loves FEEDBACK!
Go HERE to grab one of our Buttons

Tara's | SELF PORTRAIT | Photo

Ok! This is a funny self portrait. I was playing with the kids on the webcam. We were all making goofy faces. Then I took this! Ha! Ha! Don't we all feel like this sometimes. Someone told me I need to print up this photo and hang it on days when I need a break! Even if I did, I could never truly be off duty. But I guess I could try. LOL I can't wait to see all of your Self Portraits!

REMEMBER... This was taken on a webcam, so it's not the best quality. LOL

Jamie's | SELF PORTRAIT | Photo