Snow day!

Ok, I know your thinking snow isn't that big of a deal. But it is to me! Being born and raised in Austin, TX snow is a very rare thing for me to see! Ever so often we get ice but snow not so much. The forecasters had been talking about an "arctic front" with a possibility of snow flurries :)  I got super excited!! I have a friend who does weather forecasting for the military so I kept bugging him about the changes of snow. As it got closer the chances looked pretty good. Although the weather did try to fake us out Sunday it was warm and sunny! I ran errands in shorts and flip flops but as the saying goes "If you don't like the weather wait a minute, it'll change". No really it will! By Tuesday it was getting cold and the arctic front was moving in :) As it moved in the changes of snow started getting better. They were guessing some time Thursday night we'd get anywhere from 1/2 to 1 inch and that was enough for me. I was so excited about the chance of snow I left the blinds to my sliding glass door open and I kept looking out the window for any signs of flurries (hope my neighbors didn't think I was crazy).  I started seeing rumors on facebook (don't judge me! You know you get half your news from fb too) about flurries just north of me.  I texted my sister but she said it was just sleet so far. I waited up as long as I could but since I had to be up at 5am I had to trust the forecasters that it would snow over night and still be there when I woke up. I think Friday was one of the first mornings that I've actually fully woken up when my alarm went off at 4:50. I looked out my window and everything was covered in snow!!! I was so excited!! All of the local schools had closed so I knew work would be canceled, bonus!

I have a 5:30am crossfit class on Fridays and I hadn't gotten a text from my coach, Nikki, saying class was canceled so I got ready and very slowly made my way to class. There were 5 of us that braved the weather and came to work out. We even went outside and did a few burpees in the snow to prove it :)

There is also a video somewhere, but I don't have it.
I then went back home to spend the rest of the day "snowed in". Because we had sleet fall before the snow the roads had a nice layer of ice as well. So as people drove around it packed down the snow and brought out the ice. I'm willing to admit that I don't have any winter driving skills so I stayed home till the snow/ice melted.

snow covered sidewalk at the gym

Snow covered cars even after driving

Snow covering the apartment complex.

Snow on my balcony!

 Being at home didn't stop me from enjoying the snow. I even made a small snowman on the hood of my car!

 

I didn't have the typical sticks for arms or coal for the eyes but I did have craft supplies! So my snowman had pompoms for the face and buttons, floral wire arms, ribbon scarf, and my nieces ribbon bow instead of a hat. Not to bad for a snowman made on a whim! I tweeted that picture with the hashtag #ATXsnow that the local paper had created it to track the snow shenanigans. And they asked me if they could post my picture on their webpage other other readers pictures from the snow day. It was kind of fun to see my picture among the other 300+ photos.
A little after lunch it started to warm up and I went to check on the fate of my snowman. I was a little sad to discovered it had slid off the hood of my car and was in pieces :( I might have lasted longer if I had made it in the shade but it would have melted no matter what. It was fun while it lasted though.

I bid the snow farewell and went back to my cleaning, movie watching, coffee drinking and nap taking. I love my snow day :)

Who doesn't love hair bows?

So a while back I saw a how to blog on Korker Bows & it looks so easy I had to try it! The blogger said she used 1/4 inch ribbon but I decided that was smaller than that I wanted. So I went with 3/8 and I liked how it turned out :)  Not to say that I won't make some smaller ones for babies/toddlers in the future now that I know how easy they really are to make!

I gathered my supplies
Ribbon
Lighter (to seal the ends of the ribbon)
Scissors 
Wire
Wire cutters (needle nose pliers saved me a trip to the store)
and 1/4in dowel rod (cut in half to fit in my oven)
   TIME FOR SOME FUN :D

 So I uncurled some of the ribbon from the roll, laid it on the counter and this is what it did! It made me laugh.












I wrapped the rod in ribbon, maybe it was a little bit closer together than I should have... it worked, but next time I'll leave more space.







Baking time! 20 minutes at 275 degrees... perfections!










Letting them cool off & fully set to keep their shape.











After I uncurled the ribbon from the rod I cut them down (in half, in half again etc) till they were the size I wanted.

For this bow I sewed the ribbon together, tied it to the clip and then hot glued it all together. It worked pretty well.

This bow I did pink and red (you can't tell in the picture) with a white button in the middle.














And this one I did for my niece Chandler- She wanted Gold & Red (her school colors). I hope she likes it! I'll post a picture of Chandler with the bow once I mail it to her. Man I wish that girl lived closer to me :(

For this bow stacked the ribbon curls and tied them with a string (so it could be tied tight) then I folded a piece of gold ribbon in half and covered the string. I then tied it onto the clip and hot glued it in a few places so it will hopefully stay put.

All the bows got a coat of Aqua Net to help them keep their shape and with that they are ready to be worn.

 I gave the first two bows I made to my other niece Isabella & she loved them. The other day she asked her mom for "Bows names is Aunt Kimber made for me" :)

I have plenty of ribbon left so I'll be making a bunch more bows! It's a good thing I have friends having babies!!

DIY bath crayons

I saw a blog about using soap to make bath crayons for kid. Since my nieces and nephews love playing in the tub I figured it would be great gift. I don't typical have bar soap (I use liquid soap) so I had to get some. I work for a dermatologist so I didn't have to go far to get bar soap. Dove had just sent my office a bunch of samples and we don't give them out that often.

Two boxes of tiny soap! This should be a cheap and hopefully easy craft :)






I followed the blogs directions and shaved down the soap. I tried using my food processor the soap was so hard it didn't work. The motor made a funny sound and I think it started to smell (bleh). So my pampered chef slicer came to the rescue and it worked perfectly :)

It took about 5 minutes so shave down enough soap to have about 1 cup of shavings. Then I added 2 TBSP of HOT water and mixed till the shavings started to melt together. Then I added food coloring and mixed till all the soap was colored. At first I used a spoon then I switched to mixing my hand so I knew everything was being mixed in.

Then I squished it into the mold and stuck it in the freezer for about an hour. It wasn't set so I ended up leaving it over night.  The next day I excitedly check on the soap and it was all in nice start shapes. I popped it out of the mold and was very disappointed to find that it hadn't hardened like the blog said it would :( 
I did some research and discovered that once you take the soap out of the mold you have to let it sit at least a day or three (I'd say three) before it's fully hardened! I also found some different ideas for melting the soap down and molding ideas.  So armed with my new knowledge I attempted this again. I did one batch like the original blog and the other I shaved down covered with water and microwaved in 15second intervals till it was melted and ready for color.  The other way I found was to chop up the soap, put it in a pan, cover with water and "cook" it till it's all melted.  I didn't feel like chopping up soap but I might try that some day.

Once the soap was all colored I molded it, froze it for an hour and then left it on the counter for a few days till it was no longer soft to the touch. I flipped it over everyday so that all sides got enough air to dry.

The star mold is actually a candy mold but hey it worked :)





 

I also tried using a cookie cutter as a mold. I made a tray out of foil (thanks to tip from a blog) and then greased the cutter with Crisco (just in case the soap decided to stick). I took the melted, colored soap and smushed it into the mold. It had the consistency of a weird thick gel but it molded pretty easily. I slid the whole thing onto a cookie sheet and set it in the freezer. I let it sit in there over night and when I took it out it came right out of the mold!
I had to flip it over more than the others because it was so big but it turned out pretty good.

The next mold I want to try is my mini cupcake holder. I think small round ones would be cute. I'll let you know how those turn out.

All the soap it currently sitting on a paper towel dry and ready to be used. I need to have my niece test them and see which one works best. Then I'll get to work making a bunch for all my nieces and nephews :)

Hot Chocolate On a Stick?!?!

So I came across a blog called Givers Log that had an amazing recipe for hot chocolate on a stick! I know what your thinking- how in the world does that work??  I thought the same thing. I let my curiosity get the best of me and I just had to check it out.   The basic idea is to melt baking chocolate then add cocoa, powered sugar, and a pinch of salt, put it in a mold, add a stick and boom- hot chocolate on a stick! Ok, so it's a little more involved than just adding things together but it didn't seem *that* hard to make!

AmberLee, the author of Givers Log , does an amazing tutorial on how its made and even has great tips for picking the right chocolate! After reading over her post several times, I headed off to HEB (the best grocery store ever) to find baking chocolate. It was completely overwhelming to pick the right chocolate so I just went with the Ghirardelli baking chocolate. I knew it would be good and HEB had it on sale, how could I say no?? Now it was time to have some fun :)
 

I had everything I needed....
8oz baking chocolate (I used both milk and semi sweet chocolate)
1/4 cup cocoa (regular and special dark depending on what I felt like for that batch)
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
Pinch of salt (I think I forgot to add this to a few batches... oops!) 
Ice cube tray (thanks Target $1 spot)
Candy sticks
Marshmellows
and sprinkles


Now the fun could begins! I sifted the coco, powered sugar and salt (if I remembered) together and set aside.



Then I broke up the chocolate (to help it melt faster) and melted it on a double boiler.













 Starting to melt :)







Once it was all melted I added the coco/powdered sugar mix.
After reading quite a few of the tips at the bottom of the blog I figured out a few things:

1. If I put the bowl back on the double boiler for a few seconds it helped everything mix easier (being careful to not over heat & scorch the chocolate).
2.  I didn't want to find out exactly what happened if water got into the mix so I heeded the "keep water out" warning.
3. When AmberLee says it gets thick like frosting she wasn't kidding!

 Now it's all mixed up and ready to be molded!!
 I tried using her zip lock bag method and made a huge mess :( So I opted for plan b:  use spoon to put the chocolate in the tray. It was still a little messy so there are no pictures of that part.









Once the cubes were filled (1 batch makes 10-12 cubes) I tapped the tray on the counter to make sure there weren't any air bubbles. Then I added the sticks and some marshmallows and put them in the freezer to set.  I was a little over eager and didn't realize how long they would take to set.  I had some trouble getting the chocolate out of the mold :( I messed a few up and had to reshape and put them back in the freezer. Once I decided I would be patient and let them fully harden they popped right out like ice cubes. YAY!

 I wasn't quite ready to bag them up so I made a makeshift holder- empty egg carton turned upside down with holes poked in it. Genius, I know ;)

After making at least 5 batches I was finally done and was ready to wrap them up.

All bagged and ready for ribbon!

So much fun to make!

I was kind of proud of myself with this packaging. I had decided to sub out the powered sugar for powered peppermint mocha creamer (I used the milk chocolate bars for these so it would be sweet enough)  in one of the batches. Not to brag but it was really good! I wanted to distinguish the peppermint mocha ones from the others so I added a mini candy cane to the bag. I also added a tag that said to mix each cube with 3/4 to 1cup of hot milk, cream or water.
When I made a cup for me I used a milk/cream mix :D
I didn't try all the recipe variations before I gave them away so I'm hoping they were good... Next time I'm going to try different flavored creamers and see how they turn out. I can't wait!

A gift for a friend

I needed a birthday gift for a friend but nothing I found was right. Her birthday came and went and I STILL didn't have her gift (I'm kind of a bad friend). I decided to make her something but then couldn't decide what to make. One day I realized I should make her an ornament! I decided to etch butterflies onto one of my glass ornaments and then put butterfly cutouts inside it. Now that I knew what I was gonna make I couldn't wait to get started.

I used my sisters cricut to cut out small butterflies and stuck them all over the ornament.

I applied the etching cream and let is set about 5-7 minutes. The glass is thin so it didn't need long.

Then I got to the hard part- cutting out all the butterflies to put inside. I have a butterfly punch but it's for doing corners of paper. So I had to get creative to them them all cut.

I decided to cut strips of construction paper and stack them 6 pages thick. But 6 butterflies at a time isn't much when you're trying to fill an ornament.

  I got it filled to here and decided that is looked cute and stopped cutting out butterflies.

They looked cute all stacked in the ornament :)

I added some ribbon and it was done!