EtsyKids - orange all around

Fellow EtsyKids member PrincessDesigns added our Apple Dot Bib to her Orange All Around treasury!

almost too perfect

So my momma loves Halloween and Rod Stewart. I don't know what/who she loves more. I am always amazed at what you can find on Etsy. Who. Knew.

Rod Stewart album Halloween Candy Dish from mosaichick on Etsy

Her birthday is veryclose to Halloween, so it's her favorite holiday (and she passed her love of Halloween onto me). When she turned 50 last year we had a Halloween-themed bday party for her, complete with a dvd slideshow of Halloween over the years.

♥ She's a good witch, my momma. I'm the princess with the crazy cowlick. My younger sister is the little punkin'.

pumpkin spice lattes

In case you haven't noticed, Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks! It's kind of hard to miss - seems like everyone and anyone are posting status updates on facebook about them. There's even a fan page for them! :)

Reading all those status updates made me want one, of course. Crave one. But being pregnant and living a 25 mile round-trip away from the nearest Starbucks put a damper on my pumpkin latte parade. But at around $4.50 per cup, I guess it helps out the checkbook.

Luckily there are tons of recipes online for a pumpkin spice latte. We tried one yesterday and it tasted like pureed pumpkin pie with way too much nutmeg. Liquid nutmeg with some pumpkin. It was awful. Latte fail.

So we tried a new one this morning! It was very yummy (results are in the pic above). I doubled the recipe, added a bit more sugar but didn't double the spices (except for the cinnamon) as I was a little spice-phobic after yesterday's attempt. Here is our modified version:

- 4 cups milk

- 1.5 cups of strong brewed coffee (we used decaf)

- 4 T canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

- 3 T white sugar

- 3 T brown sugar

- 4 T vanilla (seriously)

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 1/8 tsp ground cloves

- 1/8 tsp nutmeg

- teeny tiny pinch of ginger

Whisk together the coffee and milk, then whisk in the pumpkin, spices, sugar and vanilla.

We did put it in the crockpot, but since we wanted to try it right away we just warmed up a few mugs in the microwave and then let the crockpot warm up the rest for a couple hours. We topped ours off with chocolate syrup, lots of whipped cream and sprinkles. And Halloween marshmallows for the kiddos. And maybe me.

Instead of a crockpot, you could always use one of these bad boys too. I bought one for hubby a couple years ago as a funny Christmas gift (but it does get used almost daily during the winter).

You'll probably want to add spices to taste - warm up a bit and see if it's to your liking before adding more. I'm more of a hot cocoa person vs. a coffee person - so you may want to add more coffee or use espresso for a stronger coffee taste.

You could probably mix up a batch to keep in the fridge and warm up a mug at a time for a day or two for your own pumpkin spice latte fix.

some new treasuries

Thank you to StagnantGypsy, BeGratefulShop, Childish Thoughts and ladesigns2 for adding our bibs to their treasuries!

boo!

Paperlili got me in the Halloween mood as she's been blogging bits and pieces of Halloween craftiness and decor for the past couple weeks. The one that made me go "ooooooh I need to do that" were the blingy black pumpkins. They were lovely, sparkly...and we all need an excuse to use glitter glue every once and awhile. So we printed off some coupons for Michaels and drove away. Luckily the pumpkins were already half off - that meant fill the cart with pumpkins for everyone!


The girls loved doing these! They were totally in their element. Sparkles...glitter...glue... :)


We still have a few more pumpkins to do, I want to attempt a solid sparkly bat on the last black pumpkin we bought, and I'm planning on sending a couple to my Halloween-loving momma.


Our new Halloween bunting banner - a great way to use up scraps of fabric! Trick on one side, treat on the other:




Since we now own a plethora of rhinestones, I wanted to try my hand at making a blinged-out yoyo garland. Using one of the nifty Clover yoyo makers I whipped up about 50 yoyos over the past few days, gave the girls the glitter glue again and had them put a rhinestone in the middle of each one. I started hand-sewing them together for the garland, but gave that up and bar tacked them together on the sewing machine. It went much quicker - nap time is precious time anymore. :)


I ended up with about 8 feet, with plans to drape it around the top of the TV armoire under the pumpkins as soon as the last few rhinestones dry (some popped off as I was sewing them together - note to self to put rhinestones on after bar tacking next time).

At first I thought the yoyos were going to take forever, but they actually came together pretty quickly once I got the hang of it. A relaxing craft to do while watching TV on the couch after the kiddos are in bed! Heather Bailey has a yoyo tutorial here if you want to make them without using a yoyo maker.

Or, if you don't have the time to make your own, yoyocottage on Etsy has a bunch of Halloween-themed yoyos in her shop that you can purchase and bling out yourself. Or you can even send her your own Halloween (or Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc.) fabrics for a custom order! Easy peasy!

have a seat, put your feet up

Two Laurie Wisbrun print bibs just added to our website!


(also available on Etsy here)


(also available on Etsy here)

I'm a sucker...

for any retro/vintage-inspired kid print...so here are two new retro/vintage-inspired kid print bibs :)


Sweet Stuff (also available on Etsy here)


Fun Times (also available on Etsy here)

some new bibs!