Wordless Wednesday: Play Ball!

Ribbon and Pearls

I have seen a few SUPER cute necklaces lately that incorporate grograin ribbon and pearls. I really liked the look of them, but just couldn't let myself spend $20 or more for a necklace that I knew I could make for a lot less money. So that is exactly what I did:)
I purchased jewlery cording, a string of {faux} pearls, and some grograin ribbon at Hobby Lobby. I spent a total of $5 on all three items that I used in this project:)
I started out by cutting a generous length of ribbon and then attaching a starter pearl to the ribbon with a needle and the jewelery cording. Make sure to leave a pretty good length of extra ribbon on the end to use as the tie.
Then I alternated adding a pearl....
and making a loop of ribbon.
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There are a lot of different ways to do the ribbon, you can do a small loop, wrap the ribbon around a pearl, or even do two pearls in a row and then wrap the ribbon around both of them. It was basically trial and error to see what would work and what looked the best.
I kept alternating pearls and ribbon until the necklace was the lenght I wanted, then I tied off the last pearl and made sure it was attached securely {I had to sneak in a little hot glue to make sure that the cording didn't slip and let the two end pearls fall off}.
Then I made a matching bracelet using the leftover ribbon and pearls!
They are not perfect by any means, but I think they both turned out really cute and I got a necklace and bracelet set for only $5!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
******************************** This has NOT been a tought week for Eli. He has NOT been {almost} hurt more than a few times this week. More than one of those times was NOT my fault! I did NOT almost knock him unconscious with the refrigerator door! It did NOT go a little like this:

Me: "Eli, let's get your juice cup."

Eli: "Jooo"

THUMP

I did NOT have an almost half hour battle with Henry over 7 butter beans! He did NOT refuse to eat them, and I did NOT refuse to let him get up from the table without at least trying to eat them. My children are always compliant and never refuse to eat yummy and healthy vegetables!

I did NOT decided to buy some cute Easter candy to try and fill my cookie jar up. I did NOT buy two bags of M&M's thinking that should be plenty for decorations and to snack on too. I did NOT realize that it is going to take way more than two bags to fill up my {apparently much larger than I thought it was} cookie jar!

I did NOT get a new lens for my camera this week! I am NOT SUPER excited about it, but that does NOT mean that I need a new camera bag to hold all my stuff! I have NOT found two bags HERE and HERE that I really like. Now I DON'T just have to talk myself into picking just one and buying it!

Never an Empty Cookie Jar

Every time I walk by and see my cookie jar looking like this: I feel a little sad for it!

Shouldn't a cookie jar always have cookies in it! I mean, that is it's job:)

So whenever my cookie jar is empty, I just have to make something to fill it up with! This time I tried my hand at an old favorite that my mom used to make.

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup milk
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups quick cooking oats

Mix the sugar, cocoa, milk, margarine, and salt together in a pot. Bring it to a rolling boil and let it boil for about 2 minutes {some recipes say 1 minute, but wait until the end of the post to see why I say 2 instead}.

Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla until mixed well. Then mix in the oats.

Drop the mixture by heaping tablespoons onto wax paper or aluminum foil.
Make sure to scrape the pot clean, because you don't want to waste any of this yumminess!
After the cookies have cooled and set, you are ready to fill up that empty cookie jar.
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Unfortunately, my cookie jar still looks like this:
In my impatience, I only boiled the sugar/cocoa mixture for a little over a minute. So instead of beautiful No Bake cookies, I still have an empty cookie jar...and a big pile of choco-goo {that tasted great anyway}!

I will be trying this recipe again soon, so my poor cookie jar won't be empty for long:)

Hop

I took these SUPER cute Valentine's decorations:

Which you may remember from this post.

And changed them up for Easter!

I used some SUPER cute napkins that I bought at Target.

I cut the napkin into squares.

Then used spray adhesive to attach the napkin squares to card stock.

I used my Cricut to cut out the word HOP.

Then I used a glue stick to attach the letters to the squares.

I painted a scrap piece of wood that Jason had in the yard.

Then I got a little assistance measure and attaching nails to the board.

I hung each of the frames on the board.

And ended up with this cute HOP sign!

I know it is a little early, but I am trying to get into the Spring/Easter spirit!

Do you have any spring decorations out yet?

I am linking up with Tip Junkie's Tip Me Tuesday! Go check out all the SUPER cute tips on Tip Junkie:)

Wordless Wednesday: The (Eli) Patient

Coffee?

A new coffee shop opened in our community about a month ago.

Everyone I talk to raves about it and how much they LOVE the place.

I have been twice, and basically I'm unimpressed! The employees/owners didn't seem all that nice and the drink that I ordered was just so-so.*******************************

So I have a question for you...

What do you do when everyone is in LOVE with something, someplace, or someone and you just DON'T see it?!?

Do you assumed that maybe it was just an off day and give it another shot?

Or do you trust your initial judgement and not waste any more of your time?

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I know I am just talking about a small little coffee shop...but this could apply to a new fashion trend, a new acquaintance, or even a new blog that you found!

I haven't made up my mind about the little coffee shop just yet, but I'm hoping that maybe some of you can share some pearls of wisdom with me on what to do:)

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. ********************************
I did NOT have a SUPER crazy week of doctor's visits{3}, surgery for tubes, and then pneumonia all in just a little more than 4 days! After such a busy week, I am NOT hoping for a nice boring week starting today:)

During all the craziness of last week, I did NOT eat at Chick-fil-a THREE times! I would NEVER eat fast food that much in one week, especially since I am supposed to be on a diet. I would also NEVER spend one of those trips eating a milkshake at 3 p.m. and then call it lunch! I always eat healthy, well rounded meals...and I always follow my diet plan!

I did NOT spend part of this weekend painting and working on a craft project while completely ignoring the housework that was piled up around me. I did NOT put a load of clothes in the dryer just because I felt bad looking at it in the basket getting all wrinkled while I was busy painting!

What did you NOT do this week?!?

WINNER!

The winner is:

Carrie @ Martin Manor Happenings!

Congrats to Carrie and thanks to everyone for entering!

FREE 4 All Friday!

It's the fourth Friday of the month.That means it's my turn to host FREE 4 All Fridays! Because everybody likes free stuff, right!?!

Today, I am giving away a bath and body set.

The set is SUPER cute and includes bubble bath, body butter, shower gel, bath salt, and a body scrub!

Along with the bath and body set, I am also giving way a SUPER cute monogrammed hand towel for your bathroom.

We were in desperate need of a new handtowel in our half bath, thanks to my boys' dirty little hands! So I decided to make one for myself, and pick up an extra for today's giveaway!

You will get to pick the letter and the color that you would like to have monogrammed on the handtowel!

To enter:

Leave a comment telling me what initial you would want on your handtowel.

For another entry, follow my blog and leave me a comment telling me that you do.

For a third entry, place my blog button on your blog and then leave a comment telling that you did.

For another entry, post the SUPER cute FREE 4 All Friday button on your blog and leave a comment telling me that you did. Here's the code:

<center><a href="http://dingdingdorn.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="FREE4AllFridays!" src="http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt350/kellibwilson/Free4All.jpg" /></a></center>

For one more entry, stop by Mimi's place and tell her "HI" too!

I will use random.org to pick a winner on Sunday! Good Luck and thanks for entering!

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I also wanted to say THANKS for all the prayers for Eli and his surgery! He is doing great, and other than a little bit of fussiness coming out of the anesthesia, he is feeling back to normal! Now, if you would please add Henry to your prayer lists...we found out yesterday that he has pneumonia. He is feeling okay, and at home taking antibiotics. I am hoping a weekend of rest will have him feeling much better!

As Easy As Pie

Well, technically this is called Cherry Crunch...but you know what I mean! I never have very good luck with fruit desserts, especially cobblers, crisps, or crumbles. I don't know why, but they always end up either way too chewy or way too dry. I have been staring at a can of cherry pie filling in my pantry for almost a month wishing that I had the perfect recipe to use it in. I finally sat down to do a little research on my favorite recipe website allrecipes.com!

I found THIS recipe!

This is one of the best fruit desserts I have ever made!

It was not too dry and not too chewy.

Just the right amount of sweet and tart.

And the Crunch part stayed yummy for 4 days!

Here is the recipe just in case you want to try it!

CHERRY CRUNCH

Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C.)
2.In a medium bowl, combine the rolled oats, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
3.Sprinkle one half of crumb mixture in the bottom of a 9 inch square baking dish. Cover with cherry pie filling. Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over pie filling.
4.Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until topping is golden brown. Serve warm.

P.S. This is a scheduled post...we are either at the surgery center for Eli's tubes or at home recovering from the surgery. I will try to update today through twitter. You can follow me {my twitter name is SUPERMOM_Kelli} or check the right sidebar of my blog for updates! Thanks again for all your prayers!