My Little Pony Pillow Case

Children go through phases of liking different kinds of toys. Those phases can last months but in many cases it may only be a few weeks….. and I don't want to create a "too many toys phenomenon."

My daughter is currently on a My Little Pony "kick"and I am not going to run out and buy a bunch of toys and accessories just to make her happy.

However, I did happen to have some extra iron-on transfer paper and combine that with some clip art from the internet and a plain pink pillow case…..

Print, cut, and position the transfers.*

*Only let your child help if they are old enough and you feel secure in doing it WITH them. NEVER LET A CHILD USE AN IRON ALONE.

Now my daughter has a 'new' pillow case that makes her very happy!

More FREE My Little Pony crafts can be found on this great website!

Kimberly is another mommy blogger who runs the www.learncreatelove.com blog and she has all sorts of printable activities for kids.

Chop Salad Recipe

This is one of my all time favorite salad recipes. 

Better yet, it makes a great all in one meal and only takes 15 minutes to make and serve. 

Ingredient list:

Head of romaine

2 cups cooked pasta

1 cup chicken Brest Cooked & cubed (great way to use up leftovers!)

4 green onions diced 

2 roma tomatoes diced

3 tablespoons real bacon bits

1/2 cup Gorgonzola cheese 

Start some water boiling for the pasta and toss in the pasta when it's ready. 

(I use gluten free and happen the like the little rings.)

I like to start with a crisp fresh head of Romaine (I'm not a huge fan of iceberg).

Chop the whole head up onto nice bite size pieces and toss into a bowl.

Make sure everything is diced and chopped. 

When the pasta is done drain it. I recommend cooling it under cold water before adding it to the salad.

.....then toss everything together!

My favorite part about this salad is it is so flavorful that it doesn't need any dressing. But if you are a dressing kinda person my husband does love this with poppyseed dressing.

Enjoy!

Chalkboard Door

I decided to revamp my chalkboard door. 

Originally I had an art area on the bottom and 4 small sections on the top but it didn't seem to be efficient to me. 

So I taped it off and repainted the whole thing. This Rust-oleum paint is awesome. It goes on very nicely with a foam roller and works really well and cleans up nicely after using both white or colored chalk.  

Once my two coats were applied (with 24 hours between coats) and let 'cure' for 48 hours...

I now have a gigantic chalk board and I love it!

I love that the door is metal because I can use magnets on it. The magnets work through the chalk paint too.

I always have a "Grocery List" heading since I always seem to be running out of something and if I don't write it down I won't remember.

The base provides a great place for my daughter to draw and play teacher with her stuffed animals. 

Best Hairbrush Ever!

I haven't done a product review in awhile because I haven't seen or used anything that really stood out. This however has made a huge impact and I really wanted to share with you.

For Christmas my mother-in-law bought this for my daughter. If you have a 4 year old girl you know how knotted their hair can get. This brush glides right through wet hair, dry hair, tangled hair, morning hair, basically any kind of hair you can think of. 

At first I was skeptical, but after using it I was a believer. What really sold me was, after using this for a few weeks, I left it in my daughters swim bag so after bath time we used the "regular" brush. It felt like I was trying to comb out an knitted blanket. It felt impossible. I prompt ran downstair to get the 'wet brush' and have had it on had for every brushing since then!

This brush was purchased at the local beauty supply store for about $6 (one would need a beauticians license to shop here) but I also discovered the other day it was available at Target too for about $9. (Click here for the link to buy the brush from Target.)

Happy brushing!

Snow Ice Cream

Do you have some freshly fallen snow? 

We seem to have plenty of it here in the Midwest and many schools are closed tomorrow so why not make a delicious treat and a wonderful memory at the same time? 

Homemade snow ice cream!

****Update: This year we tried ice-cream and sweet and condensed milk.
Success. A very sweet and creamy ice-cream.***

Ingredients:

4-6 cups of snow 

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 sugar 

Learn for my mistakes and DO NOT pour the milk directly into the snow!!!!!

Instead, mix the milk, sugar, and vanilla together and THEN spoon in the snow and mix.

(In my opinion it is more of and semi melted frosty consistency than actual ice cream) 

My family are chocoholics and will only settle for chocolate icecream. So I decided to add chocolate....

Stir.

Scoop.

Serve. 

Yum!

Update: This year we tried ice-cream and sweet and condensed milk.
Success. A very sweet and creamy ice-cream.

Second note. To the person putting the notes on Pintrest in regards to snow ice-cream:

• "Even if you collect it in a bin there will still be a bunch of different environmental pollutants in it.... Regardless if it looks "clean" it really is not something that anybody should be putting into their bodies. Best idea would be to freeze filtered water and shave it yourself to make snow at home."
• 
  

  I say: 

  I'd rather do this than buy ice-cream full of processed chemicals! Eating snow is no different than drinking rain water or walking around in a city and breathing the polluted air. We've all survived this long. Let us enjoy the little things in life. The small bowl full that my child and I eat will not kill us and the memory we make will last a lifetime. All things in moderation.

Korean Beef Tacos

I made the most delicious recipients the thee night. It was a new recepie so I wasn't sure how it would turn out ( also why I don't have step by pictures)

But this was just too good not to share!

The recipe is from Family Fun magazine.

All you need are the ingredients. It takes less than 10 minutes to prep eveything and thow it in the crock pot. Then you let it cook all day and you've got dinner when you get home!

Best part, it's flavorful enough for the adult pallet but mellow enough to appeal to kids. My four year old couldn't stop eatting them!

Leave me some feedback and let me know what your family thinks.

Pinterest Heart Cake

The pin:

My attempt:

Ok, so I didn't quite nail it; but we had a blast making it.

Instead of doing a square and a circle I just used 1/2 the cake batter and made one circle cake and trimmed it into a heart shape. 

Then we went crazy with the frosting and the sprinkles. 

"It's 7am somewhere"

Valentines Door Decor

My daughter took this picture while we were in the midst of this craft. Thought I would share it. It gives you a sneak peak at my crafting desk… This area was semi clean, usually you can't even see the surface of the desk. 

Step one in this project is to cut out hearts. I used my Cricut machine and cut out a variety of 2" 2 1/2 " and 3" hearts in different shades of red and pink.

Punch holes in the hearts. Some in the top some in the side. It gives the finished product more variety.

Pick a ribbon, thread or twine. I chose to use a twine I had picked up during the holidays from the dollar bin at Target. The red and white lent well to the Valentine color theme.

Thread a heart on to a length of thread and tie to securely at the bottom.

Thread second heart on and tie above first heart, continue repeating this process.

After the first strand was totally finished I wised up and found it was easier to just thread a small loop through the heart over the area I wanted the heart located....

…then just simply pull the string through. 

Much faster!

We hung four of these I front of my daughter door.

The Lovable Raccoon

Supplies:

Construction paper

Scissors

Glue

Cut 1 large heart about the size of an 8x10 paper for the head.

Cut 2 medium black hearts about 4x4ish for the eyes.

cut 2 small hearts (3x3ish) in the same color as the face.

Cut 2 tiny black hearts to go inside the ears and 1 tiny black heart to make the nose.

NOT pictured but need are 2 one inch white circles for the eyeballs.

Attach ears to top of head.

Add small black heart for inner ear.

Add large black hearts for eye background and tiny nose at the bottom of the heart/face.

Add whites of the eyes.

Add small black circle (cut from scrap black or just use a marker) for center of eye . 

Finished products.

Never have raccoons been so loveable!