DIY Sesame Street Birthday Party {on a budget}

Levi is 2!

I can hardly believe it!

And so far....2 has been absolutely terrific.

I LOVE this age!

We celebrated Levi's birthday with a Sesame Street birthday party.

With a very low budget, we were able to pull off a cute and fun party for Levi, family and friends!

Here's some pics with a few tips to keep costs low!

We used our church to hold the party.

Our home is small and we had about 25 people invited.

This cost us nothing to use (just had to clean up!)

and allowed us access to a full kitchen and gym for the kids to play in

No need to feed a full meal!

A few snacks that are toddler friendly, something sweet and a drink is plenty!

And we skipped the ice cream...just another mess and expense!

Check Dollar Tree and Target's Dollar Spot for favors!

{and favors are totally optional too!}

We included a Sesame Street cup and an Elmo book with included CD.

Each goody bag was $2 each!

 and a few extra pics of the day

Levi thoroughly enjoyed his party and our whole family just got to have fun and celebrate together.

It was a perfect way to celebrate our big 2 year old boy!

I heart washi tape

So, I've seen washi tape on Pinterest, and it had sparked my interest for awhile.

Well, today at Michael's, it was 50% off, so I snagged two packs.

I.am.addicted.

You can do some many awesome things with it!

For those of you who haven't tried it yet...washi tape is a japanese tape that comes in all sorts of colors and patterns. It is re-positionable and you can write on it.

Within an hour of returning home with said product, I had "transformed" many items.

The thing I love is that it isn't permanent. It feels right off. So you can't really go wrong!

Here are 5 things I did with my washi tape to add some color and added organization to my craft area!

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Are you a washi tape addict?

What creative things have you done with it?

Children's Book Themed Baby Shower

My best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world had her sweet baby boy 6 weeks ago yesterday!

A group of us ladies at our church threw her a baby shower about two and a half months ago, and I realized I never shared it!

Ashley (the mama) is a 2nd grade teacher and loves children's books.

She and her husband were also waiting to find out the sex of their baby until birth...

so a Children's Book theme baby shower was perfect!

As part of the shower, we requested books instead of cards with personal notes written in them for Baby and boy did Baby get spoiled!

(Now that Baby is born....I guess we don't have to call him Baby!)

Anyhoo... our showers at church are kept pretty simple.

 I still think it turned out adorable.

Here's some pics

Our "theme" books were

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

One Fish, Two Fish

and 

Goodnight Moon

We used brown and primary colors.

We used disposable table cloths, and folded the colors to make runners for each book.

 The light snacks corresponded with the book titles

 And a dear friend and her sister made this gorgeous cake.

I hated to cut into it!

And I will tell you, it was just as delicious as it was adorable!

 The favors were pink and blue cupcakes! 

Yum!

 We had Star Crunches for Goodnight Moon.

(We wanted Moon Pies, but couldn't find em!)

Cookies for If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

And Swedish Fish for One Fish, Two Fish

 

Since we didn't know Baby was a "he"...we had the gift table divided with pink and blue and had people place their gifts on which table they thought Baby was!

And Mr. Emmett was spoiled rotten!

Our little church is incredibly generous!

So there it is!

Simple, on a budget, but adorable.

A great theme for a little boy or girl!

The Best Bread Recipe. Ever.

So, I stumbled upon the best and easiest homemade bread recipe ever.

And I had to share.

This is not my original recipe. I have tweaked a couple of things to my liking.

The original recipe can be found here.

The best parts about this bread?

No kneading.

No stand mixer required.

Easy steps.

Soft, fluffy inside, crusty outside.

Mmmm....

Let's get started

You'll need:

- 1 packet yeast

-1/4 tsp sea salt

- 1 3/4- 2 c. water

- 3 c. flour (I've used both a 50/50 mixture of wheat and white, and an all-white...both with good results!)

So, the night before you want your bread, dump into a bowl your yeast, salt and water.

Let stand 10 min. til yeast is bubbly.

Mix in flour until you have a sticky dough.

If it's too dry, add in a bit more water.

If too wet, add in a bit more flour.

Cover with saran wrap and let sit overnight on counter.

In the morning, it will look like this

Nice and big.

Now, flour up your hands and your surface.

You will shape dough into a round loaf.

Just keep tucking the ends under.

I put the load onto greased aluminum foil.

Let rise for an hour on counter.

A half hour into this last rise, preheat your oven to 425 and stick a covered pot or deep pot into the oven while preheating.

(I don't have a dutch oven or covered pot that is oven-safe. I used a deep pot with aluminum foil to cover it)

After an hour, it'll have grown and is ready to bake!

Carefully take the hot pot out of the oven.

Keep dough on foil and place in bottom of pot.

Cover pot with foil and bake covered for 30-35 min at 425.

Then bake another 10 or so minutes uncovered until bread is golden.

Immediately removed from pot and cool on cooling rack.

This bread is so stinkin good.

Has a nice crust to it, and is soft inside with nice air pockets.

It seriously looks and tastes like you bought it from a local artisan baker.

All for pennies and little effort!

It is seriously worth your time trying!

We had chicken salad sandwiches on this bread for dinner and it was amazing.

Please let me know if you try it out! I promise...if I can do it, you can do it!

Gift for the Cloth Diapering Mama {DIY Cloth Wipes & Detergent}

With so many people around us venturing into cloth diapering, I thought this post was fitting.

A sweet couple in our church is expecting a little girl in March, so I decided to get together some useful cloth diapering items.

And, of course, DIYed them.

When we began cloth diapering, I didn't really know anyone in real life who cloth diapered, and I would have loved lots of diapering items as gifts!

So, for this shower I decided to make some cloth wipes and cloth diaper detergent.

I've made wipes before, and I love them.

They are so soft, and better than any cloth wipes I've bought at the store.

And they are perfect for runny noses and messy faces.

And, being for a little girl, I had so much fun picking girly flannels.

So, here is how to DIY them yourself!

First, pick out your flannels. They can all be the same fabric or you can be a variety. 

I went for a variety, but that's because I have lots of fabrics around.

Fold your fabric in half, and cut an 8.5 inch square.

(I fold it in half, so I cut both sides of wipe at once!)

Then, take both pieces and put them right side facing in.

Stitch all around, except leave about 3-4 inches open, so you can turn it right side out.

Clip your corners, so you'll have nice pointy corners.

Fold right side out, and pin or tuck in opening to top stitch closed.

Top stitch all around!

Tada!!

Done!

The detergent is super easy too.

Just take a pretty mason jar, and fill half way with Baby Oxy Clean and half Borax.

Mix up.

Put a pretty label on it and write that it is just 1 tbsp. per load.

A great gift for a Mama-to-Be, a new Mama or yourself!

I love these for my little man!

And, if you're not wanting to go the DIY route, you can always but some adorable and modern cloth wipes from my Etsy shop. : )