Mini Witch Hat

So my 2 year old was going to be a witch. So I made her dress from a pattern and then I was stuck on her hat. I couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere so I made up my own. I only took one picture while I was making it because I wasn't sure it was going to come together, but I took lots of pictures after it was finished and I'll go through the steps with you.

Yes, this is a cereal box. Cut your circle however large you want it on your kid's head, then the cone takes a little playing with. But I made my short and squat. :) Cover them with faric.

 I added a little puff of matching tulle from her dress just to tie it together. Embellish as you'd like. then I hot glued the cone on top of the tulle. Press down firmly.

 You can see here that I had to add a circle of satin just to cover the wrapped around piece. I melted the edge so it wouldn't fray.

 I added a comb (acutally, I tried a head band first and it wasn't as sturdy as I wanted it, so I did a comb) :D

 Put on your adorable witch.

Then go make a matching one for you because it's sassy!
Happy Halloween!!
~A~

Mongolian yumminess

Okay, so back home there was this little family owned restaraunt called "Mongolian Buffet". What you did was put all sorts of meet and veggies, then noodles and sauces in a bowl and they grilled it over a flat round hot plate with sticks (it goes back to the guys in the Mongolian army cooking their food on their shields with their swords) or so the story says. Anyway, it's delish and I must've eaten there at least once a week since it was very close to where I worked right out of high school. Then I move up here and I haven't found anything remotely like it SO I kind of came up with my own version. So bear with me, I kinda just threw stuff in, and there are no measurments for the sauces, I just covered whatever I was cooking. I did take lots of pictures though so hopefully that will help. So enjoy my all original Mongolian Grill Yumminess (and yes, that's the official name lol! :P)

What you need:
Fresh carrots, sliced
Fresh celery, also sliced
I like snow peas
and a green bell pepper, diced
I used 2 lbs of thinly sliced beef
4 packet ramen noodles, no broth
teryaki sauce
soy sauce
lemon juice (optional)
worsheshire sauce (optional)

Chop up your veggies, this takes the most amount of time and you don't want to be worrying about burning your meat so just do it first.

 This is the meat, it's a thinly sliced beef.

 Close up on the type of meat. It just makes a nice meat for your dish. Cut the strips of meat into about 2 inch strips.

 Put about a tablespoon or two in a pan (I use a flat bottomed wok, I got it at IKEA) when your pan is hot, cook your meat. Drain juices.

 Add your fresh veggies, then pour in some teriyaki sauce and some soy sauce. The meat and veggies will suck up the juices so you're going to end up adding more as things look dry. You want a lot of juice for when you add noodles so don't be afraid to just dump it on. I also add lemon juice, but that's just me. :D

 Let your veggies cook down so they're softer.

 As your veggies are cooking down, prepare your noodles (I used 4 packs of ramen noodle WITHOUT the broth) The noodles with absorb your sauce in the wok so you don't need the broth.

 Add your noodles, I also added a can of that oriental baby corn and water chestnuts. They don't need to cook long since they're canned. Add more soy and teriyaki sauce. I also put another dash of lemon juice and some worschershire sauce. Add sauces that you think will make it taste good. Remember, if it smells good, chances are it will taste good.

Eat and enjoy! Yum!
~A~

B finally joining the band wagon!

Hey Crafter's,
My name is Brianna, I am the other author on this awesome blog! ;) I haven't had alot of time to post since we uploaded it, but now I had a moment! A bit about mwah, I'm happily married to my best friend, going on 5 years! We have a 3 year old daughter and we are pregnant with #2, we just found out we are having a baby boy!! We're super stoked! He's due to make his entrance sometime in March!!
I've never been into crafty "crap" (thats where that title comes from, I've always called it that.. ;) Until, this pregnancy, I took maternity leave from my career and am a good ol' fashioned stay at home mom now, (I've been a Birth Doula for 3 years) Which I do love, but I enjoy being with my kids way more! So anywho, since being home, I found fun creative things to make, and neat stuff to involve my daughter! So now, I enjoy doing my "crafty crap" alot more.. ;)
Well enjoy!
~B. 

Fall Decorating

Now I'm not going to make any secret of the fact that Christmas is my favorite holiday, but I love the colors of fall. I live in Alaska so our fall is only about three weeks, in fact, it is snowing outside right now. All the leaves have already fallen so it doesn't feel like "fall" anymore. However, it's fall in my house. :D I've done a few super easy projects to bring in a little of the colors of fall and the feeling of the season in my home.

 This little guy we got on sale (3.99!) from Michaels, and he's supposed to go outside, but my two year old thinks he's a buddy so I don't think he'll ever make in any further than the entry. Super cute though!

 Okay, I made this last year so I don't have how to pictures, but it was pretty simple. get a few bunches of fall flowers, a witch hat and some cute, wide wired ribbon. Pull off the heads of flowers and start hot gluing them to the brim, add foilage to create fullness.

 Top off with a cute bow (mine is crooked on purpose)

 And you've got a cute table centerpiece! (I suppose you could wear it if you wanted to, but I'm not a hat kinda gal so I like it for decoration better)

 This one was super easy. Get one of those twine harvest horns (with a flat back) and put two bunches of fall flowers from you favorite craft store. Preferably one with a lot going on. Mine has leaves and berries and pine cones, acorns, and of course several types of flowers. You kind of weave them together so they stick together instead of looking like two kinds of bunches. Hang it on the wall and you're done! Decorating for dummies! (me lol!)

 Okay, this one I just did. Get one of these stick wreaths

 two lengths of leaf garlands

 Tuck the ends in a few inches away from each other.

 And wind around, (I found finishing one, then doing the other was easier than trying to do both at once)

And you're done! (Yes, that is my hand, my wreath hanger has gone missing and I need to find it.)
~A~

Puff Quilt!

So there's this other blog http://www.honeybearlane.com/ and she does these really cool puff quilts, so of course I had to try it. I liked it because it had smaller steps to make the quilt, so you can have smaller goals and feel like you're getting somewhere.

Cut out the sqaures (fabric 5", backing 4.5" eight of each pattern)

My pile of squares

Then you make your puffs...

My pile of puffs. :D

Then figure out your pattern and lay them out.

Sew the strips.

Then sew the strips together

Back of the top

Then put on your puff border

Bind it and let a cute baby enjoy it! :D

You're done!!

If you want the whole tutorial, just head over to honeybearlane and look under puff quilt. It's easy to follow. Enjoy!

Creamy Chicken Toquitos

Okay, so, my husband LOVES mexican food. So I'm always looking for new, fabulous recipes so they don't get old and overused (you know what I mean, right?) so I was given a link for ourbestbites.com for an icing recipe (ALSO fabulous) and started poking around. I have a whole list of recipes I want to try from them. Anyway, this was supposed to be toquitos, you know, little rolls, but I'm not so good at that, so they ended up being yummy burritos. And I didn't have some of the ingredients on hand so it's a bit different, but yummy! I made a lot and they were lunches for hubby for about 4 days. So I'll post the original recipe, then tell you what I did differently.
"
1/3 C (3 oz) cream cheese
1/4 C green salsa
1T fresh lime juice
1/2 t cumin
1 t chili powder
1/2 t onion powder
1/4 t granulated garlic, or garlic powder
3 T chopped cilantro
2 T sliced green onions
2 C shredded cooked chicken (for extra yumminess, use grilled taco chicken!)
1 C grated pepperjack cheese

small corn tortillas (and actually, flour ones are really good as well)
kosher salt
cooking spray
"
Okay, so I didn't have green onions, onion powder or green salsa (actually, I hadn't even HEARD of that, am I just dumb?) so I used a little can of chopped green chilies instead.
Preheat your oven to 425, put 2 or three tbsp of the mixture on a tortilla

 Roll it up and then lightly spray with Pam

Bake for 15-20 minutes. A tip that was one "ourbestbites" was to take a few tortillas (I used five) and have a damp paper towel on a plate, put your tortillas on, and put another damp tortilla on top. Microwave for about 40 seconds. Then they don't crack and unoll. Enjoy!
~A~

Grand Opening of our blog!

Hi! I'm Alexis and I am one of two authors for this blog. B and I both love creative crafts and recipes. And we've been talking about doing a blog for just "our crafty crap" hence the name. So welcome to our refuge. A little background on "us". B and I have been best friends for 4 years now. We're both military spouses and we both have kids. So just in case there were some weirdos our there thinking something else, we are, in fact, very very straight. B is like a sister to me and I miss having her in the same state. I'm going to let her do her own introduction for herself. But enjoy our recipes and crafts. We will do our best to give credit where credit is due. :D