DIY Gift Bags

Almost Christmas! So excited! :)

 Here's some gift bags I put together for different family gifts! They were super easy--I picked up a few two pack of bags at the Dollar Tree, and came up with some ideas for the front. 

Cute Cute Cute!

I used scrapbooking paper, construction paper, jewels, dyed doilies and sticks--everything I already had!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

Laffa Bread Recipe

Howdy! 

Today I want to share with you a DELICIOUS recipe I found for Laffa Bread. 

Laffa Bread is a thick, soft flatbread. It is usually used to dip in and eat hummus. I absolutely LOVE hummus, and Laffa Bread is the perfect bread to eat it with!

 So here's the recipe!

Laffa Bread  

*7 cups unbleached bread flour plus another ½ cup in case the dough is little too sticky

*1 package dry rapid rise yeast

*2 tablespoons sugar

*1 teaspoon salt

*4 tablespoons olive oil

*3 cups of warm water

 Combine the dry ingredients.  Add the oil and water. If using a mixer, mix with the dough hook until the dough is very smooth, soft and elastic.  If making by hand; after you add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients, mix by hand in the bowl for a few moments until well combined and coming together.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about ten minutes until smooth and elastic.

In all cases after the kneading, place the dough in an oiled bowl and loosely cover with plastic wrap.  Then cover the bowl with a tea towel and place it in a draft free warm corner so the dough may rise.  In about an hour, when the dough has doubled or more, punch the dough down.  Divide the dough into 10-12 equal balls, and then roll the balls until smooth.  Place the balls on an oiled cookie sheet.  Cover them with a damp tea towel and let the dough balls rest for about ten minutes.  Resting makes the dough easier to roll out.

Pre-heat a grill pan to medium. I found that the large non stick grill pan was the easiest to work with.  Take a ball of dough in your hands and flatten it out on an oiled wood surface.  Roll it out with a rolling pin or use your hands.  Make a circle about 12 inches in diameter and place the Laffa on the hot grill surface.  When you see the edges looking dry and the bread is poofing up turn it over.  Laffa only takes a few minutes to grill.  Place the finished Laffas in between some kitchen towels to keep warm.  

YUM YUM YUM!!

Christmas Card Door

So our house isn't the biggest. Sure, there's smaller houses. But it's a hair under 1500 square feet. So most of the time, I'm trying to come up with creative ideas on how to store and display things without taking up too much room.

 That's when I came up with my Christmas Card Door idea! 

 I wrapped my entryway closet door in a cute wrapping paper found at Target, and then hot glued twine on the inside of the door. Add some clothespins, and WOOHOO! You have a perfect spot to display your Christmas cards.

 Now if I could just get a few more, I could fill up my whole door!

SUPER easy fabric ruffled flower REFASHION!

Hey friends!

 Almost Christmas....16 days to be exact! Can you believe it?! Have you got your Christmas shopping done? Cuz I SURE haven't! YIKES!

 So today, I want to share with you this cute little revamp I did on my 2 year old's shoes.

 It began like this.

 Went out to pick up a few things at the stores. Crowded as HECK. Went to Target to look for tennis shoes for her, because she's growing out of all her converse (side note--we like our kiddos to have fashionable shoes--doesn't need to be expensive, just cute. I mean, cute kids need cute shoes right?!), so we took a looksie. Target didn't have ANY cute girl tennis shoes. They DID, however, have some cute BOY tennis shoes. When my husband showed me a pair, my first thought was NO!!! Then, I considered for a moment--If I got these shoes, I wouldn't have to go to....dun dun dun.....THE MALL on a Saturday afternoon. I would be done looking for tennis shoes for her, if only until I have the strength and energy to put in another round of shopping to find some cuter ones. And THEN, the thought crossed my mind....I could REFASHION these and make them CUTE! So we bought them. 

  Holy Moly, aren't these CUTE or WHAT?!

 Let's do a before and after:

Here they are. In all their "boy glory". Although super cute pattern. But very BOY.

ANNNNDDDDDD....

AFTER!

SQUEAL!!!!

 Look at these sweet little toddler tootsies! Oh, how I love them!

The tutorial I followed for the flowers is this one from Ruffles and Stuff (Disney, HOLLA!)

Only I added a small pink circle in the center and a pink button :)

Very cute, chic and just plain AWESOME!

 Do you agree?

Do you Advent? We DO!

We have never officially celebrated Advent before. But this year, when I came across this advent focused book Good News For Great Joy by John Piper, I was DELIGHTED to download it and start the advent tradition!

 So each day starting tomorrow leading up to Christmas Eve, we will be reading from this book! The layout is super simple, dating and titling the chapters for a daily devotional reading.

 You can download it onto you computer as a PDF, or you can download it as a  EPUB file which is formatted for readers like the Nook, Sony Reader, and Apple iBooks (iPad, iPhone, iPod).

It's also available for us kindle users in a MOBI file. 

How to transfer EPUB file to Nook

How to transfer MOBI file to kindle

PLEASE join us as we start this tradition tomorrow! We are so excited to see what Jesus is going to do in ALL of our hearts these next 23 days! 

 So, you in?! 

LET'S DO THIS THING!

Giveaway Time!

 It's that time again!

 With the holidays around the corner, this would make a perfect gift or even a nice piece in your home for your guests to oogle over!

This scripture plaque comes with a sawtooth picture hanger affixed to the back, and the scripture is from Proverbs 22:6! LOVE IT!

Giveaway will end December 10th  at 11:59pm! GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

PrintRunner.com Postcard Review

Hey everyone! Can you believe it's almost DECEMBER? What in the world?! Where has the year gone?! It's really flew by for me.

 Today, I want to share with you all how AWESOME PrintRunner is!

 Back in May, I did a giveaway of 100 customizable 5x7 Postcards from PrintRunner. I received 100 postcards in return, so I was so excited to get started and design away!

PrintRunner makes it so easy to design your own cards! I used Gimp to make my template, and then uploaded it. Within minutes, my customized card was uploaded and ready to order!

I wanted to do a simple postcard that I could send to anyone, letting them know that I'm thinking of them.

 When they arrived, they were EXACTLY what I wanted! I love them!

PrintRunner is extremely affordable! They do Banners & Signs, Business Cards, Calendars, Greeting Cards, Postcards, Stickers and even CHRISTMAS GREETING CARDS!

 So go over to PrintRunner and check them out!

I am thankful for...

November. Is it REALLY already November?! Did the year fly by for anyone else? Sheesh!

 Halloween....it was fun! The kids all dressed up and we went trick-or-treating. Lots of candy-which is GREAT for Me! LOL!

Ok, so today I want to share with you something we're doing for the whole month of November. When I saw these AWESOME "I am thankful for" printables over at Crafty Confessions, I KNEW I had to print them out right away for use! This is a great way to get your children thinking daily about the blessings in their lives, whether small or big. I laminated them and decided to hang them on the fire place, which is in the family room--we're always in here, so we'll be seeing them and being reminded of our blessings several times a day! I LOVE IT. 

 My children's ages are: 12, 8, 3, and 2. You can figure out which belongs to who-LOL!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

Mega Swagbucks Friday!

Do you use Swagbucks? I DO! And I've earned $50 in Amazon Gift Cards in 8 months! Don't believe me? Well look!

See? And there's days where I don't even use it at all-so when I'm consistently using it, I'm sure I could get nearly $10 in Amazon Gift Cards a month. If I'm not making sense, well here's the bottom line:

You use the Swagbucks search engine, and you get FREE gift cards of your choice! It really is as simple as that!

I LOVE using amazon for kindle books, so it's PERFECT for me!

The best way to win Swag Bucks is to use the engine for genuine search and discovery. Doing a ton of searches, or clicking on search results, will not increase your chances of winning in any way.

What I have found is that you can generally win a maximum of 4 times per day. Searching over and over typically will not produce better results than just searching naturally. To be honest, in my experience you will almost always win some bucks within the first 5 searches everyday. If you are lucky you might win again in the next 10 minutes or so, but you are usually better off searching a few hours later, maybe around lunch time.

Friday is "Mega Swagbucks Day" meaning you have a chance to win very large amounts, maybe even a 1000 swagbucks in one search.

I also subscribe to SBCodez Facebook, where they instantly post any code that comes up so that's extra codes on TOP of your searching. Awesomeness!

 So what are you waiting for? Sign up under me and start earning giftcards! I promise, it really works! :)

As for us, we're heading to see a certain....MOUSE today.....

WOOOHOOOOOO! 

Happy Friday All!

10 Minute Jewelry Holder

Ok, so it's no secret that I love necklaces. And I needed a place to hold my necklaces. But....it got a little crowded. Would you agree?

(Excuse the quality of my pictures, my lighting is a little wacky in there!)

After brainstorming and perusing Pinterest, I came up with this idea!

I spent a total of $7: I bought a 6 foot round dowel, which is cut into three 2 foot pieces and some screw hooks! 

 Now I have so much room, I'm thinking I need to expand my necklace collection! 

Hee Hee.

DIY Tombstones!

Hi everyone! We are finally getting fall weather over here, PRAISE THE LORD! 

 So naturally, I've been getting in the fall mood. Usually we don't decorate for Halloween, except for our carved pumpkins, but this year I wanted to do a little something so I bought a few decorations and then decided to make some tombstones!

So here's a quick little tutorial on how to make your own tombstones!

 I used some leftover MDF I had, and traced out 3 tombstones.

 I cut them with the jigsaw, and then sat and admired them, crookedness and all.

I then painted them, cut out some funny names with my cricut and then hand painted the pictures on!

 I attached them to some wooden stakes, and had some awesome, ridiculously inexpensive tombstones! Super cute, if you ask me!

Meet Firmoo--Quality Glasses At An Affordable Price!

I don't wear glasses. My sweet Husband does, and even my kids! But let's be honest here--sometimes, glasses are a great accessory to add to a great outfit! YEAH, sign me up!

 When Firmoo contacted me to review a pair of their glasses, I was all about it! They have hundreds of styles to choose from, and I had no problem selecting a SUPER cool pair that I thought would look just right on me!

 When my package arrived, I was tickled pink with the nifty hard case that my glasses came with, along with a soft pouch and a soft cloth enclosing the glasses! 

 I put them on, and fell in love! SO CHIC!

Why choose Firmoo.com?

Here at Firmoo, we offer over 300 styles of affordable and stylish frames for you to choose from. Customers even can buy 8 pairs of different eyewear on our site instead of only one pair at the local retail outlet or mall with the same amount money. Different clothes, different mood, different glasses every day, sounds interesting, huh? And if you don’t want to rack your brain to think it over which style suits you most, we offer Virtual Try-On System that helps you see how you look with our glasses or sunglasses. You even are able to use your own photo to try our eyewear virtually, and also you can share your awesome try-on photo on yours and Firmoo’s Facebook wall and see what your friends think of it. 

Do you wear glasses? Well why don't you give Firmoo a try? Right now Firmoo is offering Free Eyewear for first time buyers! (Just pay shipping!) For more info on this program CLICK HERE. 

Harvest Blocks

So I did these a few weeks ago, and LOVED the way they turned out! Seriously, it was so super cheap! I used the scrap 1x4s in our garage, some fall scrapbooking paper....and my handy dandy CRICUT to cut my letters!

Cute right?!

(ignore my papers tucking out of the basket, lol!)

Love me some Harvest blocks!! :)