A Backyard Oasis, In the Works

Sometimes, I just need to brag on my awesome husband!

Why?

Because, he created this awesome "shack" for $50!

My husband, John, had visions of a beach in our backyard. We live in Georgia, many miles away from the ocean! I have no idea what prompted him to transform the woods in our yard to a beach, but... we're on our way to a real getaway.

He just started this transformation with only one building completed; however, he has plans for more to come.

The shack has working electricity and even a mini ceiling fan inside, to keep our princesses cool on hot days.

He's added a ton of water paraphernalia to the building to authenticate it.

He also built a dock the leads to my Granddad's Boston Whaler sailboat.  He built a platform for the sailboat, to make it stable, for the girls and their friends to play in it safely. 

John made all of this from recycled materials he had on hand.  The only thing he purchased was the metal roof ($50). Even the paint is mixed from paints he had on hand to get the desired color.

Now, to be fair, let me be honest, John is a builder.  His degree is in Construction Management and he owns a Home Remodeling business; therefore, he is not an amateur. We are lucky girls! He said this is just the beginning of his backyard oasis and he has many more plans.  I know a two and a half year old and a newly five year old that are excited to see what their Daddy has planned for his next structure.  Don't worry, I'll share it with you too!  (If you'd like to see more that John's done, check out his blog: http://www.jotsremodeling.com/)



Pinterest Picks of the Week 9/29

My husband is hating Pinterest.  Why, you ask?  His honey-do list is getting longer.  Too many great projects that I want to make that I need his handyman skills.  The first of which is this great project:

My kids don't have a sandbox, nor do I like sand, but maybe I could convince my husband to make it and we could have a corn box.  More fun to play in and no yucky sand.  He could make it much cheaper than the cost of this!

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Creating a Chalkboard from an Old Picture Frame

I needed a place, to write all my goals, in my craftroom.

Did I mention, I didn't want to have to go buy anything?

Well, I did it! I made a wonderful chalkboard out of stuff I already had.

What do you think?

This was so easy to make and it turned out wonderfully.  Here's how you do it...

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Deployment Gifts

On Friday, my son's teacher contacted me to help her in honoring a student's step-father who is being deployed this coming weekend.  I was more than willing to help out.  The only problem is I was recovering from a nasty sinus infection and all creativity was out the window.  Thankfully, I asked many of your wonderful followers who were on Facebook for help.  The ideas that were shared were fantastic.  Thank you most of all to Sarah Hasse for giving me the ideas for the gifts I made!  I really appreciate it!

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Monogrammed Picture Frame Tutorial

I am still in the process of changing out much of the artwork in my living room.  It has been almost 10 years with all the same stuff.  Most of the artwork were lighthouses.  We had one picture that was a lighthouse and then everyone added to our collection and we were overwhelmed with lighthouses!

The first thing I switched out was a long frame that had pictures of lighthouses in it.  I found a beautiful collage family picture frame from Hobby Lobby to replace it.  I then used that long frame and made my Pray Picture Frame, which replaced another lighthouse decoration.

This past week, I replaced a lighthouse wall hanging with this Monogrammed Picture Frame that I have been wanting to make for a long time.

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Versatile Blogger Award

We are so thankful to receive for The Versatile Blogger award from  Doodles and Doilies!

We are very excited about our growth as a blog in the 10 months we have been blogging.  We both started blogging to share our love for crafting and cooking.  We've realized that growing a blog is a ton of work in addition to just maintaining, posting and of course crafting!

Thank you to all our followers on Google Friend Connect, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!  We love it when you take the time to leave us a comment!  It makes us proud of what we are doing and thankful that our ideas aren't just being lost in cyberspace.

Here are the rules to accepting the Versatile Blogger Award:
1.  Thank the person who gave it to you.
2.  Share 7 things about yourself.
3.  Nominate 15 versatile blogs you have enjoyed lately

Thanks Erica for thinking of us for this award.  We really appreciate it!  Check out Erica's blog at Doodles and Doilies!

Let us share about both of us.

1.  We both love crafting and thanks to our supportive husbands we each have our own craft rooms.  Shannon's husband recently converted one of his three garages into a craft and holiday decoration storage room. There's still work to be done in there but she promises to share it with us soon.  Mine is a shared space with a couch and tv, plus I claim other areas and closets for my yarn needs.

2.  We are both lucky to have children that enjoy are crafting, cooking, and cleaning "habits"!

3.  We are both imports to Georgia.

4. We both have an older brother named Daren (Jill's) Darren (Shannon's).

5. We both have parents that have stayed married, to one another. Shannon's since 1964.  Jill's since 1963.

6. Shannon's favorite food is chocolate. She's just as happy with a Hershey's milk chocolate bar as anything fancy!  Jill's favorite food isn't a specific food but anything that contains butter, sugar, bacon or cream cheese.  You just can't go wrong with those can you?

7. We treasure our friends and family.  They add so much to our lives and we work hard to never take them for granted.

Here are the blogs we want to share with you:

Lemon Tree Creations

Eighteen25

Big Organic Life

Sarandipities

Auntie Lolo Crafts

Easy Makes me Happy

I am Momma Hear Me Roar

Pinterest Picks of the Week 9/22

It has been another great week on Pinterest.  I am amazed at all the wonderful things I can find on there.  I used to follow over 100 blogs, but I just don't have the time to keep up with them.  Pinterest helps me find the best of the best!

Love this jacket, I think my sweet Anna would look precious in this for the winter!  I need to get the pattern.

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A Great Halloween Decoration for Under $10!

Here's the "BOO" sign I created for under $10.

Here are the materials you need:

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Banana Bread

The smell of Banana Bread baking in the oven is a childhood favorite of mine.  Now, I am bringing that same love of Banana Bread to my kids.  If you have notice from my Sourdough Bread and Zucchini Bread recipes, I like bread, especially if it is melt in your mouth goodness.

My Mom has made this recipe for as long as I can remember.  She makes it anytime our whole family is together.  The recipes makes two loaves and both will disappear as quickly as you make it.  My poor mother didn't have a chance to let the loaves fully cool before us kids took a piece or two.

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Jack O Lanterns in a Jar... A Brilliant Idea

The drop in temperature has gotten me all excited about Fall.  I need inspiration for new Fall projects.  As I was cruising different blogs, looking for great ideas, I came across something absolutely adorable. Ashleigh, from Bee In Our Bonnet guest posted on eighteen25. This is what she made:

It's a Jack-o-Lantern in a jar.

She used various cookie cutters to create these great shapes.

She got Halloween inspired icing colors.

She decorated the cookies amazingly well.

She used orange paper plates to create the most amazing Jack-o-lanterns!

Don't you think these make the greatest gifts?  Ashleigh's label is printable from her blog.

I don't know if I'm patient or talented enough to decorate as well as Ashleigh, but I'm pretty sure my girls will think this is a great project.  I'm so glad they shared it with us!

Stay tuned, we plan to share many more of our favorite finds with you!

Elmo & Cookie Monster Hats

Back in the spring, I worked up an Elmo hat for Ryan and Evan.  They love their hats.  My sister saw the hat and knew that my nephew would like one.  He loves Elmo!

After  a few months now, my sister has proven to be great advertising as she sent me an order for an Elmo hat and now a Cookie Monster hat.  I am always up for trying new things so I tried out the Cookie Monster hat for this order.

I love these cute hats.  I guess I need to try out some of the other Sesame Street characters as well.  These hats will be in our etsy store very soon!  Shannon and I have a goal to get our etsy store open as soon as possible, October 1 at the latest!  (If I put it in writing, I have to do it, right?)

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Pinterest Picks of the Week 9/15

Enjoy my favorite pins from Pinterest this week!  Click on the picture for more details.

This is pure genius!  I wouldn't use this for scrapbooking but for my recipes or my crochet patterns.  Who knew a paper towel holder could be so versatile!

Yum Yum Yum!  Peanut Butter Cheese ball.  I must try this soon!

I love Dear Lillie's pillows and this is one I think I will need to make.  What a simple pillow that is just beautiful!

Y'all know I love Candy Corn of any kind!

Make Dave Ramsey proud and make your own cash envelope system!

Cheesy Bacon Pull Aparts.  Oh my goodness!

I love all the great quotes that you can find on Pinterest.  Many are very encouraging and some are just downright hilarious!

A scarf that I love.  I can't wait to make it and the pattern is free!

I love it when blogs share their favorite fonts.  I don't think my 580 fonts is enough yet!

<br /> <a href="http://www.oursevendwarfs.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIqSU-v-K6s1-XETocCsOKrWi23XRc1nkkH2ZI7Evolr6Jq1zeyMIea1uS40ovyTTreHd2_pJ2OJAGF_ZK6IuDDKhcr-S9ieE8_eX2e70jrUwLhSYIjDS-VwdsRwG7UqNylwsTx2JzdMyR/"/></a><br />

I still have lots of invitations to Pinterest if you are interested!  Just email me  oursevendwarfs@gmail.com

Happy Pinning!

Banana, Pineapple, Coconut, Whole Wheat Muffins

Once again, I had a challenge.  My daughter's Assistant Teacher's birthday was less than a week after my daughter's birthday.  I had to come up with another healthy treat to celebrate her birthday.  I came up with a delicious recipe!  It was made with no added sugar too! Here's the recipe I created:

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Pray Picture Frame Tutorial

The other day while browsing Pinterest, I found a great metal board that had "Pray" on it.  I loved the idea so I decided to come up with something similar that used up some of my on hand items.  Here is what I made.

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Halloween Ideas Recap!

It's almost time to start decorating for Fall.  We started the blog in November of last year.  This didn't give us time to highlight many Halloween items. Let me share a few previous ideas in this recap post.  I hope you enjoy!  More Halloween ideas will be coming up soon!

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Shrimp and Romaine, Light and Tasty

It was 4:30 and I had to get dinner ready by 5:00.  Yep, that's right!  Our dinnertime is 5:00.  Nope, that's not my idea, it's my husbands.  If he isn't eating by 5:00 the drama kicks in.  He pretends like he's too weak to stand, complains of a headache, threatens to pass out, etc.  Please don't feel sorry for him, he's completely fine.  Anyone who thinks women are the dramatic ones hasn't witnessed John at 5:00, if he isn't eating.

The problem was, I had nothing planned. So, I hit the refrigerator and cabinet.  This is what I grabbed:

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Pinterest Picks of the Week

Thank you to all the new followers on Pinterest!  I hope that you are enjoying some of my finds.  Now for all of you not on Pinterest yet, I want to share some great ideas with you and hopefully sway you to join me!  Each week I will give you just a sampling of things I am pinning to make in the future or for ideas around my house.  I hope you enjoy what I have to share.

Click on any of the pictures to see more details.

Simple Gift Wrap that is chic and cost effective!

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How About Amazingly Healthy (Not to Mention Delicious) Cupcakes?

Simple Goodness....

Okay, so here's where the dilemma starts: today is GraciAnn's, (my oldest daughter's) 5th birthday. Now, if I think about this long, I get very emotional.  It's so hard to believe that the blue-eyed beauty entered our lives five years ago.  I never knew I could love someone so much.  She is amazing.

My Birthday Girl!

So, here's where the problem comes in.  GraciAnn goes to a Montessori school that strongly focuses on healthy eating; therefore, a birthday treat means something extremely healthy.  So, I searched for a healthy recipe and found these Pineapple-Zucchini Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.  Because I always want things to be a little healthier I changed them up a bit more.  They turned out DELICIOUS!  I'm pretty sure the kids will love them and even more sure the teachers will.

Here are the changes I made to the original cupcake recipe:
I omitted the white flour and used 1 1/2 cups of  organic whole wheat flour
I substituted the 1 cup of white sugar with 2/3 cup of agave nectar
Instead of using oil, I used 2 tablespoons applesauce
*I used organic zucchini
*I used cage free eggs

As far as the icing goes, I used fat free cream cheese but couldn't figure out how to get the right consistency, for the icing, without the powdered sugar.  I thought about agave nectar or honey, as a sweetener but thought the icing would be a little runny.  Next time, I think I'll try honey. I can't imagine how powdered sugar could be healthy.  The good news is there's only 1 cup of sugar for the entire icing recipe so it's not too terrible.  The icing isn't very sweet. It's just right!

I promise that these are scrumptious!

Shell Baby Blanket, Cloche & Flower Hair Clips

Back in July, my brother and his family came to visit.  It is so nice to get to see them and their kids.  I love my two nephews and niece.  My kids had so much fun playing at the pool with them and having fun at a state park.  We usually only see each other at Thanksgiving and Christmas so it is very nice to get to spend time with them.

My sister-in-law was telling me how much my nephews like the crochet blanket I made for them.  She likes to make their birthday special by having them wake up to their birthday blanket.  While having this conversation, I realized I never made my niece Claire a baby blanket!

I am such a BAD Aunt!

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Making a Bulletin Board that Blends with your Decor is EASY!

My new craft room needed a place for me to post ideas, for projects, I plan to create.  Of course, since it's in a craft room, the board needs to be somewhat crafty, right?

Here's my final project.  It took less than 10 minutes to create this one. Here's how...

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All about Pinterest & Mini-tutorial

I am completely addicted to Pinterest.  I know that some of you might not know much about Pinterest, so let me share some details with you.

Pinterest is a pictorial bookmarking system.  Instead of having many bookmarks on your web browser, you can "pin" (or bookmark) pictures onto your pinterest board.  You can have limitless boards, which allow you to organize all your pins in a place that is easy to find.

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