J and A plus 2: March 2011

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Day 59-Broken

*My dear daughter misplaced my memory card for my real camera so I had to resort to using the phone on my camera for todays picture...apparently it's broken :( Hopefully my memory card turns up soon!

Friday, March 18, 2011

With Morgan's 2nd birthday only 16 days away I took some time today figuring out what I was going to do for her birthday party theme and birthday cake this year.

I bought this adorable tutu from Whimsical Fairytales a few weeks back

(SOOO cute right!)

I decided that to go with this adorable tutu I would just do a simple rainbow theme and after searching the internet I discovered rainbow cupcakes!

Today I did a test run to make sure they were something I could actually pull off so I wasn't stuck the day of the party frantically trying to salvage a cupcake disaster. I'm not normally such a planner so I'm pretty proud of myself right now!

Here's a little play by play of the rainbow cupcake adventure

Mix up some white cake mix according to the instructions on the back of the box (for her actual birthday party I'm going to use an amazing white cake recipe courtesy of my bestie)

Next, I split the batter into 6 even parts and put it in bowls and then added pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple food coloring.

From there you layer the colors into the cupcake pan and cook according to the directions on the box

and viola! Yummy, beautiful cupcakes!

For her birthday party I'm going to make some white butter cream frosting to top them off! So excited!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

DIY Wool Dryer Balls!

In my quest to become a more crunchy mama I discovered wool dryer balls. You put wool dryer balls in you dryer with your laundry as a substitute for fabric softener and dryer sheets. Thus, eliminating another cost at the grocery store and unnecessary chemicals touching my family's skin. Plus they're adorable.

Sounds good to me!

So rather than buy dryer balls online for $5 or $6 a piece I decided that I would use my minimal craftiness and make my own.

So I dragged the family to the craft store with me last night after story time to pick up some yarn! When I told Jeremiah my plan he just laughed and said "why don't we install some solar panels too?!"

He thinks my quest to be more green is funny but is very supportive :)

And then my journey began!

The first thing I did was roll my yarn into balls about 4 or 5 inches around for the cores. After that I stuffed them into a nylon and knotted each one

After that I washed each one in hot water (in the nylon) and dried them on hot to felt the wool.

Once they were felted I used wool roving and a felting needle