...jennydoll

 "Slumber Party: Girls Only".  These photos are of the donation items that my husband I donated to one of our nieces school auction.  The money will help with education.  The "Slumber Party: Girls Only" has all the necessities for hosting a sleepover.  Cupcake mix, icing, glitter finger nail polish, glow bracelets, cupcake liners, pencils, notepads, travel toothbrush and paste, popcorn, banner, and a craft project. The "Family Night" contents are: popcorn, movie theater candy, mini 7-Up cans, four small popcorn holders, one large popcorn holder, UNO card game, and a banner. Just what you need to have a family night! We also donated two sets of note cards.  One set features copies of the paintings my husband did for me.  The second is a set of thank you cards that I created.  We hope these will fetch a good price at the education auction! "Family Night" "Scenes from a Tuscan Countryside" & "Thank You, Thank You...

My sweetpea was on Sprink Break recently and was able to spend one day with me.  She wanted to bake something so we decided on some more dark chocolate cupcakes to use up the leftover mocha buttercream from my mom's birthday party a few days prior.  She likes the decorating sugars.  I have the rainbow in these and she wanted all of them.  We also chose some plum colored royal icing flowers.  She helped make the cupcakes and did the decorating.  I did the icing designing. We had a good time together!  She even arranged the second photo for the photo!  She's pretty creative! :-)    We call these cupcakes,  "More sugar with my coffee, please!"

    Photos taken from the Birthday Dessert Party that I hosted for my mother.  (*Click on the pictures to see them bigger.) Every year I wonder what sort of gift I would like to get my mom and I always end up at the thought of a party.  My mom is a busy woman and never seems to have the time to plan big get togethers with her friends.  She is a social person and has many wonderful friendships.  This year I wanted to do a dessert party since two years ago I hosted a dinner party for a small group of her friends.  This allowed me to be able to include more people.   I had been thinking of a French Pastry Shop theme.  My dining room is already decorated with European themed pictures so the theme was perfect!  I wanted to create a fun whimsical relaxed feel for the ladies to socialize in.  I found this great little shelf at a garage sale that was free and used it as my main backdrop for the table.  I featured jars of decorat...

   It's birthday movie time!  My sweetpea decided that this year's birthday was all about the movies.  She wanted a red carpet, balloons, and fondue!  Her mother and I brainstormed over coffee one day and came up with the following ideas: a red carpet made of felt, gold mylar star ballons, red and purple latex balloons, the menu, and the favors.  Sweetpea and her friends had a blast!  They were treated to pizza fondue and then for dessert: chocolate fondue with strawberries and pound cake, and lastly popcorn cupcakes.  They watched "The Princess Diaries" with home popped popcorn in their retro popcorn holders and drank 7-Up with cherries in it!  They decorated their on gold stars to hang on the Wall of Fame while listening to some fun tunes!  The favors for the girls were so much fun to put together.  They each received a retro plastic popcorn holder with a mini bag of microwave popcorn, movie theater candy...

I tend to get in these moods where all I want to do is cook.  Not just a little...A LOT!  I may feel inspired by a recipe or a picture or the random growl of my stomach. I tend not to be a breakfast person too much but I tend to crave it and weird times of the day.  I never enjoyed biscuits and gravy as a kid or much into adulthood.  In the last few years I decided to give it another try.  I love it!!  I decided to try a recipe of what it similar to a breakfast pizza and add gravy into the equation.  It has a croissant crust with your meat of choice (sausage, bacon, or ham), shredded cheese, and you then pour the beaten eggs over the top and bake.  I made mine with sausage and since I love bacon, I had it on the side.  The gravy is then drizzled over the pizza once it has finished baking.  Pretty tasty! Next up, Turkey and Pancetta Meatballs.  Meatballs, not a favorite of mine, either.  But, these are different!  They...

Knitting.  What does this bring to mind?   For me, it used to be a "little old lady" sitting in a rocking chair with two knitting needles and a ball of yarn.  This was my idea of it until I tried my hand at it.  It actually is somewhat fun.  When I say "somewhat" that is depending on what sort of knitting you are doing.  I taught myself the basic crochet and enjoy it.  Next up, knitting.  The kind with the two long chopstick looking needles.  I was lucky to find a knitting group that my mother's good friend started with her daughter.  Carol is a patient person and taught me how.  It may take me an hour to do 30 stitches but, by golly, I can do it!  This sort of knitting became a little more like work to me instead of an enjoyable activity so when my close friend, Carrie, told me about loom knitting I was intrigued.  Carrie's mother started this and taught Carrie, who in turn, taught me.  I have since then taught m...

During one of the recent snowstorms that we had, I decided to break out my sewing machine and do some mending that needed to be done. It didn't take me long to finish and feeling a little inspired I cut up a pair of pants that a friend of mine found in her attic.  They were not something that I would wear but thought they would make fun curtains. The fabric is this great european city motif. After cutting and squaring the fabric up, there wasn't much to work with, a long valance was created.  I also found this pink belt in my stash of odds n ends.  It has a cute little rose on the right that I also incorporated. This is a nice change from the red valance that has been hanging in my work area for the past six years. Recycling can be fun! ;-)