Happy Thanksgiving!

November 24, 2011 By
Thanksgiving Kids

From my lit­tle turkeys to yours, I wish you all a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I hope your day/weekend is spent eat­ing great food, enjoy­ing good com­pany, mak­ing spe­cial mem­o­ries, (and find­ing great deals if you like to do that this Fri­day!)!! :)

Of the great many things I’m thank­ful for today, this blog is one of them. I am so very grate­ful that you stop by to read! Thank YOU!

“For each new morn­ing with its light,
For rest and shel­ter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For every­thing Thy good­ness sends.“
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

**HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!**

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Fall Leaves Placemats–Perfect for Thanksgiving!

November 23, 2011 By
Thanksgiving Dinner with Fall Leaves Placemats

I can’t believe tomor­row is Thanks­giv­ing!! I’ve got to get busy in the kitchen putting things together for var­i­ous dishes like a turkey veg­gie tray, cran­berry jello salad, green bean casse­role, and mini pump­kin pies. But, I wanted to share one last project that would be per­fect for Thanks­giv­ing! :)

Fall Leaves Placemats

The fall weather was so per­fect when we were in Nebraska! And, there were still so many gor­geous trees & leaves around!

In fact, we went for many leaf-collecting walks! See?!

I wanted to pre­serve them, but have some­thing that would actu­ally be some­what use­ful. So, I decided on place­mats! :)

Sup­plies:

–lots of fall leaves, assorted 12 x 12 card­stock, Mod Podge, clear con­tact paper, paint brushes, scis­sors Direc­tions:

- put down some news­pa­per (to avoid get­ting Mod Podge all over the table)

- Arrange the leaves on the card stock as you like. I had mine hang off the paper just a bit. - coat each leaf in Mod Podge on both the front and back. I ended up just coat­ing the whole paper and every­thing. - Let that dry & move on to the next paper. I made 10! Like I said, we col­lected a lot of leaves! :)

- Once the pages are dry (it took about half the day), they will have a really cool texture–almost plastic-like. In fact, you could prob­a­bly just leave it at that. How­ever, I was wor­ried about the leaves hold­ing up over time. And, I was wor­ried that they might stain if stuff was spilled on them. So, we cov­ered them in con­tact paper.

- Just cut out sheets of con­tact paper, and sand­wich the mod-podged place­mats between the pages. - Just note though, that there will likely be some bub­bling around the leaves since they are raised slightly. I was a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed with that, but I’m not sure that it’s avoid­able. Any other ideas or suggestions?

Either way, I think they’ll be a nice addi­tion to our Thanks­giv­ing table and a spe­cial way to remem­ber our fall fun in Nebraska!I like the way the leaves peak out around the plates! :) Are there any fun ways that you’ve pre­served fall leaves?

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Bakerella Book Signing

November 22, 2011 By
AZ Bloggers at Bakerella Book Signing

If you’ve read the blog for awhile, then you prob­a­bly know I love Bakerella’s adorable cake pops! I think I’ve fea­tured one of her cre­ations in just about every bak­ing round-up post I’ve ever done. And, I’ve even tried my hand at foot­ball cake pops! So, when I heard Bak­erella was com­ing to Phoenix, I was thrilled! To add to the fun, we made it a blog­gers’ night out! :) Here’s a group of us excit­edly waiting!

From left to right: Andrea {The Wor­ley House}. Des­tiny {A Place For Us}, Katie {Sweet Rose Stu­dio}, Amy {Pink Bow Bath Bou­tique}, Joanna {Baked By Joanna}, Sara {Clever Pink Pirate}, Me, Laura {Pink Cake Plate}. Not pic­tured here but also with us: Kristyn {Lil’ Luna}, Jamielyn {I Heart Nap­time}, Kristy {The Diary of Dave’s Wife}.

We had such fun chat­ting & tweet­ing while we waited. She even tweeted at us while we waited (these are excit­ing things, you know)! Then, the Queen of Cake Pops showed up. Squee!!!

She was seri­ously awe­some! Adorable, ner­vous, and super hum­ble. And, she totally rocked some super fun shoes! :) She answered ques­tions, gave us some great cake pop tips, and shared the story of how it all came to be. Amaz­ing & inspir­ing! :) Then, she signed books…and she took time with each per­son, seem­ingly gen­uinely inter­ested in talk­ing with every sin­gle per­son there. It was so sweet. And, to top it off, her adorable mom was there too as act­ing pho­tog­ra­pher! :) With a group of so many blog­gers, it was a total paparazzi ses­sion with tons of cam­eras! :) It was great chat­ting with her for a minute and I LOVE my new book! Then, we all waited around ’til the end of the sign­ing to get a group shot with her. It was so sweet of her to oblige! :) After that, we all went out to din­ner (well, not with Bak­erella, but the rest of us did)! It was fab­u­lous! Thanks to Bak­erella for such a fun signing…and thanks to all the other cre­ative AZ blog­gers who came too! :) It’s SO great to have such a fun group of blog­gers here to hang out with! :) Can’t wait ’til next time!

***And spe­cial thanks to Katie of Sweet Rose Stu­dio for tak­ing some of these fab­u­lous photos!***

 

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Handpainted Flameless Christmas Candle {+ a Martha Stewart Crafts GIVEAWAY!!}

November 21, 2011 By
Painted Candle

Recently, I was asked to cre­ate a Hol­i­day project with items from the Martha Stewart’s Craft line from Plaid (sold exclu­sively at Michael’s). Just look at all those fab­u­lous good­ies!! L.O.V.E! Since these paints work on just about every medium pos­si­ble, the only dif­fi­cult part was decid­ing what to do! I’ve been into the flame­less can­dles this year (SO much eas­ier & safer with lit­tle hands around). So, I decided it would be fun to try to paint one–and I love the way it turned out! Once we have all our dec­o­ra­tions out, I plan to place it near our nativ­ity scene. I think the large star will be the per­fect addi­tion to the scene. And, it was SO easy to do. I fore­see a few more painted flame­less can­dles in my Christ­mas craft­ing future! :)

Sup­plies:

- Tall flame­less candle

- Martha Stew­art Crafts Glit­ter Paint in Flo­ren­tine Gold Glit­ter and Metal­lic Paint in Gold Metal­lic and Yel­low Gold Metal­lic.

- Martha Stew­art Crafts Sten­cils #37  (star sten­cil)

- Martha Stew­art Crafts Detail­ing Brushes and Foam Pounc­ers. 

Direc­tions:

- Cut the star shape from the sten­cil sheet.

- Adhere the star sten­cil to the flame­less can­dle. You could use tape or I chose to use the sten­cil adhe­sive (which did leave a lit­tle bit of sticky residue, FYI).

- Once the sten­cil is stuck down well, mix the paint together (I com­bined the two gold metallics with a bit of gold glit­ter paint). With the small foam pouncer, fill in the sten­cil. Then, using the detail­ing brushes, I hand­painted the word, “JOY” (you could use sten­cils for that if you prefer).

- Once that is rel­a­tively dry, use a slightly larger foam pouncer to apply gold glit­ter paint (lightly) all over the can­dle. The added sparkle is fun, plus, it helps hide any imper­fec­tions from the sten­cil­ing & free-handing! I think it’s a nice, warm addi­tion to our Christ­mas decor.

Would you like to work on a few projects with some of the Martha Stew­art Crafts products?!

GIVEAWAY is now closed!

One lucky Mom Endeav­ors’ reader will win this Martha Stew­art Crafts prize pack­age con­tain­ing the fol­low­ing items:Two pack­ages of Holiday-themed sten­cils, let­ters & num­bers sten­cil pack, 6 bot­tles of paints, 1 pack­age of brushes, & 1 pack­age of sponges.

The WINNER:Con­grats, Ann-Kay! Have fun mak­ing that beach paint­ing and any­thing else you cre­ate! Would love to see it! :)

To Enter: Give­away has ended.

1. Just leave a com­ment telling me what project(s) you’d like to make.

Get extra optional entries (leave a sep­a­rate com­ment for each):

2. Sub­scribe to Mom Endeav­ors on Google Friend Con­nect (see wid­get on the right side bar)
3. Like Mom Endeav­ors on Face­book (and share about the give­away if you’re so inclined)
5. Tweet: “Enter to win a @MarthaStewart @PlaidCrafts prize pack from @momendeavors! http://bit.ly/tfzRRu Per­fect for hol­i­day craft­ing!“
(up to 5 entries per per­son: if you’re already fol­low­ing, thank you! Just make sure you leave a com­ment & let me know!!)

Give­away will end on Novem­ber 28th at 11pm MST. Win­ner with a valid entry will be selected at ran­dom using random.org and be noti­fied via email (win­ner will also be posted on this post). They will have 48 hours to claim their prize before a new win­ner is selected.

 

Dis­clo­sure: This post is spon­sored by Martha Stewart’s Crafts and Plaid. I was pro­vided with the Martha Stew­art sup­plies shown above and com­pen­sated for this post, how­ever, as always, all opin­ions & expe­ri­ences are entirely my own. See full dis­clo­sure HERE.

81 Comments

Family Thanksgiving Card with Elmer’s #GlueNGlitter

November 19, 2011 By
DIY Thanksgiving Card

Remem­ber the Autumn sign? Well, I had so many awe­some fall-colored sup­plies left over and they were per­fect for mak­ing a Thanks­giv­ing Card! The unique thing about this card is that it has 10 inside pages. And, instead of giv­ing it to any one per­son, it is going to be a fam­ily card shared year after year. I’d like to start a tra­di­tion of pass­ing the card around each year, hav­ing fam­ily & friends present at Thanks­giv­ing din­ner write bless­ings & mes­sages of thanks. :)

Sup­plies:

- var­i­ous “fall-colored” sheets of card­stock. (I used five 12x12 sheets)

- Elmer’s Craft­Bond Glue Stick

- Elmer’s Craft­Bond Glue Spots

- Elmer’s gold cal­lig­ra­phy Painters marker

- Elmer’s 3D Glit­ter Paint Pens

- stick­ers and/or addi­tional embellishments

Direc­tions:

1. Cut paper to desired size and fold in half.

2. Stick card pages together by putting a thin line of Craft­Bond glue on the fold crease of each page.

3. Place stick­ers, rib­bon, or other embell­ish­ments where you’d like. (I got mine at Wal­mart. You can see more of my shop here on Google +). I used the glue spots to make sure they were adhered well.

4. With Painters cal­lig­ra­phy pen, write “Thanks­giv­ing Bless­ings” on the front.

5. Make the embell­ish­ments “pop” a bit, by using the 3D glit­ter pens!

6. Place any­thing you like on the inside (I opted for two hand­print turkeys). Then, you’re ready for Thanks­giv­ing Day! :)

What fam­ily Thanks­giv­ing tra­di­tions do YOU have?

 

Dis­clo­sure: This project has been com­pen­sated as part of a social shop­per insights study for Elmer’s #glu­englit­ter #col­lec­tive­bias #CBias. As always, all opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are my own.

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College Football Saturday Tailgate: Football Brownies

November 18, 2011 By
Football Brownies

Last week we were watch­ing the Nebraska vs. Penn State game (which turned out to be an amaz­ing dis­play of sports­man­ship and a really fan­tas­tic game!) while on our trip back to Nebraska! So, we of course had to do a lit­tle “home­gat­ing”! And, I couldn’t resist mak­ing some­thing fun! The idea came from good ‘ole Betty Crocker and the brown­ies were def­i­nitely a hit!

Foot­ball Brownies

Direc­tions:

- Bake a pan or two of brown­ies (your choice of recipe and pan size) in pan lined with alu­minum foil.

- Once cool, cut brownie sheet into rec­tan­gles.- Using a knife (or football-shaped cookie cut­ter) carve the rec­tan­gles into foot­ball shapes.- Using frost­ing or a dec­o­ra­tor icing pen, pipe white laces & details on to the foot­ball shapes.

- Plate & enjoy!! You can always add in a lit­tle “real” foot­ball to the dis­play too! Now, it’s YOUR turn! It’s week 10 of our Col­lege Foot­ball Sat­ur­day Tail­gate link party and I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to!!

Photobucket
 Share your favorite tail­gat­ing recipes, foot­ball fun foods, foot­ball crafts, tail­gat­ing par­ties, fun foot­ball traditions–basically any­thing foot­ball related (espe­cially col­lege)!!!
Link as many posts as you like, just please be sure to link back to http://www.momendeavors.com or grab the but­ton (code is on the right side-bar)!

 Col­lege Foot­ball Sat­ur­day Tail­gate Link Party

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