Super Fruits Smoothie

We have a food emergency!  Our survey on the street results show that 2 out of 3 children would rather eat meat and potatoes than fruits and veggies full of vitamins.  Whatever will we do?!

Super Fruit to the Rescue!  It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's flying fruit! 

{Really...fruit often goes flying in our home.}

Do you have a meat and potatoes kind of kid in your home?  Based on the highly scientific and accurate survey results 2 out of every 3 of your children do not want their fruit.  So give this smoothie recipe a try.

Don't measure anything.  Just throw it all in the blender and give it a go.

Frozen Mango

Frozen Pineapple

Bolthouse Farms Acai Juice Blend

Super Fruits nonfat Greek Yogurt

Banana 

We make a lot of smoothies for snacks around these hot Texas parts.  It is a very refreshing and healthy treat.  I typically throw into the blender whatever mix of frozen or fresh - and needs to be used NOW- fruit we have around.  I decided to share this particular combination because it was really tasty and 3 out of 3 children consumed some healthy super fruits that day.

Little Guy was too busy consuming his daily vitamins to be bothered for a photo op.

Thanks to my blog buddy Lizy at Just Dip It In Chocolate for inspiring me to share my own smoothie.  She is amazing in the kitchen!

Hope you enjoy!  What's your favorite smoothie combination?

A New Creation Link Party #13

Welcome back to another A New Creation link party!  Guess this means Monday is right around the corner.  It's been such a busy weekend around here that Sunday night has snuck up on me again.  In two days we've had a baby shower, a baseball game, a birthday party, a fancy night out at my husband's work dinner, church and a meeting for planning vacation Bible school.  Whoa!  It sounds busy just writing it out.  Whenever I have a busy weekend like this it's easy to slip into grumbling, stressed out mode, but then I stop and realize we're busy because we have people in our life that actually want us around to celebrate with them.  And that's something to be thankful for, as long as we get some relaxed weekends too!

Fortunately I got to sneak in a little creating time this week with a couple projects.

Burlap and Fabric Flower Wreath

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Party Invites

Let's see what our other busy creative friends were up to last week.

The most viewed links from last week's party came from:

Jamie at Better With Age, who shared her Breakfast in Bed Mother's Day Tray.

Isn't it beautiful?  Jamie always has such sophisticated and lovely projects on her blog.  If she wasn't so far from me, I'd be finding some way to lure her over to help me decorate.  Hope you received breakfast in bed last week, Jamie!

AND

Diane at An Extraordinary Day, who shared inspiration and beauty with This Moment: Tulip Time on the Sideboard

Diane has a gift for sharing real life inspiration in a gentle way to make every day life extraordinary!

If you missed the link ups last week please go back and check them out.  I found inspiration for:

Gardening

Eyes on the Source

Organizing

The Thinking Closet

Sewing

Serger Pepper

Baking

Something Sweet

And LOTS more!!

Thanks again to all of you who join us each week to link up or just to peruse. It wouldn't be a party without you! If you like what you see here and can't wait for more you can find me hanging out in these places:
Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Bloglovin', or you can subscribe by email.

Now it's YOUR turn to share your humble creations! Please keep in mind I pin all the link-ups each week to my Pinterest board, so you can catch up there as well. If you don't want your project "pinned" for any reason, please just let me know.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Party Invitations

Cowabunga Dude!  It's time for another birthday party!

Since 2008, when we celebrated my oldest child's 1st birthday, I have had the great joy of birthday party planning, and now I'm hooked!  I still like to have a good ol' fashioned party at home.  I know it's more work, but it's definitely been worth it to see how much fun the children have. Home parties also save money, especially if you're just a bit crafty and able to copy other people's ideas!

My son gave me a great gift last week when he presented me with one of his Mother's Day creations.  He used the word "thoughtful" to describe me and told me what makes me thoughtful is that I "bake him cookies and work hard on his birthday parties".  Perfect timing on his sweet words since his birthday is less than a month away, so I best get going!

This year's theme has been carefully selected by him to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT).  The kids have never actually seen the show, but my mom stumbled across this costume with him last fall while shopping for Halloween, and he's been interested in the characters ever since.

Today I'm sharing the simple but personalized invitations we created.  He wore his Halloween costume from last year and posed in his best ninja stances.  I used PicMonkey to add the cartoon bubble.

When I told my husband what I wanted the invitation to say he warned me the kids probably wouldn't "get" the joke.  Our little guy was listening and said "I get it.  It's like you're saying totally, but with a turtle".  How exciting that he is already enjoying puns.  He'll fit right in with our family.  My mother and aunt are so punny when they get together that the rest of us are often forced to leave the room when we've had enough.

I needed an invitation quickly that was inexpensive so I uploaded the photo to Walgreen's photo online, added the party details and had them printed and picked up within an hour.

As the birthday party approaches in mid June, hopefully I will be sharing some of the ideas we implement for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  If you need some quick TMNT inspiration check out my TMNT Pinterest Board.  

What is your favorite tradition for celebrating children's birthdays?

Shared at:
We Made That

Jumping on the Wreath Bandwagon - Let's Get Rollin'!

According to the land of Pinterest and blogs, I am the only crafty gal out there who has yet to create a fabric flower wreath.  With all the external inspiration fueling my creative fire, I decided it was time to remedy that deficit.  Time to stop pinning those wreaths and just get rollin' (and rolling and rolling).  Well, there was still some pinning involved, but that of a different variety, namely the kind that involves small, pointy sharp objects.

My go to supplies:

-Styrofoam wreath form purchased with coupon for less than $4.  Rumor has it you can use a pool noodle!

-Burlap left from my Natural Christmas Tablescape

-Yellow and white fat quarters from my stash

-Felt (for base of flower)

-Hot glue (until it ran out) followed by Aileen's Tacky Glue

-Itty Bitty straight pins

Step 1:

Take the lazy girl's route and wrap the large piece of burlap (as opposed to strips of burlap) around the wreath while randomly pinning.  Here is the number one reason why I like the styrofoam wreath forms - you can just push those pins right into them.  It doesn't have quite the even look that using strips of burlap does, but I didn't have to cut; just started wrapping.

When you're pinning, be careful to "catch" the fabric.  If you accidentally land in one of the holes of the loose weave, your fabric will not be held. 

Step 2:

Spend way too much time scouring the internet for examples of wreaths and tutorials for making fabric flowers.

The Thinking Closet

Etsy Listing from Kwurkee

Step 3:

Make felt flowers and then decide it's not quite the style you are going for with this wreath.

Step 4:

Start over with fat quarters.  Read numerous flower rolling tutorials on various blogs.  Attempt to make rolled flowers while singing "Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river".  

Finally realize that you are not spatially aware and clearly unable to follow simple instructions despite your best efforts and just go to bed.

Step 5:

Chat with your super crafty mother-in-law about the minor wreath problem which has now developed into disaster.  Watch her quite easily roll a fabric flower.

Step 6: 

Try Again.

Step 7:

Glue flowers to wreath and hang on front door.

Final Step:

Marvel at how nice the yellow fabric flowers look with the lovely lantana which has survived your brown thumb. 

Now back to the Pinterest drawing board to decide what other creations are waiting to be made.  

What projects do you keep collecting on Pinterest but have yet to tackle?

Shared at:

Cheerios and Lattes

Lovely Crafty Home

Diana Rambles

The Pin Junkie

I Should Be Mopping the Floor

The Dedicated House

Home Stories A to Z

A New Creation Link Party #12

Welcome back my creative friends!  Happy Mother's Day!  Hope you have all had time to celebrate with your families today.  I am so thankful for the gift of having a mother and being a mother, so I shared a little about my thoughts on motherhood and love.

It's been a busy week creating around here although I don't have much to share at this point as I have mostly been knitting.  It may just be my favorite new hobby, but it takes awhile to get to a finished project.  My 5 hour delay on an airport runway this week lended itself to some serious knitting time...at least I was flying first class this time!  More to tell about that later...

I'm keeping the features brief this week as I know you are probably busy playing.  We're off to Tutti Frutti this evening for a frozen treat...Mama's only request for her special day.

Thanks for all the wonderful projects shared last week.  The most viewed link belonged to Kelly at Eyes on the Source with her DIY Clothespin Photo Board

What a creative, useful, and special gift for her mom.  Thanks for the inspiration Kelly!

I'll be sharing some of my favorite link ups this week on my Facebook page.  For now, on to the party!

Thanks again to all of you who join us each week to link up or just to peruse. It wouldn't be a party without you! If you like what you see here and can't wait for more you can find me hanging out in these places:
Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Bloglovin', or you can subscribe by email.

Now it's YOUR turn to share your humble creations! Please keep in mind I pin all the link-ups each week to my Pinterest board, so you can catch up there as well. If you don't want your project "pinned" for any reason, please just let me know.