Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Lots o'Dots cake and lots of mince pie

If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you have to know how much my daughter, Zara, loves to bake. At the ripe, old age of 2 1/2, baking has become her favorite thing to do. It's right up there with painting and drawing for her. So, when she asks to go to the kitchen to bake or "mix" as she calls it, my husband and I tend to indulge her. Her last baking whim led to what I call the Lots o'Dots cake.

Lots o'Dots

Thursday, December 16, 2010

We all scream for snow cream!

Snow!!!

This is the sight that greeted me when I looked outside this morning. Snow, snow, and more snow! What's a girl to do with all that snow? (Yeah, I'm not shoveling that!)

Make snow cream, of course!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

I'm in love...with cinnamon frosting!


This past weekend Seán, my wonderful, amazing husband, turned to me and said, "I haven't seen cupcakes around here in a while." That was his not-so-subtle way of asking me to make some cupcakes. And not just any cupcakes. Christmas-ish cupcakes. What's more Christmas than gingerbread? Not much!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Crafting with Kids

So Norman Rockwell! Photo by Seán.

NEWSFLASH: Winter's here!!! You know what that means, right? Kids stuck indoors. With you. Now, don't panic! I said DON'T PANIC!!! There's things that you can do to make this season more...I dunno, enjoyable? Here are a few cheap and easy ideas for cheap and easy things to do with your kiddos.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Last Christmas I Gave You My...Salt Dough Ornament?!

A few of my salt dough ornaments.


If I'm to be perfectly honest, Christmas is barely on my radar this year. I had had big plans to make all the ornaments, to make my own gingerbread house, to make endless amounts of cookies, but I lack the motivation. I have a few more weeks until Christmas, so I might get into the spirit before then. I'm not holding my breath.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

A Fiddy Cent Tree Skirt

My fiddy cent tree skirt.

From the second year of my marriage up until last year I had a gorgeous velvety blue and silver tree skirt. So what happened last year? Well, I won't name names, but a certain potty training toddler (who still is not potty trained) pulled it out from under the tree and peed on it. And you better believe that if she ever gets married, I'm telling that story at her wedding.


Monday, November 29, 2010

Back in the Saddle (er...Home) Again

O. M. G! It's been twenty-one days since my last post and here's why...

Seán, Zara, and I just hanging out...at Ross Castle!

We went to Ireland! Okay, so that's nothing new. Seán's from there and I lived there and we go back every year to visit his family. But the point is, we had a fabulous time. The weather was good enough that Seán got in some golfing time with his buddies. Zara had a blast playing with her cousins, and slept well, and ate well. I got to play tour guide for my aunt. Aunt Lizetta got to see Ireland for the first time. The week went by so quickly that we weren't able to do half what we had planned. We did manage to see everyone, if not everything. We had so much fun.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Procrastination, Guilt, and Too Much Sugah!!!

Today I have procrastinated writing much, much more than I have ever procrastinated before...if we don't count the fact that much of my house is still not painted... and we've lived here five years. Beyond that, this is the worst I've been.

Friday, November 5, 2010

NaNoWriMo. No, I didn't stutter.

November is National Novel Writing Month and, crazy lady that I am, I decided to participate this year. I have a lot of ambition, but little drive. In fact, I'm procrastinating writing right now...by writing my blog. Hrm...made sense when I started.

The goal is to write some every day and at the end of the month to have written a 50,000 word novel. It's November 5 and I'm already five days behind. Not good. Not good at all.


Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!!!

Having just recovered from last night's Halloween bash, I thought I'd post a few shots of the party.

Trick or Treating

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Presenting Zara the Autumn Fairy!

Okay, so I finally bit the bullet and let Zara try on her costume...and she loved it!!! She kept it on for hours!

Ta-Da!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

I know an old lady...

...who swallowed a fly. Ever heard of it? I hadn't. Not until I bought Zara a set of books and that was one of them. I'll give you a minute to familiarize yourself with it:


Macabre, right? Well, it was the Frugal Homemaker's fave when she was five years old. Memorized the whole thing. When she told me that, I had to make something. It's just great timing that Halloween is nearly here.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Autumn Fairy Costume: The Finale (Finally!)

Halloween is scarily near and I have tons left to do for the party. The one thing I do have finished is Zara's fairy costume! Yay! It only took me a couple of hours to do, so I have no idea what I was procrastinating so much.

First thing I did was make the tutus. Yes, that's right. More than one tutu. Two tutus, truthfully. (I love alliteration.) I wanted a very layered look and that was the easiest way I could think of. If you want step-by-step directions on how to make your own, The Idea Room is the place to go. This is pretty much the technique I used and the model is darling.

Tulle, tulle, and more tulle.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Happy Birthday Two (of) You!

Two birthdays equal lots of yummy cakes! The Frugal Homemaker's oldest son, Victor, turned six, and my wonderful Aunt Lizetta turned...well, I'm not telling. I'm pretty sure she'd kill me and bury my body deep in the woods. And who'd blame her?

I was fully prepared to do a fully decorated layer cake for my aunt. She told me she'd prefer cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes. What other flavor is there? So, she got chocolate cupcakes. I used Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake recipe, added a cup of chocolate chips, did a chocolate pudding filling, and topped the whole thing with chocolate buttercream. So much chocolate!

I love these cupcake liners. So beautiful!


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Owl'll be seeing you...hanging around my neck.

From a very early age I had a fear of owls. If I'm to be completely honest, I have a fear of pretty much all birds except penguins. Penguins just look too cuddly to be scary. Owls, on the other hand, were creepy and terrifying to me. So imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden, I developed a fascination with them. Maybe it's because of all of the adorable illustrations and decorations I've been seeing. I dunno. Now they're adorable. Go figure.
I love my new necklace!

Monday, October 18, 2010

The Fabulous Diana Gabaldon

Yesterday I got the chance to do something that I've wanted to do for a long, loooooong time. I met the wonderful, luminous, gorgeous, funny, brilliant author of the Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon, at the WV Book Festival in Charleston, WV!
See, told you she was gorgeous!  

 
She is one of my favorite authors and the only one that I insist that I have the hardcover editions of her books. I have to have them as soon as they come out. It killed me that I had to wait a week for The Exile because Borders sold out.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Autumn Fairy Costume: Headband

The one thing a fairy princess needs is a fabulous hair accessory. My little princess has a ton of headbands lying around, so it just made sense that one of her many, many purple ones could be used for this little project. I love not having to buy even more stuff for her costume. (Side note: Zara's in her room and is supposed to be napping. I just heard her shout "happy cake" over the baby monitor.)
The princess's finished headband.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Autumn Fairy Costume: Wand

Here are a few facts about my daughter, Zara. She has bright red hair, loves to play dress up, adores a tutu and wings, and loves to dance. Put all of that together and you get her Halloween costume: an Autumn fairy. And since Halloween is getting close, I have a lot of work ahead of me. After putting her to bed last night, I got a pretty good start. I finished up her wand and her headband and I'm really pleased with how they turned out.
A wand fit for a fairy princess.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Autumn Bliss

Not much makes my heart race more than autumn showing up. I get this weird sort of giddiness that kids get on their birthdays when I start seeing fall leaf garlands and Jack O'Lanterns show up in stores. Needless to say, Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday of all time. In light of my adoration of the whole season, this particular post is about the few things I've made in celebration of the most wonderful time of the year.

This is three strands of pumpkin lights, a leaf garland, and some florist's wire. Easy peasy!
Jack O'Lanterns make me happy.

Friday, October 8, 2010

A Super Simple Frame Transformation

After about two and a half years, we're finally getting around to decorating Zara's bedroom. I know! About time! We're doing a French provincial theme in pink, green, and white. Well, we have the pink and green paint...still in the cans. That's our next big project. Painting the walls. And the floor. *groan* In the meantime, I've been working on accessories and decor. One thing I wanted to do was frame Sprick Space's gorgeous ABC and 123 charts. She was so generous to provide the printables for free, and, on top of that, there are many colors to choose from.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Company Cupcakes


Sometime last week my husband sent me a text saying that his company was having a picnic on Saturday and asked if I would make cupcakes. Of course I went into an immediate panic. And, of course, I immediately started planning and designing the cupcakes. I had envisioned twenty-four white swirly cupcakes with his company's logo done in either chocolate or royal icing on top.

More Wilton Cakes

After much begging and pleading and whining (okay, so I just asked once and they were so sweet to say yes) Mom and the Frugal Homemaker have allowed me to show you their work in the Wilton cake decorating class. Yay!

Here's Mom's work:
Mom's cupcake cake. I love her color scheme.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Wilton's Newest Convert

I thought that while battling a vicious case of hiccups (do you know how hard it is to type with the hiccups?) and catching up on the Britney Spears episode of Glee, I would fill you in on the Wilton cake decorating class I took. A few months back (okay, it was in Spring), my good friend the Frugal Homemaker asked if I would be interested in taking the class. Umm...let me think about it...YEAH!!! So, after an hour long phone call later, I found out that we'd already missed the first class. So disappointed. When I found out that they were doing the classes at Hobby Lobby (a.k.a. my second home) for 50% off, I squealed like a 12 year old at a Beiber concert.
Here's why:





Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The First Ever Post!!!

Hi and welcome to the first post of what I hope will turn out to be a fabulous blog!

Introductions first. My name is Tabitha. I'm a stay-at-home-mom of one remarkable little girl named Zara. I love to bake, to craft, to paint, to make jewelry, and am learning to sew. I have a tremendous love of reading, which tends to add up on my credit card. Whatever. I'm coming up on my eighth wedding anniversary. Seán, my husband, is the love of my life and a seriously talented writer. Let's hope he'll agree to guest blog at some point. Seán, Zara, our three cats and I live in a tiny town in West Virginia. You've never heard of it. lol

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...