My Memories Suite Review and Giveaway!

Shut the front door!  Today I have an amazing giveaway that you are just going to love, yup you will L-O-V-E it!  I so know you will!  My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbook software is showing my Smashed Peas and Carrots readers the love today, for reals :-)  To read my review and enter the giveaway plus get access to the exclusive coupon code just for SP&C readers, click HERE now!!

XOXO,

How to Stiffen Fabric Cut Outs {Tutorial}

Remember my little clothesline dresses and cupcake topper decor seen at Penelope's party here?  Wanna know how I was able to get all those cute little dress cut outs from the Children at Play fabric to look so stiff...not floppy like most fabric would be when cut directly out of a piece of yardage?  

Perfectly perfect for a clothesline full of little fabric dresses...

Or a cupcake topper or two!  

You know, to add just the perfect touch to your next party.

My secret is...fusible Pellon!!  

Craft Fuse to be exact :-)

It looks like this...

I buy mine at Joann's and it's found in small bolts on a little shelf near the cutting counter.  Hmm, maybe in buying it I was unknowingly keeping with my party theme of 'Just Stay Little'!

How this stuff works is that there is a shiny adhesive side to the Craft Fuse that you place against the wrong side of your fabric.  Can you see the sheen up there in the picture...it's ever so slight.

Once you have your fabric's wrong side facing the shiny side of the Craft Fuse you are going to use your hot dry iron and glide it over with just slight pressure for a few seconds.  First in the middle and then working your way out ever so slowly.  Try not to pick up your iron at all as this will help prevent any bumps from forming along the way. 

Once your fabric is cooled you can test the Craft Fuse to make sure that it is 'glued' to your fabric.  If it's not totally fused together don't worry, just run your iron slowly over the fabric again, pressing a little harder as you go. And if it is, just grab a sharp pair of scissors and cut our your fabric while you watch a little Parks and Recreation, I love the subtle humor of that show.  Spending a half hour cutting out all these cute little dresses reminded me of cutting out paper dolls from my childhood...memories :-)

To make cupcake toppers, grab some toothpicks and scotch tape and just tape the back of dress to one end of a toothpick...easy peasy!

Just a little FYI for you that is kinda funny...when I went to hang the dresses on the clothesline the tiny wooden clothespins outweighed the dresses so they kept flipping over on the clothesline.  My hubby came up with the great idea of weighing the dresses down to keep them in place.  So I just hot glued a penny to the back of each one...magic!  And the cool thing is that by using hot glue you can just peel the penny off when you are done to get your money back with out ruining the dresses...woo hoo for saving pennies and sweet little dresses!

 XOXO,

Penelope's 3rd Birthday: The Just Stay Little Dress Up Party

Today I wanted to share with you Penelope's 3rd Birthday party!  Now, normally we only do a big first birthday party at our house and then smaller family affairs after that but as I was planning Eloise's first birthday party, seen here, I kept jotting down ideas for a smaller shindig for Penelope.  I love throwing play date get-togethers so I thought an end of the summer play date-style birthday party would be a perfect reason to gather a few of my momma friends and their little ones before school started.  

I decided that this party would have a Dress Up theme and I called it the 'Just Stay Little Dress Up Party' as I completely fell in love with Sarah Jane's Children at Play fabric (the Playhouse line especially since the colors--pink and aqua--were perfect for our party colors) and felt compelled to use it as the main decor for her party :-)  Do you ever feel that way about a fabric?  This line was just calling to be used as party decor...it is so perfect for a little girl's birthday party.

Here is a peek at the two dresses (talked about here) in action...the main fabric is called 'Just Stay Little', hello theme!  I was able to get a few shots pre-party of the girls in their dresses but not so much during the festivities...yeah, that camera didn't get clicked once darn it!  Do you not just love Eloise singing in the microphone, that shot cracked me up!  She is just singing 'maaaaaaaaa-maaaaaaa!'

I so love that big bow on this tiny girl.  Of course she needs momma's phone in hand, what girl doesn't need the Pandora Glee station to rock out to while they are waiting for guests to arrive...it's a pre-party par-tay!

I made my girlies, along with all the little girl party guests, some hair candy as a little take home gift.  Penelope wanted me to make her a big statement hair clippie and of course I had to oblige her ;-)  Umm yeah, the pigtail look only lasts for a few minutes these days!

Whenever I throw a party for little ones I feel there needs to be some fun things for kids to do.  Otherwise it's not really a party for the wee ones, don't you think?  Since this was a Dress Up party, we had two bins of dress up clothes, jewelry and the like for them to enjoy.  I also laid out boy and girl paper dolls for the kids to decorate with crayons, googly eyes and gluesticks.  You could easily make your own out of card stock and a pair of scissors but I just bought mine at Michael's to save time.  

I made a whole bunch of different mustaches, lips, glasses, a few monocles and even a bowler hat and hot glued them onto dowels.  Since most of our dress up clothing is for girls I thought the boys might like to "dress up" with these.  

Here's a peek at the buffet table.  I decided to make all the food 'mini' to follow the 'Just Stay Little' theme.  Isn't teeny tiny food just oh-so cute!

I cut out a few of the little dresses on the 'Just Stay Little' fabric and used clothespins to pin them up clothesline style behind the buffet table.  

Since Penelope's birthday party started late in the morning I didn't want to do a big cake.  I opted for little vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting baked in cute little cups from here.   

I decorated each one with cupcake toppers I made cutting out more of the little dresses from the 'Just Stay Little' fabric. 

Aqua and Pink party decor :-)

I decorated mason jars with different pretty strips of fabric from Children at Play's Playhouse line, one for each momma so that everyone knew which glass was theirs and there was no confusion...don't you hate when that happens.

A few days before the party I realized I wanted a few smaller luncheon-sized cloth napkins for the party so the day before I finally got to making some...it's always the way things work around here.

 I used the Aqua and Pink Dot to Dot fabrics to pull the colors together.  If you need an easy tutorial for making cloth napkins, see this post here.

I used the hair clips that I made for each little girl as decor for the buffet table, I love when an item can function in multiple ways.  They served as the perfect pops of color for my food table.  And then at the end of the party the little girls took them home....win/win!

Oh, the mini food...how I love it so.  

I used a little girl cookie cutter (a gingerbread girl perhaps?) and made 'mini' little girl shaped cheeses.  They were served with 'mini' Ritz crackers!

I also made 'mini' blueberry muffins and decorated them with a 'mini' fabric pennant.

A late breakfast/early lunch party always needs donuts, 'mini' donuts to the rescue!  They were glazed and then sprinkled with the colors of Penelope's party...gotta keep with the theme :-)

For us mommas, I made 'mini' Tomato Basil and Mozzarella Kabobs.  Two of the ingredients came straight out of our garden, Mmm good!

Here is a look at the drink station I had in the middle of the buffet table.

I served Sweet Tea and Citrus Water...perfect cold drinks for such a sunny summer day.

I just love Sweet Tea...I'll share my recipe on the blog soon, it is absolutely devine and super easy to make!

The Citrus Water included slices of orange, lemon and lime...so refreshing!

For all the children, minus Eloise (sorry little one, when you are older!), I served Strawberry milk in milk bottles for that cute vintage-y feel.  I also used my favorite aqua stripey straws from here.  

Well another long post with lots of pictures!  I hope you enjoyed a peek at Penelope's 3rd birthday party.  I had so much fun putting it together but what makes it even better is that Penelope really truly loved it.  That just melts my heart.  She really adored that this was her birthday and her friends were coming to celebrate her.  She is such a sweet little thing, I just want to eat her up.

Many thanks to our wonderful friends who came to celebrate Penny's 3rd birthday, we loved having you there to share in her big day!

XOXO,

Meatball-less Sub Sandwiches {Recipe} and $100 Cooking.com Gift Card Giveaway!

**This Giveaway has closed!  The winner is #115 Nancy!

Today I wanted to share a fun recipe makeover that my family has been enjoying this summer thanks to our amazing garden...man, I'm loving our garden this summer it's been producing like crazy.  It's a meatball sub sandwich makeover if you will.  I have been really trying to add more veggies to our meals, if you've ever looked at the USDA's new meal guidelines you will see that half of your plate should be made up of fruits and veggies!  Seriously!!  So in making over this recipe, I took out the meatballs and replaced them with a few of our giant zucchini and summer squash bumper crop which I chopped, sautéed and then simmered in some lovely marinara sauce to keep the flavor the same.  The beauty of this recipe re-do is that zucchini and summer squash are fairly neutral veggies in taste, they just take on the flavor of the sauce so it's a fairly easy switch to make and one my kids loved but who doesn't love a messy marinara-filled sandwich!  

Are you ready to eat more veggies in your meals?  Give this recipe a whirl and you can definitely add a few extra servings of vegetables and no one will be the wiser on taste!

Meatball-less Subs

1 large summer squash

2 medium size zucchini

2 tbsp Country Crock® Spread

3 cloves garlic, minces

salt and pepper

1 jar marinara sauce

6 crusty bread rolls

6 slices provolone cheese

Wash and dry summer squash and zucchini.  Leaving skins on, chop and set aside.  Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 2 tbsp of Country Crock Spread.  Swirl around pan until completely melted and skillet is coated.  Add in chopped zucchini and summer squash and sauté for about 5 minutes.  Mince garlic and add to skillet along with salt and pepper to taste.  Sauté for another 10-15 minutes or until the veggies are softened and deep in color.  Stir in marinara sauce and cook until heated through.  Split bread rolls in half and toast in the oven at 250 degrees for 10 minutes.  Once rolls are toasted, top with a generous portion of veggies and a slice of provolone cheese.  Heat in the oven for another 5 minutes.  Serve warm and enjoy!

First wash and dry your summer squash and zucchini.  Just look at the size of that summer squash!  It's a good 10 inches long...crazy insane!

Now grab your Country Crock Spread...we'll be sautéing in this today!

Heat your skillet over medium heat and add in two tablespoons of Country Crock Spread.  Let it melt and then swirl it around until the skillet is well coated.   

Then add in your chopped zucchini and summer squash and sauté for about 5 minutes.

Then grab 3 cloves of garlic and mince those babies up!

Add the garlic and some salt and pepper to taste and sauté for another 10-15 minutes...

Your veggies should look like this now...all deep in color and soft not raw/crunchy.  

Grab your marinara...I like this one!  Organic and very tasty to boot!

Pour your marinara over the veggies and cook until heated through or about another 5 minutes or so.  

 While your waiting, slice open your rolls and toast in the oven at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Ladle nice big heaps of veggies over your toasted rolls....

Place a slice of provolone cheese on top and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until the cheese is nice and melty.  

Then plate 'em up...watch out this could get messy!

Mmm...Enjoy!

Now I'm going to encourage you to try the recipe and post a comment letting me know you did or plan to do so. Each comment posted will be an automatic entry into a random drawing for a chance to win $100 Cooking.com gift card toward the purchase of the any cooking utensils your heart desires...awesome!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a)      Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b)      Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c)       Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d)      For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.


No duplicate comments.

Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.

You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

Enter between August 24 – September 30th

Promotions & Prizes Page 
Sweepstakes Rules

XOXO,