Baby Name Frame

Although I know I’m late to the party, I’ve finally discovered the absolute awesomeness of Pinterest. To give myself a little credit, I have known about it for a while and was introduced to it months ago; it’s just taken me way too long to “find the time” to sign up and get to work with my pins.

Now that I’m in the cool club, I’ve started getting all sorts of new inspiration for projects, recipes and just general “why didn’t I think of that?” ideas. I have had an idea of adding the boys’ names to their nursery somehow and had a vague concept of what I wanted to do, but after browsing the pin boards high and low, I came up with this:

I found the frame at a second hand store for 50 cents. I wrapped it with some leftover yarn I had from the project I did with my step son last Christmas (hats for the homeless) using hot glue to attach it to the frame. The background is some scraps of scrapbooking paper I had with calligraphy writing and I used my Cricut to cut out the letters, also using old scrap paper.

I brushed the background paper with some olive green ink from an inkpad and brushed over it with a mix of glue and water after gluing it to the backing for the frame (that little cardboard piece that holds the glass in place). Then I scrubbed the edges of the green shadow letters with the same olive green inkpad and glued the letters on top.

I decided not to use the glass from the frame because I didn’t want it to look like a “picture frame” and also because after wrapping the frame in yarn, it wouldn’t fit anyway. So I used more hot glue to attach the cardboard backing to the frame, then added a small raffia bow under the letters to give it a 3 dimensional look.

As far as how I plan to display this in the nursery, I bought an inexpensive curtain rod at Big Lots for $2. It has tiny little acorns on the ends which matches the Frog and Toad swamp/forest theme of the room. The plan is to hang the curtain rod on the wall and wrap it with raffia, then hang the name frame from it using brown ribbon. To see pictures of the nursery, you can visit my baby blog for even more inspiration!

Yo Yo Necklace

It has been way too long since I’ve posted something new! I now realize what it actually means to be “busy”. And I’m only in the pregnancy stage. I can’t imagine how much worse it’s going to get once these babies actually get here!

Anyway, I have been working like mad on quite a few different projects. One of my latest endeavors is this yo yo necklace I made for my best friend who generously hosted a baby shower for me a couple of weeks ago.

It’s so simple to make! Just follow the tutorial for yo yo’s and sew them together in the desired pattern. I used a chain but you could also use ribbon. The fabric is a black chiffon as I wanted it to be a dressier style. For the center decals, I used glass rhinestones and small glass beads. The glass beads were strung on floral wire (although I wish I would have used the white fabric covered floral wire I used in my fabric flowers instead since they are white and would have matched the beads) and wrapped around a marker for shape, then hot glued around the rhinestones.

The whole project took me a couple of days, but that’s mostly because I was making it up as I went. If I were to do another one, it probably wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. This necklace is the perfect accent to a low scoop neck or even as an accent piece to a turtleneck. You can use a variety of fabrics to make it more chic or dress it down with a simple cotton fabric for a fun, casual look.

Pumpkin Smoothie Recipe

There are few things about fall that I don’t love. However, there are a select few things about fall that make it the absolute best time of year in my opinion. In this particular case, I’m talking about pumpkin season.

I absolutely love everything pumpkin. I love the yummy desserts, I love watching them grow on the vine, I love carving them for Halloween and I love all the different varieties and colors.

I think the reason I love pumpkin treats so much is all the delicious spices that come along with it: Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg…mmm my senses are tingling just thinking about them!

This morning as I was getting ready to come to work, I was wondering what I was going to have for breakfast. I usually like to eat a bowl of cereal, but since I was running late, I knew I didn’t have the time. One of my favorite quickie breakfasts is a banana smoothie, but alas: No bananas today.

So, I started thinking about what I had in the pantry. I immediately remembered the canned pumpkin and thought, well shoot! It’s pretty much fall already, and Sonic is already selling their pumpkin shakes, so why not have a pumpkin smoothie?

Omigosh, you guys. If I could take my favorite foods out on dates and try to impress them, I would take this pumpkin smoothie out to a 5 star restaurant and let it order whatever it wanted no matter the cost. It was SO GOOD! It kind of tasted like a frozen pumpkin pie. It’s no wonder, really, because the ingredients are pretty similar to pumpkin pie, sans crust of course.

If you are a die-hard pumpkin fan like me but you still want a little summer heat relief, I encourage you to try this pumpkin pie smoothie recipe. Feel free to make adjustments as your taste buds desire.

Pumpkin Smoothie

½ c. canned pumpkin

¼ c. vanilla cinnamon creamer (available in the dairy section with the coffee creamers)

1 c. ice

¼ - ½ c. milk (add less for a thicker consistency)

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Blend all ingredients in a blender (I like to use the personal size blender for convenience) and enjoy! For extra fluff and awesomeness, you can add some whipped topping to the top. Delicious!