Make a Peeps S'mores Kit + Free Printable

My heart is swelling this Easter watching my oldest son start to understand the Easter story.

We talked a lot about how what Jesus did for us was a gift and we decided to make some gifts for our friends. I love teaching him to never miss an opportunity to love and celebrate the people in our lives and how good it feels to give (and not just get) a gift.

We went to the store and found everything we need to make some Peeps S'mores Kits.

We love to make s'more at home and use our microwave in lieu of a campfire so we thought our friends might too!

All you need is some graham crackers, some chocolate and some Peeps marshmallows to make it festive. Plus our printable tags and either a stapler to do a folder tab or some string if you want to make a regular tag.

Then get as many supplies as you need to make all your s'mores kits.

Super simple and easy to have your kids do!

That's all their is to it! Like I said the printables allow you to either do a fool over tag you can staple or you can cut them to use like a regular tag with string!

I've also included a tag version that doesn't specifically have to be for Easter.

So you can do these anytime for a special surprise for one of your favorite peeps! :)

Download the You are one of my favorite Peeps tags here.

And download the Happy Easter to one of our favorite Peeps tags here.

Happy Easter to all of you, my favorite peeps! 

DIY Seasonal Placemat Pillow

 Switching things up and making your place feel new again at the beginning of each season is so fun to me. And who doesn't love a seasonal pillow? How about for about $5?! 

I shared this easy DIY seasonal placemat pillow last year on my Instagram when I wasn't blogging and I had so many people tag me showing me how they did it too and it made my heart happy!

So this year I thought I'd share a more thorough breakdown and some of this year's 

placemats that I think would make the cutest seasonal pillows this fall!

Here's the super-easy steps:

1. Go to Target (or home decor store of your choice)

I'm just saying Target because they are carrying this placemat again and have other cute options for placemats.

2. Get some pillow-fill from the craft store (less than $3 usually)

3. Seam-rip a hole just big enough for your hand to be able to fill the placemat 

with poly-fill (I suggest the bottom right-hand corner)

4. Fill 'er up nice and full.

5. Sew back uptake section you opened

Took me less than 5 minutes by hand.

6. Enjoy your new seasonal pillow! And it's even got fringe!

Tag me on Instagram if you make one! I love to see homes being made cute and cozy on the cheap!

Easy Statement Cake + Printable Numbers

We celebrated our Griff's second birthday this past weekend!

It is so much fun when birthdays fall on the weekend because then we're free to celebrate without lame things like work cramping our style. ;)

We just had a small family party for him and so I didn't really do many decorations.

I just wanted to get some fun balloons and a fun birthday banner and call it good.

But day-of I realized I didn't think about anything for his cake.

Then I remembered a simple trick I had done for Grady's 2nd birthday party and

decided to do the same thing for Griff's cake.

It is so simple and really comes out cute and makes a statement in a pinch!

Here's all you need for this cake:

- sprinkles

- printable number

- card stock paper

That's it. And I've made it easy for you by creating a document with printable numbers 1-9 in a nice thick, sans serif font. 

Download your number, print it on card stock paper, cut it out, and then lay the number on top of your already frosted cake. You want your frosting to still be a tad sticky so the letter lays flush. And this is important so that your sprinkles stick too. Dried frosting will be a sprinkle disaster, trust me.

And I like to fold up one tiny corner of the number so it's easy to take off after the sprinkles go on.

Other helpful tips: Lay down a dish towel around where you'll be sprinkling because it's easy to catch the strays and then throw them away after and avoid unnecessary sweeping.

Once your number is laying flush on your cake, go to town with the sprinkles. Sprinkle your heart out. And make sure they especially fill in around the outline of your number.

When your cake is sufficiently sprinkled, take your folded up corner and slowly peel off your number.

Use an icing knife to smooth any icing that came off.

And behold your super easy statement cake!

I still like to add cake flags because I can't help myself.

And seeing my sprinkle-loving boy light up is the icing on the cake. ;)

Trying hard to blow out those candles.

Happy Birthday to my Griff, Griff.

Mini Rosemary Wreaths

Making people feel special when they come over for dinner at my house is always my goal.

I show people I love them through crafting, I can't help it.

So when my small group at church decided to do a Friendsgiving Dinner together, I was

delighted. This was the very reason I asked Josh to build us a 12-person farmhouse table, so

I could fill it up with people. 

I had seen a few ideas of mini wreaths floating around on pinterest and

was excited to try my hand at some. 

And lucky day for me when I had a friend who let me snip some of his overgrown rosemary!

So the wreath part is pretty self-explanatory:

Get a sprig of rosemary and bend it into a circle.

I tied a knot with a piece of twine and then topped it with a pre-made bow.

The banner part looks a little trickier, but it's really not.

Check it:

Cut a strip of paper

Make two folds the same size as the width of your wreath

Fold the side flaps in half again

Press it down and snip the ends to make them prettier

Write your guest's name

Then tuck it around the wreath.

Done and done.

 And here they are in action,

These would be so cute with a little red bow for Christmas!

Upgraded Advent Calendar

I upgraded our Advent calendar for the long haul this year.

I still love the boxes we did the last couple years, but they aren't big enough to

hold some of the ornaments/gifts I wanted to include this year now

that Grady can participate.

So I decided to make some simple fabric bags out of scrap fabric

I already had on hand. I didn't take any pictures of the process, but 

it is seriously this easy:

1. Fold a piece of fabric and cut a rectangle in the desired size of 

your bags. Because you folded your fabric, you will have two

rectangles (and straight edges don't matter because you'll be 

sewing them).

2. Take your two rectangles and face the right sides towards each

other.

3. Sew a straight line down 3 of the sides.

4. Turn your bag inside out.

5. (Optional) Snip the un-sewn side with pinking shears.

It took me less than an hour to make 25 little bags. 

For the tags, I just typed numbers 1-25 in a document and printed

them out on cardstock. I used a 1.5" circle punch to cut them out and

then tied them up with string.

Each bag has something different in it.

Some bags hold special ornaments to add to the tree throughout the 

month. 

Some bags hold Advent activities for us to do. Like, read Luke 2, or drive around and look at Christmas lights, or fill a Salvation Army stocking. Even the simplest of things like "kiss under the mistletoe".

And as a tribute to the those classic Advent calendars that are filled with chocolates everyday, 

I threw in some bags that would just have a treat in them.

As we count down to Christmas, I hope these will help us focus on our Savior, on being generous and loving, on making memories as a family, and on all we have to be grateful for this year.

 Does your family do an Advent calendar? What do you do?

Craft Fix

As a girl who loves to create and work with her hands, but is also a busy mama with limited free time, sometimes sitting down for even 10 minutes to create something is just what I need.

A project that truly takes 10 minutes and has a gratifying outcome is a bunting.

I pretty much make myself a new one every season. This year I opted for gold polka dot burlap that would take me through October and November.

While deciding what size and shape I wanted my bunting to be, I  realized that one cut could make me two buntings!

Just one angled cut across this folded rectangle...

And I had two different bunting shapes!

So I just kept cutting until I had a decent stack of each.

Then I glued them along a string of twine.

Seriously, 10 minutes. Does a crafty mama's soul good.

So then what do you do with the other bunting?

You gift it to your bestie...

What's your go-to craft-fix project?