Desk Organizing Part 2!

As I mentioned before I have been trying to get our desk at least a little bit more organized.... and I took the first step by making my Desk Organizer seen here! So as another step forward I added two more pieces that I am hoping will aid in the de-cluttering of the desk!

I'm not sure if I've already started "nesting" or if it's more of a Spring cleaning venture but as someone who is very unorganized I'm running with it either way! 

So here they are my two new desk organizing pieces! 

First up is my Notes Write And Wipe Frame...

This project was made in all of 5 mins! 

It's super easy and very useful!

I took these two thrifty finds...

The frame ran me all of 99 cents and the scrapbooking book (which I had all but forgotten about) cost me 3! 

The best thing about this book is as you can see on the cover it came with 16 sheets of scrapbooking paper!

Aren't they pretty and such variety too.... the only draw back of these papers are that they aren't standard scrapbook size so I had no idea what to do with them for a long while... (hence them sitting on the shelf being forgotten about)

So once I had a look through the papers and chose one that I liked I took the glass out of the frame and traced around it on the paper so that it would fit perfectly, then I glued the letters N-O-T-E-S on to the paper with a trust old glue stick and popped it in the frame... 

I swear the longest and hardest part of this project was picking out the paper to put in the frame! 

Next is my Little Notes Bulletin Board...

This one took a bit more time and a lot more glue... 

For this one I needed a few things but they were all things I had lying around the house (I either picked them up because they were super cheap or they were left overs of other projects) 

Still a small stack of supplies if you ask me...  Just a hot glue gun, scissors, ribbon and some cork coasters (I used Hexagon and square shape ones but really you can use any shape as long as they fit tightly together)

This one was quick once I got going but to start I cut down my cardboard backing to the size I wanted, then I laid out my smaller hexagon shaped cork coasters in a pattern so that they covered the whole board, cutting and piecing together where need be to make sure the whole board was covered.

Then I hot glued them all in place, after that I placed my square coasters on top and hot glued them in to place as well. Once that was done I just hot glued some ribbon over the seams and the edge to clean it up and make it pretty. I glued a small piece of left over ribbon on the back for hanging and then it went up on the wall!

And here they both are in place at the desk...

And  they are getting well used already if I can say so my self! 

They have reduced a lot of the clutter on our desk making it much easier to find a place to set my tea mug down and I also have enough space to put my newly covered and revamped idea binder too! 

I just hope I can stay on this organizing kick... If I can I will have a whole house  a lot of work to do around here...

(Look for my binder post on Tuesday of next week! I am pretty proud of how it turned out!)

Have you done some Spring cleaning and re-organizing this week? Made anything fun and useful out of thrifty or (better yet) free materials? Leave a comment and some inspiration!

Photo Friday

Since the weather has been so nice relatively decent we went to the park to have a stroll and feed the ducks! Here are the photos from our spring walk! 

 Delaney and Daddy feeding the ducks while Momma plays Paparazzi!

 Glad to be out and about for a stroll!

 This is my duck.. even though I wasn't feeding them (maybe a handful to bribe them to come closer) this duck wouldn't leave me alone he just kept coming back to me! Maybe he was making sure I got his good side...

Happy Friday! Hope you have some fun out and about in the Spring like weather! and I hope you get some great shots of it too!

Tell the Truth Thursday!

Easter is upon us and that got me to thinking....

I have always loved Easter! (who am I kidding I love all the holidays I am a holiday junkie, you mean I can make decorations and gifts to give to people and hear them squeal about how they can't believe that I made this! bring it on!) To me Easter marks spring, it marks no more snow (we hope), it marks chocolate for no reason, who would pass that up and it marks new beginnings. With that in mind I am wondering when and how did Easter become as big as Christmas or Birthdays, I mean I'm all for gifts and I love to give to people but really do we need to have a big extravagant  deal made out of all the holidays?

When I was a kid (and yes this is one of those when I was little we got fruit for Christmas things so be warned...) we got our egg hunt which was in our living room, but we always had to share and make sure that neither my sister or I had more than the other, a chocolate bunny, a spring outfit or pair of new spring shoes and maybe a skipping rope or a bubble set... that was Easter! I thought that was pretty freaking good! but now I hear of  parents that are getting their kids everything from a new bike to a huge party to WII systems and PS3's... Now before you get upset if you can do that for your kids way to go more power to ya! But at the same time I just feel like its a bit too much.... I mean it is the middle of spring, and didn't we just have Christmas? and aren't kids gonna get a truck load of things for their birthdays? 

And the other thing I didn't expect was other people getting gifts and candy and chocolate for my child... Last year my daughters friend gave her an Easter gift, my sister in law gave her a gift and my in laws gave her a gift, then my dad gave her a gift and my mom gave her a gift and it felt like everyone was passing out presents left right and center... I don't remember ever getting a gift from anyone other than the Easter bunny! (and my god mother, she used to get us each one of those hallow eggs with our names written on them)

Maybe I am just old school and think that the Bunny is supposed to bring you a few small things and that be it but it just feels like to much... Maybe it's because I think we didn't get crazy extravagant gifts and we turned out fine, I never felt like the neighbors had it better or that I wanted more for Easter.

I almost wanna say to heck with the Bunny, lets just tell her that he isn't real and that momma and daddy buy you gifts and chocolate just like everyone else... but how can you do that to a kid who wants to believe and trust me Delaney wants to believe...

What do you think, is Easter becoming too much? Do you think it should be scaled back? or do you think the opposite? Leave a comment you never know you might just change my mind...

Super Easy Easter Treats!

I hate giving generic store bought candy for Easter,  I really hate to give candy at all.

I know that kids are getting candy and chocolate from everyone for the holidays, Easter and all the others too... and I have never met a kid that didn't love rice crispy squares... 

So for Delaney and her friend for Easter I made these!

Rice crispy nests with Marshmallow eggs... 

First thing is first... make a batch of rice crispy squares as per the box instructions (microwave or stove-top method will both work great!) Then I just pressed the warm mix into my mini muffin tin and let them harden completely... when they were ready I melted chocolate chips and poured some into each and then stuck the marshmallows into the chocolate before it hardened...

Egg and Bunny Pops! 

For these I took the warm mix and pressed it into a cookie sheet, let cool for a while maybe 20 mins or so... then cut with shaped cookie cutters... let them harden completely on a flat surface and then insert a lollypop stick. To decorate melt chocolate chips and put into a zip top baggie and cut a small hole out of the corner and "pipe" as you would with icing! 

I bagged these up in Easter Bunny bags and tied them off with a twisty tie and they are ready for gifting...

What treats are you making for Easter?

Mrs. M.....

I have always been M... I have been called Miss M or Miss Emmy. I was called Em, Emm, and every other variation you can dream up when your name is Emilee...

But this past year I became MRS. M.

Mrs. Marsh!

It was a great day but I certainly didn't have to change my Initials I was still Emilee M... 

I have been thinking about making something like this since then, and when I started seeing things like this, and this around the blogging world and I thought OK it's my turn, lets see what I can do with this!

And here is what I came up with...

 

And here is how I did it...

I made a template of my letter on computer paper, I made a few different ones but I like this one the best and thought that it would be easiest to work with.

I traced it out on the inside of an old box, I made 2 of these and then took the "scraps" and used them to give the letter a bit more bulk, I brushed white glue onto to cardboard and sandwiched the "scraps" between the two cutouts, then I weighted it down with a few of my lunch plates...

Then I started to cover it in twine... (I love the texture and look of it as compared to burlap and the moss was just too much for me...)

I hot glued it down on the front and back so that it would lay flat and stay in line... 

I had to cut the twine a few times and start from a new position so that I could cover it without causing bumps and lumps here there and everywhere... (once it was done, I trimmed off the stringy bits and all of the loose ends as well as removing any extra glue that you could plainly see)

and here it is fully covered... 

I thought it was a bit too plain but I didn't want to make it too Holiday-ish and have to make one for every other month/holiday. 

So I made some ribbon flowers, I just folded the ribbon over and put a dot of hot glue in each fold, then I hot glued a button in the center of each. I picked greys and turquoise colors because, well because I like them, and they feel kind of timeless and don't really have a season. All of that done I came out with something that I think is pretty darn good!

What do ya think?

Have you done anything fun with your initials lately?

Make it Monday!

Flower Garden Cupcakes!

First thing first... I cheated, yup it's true this isn't a real from scratch recipe... but I modified it.... so I think it kinda counts... Maybe....

These are my Flower Garden Easter Cupcakes!

(Please excuse the cooling rack in the background)

To make these "cheat" cupcakes I wanted to make confetti cups cupcakes but when I picked up my cake mix they were all out.... Thats what happens when cake mix goes on sale for a dollar.... so to fix my cake mix issue I took a White cake mix and some sprinkles...

Now normally I would just go ahead and make my cake mix as the directions recommend however the last time I made them I made some changes... and I'm sticking to them because my cupcakes have never tasted so moist and yummy as when I fist made these changes... 

So here we go....

This mix called for                                  I put in.....

1 and 1/4 cup of water                          1 cup of water  

3 egg whites                                          2 egg whites

1/3 cup of oil                                         1/3 cup of oil

                                                             1/4 cup of milk!

Heres why...

I find that adding 3 egg whites is too much it makes the cupcakes to spongy and a but hard on the top... (if it calls for 3 whole eggs I do the same but put in the 2 whole eggs...) I add a bit of milk as it makes the cupcake a bit more dense but at the same time moist, I like to add about 1/4 cup and just take that off of the water recommendation, then I follow the oil recommendation as the box says...

To make these cupcakes confetti cups I just added sprinkles before I added the wet ingredients, mixed them through and proceeded as I explained above...  

 When they bake up they will look just like confetti cups would, you can see the sprinkles in the middle there... kinda... 

Then I made my Butter Cream Icing which you can find here.... and died it green to look like grass, I iced the cupcakes with a star icing tip and just dotted it on to look like grass as I don't have a grass icing tip. 

They are great just like this but to turn them into Flower Garden Cupcakes, I melted a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips (or if you wanted color you could melt down some candy melts, you can find them in the cake section at Micheal's) then I put plastic wrap over a book or magazine and spread the melted chocolate over the plastic, then place cookie cutters in the shape of flowers of Easter shapes like bunnies and chicks in the chocolate.

(It will look like this)

Then let your chocolate harden at room temp. (don't try to speed it up by putting it in the fridge, your chocolate will crack) gently remove the cookie cutters and peel the chocolate off of the plastic and place them in your icing.... and there you have it! 

Flower Garden Confetti Cup Cupcakes!