Jewelry Crafts

My daughter made a penne rigate and yarn necklace and bracelet while I made...

a faux pearl bracelet out of beads and stretchy string.

Neither are very difficult to make.  The noodle necklace is made by taking noodles and stringing them on the yarn.  Finally, you just tie the ends together and... Voila, you have a noodle necklace or bracelet.  Any noodles with holes can be used.  The number of noodles and length of string is up to you.

The faux pearl bracelet is similar.  You will need approximately 10 - 11 inches of string (I got mine at Michael's Arts and Crafts store using a 40% off coupon!) and about 25 beads (again, I got them at Michael's using another 40% off coupon), depending on the size of the beads and how loose you want the bracelet to be.  You will need a longer string and more beads to make a necklace but the same steps can be used.  I used the thinnest string I could find so it would fit through the holes in the beads.  

Tie a knot in the string about an inch from one end so the beads don't fall off the string.  Take the beads and string them on the stretchy string.  When you've strung all the beads, tie a knot with the two ends of the string close to the beads.  Place a drop of super glue on the knot.  Tie another knot on top of that knot and place another drop of super glue on this knot.  Let it sit for 24 hours to dry completely.  Cut off the ends of the string and ENJOY!  

Chick-Fil-A and Denny's FREE food

EVERY Tuesday in February, Chick-Fil-A is offering a FREE breakfast menu item between 6:30 AM and 10:30 AM.

Denny's is offering a FREE Original Grand Slam®, Tuesday, Feb. 9, from 6 AM TO 2 PM.

Want to save some money?

Go to the websites of stores where you shop or would like to shop and sign up for their emails. If you don't want your inbox flooded with these, set up a new account just for this purpose. You can get some great stuff just for signing up for emails. For example, about every two months I get a coupon either in the mail or on email for a free pair of panties from Victoria's Secret and coupons for free items at Bath & Body Works. (I can't remember the last time I actually bought a pair of panties.) I also get printable 40% off coupons from Michael's Arts and Crafts about every other week.

Register your Starbucks gift cards online to get some free stuff like a coupon for a free drink on your birthday, free wifi at their retail locations, and points towards more free stuff every time you use it.

Looking for Old Navycoupons? Check out www.oldnavyweekly.com for a variety of coupons to find.

FREE Pancake Day!

On Tuesday, February 23, 2010, IHOP will be celebrating National Pancake Day from 7 AM until 10 PM. They'll give you one free short stack (three pancakes). *They will be taking donations for local children's hospitals through Children's Miracle Network or other local charities.

You CAN have too much chocolate!

So I was super excited to try a new hot chocolate recipe from Real Simple. I only called for two ingredients: coconut milk and chocolate. I thought I had the recipe down. I mean, how hard can it be? Two ingredients. So I poured the milk into a pot and started heating it. Then I added the chocolate. As I was stirring it seemed a little thick (like fondue). So I called in to the other room and asked my husband how much chocolate I was supposed to add. "One ounce." he said. Okay, well I thought it said one pound. BIG difference! Fortunately I only added 11.5 ounces. Not that it made much of a difference than adding 16 but oh well. I tried adding more regular milk. It didn't work. I think I'll try putting some of it in my coffee tomorrow and see how that tastes. You can probably tell by looking at it that it isn't quite right.

Valentine's Day Breakfast

I don't know if you know or have children who don't like to eat very many fruits and vegetable but I have two. They will eat a few fruits and one won't eat any vegetables. So I'm always trying to come up with ways to sneak them in. This morning I decided we'd have pancakes. Now usually I add applesauce, pureed pumpkin, sweet potatoes or fruits. When my son stopped eating baby food like peaches and pears, I used that so it wouldn't go to waste. Today I decided to try something different.



I had just bought some Strawberry Banana V8 Fusion to see if my son would drink it. My daughter loves pink so I thought, "I wonder if they'd eat pink pancakes." I use Krusteaz pancake mix so all I have to add is water. So today instead of water I used the V8 juice. They both seemed to like it and my daughter loved that they were pink. Then I thought, "These would be an easy Valentine's Day breakfast, especially if you shape them in hearts." You could also used pureed strawberries for this.

If you aren't very good at creating shapes with pancake batter one solution is to take a squeeze bottle (I bought one at Walmart and cut the tip some to make the hole bigger) and put the batter in there. It makes it easier to create different shapes because you can control how much and how fast it comes out much easier. I used this method when my daughter stopped eating pancakes. I started with a Mickey Mouse shape and moved on to hearts, flowers, smiley faces, guitars, dogs, and basically anything she likes to try to get her to eat them. It worked. She loved the shapes. Now she doesn't mind if they are round so I do shapes on special occasions. Others have suggested reusing sqeezable ketchup bottles. This didn't work for me.

Also, some brands end up clumpier than others so they may not work very well in the squeeze bottle. Mine tends to get clogged using the Krusteaz brand. Another tip is to NOT fill the bottle all the way. If you fill it to high, it may cause the lid to pop off or overflow out of the hole as it sits in the bottle.

Losing it

Since we've been snowed in for the past four days, we told the kids that we could build a tent in the living room. So while I was building the tent, the kids started playing in it. My daughter kept throwing a monkey beanie baby on top of it. In my frustration, I scolded her by saying, "If you keep playing with the tent, I'm going to take it down!" Okay, so that really just makes no sense. The whole point of putting the tent up was to PLAY with it.

Sometimes things come out of my mouth and I just have to wonder where my brain cells went. I used to be an intelligent person, who taught high school and had a come-back for most of their comments. Now I have trouble coming up with words that make sense most of the time. My husband blames the children. He says that I lose brain cells with each child we have. So far we only have two. I was hoping to have more. Will I end up completely stupid, walking around with my tongue hanging out, uttering nonsense? Will it make a difference if we choose to adopt the other children? Is it the birthing process that takes the brain cells? (I did notice that the whole getting dumber started with my first pregnancy.) These are things I think about. What do you think?