Iowa Balloon Festival

We went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Des Moines, Iowa last weekend. My husband's sister and three of her kids came and camped with us and joined us for all of the festivities.

Mass Balloon launch

We got to go right up the fence and watch them blow them up and take off.

They slowly went up one by one.


We got to camp out and have some fun!

Always time to swim!

We also got to go to the parade in town and get lots of candy!

BFF Necklaces

These are some of the new Scrabble Tile Necklaces that I have put together lately. One for you and one for your bestie!

Mama's Happy

Wow! This summer is busy, busy busy. We are having fun, just not a lot of extra time :)

A friend of mine recently talked me into being part of an occasional sale store in Mound, MN. They are open the second weekend of every month for Thursday - Sunday. We rent a small-ish space and then we have to fill it up each month! The above photo is our space so far for this month, we have a little tweaking to do but almost there.

I used to be part of a 50's store in St Paul and have always liked this sort of thing. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and I have a big mess at my house, but enjoy the challenge and the creativity.

If you are in the area come and check it out!
Mama's Happy

We will open Thursday 10-6, Friday & Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 10-5

Peonies!

We have been out of town the last few weekends and almost missed them!

They bloomed while we were out of town and we have about a million things going on right now. But we did stop and cut some Peonies from our garden.

I have really enjoyed Peony flowers and tried for a few years to grow some. I finally have one awesome bush! I just wish they would last longer.

Don't mind all of the junk in the background, I seriously need to clean! Just look at the awesome splendor of the large blooms.

Sugar Cookies

We made about seven dozen cookies to donate to the school carnival for the cake walk.

They have it set up in two different rooms at our school and it's s very popular game. I made these sugar cookies because they are so addicting. I had Steve print up some labels for me and we labeled each plate that we made so that people would know what they were getting. I also labeled that these were peanut free in case someone had a nut allergy.

Earlier in the day I helped to "sort" the donations and learned for next year that they divide up what they can so it goes further. So next year I will put 1/2 dozen cookies on a plate :)

Sandi Henderson

Alyson and I went and met Sandi Henderson last night! Everyone is in town and it is so fun to get out and meet them.

She was so nice and normal too! We actually got to talk with her and her husband for while and at the end of the night they had a giveaway. We didn't win, but it was fun to be there anyway.

You can find out more about Sandi and the things she designs on her blog at Porta Bello Pixie . Sandi was wearing the sweater that she made and is also on the cover of her book. So cute.

Amy Butler in person!

Tonight we ran over to Crafty Planet (which is a local fabric/yarn shop) to meet THE Amy Butler!!

There will be a lot of people from the fabric industry in town this week and through the weekend because this years annual Quilt Market is here in Minneapolis.

When we heard that she would be here in town, we figured we better go and get a photo with her :) I brought her one of my Scrabble Tile Necklaces that I have been making that used a piece of her paper on it(and some glitter). She seemed almost humbled and grateful that I gave it to her. I also had to wear my crazy pants that I made with Alyson out of Amy's fabric. My lucky kiddo got to come with and meet her too because the hubs was working late tonight.

She was just so sweet and "normal" and I will be happy to continue to support her in the future. In fact we bought a new pattern and a couple yards of her fabric when we were there tonight!

Tomorrow night Sandi Henderson will be at Quilted Treasures in Rogers and on Saturday night Anna Marie Horner will be at Treadle Yard Goods in St Paul.

More Silent Auction Items

These are the other sets of cards and necklaces that I donated to the school's silent auction.

The carnival was last Friday night, we went and had A LOT of fun! Our PTO asked parents to donate newer/slightly used toys and books to use as prizes, which is great because you get to clean out the items you don't use anymore and then get "new" ones to play with.

The book walk was the best! I didn't even know about it before last weekend, but just like the cake walk(but not as busy) the kids stopped on a number when the music stopped. Then a winning number was drawn and the kids could pick a book from the huge assortment of books. The best part was that they kept drawing until everyone won a book! We came home with 4 different Magic Tree House books to read. How fun

Lilacs Already?

We went out for an evening walk tonight and could smell these down the road. I can't believe that they are already blooming.

Inspiring Mother's Day Giveaway

Want to win these awesome items for your mother or yourself?

Go to Inspiring Ideas and enter to win, you have until April 26th! or you can find them at all Hallmark Gold Crown Stores

Homemade Laundry Soap

Lately I have been seeing a lot of recipes for homemade laundry soap on the blogs I check somewhat regularly. One of the sites that I saw it on was Pea Pod Creations, but I decided to Google it and see just how hard it would be.

Turns out it is really quite easy!

All that you need is:

*A box of Borax(this is new style packaging)

*Super Washing Soda

*Fels Naptha

Walmart had the Borax and Cub Foods(here in MN) had the Washing Soda and the Nels Naptha stuff, all found in the laundry aisle.

First I cut down the Fels bar into smaller pieces so it wouldn't overwork my food processor.

Then I used the grating blade and chopped it down, I think you can use a hand grater but I wanted to get it done quickly. I'm sure there is a way to grind it even smaller...

Then I added:

1 cup of the grated Fels Naptha

1/2 cup of the Borax

3/4 cup of the Washing Soda

and mixed it well.

Here it is all jarred up and ready to use! 1-2 Tablespoons per load, won't get foamy like other detergents and will wash A LOT of loads. It appears to only cost penny's to do a load with this stuff.

Price Breakdown

Borax -$2.98

Washing Soda -$2.57

Fels Naptha -$1.07

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I grated the whole bar of soap and it was enough to make 3 batches of the above recipe.

Como Zoo Conservatory

We had Spring break last week and one of the days we went to Como Park Conservatory in St Paul. It is a zoo and conservatory and lots of fun! We usually get there a few times a year.

Here are some of our pics from the day - Sophia took most of them.

They had just switched it to the spring flowers and we were loving the bright colors!

Stopping to smell the flowers

Funky trees and leaves galore

Orchids

The funny thing is, this is the closest we got to a picture of an animal!

A penguin sculpture.

Crazy Eyes

These are the Easter Eggs that my mom colored with the kids this year.

I'm not quite sure where she found the crazy face kit, but the kids sure thought it was fun to make all of those silly faces!

When it came time to eat them, no body wanted to peel them apart....

Easter Egg Hunt

We went to our first "real" Easter Egg Hunt last weekend at a church near our house. We heard that it was s fun place to go, so we thought we would try it. They had music and a magician first and then the hunt. It was LOTS of fun!

She(we) found lots of eggs and are still eating candy:) as you can see all of the eggs in the grass around her.

I liked this pic because this is a genuine smile when she picked up an egg and not a posed look for the camera.

Sketch Challenge TESC105

I made this card for my quilting sister-in-laws' ( Alysons Petals) birthday. We had a small gathering at my parents house last weekend.

Sometimes it is easier to get started when you have a card layout to start from.

I found this one over at Taylored Expressions and thought it would be a fun one to use! I just bought my first Nestibilities Dies and finally tried them out. I think I need more practice to get a good emboss too...

This is some more of the fun paper I bought at Crafts Direct when I was there. I had to use a bird stamp on it because Alyson really seems to be into birds lately! She even posted something on Facebook about being old because she likes birds :) I colored them in with Prisma Colored Pencils.

I also worked really hard to make a yummy cake from scratch. It was good, but very rich! It took me all day to make the filling, the frosting and the cake, but well worth it.

Chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting and raspberry/whip cream filling. yum.

18th Birthday

My niece's 18th birthday was Saturday! I tried to post this then, but Blogger flipped my photos and I can't figure out how to fix them so please bear with me. I still don't know how to fix them, so I am just going with it.

She loves the color Teal, Zebra print and Bows!

This is what I came up with for her birthday card. It's a tri-fold card, but I didn't add an actual closure because I didn't have anything that would have worked and not ruined the ribbon look.

I glued this sentiment on the inside to keep it simple and sweet.

Just imagine this turned the right way, how cute huh?

The only sad part about all of these birthday cards is that I mailed them Priority last week and no one has received them yet! I also added some money and other fun things into the box - I just hope no one took it for themselves...

Fun in the Sun

Here is how we spent last week when we were in sunny Arizona:

Spending time with our BFF

(that's what Sophia told grandma last week)
Swimming in a outdoor pool

Eating on outdoor patios
(this one is next to the London Bridge)

Riding the Ferris Wheel

Driving through mountains.

We did a lot more, including driving to Phoenix to hang with my cousin and his family for the day, but I still need to get that photo from my mother. We also ate at the best place EVER when we were there. Joe's Farm Grill. I highly recommend it.