DIY Cards ====> Father's Day & Anniversary

 Pardon my photography. Apparently I did not check the quality of my pictures before I gave these cards away so no chance for do~overs however I decided to post them anyway as a little creative inspiration. 

The shirt and tie card is just simple Origami. I love paper folding so this was a fun card to make. As for the Anniversary card, it was easy too. A few paper punched hearts along with jewels for a bit of sparkle, connected with hand drawn lines and finished with a hand written title is perfect for a special event such as an Anniversary. 

These ideas could work for many other occasions as well so I hope they will inspire new and fun ideas.

Happy Sunday!

Birthday Charcuterie: DIY graze celebration numbers

Charcuterie boards come in all shapes, sizes and themes however not all are arranged on boards.

Another option is to use number and/or letter boxes so this month I decided to give that a try and began searching for paper machete 3D numbers. Since this was a last minute idea, time was of the essence, and after a quick search I discovered the size and exact numbers I wanted were not as readily available as I had hoped. So I had to go with plan B which was making them myself. I was low on poster board so I decided to try using a recycled box instead. 

The first step was finding or making a large template or using stencils for the numbers. Unfortunately I did not have anything that was the right size or the shape that I wanted and thought it would be faster to draw them myself instead of messing around with graphics and printing oversized numbers. So that is what I did and before long I had some numbers I thought would work. Once they were sketched and cut out the next step was turning them into boxes. With the remaining parts of the box I cut several 1 3/4 inch strips to use as the sides. 

The strips were then lined up along the edge of a number and taped in place with clear packaging tape as they were positioned around the shapes. It was actually easier and went much faster than I had anticipated.

Once the sides were attached the inside of each number box was cleaned and then lined with parchment paper before filling with red, white and blue snacks.

A few little flags were added since our theme was patriotic and some flowers just for fun. I'm not sure if I can figure out a way to use the "6"  and "0" again but making new numbers or letters should go much faster the next time.

Happy Thursday!

 

Over The Hill party favors

This month Mr. Wonderful and Miss E planned and executed a wonderful backyard 60th Birthday Party. They did everything so I was at a loss as to how to help or what to do. Then it came to me...

PARTY FAVORS!

I decided to make Over the Hill Pill Bottle party favors to give each of the guests at the end of the party. My small way of saying thank you.

So I washed up some pill bottles I had been saving just to have on hand for some sort of project and this was the perfect time to use them. While they were drying I worked on the labels and when they were ready and printed I attached them to the bottles. Next they needed pills so I filled some of them with mini M&M's and the others were filled with Skittles. 

These little party favors were easy to make and so much fun to give away. Just what the Doctor Ordered!

Happy Tuesday!

New Home Card

It has been a busy couple of weeks which has put me a bit behind in my posts but I am still working on all types of fun little projects. 

This is one of my recent cards. 

Just when I thought it was finished and ready to mail I decided to make a very small change. If you look closely you will see it.

For some reason, at the last minute, I changed my mind and decided to use a star on the map instead of a heart. It could have gone either way but I went with the star. 

After putting some doodles on the envelope it was ready to mail. 

Happy Wednesday!

Roasted Sweet Potato and Wild Rice Salad

Roasted sweet potatoes are one of my favorite vegetables and it is no wonder since they are so sweet. They are great warm or cold and are a wonderful addition to salads. 

This rice salad is easy to make and so tasty that I like it anytime.

While the sweet potatoes are roasting I cook some wild rice and chop some apples and avocados. 

Once the sweet potatoes have cooled I toss everything together including salad dressing, usually whatever I have on hand, and then top the salad with toasted nuts such as pecans, almonds, pine nuts or whatever I am in the mood for. 

Sometimes we dress our individual serving of salad ourselves, since we all have different preferences, which works well too.

This was quite the hardy dinner for spring but sometimes that is just the right thing for a cold, rainy spring day. 

Happy Tuesday!

A Novel Affair :: tea party :: Chapters 5~7

In May we celebrated Mothers Day at our annual tea party. The theme this year was all about books and we turned our tea room into a library to set the tone. The past week I have been sharing some of the tea party highlights and today I am back to pick up where I left off at the end of Chapter 4. 

Once we had all finished our Adventurous beginnings it was time for a cup {or two} of soup. We actually had two soup choices this year and they were both delicious. The BBR soup is a family recipe and is a story in itself but the Cock~A Leakie soup was something new. I believe we all agreed it was wonderful and it even had a mystery ingredient which made it quite tasty.

Everyone tried to guess but it was so unusual it was hard to figure out. Can you guess what it is? 

We also served traditional layered tea sandwiches and my chicken salad croissant sandwiches  which I serve at every tea party however we were having so much fun that I missed the chance to get pictures this time. You can check them out one of our other tea parties though by clicking on the highlighted link to above.

Last but not least Chapter 7... dessert.

We had to laugh because the list of sweet treats was so long. 

It was hard to narrow down the desserts, as usual, so instead of trying to pick and choose I just made them all or almost all. There did come a point when miss E reigned me in and said we had enough desserts. She was right.

My family thinks I am a little nuts about sweets, which of course I am, but that did not prevent us from sampling all of them.

Our menu had gluten free options as well, in all categories, including dessert. 

Always a family favorite are the chocolate covered strawberries. 

I used my grandma's ginger snap recipe to make the Molasses cookies so they were an extra special part of the story.

The Macadamia Nut Cookie recipe is one I created to coordinate with the stamped pineapple cutout cookies and the Rocky Road Bars are so good that you cannot stop at just one.

It certainly turned out to be A Novel Affair and another memorable story to add to the Chronicles of the NoBull Clan. It was definitely one for the books.

{ And BTW, the mystery ingredient in the soup was Prunes! }

Happy Wednesday!