Healthified Pimento Cheese!

Big thanks to my MIL for passing this along to me!

8 oz. fat free cream cheese

7 oz. fat free shredded cheddar cheese

2 oz. pimentos with juice

2 tbsp. reduced fat mayo

1 tsp. sugar

salt and pepper

Mix with a mixer. Serve with crackers and celery.

Birthday Series: Design Your Own Custom Cupcake Toppers

Instead of a cake at my daughters birthday party we decided to have cupcakes. I wanted to purchase some cupcake toppers to decorate her cupcakes but after seeing the price, I decided to make my own. It was very easy and I had everything I needed so I didn't even have to go out and buy anything. Here's how to do it.

You will need:

• Patterned paper. I used the scraps from my birthday banner!
• Circle stencil. Different size circle cutters or punches would work too.
• Tape
• Glue
• Scissors
• Toothpicks
• Access to a computer and printer

First you want to make your circles. I wanted three different sizes for a layered look. I used this circle stencil I got from a scrapbook store a long time ago.

First you want to trace your biggest circle and cut it out of your paper.

Then you want to attach your largest circle to the toothpick. This is the trickiest part. I tried a couple of different ways and found the way that worked best for me. I turned the paper over, placed the toothpick where I wanted it, and put a small piece of tape over it. You want to position your toothpick so that you give plenty of stability to your topper and have enough left to stick down in the cupcake. 

Then put a thin layer of glue on the paper and attach the 2nd circle to the backside. So both sides of your topper have the patterned paper facing out.

Then if you want, trace and cut a smaller circle out and glue it inside the larger circle on both sides.

Then you want to make your smallest circle which will be the focal point of the topper. I chose to put the saying "Oh What Fun Jada Is One" on one side and a picture of Jada's face on the other side. I did this using powerpoint. I inserted a small circle shape in a powerpoint slide and typed the saying in the circle in a cute font. Then I inserted a picture of Jada, cropped it very close to her face, and inserted it in the middle of a circle. Copy and paste the number of circles you will need and print it out.

After you cut your circles out glue them on either side of your topper and that's it! You're done. These turned out so cute and I can't wait to see all of them on Jada's cupcakes. I will insert a picture of them on her cupcakes after her party!

Birthday Series: Custom Birthday Banner Under $5

This post it the first in a birthday party planning series coming up. My daughter will be 1 in less then 2 weeks so I am knee deep in party planning mode. I've been planning for weeks now and I'm going to share how I get ready for a party in a series of posts on here.

This first one is a tutorial on how to make your own birthday banner. It is very easy and cheap. Let's get started!

You will need:

• Patterned paper: I purchased this pack of 12x12 paper at Wal-Mart for $5. There are 50 sheets in this pack with makes it $.10 a sheet which is great. Our party is a Luau theme so I went with this flower paper.
• String: I purchased a string called natural Jute at Hobby Lobby. For 225 feet it was regular price $2.99 but it was only sale for $1.79 (40% off).
• Basic Supplies: scissors, a pencil, tape, glue stick, and a long ruler or something long and straight. You will see I use a long piece of cardboard.

Ok for the first step you want to cut triangles out of the paper in as many as you need. I was making a banner that says "Happy Birthday" so I needed 13 triangles. I wanted to be able to use as much of the 12x12 paper as possible to make the triangles so they would be big and there would not be a lot of waste. The easiest way to cut out same size triangles without having to do a lot of measuring is to first make a small pencil mark in the middle of the paper. Since this is 12x12 paper I used a ruler to make a mark at the 6" mark like this:

Then you simply want to make a straight line connecting your dot to each opposite corner of the paper. You will want to use something long and straight for this. A ruler wasn't long enough for me so I just used a piece of cardboard I had on hand:

Once you've drawn a line from the middle of the paper to each opposite corner you will have a triangle drawn out that looks like this:

So now all you have to do is make two cuts along your lines to cut out your triangle

Continue this process until you have as many triangles cut out as you need.

Next you will want to make your letters. If you are good at free hand, you can draw your letters on paper and cut them out. I am not good at this so I used the computer. I typed "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in Microsoft Word and made the font really big. 550pt. You will want to use a bubble font, where the inside is white, so you don't use so much ink and if you want your letters to be white. I chose white because my paper was very colorful. You could also make different color letters by using colored paper. I chose white card stock. 

After you print out your letters, cut them all out. Make sure to cut the insides too.

Once you have all your letters cut, attach them to your triangles. I used a glue stick to do this.

After you have all your letters attached you want to attach the triangles to string or ribbon. I just used tape to attach the string to the back of the letters. 

If you are using 12x12 paper, this banner turns out to be very big. I did Happy on one string and Birthday on the other string to hang below it.

Here's some pictures of the finished product! I can't wait to hang it at her party.

Free Printable: Fall Bucket List

I thought I would share our family fall bucket list with you. Feel free to download and use! Just right click and save it to your computer.

Haulin: Bath and Body Works!

Fall is my absolute favorite time for Bath and Body Works!! Getting their soaps and candles are pretty much tradition for me this time of year. I pretty much only shop there 3 times a year. Fall, Christmas, and their Semi-Annual sale. They released their Fall / Halloween line to the stores last week so I had to go get some for the season.

I love the $5 for $15 anti-bacterial soaps. I always keep one at my kitchen sink and two bathroom sinks.

Fun tip::: The anti-bacterial soaps are highly concentrated. I always buy the original soap as opposed to the foam soap if it's available in the scent I want because it lasts a lot longer then the foam. When my soaps get down about half way, I always fill them back up with water and shake a little bit! They are full again and you don't lose anything. It makes them last so much longer!!

Sweet cinnamon pumpkin is one of my all time favorites. The cinnamon is pretty strong so beware of that if you don't like cinnamon scents. How cute is the label on this bottle?!?

I think this Warm Apple Cider is new this year! At least I don't remember it. It smells sooooo good. It has a very apple pie smell. Apples and vanilla plus a little bit of citrus. I can imagine almost everyone would love this scent.

This pumpkin hand soap is exactly what is says. Pumpkin. It smells like a can of pumpkin. Nothing else. I like it plus the label on this one is just too cute.

This BrewBerry soap is super cute. I love the green witch label and the soap is a pretty purple color. The scent is a simple clean berry scent. I like it to break up all the cinnamon and pumpkin scents that I have everywhere else.

This BooHoo hand soap is in the Creamy Pumpkin scent. Creamy Pumpkin is my absolute favorite fall time smell. I am one of those people who associate smells with certain memories and feelings year. Last Fall when my daughter came 8 weeks early and endured a 3 week NICU stay, this was the scent that was always at my kitchen sink. When I smell it, all those memories of those days come flooding back. I'm sure I will be heartbroken when they dis-continue this. I need to stock up...

Pocket Baks are 5 for $5!! I keep one of these in my diaper bag and purse so we go thru them like crazy. Good think they're cheap. They had 8 or so halloween ones so I picked my 5 favorite. Vampire Blood is a plum scent. Boo is a marshmallow scent, Bat Bite is an apple scent. BrewBerry is berry scented. And candy corn smells like candy corn. As a fun little extra, some of the labels glow in the dark! I know Bat Bite does and I think Boo! does as well.

This was my favorite thing from their new Halloween line! How cute is she?!? She is a Pocket Bak holder. I just love how detailed they made her from her red lips to her pink diamond - studded bow. She will be hanging out on my diaper bag for the season.

And that's my haul!! I really want to get some Fall candles but I'm going to wait until they're on sale. They also had their Wallflowers $6 but I'm not really a fan of those.

What's your favorite Fall scent?!? Comment below I would love to know!

Formula Cans To Canisters

Since my daughter started drinking formula I have been saving the empty formula cans. I knew I could come up with ways to re-purpose them. I like to bake a lot and get so frustrated with the bags like the flour and sugar come in. There is no way to use them without getting it all over the place. So one night I was baking and a light bulb went off. I could use my empty formula cans to store my baking items! Of course I wanted a cute way to label the cans and decorate them. So here's what I did to make them cute and functional:

You will need:

• An Empty Formula can
• Paper, any size. I used 12x12 scrapbook paper
• Paper trimmer or scissors
• A way to label your cans. I used scrapbook tags
• Hot glue gun

First, peel the label off the empty formula can. Wash and dry it thoroughly.

Then measure your paper to fit the width of the can. I hold it against the can and make a little tick mark to measure the width. You could also do this with a ruler.

Use the paper trimmer or scissors to cut your paper the width of the can.

Attach the paper to the can. I used a thin layer of hot glue on each end to wrap the paper around the can.

If you are using the large cans of formula, you will notice the 12x12 paper will not fit all the way around the can. I cut another piece out of the same piece of paper, hot glued it again to fit around the rest of the can. 

Now it's time to label the outside of your can so you will easily know whats inside. I used some pre-cut paper scrapbook tags to do this and simply wrote on the tag what was inside. You could be fancy and print a computer label with cute fonts or whatever you want to do. I also attached the tag to the side of the can I wanted to make the front.

And then just fill your can up with whatever you like. I used this one to store my yellow corn meal. I also wash and save the formula scoops to use as well!!

And here are all my pretty cans lined up in my pantry. Makes me smile every time I open the door!

You can get creative with this project and decorate your cans however you want! I think they would also be really pretty if you printed labels on white paper off the computer and wrapped them around the can. Sleek and elegant. I just wanted something cute. Remember YOU will be the one using these so decorate them the way YOU want to. The possibilities really are endless!! 

Thanks for reading! Comment below and let me know what you use your empty formula cans for. I have a ton of these so I would love to know! I'm going to be using some for my daughters birthday party coming up.

Make Your Couch Look Brand New Again in only 2 Steps!!

Since our first child was born close to a year ago, our couch has suffered the wrath of a snotty, reflux baby. Finally the other day I decided I really needed to clean it. Of course I turned to Pinterest for help and found a pin that had been liked and re-pinned multiple times so I decided to try it. And it turned out great and was so easy!! I just had to share it here:

Disclaimer:
This is in no way my original idea. I found the tips on Pinterest. If you would like to read the original post, please click here. Also, I tested this on an area of my couch and let it completely dry before I did my whole couch so make sure nothing stained and the color didn't fade. I suggest you do the same. 

Supplies you will need:

• Sponges: any sponge with a scrubby side will do. The original post suggested white, I didn't have any on hand so I used these blue ones and the color didn't transfer in any way.
• Rubbing Alcohol: Fill an empty spray bottle with some rubbing alcohol. Do not dilute it with water!! Very important. The pure alcohol will dry very fast before any stains on the padding is brought up.
• A scrub brush: this is for fluffing the couch after you have scrubbed it clean. You can see the one I used in the picture.

Step 1:

First spray the alcohol on the couch and scrub with the scrubby side of the brush. The alcohol evaporates very quickly so I suggest doing small sections at a time. You can spray and scrub your entire couch, or just stained sections if you want. I did my entire couch but on the sections that were really dirty I pulled the fabric tight with one hand and really scrubbed with the other. 

Step 2:

Scrub your couch with a clean and dry scrub brush. The purpose of this step is not to do any cleaning but it will fluff your couch back up to the way it used to feel. I was very surprised how much softer my couch felt after I did this step! Don't skip it! You won't be sorry. It will make your clean couch feel so soft.

And that's it! A 2 step process that will make your couch look brand new! It is a very fast process because the alcohol dries quickly. Here is some before and after pictures:

Have any more tricks to cleaning your couch? Please leave them in a comment below or let me know if you try this method!!!