Packers burlap wreath

So forever ago I bought a wire wreath with the intention of making a burlap Packers wreath for football season. As it turns out, I had a harder time finding burlap locally than I thought I would. After a year, I finally decided to order online. I have finally started making my wreath after over a year of planning it.

I am not really go into a huge tutorial for this, mainly because I didn't think to actually focus on how I did it, while I was doing it. I will give you the general idea though. I actually started, and redid the wreath about 5 times before I found a system I liked and kept it up. I just weaved the burlap and fabric back and forth, you pull it through and make the loops however big or small you want them. I ended up using this tutorial as the general basis behind my wreath (pretty obviously it was only the general thought behind mine, but it is a good start).I alternated between burlap and Packers fabric. Once I was satisfied with the look/fullness I hot glued the loose ends down on the back side (this probably isn't necessary, but I wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall apart right away). My original plan had been to use only burlap on the wreath and then use the fabric to make bows and hot glue them. When I started making the wreath I changed my mind and just used one large fabric bow at the top.

Things you need:
2-3 rolls of burlap ribbon (I ended up using 2.5 rolls, they were 15 ft each)
Packers fabric (I don't really have an estimate on how much, since I used scraps that my sent that had been left over when she made Bret's bedding)
scissors
hot glue gun
extra fabric or ribbon if you want a bow
Once I finally got the hang of it, and found a rhythm I liked, it only took about 30 minutes. I am very happy with it, and it has already replaced the wreath that has been sitting on the door since last Christmas.

Thanksgiving Crafts

After a few days of no school, and some not nice weather, I am OVER sitting on the couch with the kids and watching movies. It was nice at first, since I have been stuffed up and achy, and even though the kids beg to just watch movies, they get bored quickly and start purposefully bugging each other until one finally snaps (thank you so much week with only one full day of school). Today I decided to break the cycle. Instead of settling back in the couch for another movie marathon after naps, we were going to get up and do something. Enter Thanksgiving crafting; Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, and usually by now I have already had the kids make hand print turkeys, color Thanksgiving coloring pages, make thankful wreaths, and more. I have been slacking this year. So, armed with some sweaters and a cup of tea it was time to go in search of some nice leaves to make some turkeys.

Leaf Turkeys:
assortment of colorful leaves
white paper
glue
markers (or crayons)
red, yellow, orange, and brown crayon, marker, or construction paper (if you want to cut bodies instead of drawing them)

Collect your leaves. Glue them on white paper to look like turkey feathers. Either cut out gobbler, feet, and body, or draw them directly onto the white paper. You can use googly eyes if you have some on hand, if not (as was the case for us) you can just draw them on.

Thankful Turkeys:
colored paper (reds, yellows, browns, and oranges)
pen or marker
toilet paper roll
glue

Cut colored paper into feather shapes. Write something you (or your child) are thankful for on each feather. Glue the feathers onto the toilet paper roll, draw a face onto the toilet paper roll.

Free Photoshop/PSE actions

I have been so busy that I haven't posted in almost a month!! WHAT?!? I feel like I have committed some sort of crime, so here I am (even though I should be making dinner at the current moment). Dinner can wait half an hour, right?!? Of course it can!
Today I want to share some awesome free photoshop actions that I have found while doing some photo editing. I have been fairly obsessed with having "photo shoots" with the kids lately, and then spending hours upon hours editing to make some awesome images. (If you are my facebook friend and tired of seeing photos of the kids, sorry not sorry, and I won't be stopping any time soon.)

I found some on deviant art, but I found most from there either didn't work at all in Elements or were uneditable in Elements (which kinda sucks, but oh well), so I am not going to focus on those ones right now (I did find 1 or 2 that I liked even though I wasn't really able to personalize them the way I would like).

The first ones I would like to share are from OhSoPosh. If you head on over her to website she has a few free actions to download. I will show some of my favorites.

This is the original photo (well, not quite, I did sharpen the eyes). My favorite way to sharpen eyes is to duplicate the layer, lasso the eye, then click on adjust sharpness (adjust levels to your liking). For this particular photo the pixels is set to 96% and the radius is set to 3.0. It's a cute photo on it's own, but I wanted an extra touch.

This is the same photo with the OSP Belle Air action. It just adds something to do it don't you think?

OSP Cleopatra action.

OSP Day Dream action.

OSP Fresh Wonder Action.

OSP Love Couture action.

OSP Little Miss Muffet action with Opacity set to 1%.

This is not all of the free actions, but gives you a good idea. I am in LOVE!!! I would also head on over to TheCoffeeShopBlog. The have way too many free actions for photoshop to even attempt to show you them!! Seriously, go on over there and click on the Free Stuff tab. You will find free downloads for photoshop/PSE actions, Lightroom Presets, storyboards and more!! I mean, really SOO many!! I downloaded at least 10 free actions, with at least 20 more on the list. After I make dinner I plan on testing them out on some old photos.

Have fun editing!!

My Little Pony party

Obviously there is currently a My Little Pony obsession going on this house. I'm not even sure obsession can cover it. It's My Little Pony EVERYTHING around here (and even the little man is in on it). On top of Sophie being Twilight Sparkle for Halloween, we had a My Little Pony birthday party for her this weekend. Instead of ordering ALL my little pony stuff and spending a million and one dollars, I did most of the decor/activities myself. (So I might be exaggerating slightly about the million and one dollars, but that stuff is EXPENSIVE).

I did order the Pinky Pie pin the cutie mark on the pony game (it cost $6 on Amazon Prime), and I ordered the 8 count My Little Pony party set. It came with 8 napkins, 8 cups, 8 plates, and 1 table cloth (it cost $17 on Amazon). For the rest of plates/cups/tablecloth, I decided to to just go with purple and pink (since it went with the pony theme nicely). 

The birthday banner I made myself with some colored construction paper and glitter foam leftover from making her Halloween costume. It took maybe 15-20 minutes total to make, and saved $$ since I had everything already. 

For the photo backdrop I tried to replicate Rarity's boutique. I used a trifold board, some purple scrapbook paper and glitter scrapbook paper, and pink wrapping paper, and colored washi tape. I think it turned out well, and the most expensive part was the trifold boar. Altogether it cost me less than $15 to make. For the photo props I downloaded a my little pony set from http://www.amandakeyt.com/. It cost $4.99 and was an instant download. Plus you get a ton of stuff! I just used one of our stools with a sheet over it for the kids to sit on. 

The other  game was Rainbow Dash and Apple Jack's pony races. I set up a few cones and the kids weaved in out and of the them to wall. The really just enjoyed running around randomly, but the point is that they had a ton of fun. The other activity was Twilight's bookmark corner, where they could color their own "bookmark". I wasn't sure that would be a hit, but it was probably the most popular area!

For goodie bags I got a $5 bag of bling rings, ring pops, and $5 bag of star sun glasses, plus some bouncy balls. The kid's loved it, and they also got to "adopt" a pet at Fluttershy's pet adoption before they left. I made up some adoption certificates for the parent's to fill out. (I figured that was way better than a TON of cheap junk.)

For the food I kept it simple, we had Rainbow's rainbow fruit platter, Fluttershy's bunny food, Rarity's fancy tea sandwiches, Pinky's party treats, and Twilight's mystery brew (purple Hawaiian punch). I made the cake myself. It was supposed to have Twilight on it (and I made a PERFECT twilight, but I messed it up transferring it). I think it still turned out great though.

All the signs I made myself on http://www.picmonkey.com/. I love that site!!

Carnitas and Salsa Verde Chicken

Today I am going to post about pork carnitas. We LOVE pork carnitas! I make them at least twice a month and now I even double the recipe when I make them. It is a fairly easy recipe to make and it's a crock pot recipe which means I LOVE it!

The only issue we had with the original recipe was that it was a bit bland for us. The meat didn't have much flavor, and while we still love it, we NEEDED more flavor to it. You can find the original recipe here: Weary Chef. Definitely follow the notes in her update. Omit the beef broth, and add less water (I use between 1/4-1/3 cup). Cut the roast into chunks and pierce all over to allow the flavor in.

Last time we made this, I decided to also add some fajita seasoning to see if that would help with the flavor. It did help some, but it still wasn't quite how we would like it. Today I decided to add some chipotle peppers and also some of the adobo sauce they came in. It definitely added more flavor!

We serve them with sour cream, a pinch of cheese, and for everyone other than the hubster, we add either avocado chunks or homemade guacamole. I use small flour tortillas (we have tried corn, but we just aren't big fans of them).

I also used this in a new recipe that was a huge hit last night: Chicken salsa verde. The original recipe can be found here  Salsa Verde Chicken. It was very good, but there are a few things to change. The main thing is that it was SOO runny. I only used 1 can of beer and not 1 bottle, but it was still SUPER runny. Next time I will only use 1/2 can of beer. It says you can add a jalapeno if you want for more spice (of course our store decided to not have them the one time I want to buy them). I bought the can of chipotle peppers since they didn't have jalapenos. I tossed a few in there, and then shredded when I shredded the chicken. It was super delicious, and it makes me sort of happy that the store didn't have jalapenos. I will keep making it this way, even if they do start to have jalapenos. We served with flour tortillas, sour cream, and cheese. Even my kid who doesn't usually do "spicy" asked for seconds (when he asks for more of something, it means that is a recipe to keep around...getting this kid to eat dinner at all is usually a feat).

DIY my little pony costume

After much deliberating and flip-flopping between ideas, my daughter finally decided on princess Twilight Sparkle for Halloween this year. It was touch and go for awhile, she kept flip-flopping between Twilight Sparkle, Black Widow, and Maleficent. (Honestly, Black Widow would have been the easiest out of the choices, maybe she will still want to be that next year.) She did make up her mind to go with Twilight Sparkle this year. She told me she will be Black Widow next year and Maleficent the year after that.

I like the feeling of making her costumes by myself (even though I am not really that great at sewing), and to be honest all of the my little pony costumes I saw online were awful. So after searching on Pinterest a bit, I came up with the perfect costume. While I am going to give you the details specifically for Twilight, the general idea for this costume would work for any of the ponies. You would just have to change up the colors and some of the details.

Things you will need:
Wig (in the hair color for the pony you want)
leggings/t shirt (in the color for your pony-if you need to dye it, see my dying fabric tutorial)
tutu-in the color hair for your pony
3 foam sheets-if your pony has wings
2 felt sheets-if your pony isn't a unicorn you will only 1.
headband
hot glue

I found a My Little Pony wig on amazon for $13 (which is actually really cheap, and it's an adjustable kid sized wig). For the tail I am using a my little pony hair extension that someone sent for Sophie a long time ago (her hair is to fine to actually use it). I ordered light purple leggings on Amazon for $6 (I love amazon), and had a plain white t-shirt in her size to dye to match the leggings.

For the wings, I got 2 pieces of a darker purple foam and 1 sheet light purple foam. I free handed a wing design on the dark purple and cut it out. I free handed a smaller wing design on the light purple, then an even smaller one on the last dark purple sheet. I glue those altogether like so. Then hot glue them to the back of the shirt (I haven't done this yet because I ran out of hot glue...a travesty really).

For the headband I made 2 ear templates on a piece of paper and cut out 4 (hot glue 2 together for 1 ear). Then to be fancy I cut out a smaller ear template on glitter foam and hot glued it to the ears. For the horn I used this tutorial Unicorn headband. I ended up making it much smaller though. After gluing it to the headband the first time, I realized it was huge, so I cut about half of it off and redid it

Princess Twilight Sparkle also has a crown (she is only one other than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna that does). I used gold glitter foam and found a crown template that I liked to cut it out (I actually think it was an Elsa crown template, but it works just as well). I cut out some small diamond shapes out of the other glitter foam and glued them on, and cut a diamond out of magenta sparkle scrapbook paper I had on hand for the main gem.

The skirt I made because I felt like the costume was a little bit plain. As my daughter lovingly pointed out "Twilight doesn't wear a skirt!!". I made the skirt out of the colors of her hair and I feel like it really adds to the costume. Then I attached a cutie mark to the side for the finishing touch.

**Will post pictures when she wears it.

Diying farbic

Don't you hate when you are looking for a specific item and can't find it anywhere? I do!! I looked for a plain light purple shirt for 2 months before giving up. Everything I found was either the wrong shade of purple, or had a graphic on it. I was getting fed up and annoyed. I needed a plain light purple shirt (with no logos or graphics on it) for my daughter's Halloween costume and was beginning to think I would NEVER find what I was looking for.
Then yesterday when I was grabbing a long sleeve shirt for my son out of his closet (first time pulling them out since last winter), I saw a plain white long sleeved shirt that was in a bag of clothes given to me by a friend. It was about the right size for her, so today I tried it on her, and it would work! Woop woop! Now I just needed to dye it. I use RIT dye (I have dyed a few things in the past, so I have a few colors on hand). They are about $5 per bottle, and last forever because you really don't need much. You can use just one color or you can mix them to create another color. RIT even has a color mixing guide on their website. I am experimenting since I don't have the exact colors they used to get the color I want, but before buying 2 more bottles, I figured I would give it a try (you can always dye again if your item doesn't turn out the way you want). The guide said to use purple and denim blue, I am attempting with wine and evening blue. It only takes about 1/8 tsp of dye per quart of water.

To dye:
Liquid or powder dye (RIT comes in both forms)
fabric to dye (t-shirts, onesies, receiving blankets)
bucket or large bowl
mixing spoon you don't care about (will get dyed)
hot water

Fill bucket or bowl with hot water (as hot as your tap will get). You need enough water to be able to submerge your items (you can dye more than 1 at a time). Measure out your dye and place in water, and mix with spoon. Thoroughly wet your fabric before submerging (helps it absorb dye). Submerge items and swirl around to evenly coat. Dye an hour (or more for brighter result), mixing and swirling every 10-15 minutes. Mixing it makes sure it dyes evenly.