Bethel School District Art/Technology Show

For the past few years I have been privileged to be one of the artists at our school district's Art/Technology show, and I love doing it. While they don't let me actually light my torch there, I bring my torch, glass, tools, and I have several beads that I made up in step by step so I can do a "cold" demo for the kids. I also have my computer up and playing a lampworking dvd so they can see the glass in action. The kids seem to love watching the dvd and love seeing the glass that I create with. There were a lot of people there this year, and everyone seemed to have a great time. I was pretty busy the entire show, so I had Daylyn go and take pictures of all the cool things there. They have all sorts of things going on through the day, including robotic competitions. Here are some of my favorite things that she took pictures of.

 Love the plastic wrap guy!

 Lego Robotics

Pop Can Art

 Science Fair Project

My booth, you can see the torch, glass, etc in the bottom right corner.

Snow!!!

I mention yesterday that we got snow. Well the girls had fun playing, they even had a short little snowball fight, imagine such sweet girls throwing snowballs at each other! LOL!

Ready....

 Set....

 GO!!!

New Beginnings

Last night was my ward's New Beginnings Night for our Young Women, and we were thrilled that we were able to have it. You see, it snowed yesterday.  A big storm was hitting our area, bringing lots of snow, and we were worried that mutual would be cancelled, but the weather held out it  just long enough for us to have our night. Thank you for prayers being answered! :)

Our theme for the night was Treasures and "We Seek After These Things" to go along with this years theme of "We Believe" from the 13th Article of Faith. - We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. This is a night that we introduce the theme officially to the girls and have the opportunity to meet the girls who will be turning 12 this year and joining Young Womans.

For the invitations, we gave them treasure maps printed on brown paper bags, with the edges burnt, and tied with a ribbon. We decorated with brown and gold with treasure chests with coins inside that had pictures of  Christ, the theme, and all of the action words from the Article of Faith on them along with a penny pendant necklace for the girls. The big treasure chests were our gift to the incoming girls, and we had smaller treasure chests for all of our current girls.  Inside each treasure chest was also a picture to remind them of the treasures that they should be seeking. I got the image from Under My Polka Dot Umbrella.  I was thrilled with how they turned out. 

 

Our YW President spoke to the girls about how they are each a treasure and of great worth to our Heavenly Father. She also read the book, I am a Child of God by Wendy & Michael Nelsen, to the girls to finish her talk. I hope our girls know just how much we love and truly treasure each one of them. We then showed the video of the theme from the church. 

 Next was my most favorite part of the night. A parent introduced each of their daughters to us so that we could get to know them a little bit before they join us. I loved watching the girls as they listened to their Mom or Dad tell us about the things that they value or treasure about their daughters. I think it was a good reminder for me to remember to tell my kids the things that I love about them, I don't think I do that enough. Next, our Bishop spoke about the 13th Article of Faith and what those words really mean, and how we should try to do/be those things. We concluded with a video of our Young Women and served refreshments. It was a wonderful night, and I am so glad so many of our youth came last night and braved the snow to come. I hope they all enjoyed the night as well. 

My regret of the night? I wish I had more pictures. In all the rush of finishing projects for the night, I forgot to charge my camera! LOL! So I will end with this picture taken a few Sundays ago. What exactly does it take to get ready for YW on Sundays, bags, lots of bags! These are almost all of our bags, I think this only has stuff from 5 out of the 8 of us. Crazy isn't it! :) Oh, and there are the invitations in the bottom right hand corner.

Office Makeover Part 3

The office is slowly coming along. This is where it was 2 weeks ago, when I left to go and hang out with friends for a week. Chris, Tyler, and one of our friends, Rob, installed the laminate sheet. It was nerve wracking to see them cut this huge piece ( 5 feet by 12 feet) down to the right sizes. This was a much less expensive route to go than just ordering the counter top, that would have been over $700, definitely not in my budget! LOL!

 Once the laminate was all in place, it was time to lift the cabinets up and put them in place. Chris, Tyler, and Travis had to work together to lift up the second one, it was heavy!

   Doesn't it look great?!?!?!!! Here it is with the counter finished, and the big cabinets in place. Next up is building the shelves that will run from one end to another in between the 2 cabinets. I can't wait for all that storage!

Grandma's Sugar Cookies

My Grandma Thompson, was an amazing woman, incredible cook, and just an elegant woman. I cherish the recipes that I have from her, and this is one of my favorites. It is for a sugar cookie that is light and crispy, and as a bonus to my busy life, makes about 100 each time, so I have plenty to share between the kids and their classrooms. 

Grandma's Sugar Cookies

1 cup white sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup softened butter

1 cup cooking oil

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

4 cups and 4 tbsp flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tarter

1 tsp salt

 1. Cream together white sugar, powdered sugar, butter, and oil in a large bowl.

 2. Add 2 beaten eggs and 2 tsp vanilla to creamed mixture.

3.  Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix together. Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until all the flour is incorporated into the batter.

 

4. Roll out dough into heaping tbsp's. I use the Pampered Chef's small scoop. 

5. Once dough is all scooped out, roll to make balls, and then roll in granulated sugar. I like to use sprinkles with colored sugar to make them more festive, but then again, I have already revealed, I have a slight sprinkle obsession. LOL!

6.  Place rolled dough on cookie sheet, and then press flat with bottom of a cup. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for about 8 - 10 minutes.

 Enjoy the cookies!

 

Craft Show with my Sister

Last year, my sister began a new business called, Lil' Miss Mae, selling accessories for babies, kids, and even me! I love the hair bling! I was so excited to be able to be there with her as she had her first official show. She had done an Open House for her Mary Kay and had her things out as well. When I saw the picture, I immediately started thinking okay, plotting how I was going to "redo" her display. Thankfully she wanted me to!  Here is her before, and then the after. :)

Before

After

Learners Permit

It is so hard to believe that it has been 16 years since I first held Tyler in my arms. He is now 5'11", still growing, and yesterday his Dad took him to the DMV to pick up his learners permit. It is unbelievable to me that this day has arrived. I am thrilled for him and scared for him. It is an exciting time for him and us, but I am in awe that it is here.

Cake pops for a wedding

I was so excited to be asked to make treats for my friend Jerri's daughters wedding. Originally we talked about Rice Krispie treats dipped in chocolate, but then I asked if they had ever heard of cake pops. They hadn't so I sent them to Bakerella to see them, and of course once they saw them, they loved the idea!  I had never made that many cake pops before, but they turned out great! If you haven't heard of cake pops before, check out this site,  Bakerella, to learn how to make them. That is the recipe I used for these, and they were yummy! To turn the cake balls into pops, you just dip the sucker stick into chocolate and then into the ball, just like I did here. I was thrilled with how they turned out. Besides, I got to go shopping and get sprinkles! Have I mentioned I love sprinkles?

 

Seriously, I have a sprinkle addiction. LOL!

The color of the wedding were blue, green, and silver. I made a custom mix of sprinkles, and got to work the day before the wedding to make 212 cake pops. What do 212 cake pops look like?

 

all rolled out and ready for sticks

 

some dipped, and some waiting for the white chocolate and sprinkles

 

all wrapped in cello bags and tied with a silver twist tie

 

I was thrilled how they turned out.

 

Of course I forgot my camera, so I grabbed this picture with my phone. 

Those cupcakes were yummy!

The wedding reception was a lot of fun, and people loved the cake pops! I was in the kitchen with my friend Donna, helping serve the refreshments, and we had a blast! We don't get to see each other often (just on Sundays when I am running into the library to get copies made, and then off and running again), so it was a chance to just hang out and catch up. I wish my best to  Taylor and Derek, I was honored to be part of your special day if even just a small way.

Office Makeover Part 2

So far the process has taken a week, and this is what we have done up to today.

• emptied office - the contents of which are now everywhere downstairs. Don't enter my home without donning hazard gear!


• painted the walls.


• built and installed the base cabinets


• painted base cabinets


• stained 3 pieces of pine for the counter tops - turned out so pretty!


• installed the pine for the counter top


• removed the pine from the counter top - looks like it was quilted together, and not in a good way. We will use the pine to build Tyler a head board, night stand, and possible a book shelf so it won't be wasted.


• Good friends came over and gave us some ideas for the counter top


• 3 trips to Home Depot and the laminate sheet is ordered


• mdf is glued together to create a very strong top


• repainted under the counter top - I had it white, but needed to be the blue to match the walls. It didn't look right the other way.

oh, and during all of this, I had sales on etsy, so I am working on top of whatever surface I can find. In one picture you can see all the orders ready to head out the door. Crazy!

Here is the paint, it is still wet, but I love it! It is what is painted in our family room as well.

Here are two of the pieces of pine that I stained. They turned out beautiful!

The cabinet bases are installed, and I have one of them painted.

Here I am trying to get packages out the door for my etsy orders. It is crazy trying to do with everything everywhere! LOL!The room with paint under the cabinets. It gives it more of the built in look this way, and oh so much better! Isn't it crazy how different the wet paint to dry paint looks? This is what the color really looks like. :)

Office Makeover

My office has been my pit of despair for a while now. Piles of beads, pendants, scrabble tiles, everywhere, not to mention the paperwork, was all out of control. Part of the problem was I didn't have enough shelves to put all my trays. It is always bad after the busy holiday season, which of course is my busiest time of year where it is pretty normal to spend at least 10 hours a day from Oct - Dec working on something or other related to my business. So, I finally decided enough was enough and I wanted a new office space with more storage, work surface, and lighting, and I am getting it! We are building cabinets all around 2 walls, and I couldn't be more thrilled!

Here are some of the inspirations I found for my new creative space. :) I can't seem to get them to show up as a slide show, but here is the link to my idea book.

my office/creative space idea book

Now, for every great makeover is the dreaded before picture. I can't believe I am going to post this, but what the heck right? LOL! I bet most of my creative friends all have a space like this where they create. Hopefully theirs aren't as bad as mine is. I will say this in my defense, this is as bad as it has been in forever, I just had no time or energy to even try to put things away after finishing things up for orders, and shows.  So here it goes.

My computer area where I do all my listings, photo editing, well all of the "work" part of my job. LOL!

This shows the jewelry creating area and to the left are shelves that are home to many things. You name it, it is probably there!

The tall cabinet is home to scrapbooking supplies and the lateral file is home to shipping supplies and of course my photo set up.

So there you have it, my disaster area that has been driving me crazy. It is no longer there,  but now everything that was in there is now  all through out my entire downstairs as we are in the building process of the new office/creative space. Can't wait until it is done. I want my kitchen table back! LOL!