Lilac Blossoms Cake

 Made this fun cake for a Relief Society social tonight.  Was inspired HERE from i am baker.  She has the best cake ideas and great tutorials and photos.  

French vanilla cake with a buttercream icing.

After frosting the cake with white, I colored three different shades of purple for the flowers.

Only took me about an hour, not too bad.  Wouldn't this make an adorable wedding cake?  Three tiers with flowers spilling all the way down?  Even cupcakes would be adorable.

I hope I have an opportunity to make another one soon, it was a lot of fun!

Family Reunion Welcome Bags

My parents were in charge of a big family reunion a couple of weeks ago.  They wanted to have a small gift for each family when they arrived at the lodge...and I wanted to make something with my Silhouette.  :)  

The tote bags were purchased at Walmart and are really sturdy and machine washable.  I used brown heat transfer for the text, Lobster 3.1 font.  The red tractor was a close resemblance to my great-grandpa's tractor that he took my dad and all of his siblings out on while working on the farm.  

Inside the bags were water bottles with customized labels (sorry, forgot to snap a pic), great-grandma and grandpa's favorite candies and treats, and a recipe card of their delicious, but sinful homemade ice cream.

New Beginnings Invites

We are doing our YW "New Beginnings" night in conjunction to the start of the school year.  Our theme is "Happily Ever After".  Here are the invites we sent to each of the girls and their parents this week.  I think they turned out adorable.  A dress cut from textured cardstock using my Silhouette image files.  We printed the invite information right on the paper.

Hopefully it's not too hard to see, but we added a little tulle overlay to the skirt.

And a little pearl embellishment around the waist, secured by a dab of hot glue on the back.

I am in charge of the refreshments and helping with some of the decorations....stay tuned. 

Stool Makeover

We have this stool from IKEA, don't know if they even make it anymore, that my boys use all the time.  Washing hands, reaching things in the cupboards, putting away dishes, and making cookies with Mom.  It's very functional, but I wanted it to be a little less boring.

This was my first project priming and painting furniture with spray paint.  Easy and I'm glad I tried on a small piece in case I messed up.  It's not perfect, but I learned a lot and feel more confident trying a bigger piece now.  I've got at least three ugly dressers that may be seeing some spray paint soon.

A little vinyl, a coat or two of Modge Podge, and we are ready to go.  My boys love dogs.  They love to pretend they are dogs and they play with stuffed dogs all the time.  We will not be getting a dog anytime soon, not my thing, but my kids love their new stool and the nod to the puppies they adore so much.

In addition to all its other functions, it's become a favorite thinking spot for the three year old.

Bunk Bed Quilts: Complete!

Heat transfer vinyl quilt labels.  Scotty has the green binding quilt.  I documented my steps HERE and HERE on his quilt.  I am so glad I did because it helped me remember steps as I made the second one.

Finally finished Tyler's matching quilt after starting both of them at the same time.  Tyler has the blue binding.

Bottom bunk

Top bunk, and yes I had to stand on my tip toes to take this.

Two quilts down...now I just need to make a matching or coordinating one for the brother in the room across the hall.  Who knows who will share rooms in the future, so it would be nice for the bedding to be interchangeable.  So happy with these and how much easier it is to make the beds now that the quilts just drape over the sides instead of having to tuck all the time.

Aunt Inspiration

On our way up to a family reunion, we were able to stop by my aunt's home.  They have been busy with the backyard and a complete remodel of the kitchen, it was so fun to see, take pictures, and just chat for a little bit....and try to stop my kids from ruining all of her hard work.  I have always loved her sense of style and am inspired to start on some more of my own projects here after seeing her beautiful home.

Steps down from the kitchen.

In ground trampoline, the only way I will ever own one...too many stories of friends and family members breaking arms and legs on these things.

 Dining area.

TV room off of kitchen.

When I wasn't taking pictures, I was trying to stop this one from playing in the dirt and ripping up plants.  Now you know why we don't have nice landscaping....maybe someday when everyone is a little older.

Projects, Purchases, and Perfection

We have been busy in our house with lots of projects.  Unfortunately, most of them were not fun, worth-taking-a-picture of projects.  And I should clarify that 97% of these projects were completed by my husband.  First, he installed some new recessed lighting in the living room.  You can actually see after it gets dark in here now.  We also have a new ceiling fan, but that deserves it's own post after the headache of getting it installed.  A day after we got home from vacation, we had to buy a new water heater.  Just what I want to spend hundreds of dollars on...yes.  Hey, I can see at night in my living room, I stay cool during the summer heat, and I can take a nice, hot shower.  Not exciting, but very much appreciated and necessary if my family wants to avoid "Grumpy, Mean Mom".

We recently bought a new dining table.  We love it and got a fantastic deal on it, which makes it that much more sweet.  I'll put up some better pictures with the fabulous chairs my friend found for me.  The flowers were given to me by friends and husband for my birthday last month.  My last birthday in the 20's.  Sad, but I can't do a thing about it.  If we are not eating at the table, it becomes my son's train station.  Every evening before dinner we have to listen to him howl as I remove the trains so I can set the table.  I guess that means he loves the table too.

While on vacation, we stayed one night with some great friends of ours.  Check out this accent wall and bookcase!  I am so in love with this!  My friend has a beautiful home, should have taken more pictures!

Wedding Favors

Made 200 candy bar wrappers with coordinating tags for my friend's wedding this month.  I'm loving the colors she chose, I just wish I could be there for the big day!  Congrats, Whit....I am counting on someone taking and sending me a lot of pictures.