Create a Wedding Wreath

My best friend Mary is getting married in 5 weeks so we are right in the midst of wedding showers, favor making, and wedding countdown craziness.  Last Saturday was her first wedding shower and I wanted to make a cute wreath we could use at the shower but also something she could use for the days leading up to her shower.  It was a rather easy but a little bit time consuming.  Get out your glue gun because you're going to be in glue gun heaven or hell depending on how much you like the glue gun.

So here's what you need:

12-18inch wreath

wide white satin ribbon (I only bought 9 feet and had to get more)

lots of beads in various shapes and sizes (I found these in the jewelry making section, you'll need a lot of small beads

glue gun & glue sticks

Begin by gluing down your fabric to the back side of the wreath and start wrapping.  You want to wrap as tight as possible to prevent any pieces showing through.  When you're finished you glue down your last piece to the back side just like the first piece.  Once your fabric is wrapped begin gluing down your larger beads sporadically around the wreath.  You'll want to make sure to glue a lot of your pieces down the lines where the ribbon is wrapped.  Remember you'll need beads around the top and inside of the wreath.  Once you've glued down your larger pieces you should go to your next largest beads and so on until you're filling in large gaps with your smallest beads.

You may want to leave one part of the wreath free of beads so you can wrap a piece of ribbon to hang the wreath from a wreath hanger.  This is what I did as I was afraid the ribbon would knock off any of the beads under it. 

Here are the final pictures.

I was nervous half way through but I think it turned out really well.  Hope you enjoy.

-stephanie

Tasty Thursday: Honey Glazed Pork Tenderloin

I'm not a huge fan of pork tenderloin.  I can never seem to cook it right, it's either undercooked or overcooked and often times doesn't have great flavor.  The husband picked up a pepper bacon pork tenderloin which sounds fabulous as is however it screams too salty for me.  What's an easy way to offset the salty?  Add some sweet to balance it all out.  Enter that sweet yellow plastic container in the shape of a bear, Honey.  It turned out very well and was great reheated the next day.

Ingredients
1 1/2 pound (approximately) pork tenderloin
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup water

Directions
Begin but melting down the butter and honey over medium high heat in an oven safe pan.  Once mixture is melted add your pork tenderloin and sear for 5 minutes on each side.  Carefully place pan in oven at 350 degrees for approximately 15 minutes (you'll need a meat thermometer to check for 165 internal pork temperature).  When pork is safely at 165 degrees remove from oven and place tenderloin on a serving dish to rest.  Place the pan back on the stove and add water  to cook down the remaining juices into a glaze.  Cook over medium high heat.  Slice tenderloin prior to serving and pour glaze over top.  Enjoy!

* Don't have an oven safe pan to use?  No worries, neither do I.  Sear off tenderloin as mentioned above and place pork as well as honey mixture to an oven safe dish to continue cooking.  Once at appropriate temperature, remove tenderloin to serving dish and place juices back into your original pan to cook down.

-stephanie

Wordless Wednesday: Easter Fun

Our Sunday best

We hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend!

-stephanie

Addie's Blooper Reel

I like every other new mom have taken thousands of pictures of my baby.  Out of those thousands of pictures, we were bound to catch some funny ones.  So here are a few out takes we have caught while trying to capture great pictures of our little Adalyn.

This one was her first time in the Fisher Price Jumperoo.  She wasn't yet into the jumping feature but she loved this butterfly and tried to eat it.

This on is hilarious!  This is in her exersaucer at her grandparents house.  You'll notice she has excellent form with that middle finger.  Addie loves to accidentally flip people off, the first time being when she was just a couple days old.  She was nursing in the hospital and it looked like she flipping off the boob.  In fact, we caught that one on camera as well, but I don't think we need any explicit photos of me.

This one, by far, is my favorite.  I can't remember what scared her.  I imagine it was Chloe barking, either way it turned into photo gold!

Have any great out takes of your little ones?  Come share with us at Toddle Along Tuesday.

PS.  Our giveaway winner was announced, was it you?

-stephanie

An Inexpensive Easter Basket

This year was Addie's first year to actually receive an Easter basket.  It didn't make much sense to get her anything last year since she was eating, walking, talking, etc. This year I knew I wanted to put something together but I didn't want it to be a ridiculous basket, I mean she's only 1 so to her the little things can sometimes be the most exciting.  I posted last week about some ideas I had that I was really digging and started from there.

I started casually shopping for her basket about 2 weeks ago.  Being a frugal shopper, I tend to buy things when I seem them on the cheap or clearance.  My two pricier items were two that I bought just two days before Easter and I really wanted her to have these items.

I was able to spend under $25 for her first basket!  And if you remove my two pricey items, which were last minute additions, you're looking at under $15.  Her favorite thing so far has been that banana & pumpkin puree.

Basket (Hobby Lobby) - 2.99

Baby Flash Cards (Hobby Lobby) - 1.99

Opposites Book (Joann's) - 1.00

Carry Along Coloring Book (Hobby Lobby) - 1.99

Sidewalk Chalk (Joann's) - 1.49

Bubbles (Joann's) - 1.00

Elmo Egg's (Joann's) - 1.99

Banana & Pumpkin Puree Pouch (Target) - .89

My First Crayon's (Target) - 4.99

Playdoh (Target) - 4.99

Total - $23.32

So what did you include in your child's Easter basket?  Is anyone planning to raid the local Target for clearance Easter items for next year?  You just may find me there!

-stephanie