Today I’m guest hosting over at Family Home and Life! Read my Post “Sweet Encouragement” HERE and check out Connie’s wonderful website!
~Melissa
Hello everyone! Happy February! This month is going to fly by super fast…considering its the 7th of the month before I even get around to blogging! I have lots of stuff going on right now, and I have some possible personal life decisions coming up over the next week, and I will have to sit down and figure out all of the pros and cons of the situation to see which path to choose. I’ll talk more about it later. 🙂
Right now I wanted to show you some highlights from Emma’s 5th Birthday Party last month. She had a Princess Tea Party theme, and we made some tea party snacks together and a few simple decorations that the girls absolutely loved.
Princess Tea Party Ideas:
We created red velvet cupcakes, complete with pink frosting and pearls and flowers on top! The flowers were created by rolling out gum drops and gummy rings! The girls really loved helping make those.
Thank you so much for supporting my blog in its first year. I’m heading into my 9th month of blogging and I’m loving every minute of it. Here’s a little re-cap of my 12 most popular posts in 2012. I’m looking forward to 2013 as I strive to simplify my life more and more. Cheers!
#1 Girls Sleepover Craft Ideas
#2Â Â 31 Fun Kid Activities
#3Â 31 Fall Must Dos/Fall Bucket List
#6Â Â Creating.Simplifying.Inspiring.
#8 Summer Strawberry Lemon Drop
#11 Blueberry Tart
#12 Princess Polk-a-dot Banner
~Melissa
Hey everyone 🙂 Hope you are all enjoying this last weekend of 2012. I wrote a post yesterday on my blogger app and for the second time it literally just froze in the middle of publishing, and I cannot retrieve it! It is the most frustrating thing to write everything down and then have it lost! And the photos are such poor quality when they are uploaded from the app… disappointing. Luckily my husband isn’t using his net book very often at work right now, so guess who is borrowing it? 🙂 Its SUPER slow, but worth the wait.
Ever since my poor old trusty laptop died, (You can read about that here.)Â Â I’ve been using Instagram more on my phone. Its an easy way to share photos and projects. My user name is MelissaKaylene, and I’d love if you came and found me so we can check out each others pics.
I’ve been working on my first quilt. It will be one of eventually three that I make (one for each of the kids). The first one is for Emma, whose birthday is coming up in a couple weeks. I have been saving all of the kid’s favorite baby and toddler clothes that they grew out of, and have been wanting to make a quilt for quite sometime. I’ve cut the squares out and have begum assembling it. Below is a photo from when I was arranging them into a pattern. I’ll post more when its finished.
In other news, Grandpa Howern has been placed on hospice care. The cancer is just spread beyond repair. They moved him into a facility in Vancouver to help manage his care. We plan on making the trip up there in the next couple days to visit. I’m unsure whether I will have the kids come or not, and I’m not sure when and how to explain things to my eldest daughter. The little ones I think will need not know until the time comes, but I’m not so sure about a 9 1/2 year old. Ah. Life.
I have been working on not resolutions per say, but goals – mainly financial for the new year. I need willpower. I have wrote out a financial timeline for the next 24 months that should get us completely out of debt (minus the mortgage) along with building up a three month emergency savings, as well as enough to take my dream vacation to Italy (if you have read around here before the topic comes up often, my goal is to go for two weeks for my thirtieth birthday!) I’m not sure as to how much details I’ll post regarding finances, but its nice to have them written out, and accounted for. Things will be tight the next year at least, but the reward will be so grand.
What are your goals for the new year? I have others, but shared my number one. Remember, a goal without a plan is just a dream…and goals need to be realistic and achievable. Little by little, slowly but surely, that’s the way to go!
~ Melissa
You guys know I love to create things. So I’ve decided to open a little Etsy shop to fill with things that I have made. In it will be items that reflect my style and personality. I plan to incorporate my artwork into different products, and some simple jewelry.
I adore bracelets. They are so easy to add to any outfit and spice it up. They are inexpensive and people notice them. I finally decided to quit trying to find ones that I like, and make my own. I love the richness in earthy colors and have picked my favorite shades and designs to make something that I would and will wear on a daily basis. This is my first collection of bracelets, with many more ideas to come! Check out my Etsy shop HERE.
No worries, I won’t be bombarding you with sales pitches or anything. I’ll just occasionally show off things here and there, after all this blog is all about creating, and inspiring!
P.S. Create.Simplify.Inspire Link Up #2 is on its way! Can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to this week!
~ Melissa
Hey everyone! 🙂
I thought today would be a much needed mellow day compared to what it has been lately, and it has to some degree, but it seems just when you think you have your semi-relaxing day all planned then your two year old decides he is going to be the biggest terror he has ever been, like ever. Bed time in 4 hours and 8 minutes! YES I am counting today! 🙂
In other news, who is excited for Halloween?! Who is ready for it!? Not me! The month has been so busy we haven’t even had time to go to a pumpkin patch yet! Nor have I bought any candy yet for our trick or treaters! Last year, I almost had enough, but every year we run out… its been 5 years that we have lived in our tiny town with a grade school of less than 400 students. Well, I’m pretty sure everyone of them hits up our cul de sac! I made 250 of these little bags last year, and I think I may be able to get by with 300 this year.
They are super easy to make. I just went down to the Dollar Tree and bought a bunch of their lunch sacks, then used some sharpies to write on them and my daughter helped me color the pumpkin on them with an orange highlighter. We filled ’em up, folded the top down and stapled them shut! Easy peasy and the kids always like getting treat bags, plus that was I can keep track on how many little goblins walk up my porch from year to year 🙂
We shall see what I come up with this year!
~Melissa
Welcome to a new week. 🙂 I was lucky enough to have a weekend at home to catch up on some organizing that needed to be done. Still have a LONG ways to go, but I’m glad I got a little start.
I also have been working online, trying to learn more about all of this blog stuff and SEO and Adworks and Analytics, LOL it is all like a foreign language to me, but I am interested and eager to learn more. I’m so happy to say that as of right now I have over 280 combined followers….thanks for all of the love! If you have any great tips on how you have been growing your blog leave me a comment! 🙂
I’ve been absolutely loving looking at all of the cute Halloween decorations and inspiration around the web lately. I whipped together a little decoration of my own today, the best part was it didn’t cost me anything. We happened to have a couple big plum tree branches that we had to cut when we extended our fence ( you can read the beginnings of that project here. ) and I created ‘spooky’ trees surrounding the bench we have on our front porch. Didn’t turn out too bad….now all we need are some pumpkins!
Oh, and one final thought, I finally broke down and finished setting up my Twitter Account ….so if you prefer updates via Tweets, I’ll be keepin ya updated that way too!
Check back soon, I have a cute Halloween kid craft in the works…..stay tuned. 🙂
~ Melissa
P.S. I would love it if you would show me what you have been up to at me Create.Simplify.Inspire. link up party!
I’m baaaack. You know you missed me. I couldn’t stay away. So I’ve been in mega cleaning mode the past two days. My poor little dude has been sick (again!) and so we’ve been hanging out at the house, which is good because that way I accomplish more, and spend less money. Believe me, there is way more than enough projects to keep me busy around here. One of these days I may even post and brag about my progress.
Okay, I know I’ve been talking about it, and here it is finally: Photo recap from our Blue Moon BBQ and Bunko End of Summer Party!
 I set four tables up in the backyard….I didn’t get all fancy like I did with Anika’s Birthday, (sewing my own table clothes and Birthday Banner) I went to Costco and picked up a package of disposable Vanity Fair tablecloths, and then used some old brown wrapping paper I had and cut it down and made table runners. Then I cleaned out a bunch of random jars that I have been saving and filled them with tea lights, and Viola! Instant decor. That is a bowl full of peanuts by the way. 😉
Aww, the food. We always have a feast. Here’s just some of it. Tasty homemade burgers from a grass fed cow. We went in half’s last year with my brother in law and bought a cow. You really can taste the difference. And its so much better knowing how it was raised!
There’s also a layered cob salad, whole grain tostida chips with mango salsa (its SO good!), and I made meat,olive and cheese skewers (those didn’t last long!) and we had potato salad, baked beans, corn on the cob, etc…all the goods!
Some of the deserts, oh, and I had a little Solo Cup fun. I set out a sharpie so everyone could write their names on their cups….but then I decided to have some fun and googled “funny made up names” and pre-named them all! It was a blast 🙂
My delish burger!
 Me and my BFF Carolyn, sipping on “Blue Moon” Riesling!
 My BFF Jessica and I, after the Riesling 😉
Auntie Carolyn, and Anika….pouting about going to bed :).
View of my back deck, I didn’t have the extra cash to buy new lights, so I broke out the Christmas lights and strung them up for some extra sparkle.
Well, there was a little snippet of some of the fun we had that evening. I try to have get togethers with everyone twice a year. Once at the end of summer, and another around the holidays. Life gets so busy, we don’t all gather together often enough…so I’m the unofficial facilitator. 😉
xoxo,
Â
Melissa
P.S.! I almost forgot! My  Old Fashioned Homemade Apple Pie was Featured at The Vintage Farmhouse! How lucky am I? 😉 Thanks!!
Happy Wednesday everyone…the weekend is getting closer! Have any big plans? We will be heading to the beach to do a little end of the summer camp out! So guess what I will be working on today and tomorrow? Yup.. packing :).
So last week I shared a little bit about my daughter’s 9th birthday party. You can check it out here. I also showed you my little polka dot banner I made…with my daughter’s hello kitty sewing machine…if you haven’t read that yet take a peak here. I also mentioned a little game I made, Bean Bag Toss…and I thought I’d show you a little bit more on our little project today….
It started out with an idea. Then my husband found an old scrap piece of plywood we just happened to have lying around, and I got to work.
I traced circles onto the board where I wanted the holes to be, and then using our skill saw we cut the holes out. I then put my birthday girl to work painting. I think she did a pretty darn good job, don’t you?
After she finished painting both sides, the next day I painted the last minute touches…. and viola! Bean bag toss board that we can keep and use over and over. I was going to make a stand for it, but found that it worked just fine propped up. I was also going to make bean bags, but I ran out of time…so I used my daughters ingenious idea and stole some beanie babies out of their room for the afternoon. 🙂
And there you have it! Not the greatest picture of it, but you get the idea! The best part is that Anika helped make it, and we will get alot of use out of it when friends come over!
I am also loving me some Instagram lately, and here’s a couple pics I’ve posted.
You can find me on there and stock me as well if you’d like… my user name is melissakaylene.
 |
| me and my two long lost uncles |
 |
| my little Noah |
 |
| brothers |
 |
| summertime |
 |
| this ones perfect…its dark so you can’t see my exhausted face after taking care of sick kiddos! |
Til next time,
 
Remember my little project I mentioned a few days ago? Well I am finally showing you ;). So my daughter is turning 9 this weekend and we are having a backyard BBQ then girls sleepover/campout for her. She told me she wanted a polk-a-dot theme this year, so I went to JoAnn fabrics for some inspiration…and found this. The pictures really don’t do it justice because it has little silver glitter sparkles all over the fabric. It was perfect! So I bought a couple yards of it, along with about 6 yards of pink fabric that was on sale. All in all with the sales they had going on, I bought a lot of fabric for $22. Really, with a little time and effort, you can’t beat re-useable decorations for that price….my daughters just might be seeing a lot of polk-a-dots for a while! 😉
So I set out cutting 8″x8″ squares of the fabric, then cut a strip the entire length of the pink fabric 2″ wide. It was a nice hot day outside so I pulled up a seat on our back deck next to our ‘craft’ table and got to work.
I folded the squares in half and ironed them. Then I cut them in half so I had triangles. I then took half of the triangles and did the same thing, so I ended up with some larger triangles, and some smaller ones.
 Now here’s the funny part… ( I know I didn’t tell you this was going to be funny, did I?)
So, I have an old sewing machine that was given to me by my Mom, but it is missing a piece and I need to take it in. So I was super upset that I couldn’t finish my project….until I remembered that I bought my daughter a cheap-o Hello Kitty sewing machine last Christmas, and it had just been sitting there in her closet! So yes, it was a total pain, but I managed to sew the banner with a battery operated machine for little girls!
So I sewed the hems of the pink fabic strip, but didn’t bother with the triangles. I’m not a perfectionist and am pretty sure a little ADD, because I just can’t do a project that takes me longer than a day….it turned out fine though for what we are using it for!
I’ve also made a couple tablecloths for her party, and am also working on a Bean Bag toss board…. I will be sure to post pics of those soon, and of course pictures from her slumber party!
P.S. My dear friend has since loaned me her sewing machine just in case 😉
