Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Just Milk It...

We have Party On! Designs sharing their DARLING milk jugs with us over in our SHOP.

I thought I would do some 'research' about how to use these cute touches in a celebration setting and then I thought, "Why don't I share"?  Because, believe it or not, Pinterest DOESN'T have EVERYTHING. ;)


UCreate Parties- Oh.My.Heck. Seriously love the use of the baskets, the soda crate, the good ole stand-bys of comfort desserts...homemade oreos, cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. Pretty much reminds me of my grandmas house.


Cookie Mondays- This cute little bakery party is so sweet it will give you a toothache. From the mini chef hats to the play cooking to the layered cookie birthday cake- you don't want to miss this!!


The Tom Kat Studio- One of Courtney's and my FAVORITE party-throwers, Tom Kat does it YET again with this adorable Milk and Cookies Birthday Party! Such cute touches and perfectly wholesome use of milk jars!






Kid Crave- This little party could double as a sweeter-than-sugar Valentine's Day soiree. A dash of brown and pink...could go heavy on either to lean towards or away from the fairer sex. Clean and classic- you can't go wrong with MILK. 


Smidge and a Pinch- You really need to stop here. I am loving the vintage birthday banner, the burlap-wrapped milk jugs, the use of retro milk containers and the simplistic but stunning cookie that say 'MAX'. This party is perfect...to the MAX. ;)

Wanna party, now? Stop by Mindy Mae's Market for YOUR Milk and Cookie party-starters.

Stop by Turning This Into That for some yarn-inpiration you may have been yearning for.


Monday, July 30, 2012

Turning Into A Shopper...

I'm not a big shopping fan. Not just clothes or home decor...food, too. I would rather do almost anything than go shopping. Scrub the floor...done. Pull some teeth...done. Clean the toilet- even that.

However. I must admit. I dooo love perusing Etsy, Shopify and the ever popular Pinterest. Usually its for inspiration or to find things {let's be honest} I can copy and do myself. However, I've decided to practice shopping without any additonal action on my part...and you get to come along. :) 

These Twinkle Sparkers from Giant Dwarf would be terrific for my soon-to-be 10 year-old going back to school. She's kinda growing out of the bow stage but still need something pretty but not too over-the-top. Plus...I could "borrow" them!

I've seen a lot of Mr. and Mrs. things around...and some His and Hers. I saw these Couple Keychains by Jewelmint and thought how cute it would be to give my Mr. the key ring that says 'Hers' and that I could keep the one that says 'His'. Maybe I'm behind the curve {which is typical} but I LOVE that.

We are creating a cottage-y feeling home and I really love to include industrial elements. We've pulled some in from all over. I would love to include some of these metal wire cages to cover some of my lights. This one is from Industrial Rewind and the price is perfect.
How about this great idea from TJLovePrints? This is a thumb print tree for a baby shower! I have a few of these coming up {eventually} in my future, as an auntie and I would love to use this as a keepsake for my SILs!

The last on this listing is this 'National Safety Town Instructor' t-shirt from RareAves. I'll be teaching 7th grade Engineering Technology this next school year and I thought this might be a funny {though unappreciated} touch to the Safety Unit I will be leading the first weeks of school.

That was fun! Pretty harmless- so far. Let me know...what are some of YOUR favorite Etsy shops? Maybe we'll have to do some door-to-door {so-to-speak} visits of them!



Friday, July 27, 2012

Modern Pioneer-{ish} Day


In Utah we have Pioneer Day, celebrating the day when the Mormon Pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley and starting us off in the direction of being a state. We have terrific "pioneer" opportunities here in Utah- some of which I've been able to experience and some left to be done.
I can officially check butter-making off my list.
 My kids and I decided we would have our own Pioneer Day celebration- making foods that Pioneer would have {and that's the BIGGEST chunk of our day- baking take A LOT of time, I had forgotten}.
We started with some good 'ole whipping cream. Straight from the cow...er...'cow'ner market. ;)

 We put the cream into a jar...we learned earlier that things with pop-tops will do just that...pop- and spilling cream everywhere.

 I forgot to add salt to this one before we started shaking it.


 Here's one ready to go! The shaking part went pretty fast, depending on how hard and fast you shake; however. The think that freaked me out was that after you shake the cream, it becomes solid, and then it becomes {or what seems to be} liquid again. Never fear! This is just what's left of your cream and your butter separating. I just poured that off into the sink.


It tastes TERRIFIC!


So next, we needed bread. I kind of cheated. I didn't grind my own flour and it wasn't wheat. I didn't even mix by hand. {Thank you Bosch!} Started my yeast...

 And voila! Not really. I only had my hands at this point and they were covered in dough. I'll give you the recipe, though-
 'Cause it was pretty fantastic.

2 cups warm water
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cups bread flour

I dissolved the sugar in warm water and then stirred in my yeast. I allowed the yeast to proof until it looked like creamy foam.

Mixed in the salt and oil. Mixed in the flour one cup at a time.  Kneaded the dough on my parchment paper and then place the dough in a well oiled bowl with a damp cloth to cover it.

I let it double in bulk(about an hour). Then I punched it down, kneaded it a little more and then divided it for my pans. I formed the dough into loaves and put the loaves of dough into oiled pans. I let it rise again (30 minutes) and then put in the oven to bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.



Then it was onto the pie crust. This recipe was super simple and pretty darn terrific...This is after I made the dough and let it sit in the refrigerator for about an hour first. I've been rolling my dough out on parchment paper lately and have had great success. I like being about the transfer or flip the dough to tins, etc.
 I used a mason jar lid to cut the crust dough into circles that would fit into a muffin tin.


 I just used my hands to gently form the crust to the sides of the tins. They turned out fantastic, by the way (eaten before I could get the pictures done). The recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening (I had mine in the fridge)
1/2 cup water (I used ice water)

I used my mixer again. I started with the flour and salt- mixed it together. I then added the shortening. I mixed with my mixer until it looked all crumbly. Then I added a little water at a time until the dough was the consistency of play dough. I divided it and wrapped it in plastic wrap. It sat in the fridge for a least an hour.

I rolled this out on parchment paper. It will cook in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

 We had "Hobo Dinners" for dinner. (This consists of seasoned hamburger, onions, carrots, whatever leftover vegetables we have, potatoes and lots of garlic. You wrap them all in tin foil and we cooked ours in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes.--- If you aren't privy to such things.)


The rest of the day was spent in the pool with our homemade waterfall,
 in our beautiful backyard...in the great state of UTAH! I'm sure the pioneers would approve. ;) 

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Turning Into A Train Party...Part III


The last of the party details (that we can show with pictures) consist of the goodie bags and a cute addition made by Courtney's hubby.


Our goodie bags were bandannas made to look like something a train-car rider would use (is it PC to say 'hobo'?) We thought we'd forgo the sticks as that at 3 years of age most things are turned into some sort of weapon or device of destruction. ;)



Inside we included some 3 year-old favorites: train whistle, bouncy balls, bubbles, a little snack and some sticky-making suckers.



Look how completely adorable this ladder was for this party!  It worked perfect for holding our bandannas and for hiding the awning columns...or at least dressing them up a bit!

Over at Mindy Mae's blog we'll have another burlap feature from our Saturday link-up!

And some NEW items featured in our store and on facebook!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Turning into a Train Party...Perfect Printables!


Chugging right along with our Train party... here were some of the lovely printables that were used (and now available through us in shop- contact us at mindymaesmarket{at}gmail{dot}com for more information about them)!






This party wasn't without hiccups- Mother Nature was working against us. We had terrific wind and our light sprinkle wasn't so light towards the end of the party (or when people decided they'd had enough). We didn't get to fully utilize the beautiful pennant banner, the "Happy Birthday" banner and a couple of other "finishing touches". Our beautiful cake also ran late and so our spread wasn't fully complete for a while.
It was in a terrific location, however! We'll show you some of the other touches to the party tomorrow...

In the meantime- check out the theme for this week's Link-up over at Mindy Mae's blog.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Turning into a Train Party...Food First.



Courtney's and my first attempt at putting on a party. We wanted to go low-key so that we could notate our mistakes and things we wanted to change -without the guest of honor killing us. We chose Courtney's nephew's 3rd birthday party. I thought I could outrun him if things went terribly wrong.

Today I'll show you the food we served. Keep in mind it was for 3 year-olds, at a park and that we had a rain storm spontaneously in the middle of it (through the end).

We served animal crackers for two reasons: they were portable and they are one of my favorite.  Just kidding. They are already packaged in their own little train cars!
We served "train wheels"- which were all going to be black wheels but I was told that variety was the spice of life...so we had both.
Sandwiches and chips- a crowd favorite...we pretended it was the favorite choice of train engineers everywhere. Cause it is...right?!
Cupcakes are a must-have. Especially the ones that turn your teeth awesome colors.
Extra goodies placed around the place to keep peoples mouths busy. These lanterns {from IKEA} just seemed like a perfect addition to the decor.
And the cake! So cute and so yummy! We had a Mexican vanilla layer and a Oreo layer (or train wheel layer). It was fabulous tasting!

We'll show you some more later...I gotta get off my computer. It's Pioneer Day here in Utah- we are supposed to be doing Pioneer things today (making our own bread and butter, bobbing for apples, etc) and the Internet wasn't a pioneer activity (stinks to be them).

Monday, July 23, 2012

Neat-o Newspaper Lollies!

 I started with some left-over newspaper parts. I used full sheets and the colored pages.  I needed something that looked fun, but a tad bit masculine.
 I started accordian folding the paper on the short end.
 I folded two pages but you could fold as many as you'd like- each folded paper will make up two section of your lolly.
 I foleded the folded paper in half.
 I pulled out my hot glue gun and glued on the inside of the folded paper and stuck the edges together to form half {or a section} of the lolly.
 Once the section is formed, you will glue the outer edges to the outer edge{s} of other sections you have made. Attatch them at the glued edge.
 If you wanted a more "full" lolly you would add more sections simply by attatching edges.
 I only used two sections of folded newspaper (two pages). To hang mine, I attatched paper clips to the center to hold it together and give it some stablility {newpaper isn't the strongest of papers, no?} Then I tied twine to the paperclip and taped the twine to the top of the paper to hold the lolly upright.
 I'm sure there are a million other ways to do it...more glue, etc. This way was just simple and on-hand.
Aren't they just so cute?