BOO blocks

Last Friday night my Bunco Babe friend Melinda invited us all over for a Craft Night at her house. Months ago I had seen these BOO blocks from The Crafting Chicks website.

http://thecraftingchicks.com/2010/10/diy-halloween-boo-blocks.html

Aren't they super cute?!?! So we gathered the supplies and made our own. You need a piece of 2x6 piece of wood cut into pieces. On their website, they used pieces that were 6, 7, and 8 inches tall. The lowercase b works well on the 8 inch piece. Unfortunately none of us had a Cricut or any type of lowercase letters. Instead we were using wooden letters that came in packs of 2 for 99 cents at Hobby Lobby. So if I had this to do all over again, I would probably not get 8 inch pieces. I would measure the letters I was going to use, and decide from there what size blocks to get cut. But anyway, we used 6, 7, and 8 inch pieces this time. Thanks to Melinda and Sarah, we had a large supply of super cute Halloween scrapbook paper.

I didn't get a picture of all the steps because I was so busy trying to keep up with everyone else.

First you sand the edges of the wood. Then you paint them black. You can sand the edges again if you want the blocks to look more rustic. Then using spray adhesive and/or matte mod podge, you glue the scrapbook paper to the blocks. The hardest part for me was narrowing down my choices and making sure the 3 patterns I chose looked good together. :)

Then you paint the letters black and hot glue them to the blocks. Here is Melinda in action...

Here are Ashley's blocks. She tied green ribbon and glued it to the top of each block. Very cute!

Here is one of Melinda's sets with the black ribbon tied and glued to the front of her blocks. By the way, one of the cutest ideas of the night was how Melinda had decorated the table. She bought an orange plastic tablecloth and laid zebra print wrapping paper down the middle of the table as the tablerunner. So cute! I should've gotten a picture of it!

And as you can tell, we all did them differently. Chris decided she didn't want ribbon on hers. Then on these sets, we glued a ribbon only to the B block...

And on this set, I tried to copy the Crafting Chicks by tying black and white gingham ribbon around the edges of each block. I should have bought ribbon with wire in it. Melinda suggests buying ribbon in the floral department of Hobby Lobby instead of the fabric department so all the ribbon will have wire in it. She's told me that before but I forgot.

This craft definitely got us all in the mood for Fall and Halloween! Thanks for having us all over, Melinda! I hope we can start doing craft nights more often. It's definitely more fun to craft with friends!

Game Night - "A" for effort

For Game Night this past weekend, I planned to make these cute brownies decorated like dominoes. Again, another idea from pinterest. :) Here is what the brownies were supposed to look like...

(Image from InStyle magazine)

Cute idea, right? Well, I was running a little behind (imagine that!) so I didn't have time to decorate the brownies before I left. I had bought a tube of white icing and some white chocolate chips for the dots. I packed them in my bag, packed the Jalapeno Bacon Poppers too (recipe below), and was off. When I went to unload my stuff at Pam's house, guess what I had forgotten to take? The pan of brownies!!! Grrrr, how frustrating! But oh well. I'm thinking I might try again next month for Bunco and decorate brownies to look like dice. I'll let you know how it goes. Since Bunco is at my house next month, I won't be able to forget the brownies! :)

Another party fail for Game Night was my Jalapeno Bacon Poppers. I combined 2 recipes into 1 but they ended up being almost too hot for anyone to eat. Oops!

First I read about these Jalapeno Poppers from

http://aisletoaloha.blogspot.com/2011/01/pop-em-like-theyre-hot.html

You put cream cheese, bacon, and fresh jalapeno in the middle of a crescent roll and bake it. Sounds yummy, right? I thought so too.

Then I saw this recipe on the Tasty Kitchen website for Jalapeno Cream Cheese Crescent Poppers. It's cream cheese and diced jalapenos rolled up in cresent rolls.

http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/appetizers-and-snacks/the-gangs-all-here-jalapeno-cream-cheese-crescent-poppers/

Again, sounds yummy, right? So I decided to try and combine the 2 recipes by adding bacon into the crescent poppers. I followed the recipe and put the same amount of jalapenos as she said, but my poppers were VERY hot! Other than that, they turned out yummy, but some were just too hot to eat. Here's my attempt. I should at least get an A for effort. :)

First you combine 3/4 of an 8 oz block of cream cheese with 1/2 of a 4 oz can of diced jalapenos. This is where I would definitely change the recipe! This was too many jalapenos! Or maybe my can of jalapenos were just hotter. Then I thought surely the recipe would be even better with bacon so I added half a bag of real bacon bits. The recipe on Tasty Kitchen calls for a tablespoon of sugar. I'm sure that part is optional.

Mix it all together...

Spread the mixture on a roll of cresent rolls split into two. I found a roll that was not cut into pieces, which made it even easier. I split the roll in half and spread half the mixture on each section.

Then rolled each section up...

Then cut each section into 16 pieces. The easiest way to do this so your pieces will all be the same size is to cut the roll in half, then cut that in half, and keep going until you have 16 pieces.

Then bake them for about 13 minutes at 375. I'm anxious to try the recipe again with less jalapenos.

Cel-e-brate good times, come on!

A lot of fun events have occurred over the last month. Lots of celebrations too! I finished my master's degree. Yay! My Sunday afternoons are so much more enjoyable now!

Koby had a birthday...

Me, Gina, and Pam...

Pam introduced us to the game "Bop It" last Christmas. Now Koby has his own!

Me and Rene'

Me and Audra at the Pocket Sandwich Theater later that night...

My little friend Hannah, who is 4, had her first soccer practice a few weeks ago. Her mom, Krista, went to college on a soccer scholarship so she has big shoes to fill. But speaking of shoes, aren't these the smallest little cleats you ever have seen?!?! Too cute! We went to dinner before practice so Hannah said she needed to wear a dress to dinner, not her soccer clothes. So here she is at soccer practice in a dress, cleats, and shin guards. Hilarious!

I love how Joseph is smiling in the background! Here's Riley entertaining Jo Jo during practice.

It's normal for a 4 year old to have 5 friends go watch her first practice, right? Here's Hannah taking a water break. It was HOT out there, bless her heart!

Jo Jo loves the view way up there when Mike holds him.

And I have no idea why this picture keeps flipping upside down, but it's so cute, I had to include it. As you can tell from JoJo's mouth, the kids got popsicles after practice.

Jo Jo and his buddy Connor after practice

And Jill had a birthday...We celebrated at La Hacienda Ranch. Luckily she brought Audrey along to keep us entertained. :) This is what Audrey does when you get your camera out. :) Cheeeeese!

Audrey telling Kristi that I am her favorite, not her...

Audrey and her birthday mommy. We love you, Jilly Bean!

An idea from Sarah

My friend Sarah, also a teacher, did some crafting with her sister recently. They bought letters from Hobby Lobby to spell the word READ. They used spray adhesive to glue scrapbook paper to the top of the letters, then cut around the edges with an exacto knife. They're going to attach ribbon to the back and hang them in their classrooms. Very cute idea!

Can you spot your favorite genre?

I found these cute reading genre posters on pinterest and made a bulletin board with them. They are found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/59950260/Primary-Genre-Posters?secret_password=rk7nzj0bta4y7bc5ekt .

The posters have a cute black and white polka dot border, so I bought the matching bulletin board border at Teacher's Tools. Instead of messing with bulletin board paper, I used a cheap red plastic table cloth for the background. The only problem is that it tears very easily and might not last that long. This is hanging in the hall and lots of little hands touch it everyday while walking by so I probably should have used paper, but oh well. You can't really tell in the picture, but the font is made up of little dots too. I found it for free online. I had a hard time thinking of a catchy title, so I finally decided since there were so many "spots," that I would use that word. Does it make more sense now? :)

Pop a top again...

This has nothing to do with crafting, but I thought this was interesting. A few weeks ago, I had a Sprite Zero can in my car that I had taken to a training the day before but had never opened. I was getting in my car to go to another training and realized that the can was still in my car from the day before. At this time, we were having 100+ degree temperatures every day. I realized that the can might explode in my car while I was in my training that afternoon. I was parked in front of my house because my landlord had been working in the back that day where I usually park. I didn't have time to take the can inside so I put it on the little table on my front porch.

The next day I was in my living room and heard a loud popping sound. It was weird timing because the UPS guy had just rung the doorbell and walked to my neighbor's house. I looked out the window and couldn't figure out what had happened. The next day my friend Sarah was picking me up to go shopping and I saw this on my front porch...

There was only about a 1/2 cup of Sprite left in the can. Luckily it's a clear liquid so I didn't have a mess on the porch. Just goes to show you how HOT it is in Texas! The heat will peel the top right off of a can!

Another crazy thing that happened this summer was getting a flat tire on the way to a training. Sounds like I went to a lot of trainings this summer, right?!?! I noticed that pattern too!!! Luckily I was still in my driveway when it happened and my friend Karen lives close and could pick me up for the training. Anyway, this was one expensive mistake! No more flying out of the driveway for me!

More post-it note holders with matching pens and Melinda's classroom

I had a feeling I was going to get so busy with school starting that my blog was going to be put on the back burner. But now I'm back and I have a month of projects to catch up on. About a month ago I went to my friend Melinda's classroom to get some ideas from her. She is one of the craftiest people I know. :) She had been painting up a storm in her room. While she worked in her room, she put me in charge of making some post-it note holders. She had a cute selection of scrapbook paper and ribbon, so it was lots of fun. She had bought the 5x7 frames so there was more room for ribbon and for the pen to sit. I'll show you directions for those too.

The pink post-it notes are the jumbo size. I love how all of these turned out!

Melinda taught me how to make the matching pens. You take apart the pen and cut a piece of matching scrapbook paper the same length as the middle part of the pen. I had to play with this part each time and cut a little off, then cut a little more. But then I got the hang of it by the time I made the last pen.

Then you roll the paper around the inside part of the pen.

When you stick it back in, that's when you might have to cut off the extra. When you screw the bottom part on, the paper will twist if there is any extra. This is the part that I had to play with and keep cutting a little more off each time.

These pens are super easy to make and such a great idea, Melinda! :)

Melinda had been busy painting lots of things in her room that week. This is a desk her parents found that someone was getting rid of that she painted. Super cute!

Here's the other side...

Here's a trash can she painted...

And her zebra stool she painted...

She had even painted the paper towel holders! So creative! Thanks for letting me see all your ideas, Melinda!