DIY Burlap Stockings

Disclosure: I received one or more products for free in exchange for an honest review on my blog.

I feel like my blog has been a little bah-humbug, Christmas is just 1 short week away and I haven't had a chance to do much!

It makes my heart happy to finally get my butt in gear and bring you a cratfy Christmas related post!

I was contacted a few weeks ago by a representative of a company called Burlapfabric.com to see if I would like to receive some of their products to review.

(Ok, you HAVE to go check out their website, they have so many types of burlap to choose from!

Light, dark, chevron print, ribbon, bags, colored, banners, you name it!)

I have been wanting to make my own stockings for years.

I never got around to it because I never knew where to start.

When I opened the box from the company and I saw the contents I knew what I wanted to make.

It was like the stars aligned so I could finally check this off of my crating bucket list.

This is the only stocking I have completed so far, it's mine if you can't tell :)

Over the next couple of days I will be whipping some up for my husband and my 2 boys.

I just LOVE how this one turned out, so I had to share it with you!

No-bake Chocolate Cookies

These are one of my husband's favorite cookies.

I had actually never had these cookies until one day my son and I were baking and my husband requested some.

I searched Pinterest and found a recipe.

These are so easy to make!

I have made these no-bake cookies for baby blessings, family get-togethers, and holidays.

I love that I can make them in advance and they stay delicious!

Since these cookies are also gluten-free, it's nice to have them for those who won't be able to eat other desserts.

eShakti Clothing Company: An honest review

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a company called eShakti to see if I was interested in receiving an article of clothing in exchange for an honest review here on my blog.

If you have never heard of them before (don't worry, I hadn't either), it is an online clothing company for women.

They sell shirts, skirts, pants, dresses, etc. 

In my opinion they are kind of pricey, but the thing that makes them different is they will do custom sizing for an additional fee.

The word custom had me sold.

I, like pretty much everyone else on the planet, sometimes have a hard time finding clothes that fit.

It will be too loose here, too tight there, short, long, etc.

I'm sure we all know how this feels.

Here I was being offered an article of clothing that would be made to fit ME.

I was ecstatic.

Giddy.

Thrilled.

You get the point.

There were only certain articles of clothing available for review, so I scoured the list.

I wanted something to speak to me.

I saw a lot of dresses that would make my 'Fashion I love board' on Pinterest very happy.

But, due to the fact that they didn't want too many bloggers reviewing the same dress, there was a limited availability, and I quickly found out that when I would click on one it wasn't available.

Understandable though.

There are apparently a lot of us with good taste :).

Super Easy DIY Spider Costume

Yes this is a Halloween post.
In the middle of November.
Just think of it as me helping you be really prepared for next Halloween.
You're welcome :)

A few weeks before Halloween I asked my son what he would like to dress up as. His immediate response was something scary so he could scare people. 

If I can use what I have around the house and not spend a lot of money on something he will only be wearing for a few hours, I am all for it.
So, I started looking through his closet to see what we had to work with, and we found almost everything we needed for a vampire costume!

He was so excited because he knew that would scare people :), and I was excited because it didn't cost me anything!

However, we found out that his vampire costume would just have to be for trick-or-treating though.

He is in Kindergarten this year and at his school the kids aren't allowed to wear anything gorey, undead, bloody, violent, etc.

If the kids wanted to dress up, they needed to choose something from history or something from classical literature.

Dracula is a classical character, but his behavior and story are quite dark, so vampires were out.

My son still wanted to dress up at school so I told him we had to pick something we could make that would be super easy and cheap.

After some thought we chose a spider, because in my son's mind it is still something he thought would scare people, but it is also in some classical stories and nursery rhymes.

So here is our super easy and cheap spider costume.

How to make custom invitations

My son's birthday is coming up and we have been in the party planning mode!
He originally wanted a Skylanders themed party, and had been asking for that for a while.
The other day however, I started making up the invitations, and my husband and son were playing the newest version of Angry Birds (Transformers), and my son decided he wanted to change the theme to Angry Birds Transformers instead.
I am so happy that I was making the invitations myself and was able to do a quick change!
I know I'm not the only one who has a child who changes their mind last minute, so I thought I would share this super easy method :)
This is what we came up with. I of course filled it all in with my son's name, the date of the party, time, and other info, I left the details off of this one so you could see what the finished product would look like :)

I actually just googled 'Angry Birds transformers' and clicked on the images results.
My son and I looked through the pictures until we found one he liked.

Halloween 2x4 craft

With Halloween being next Friday I thought I would finally get around to a Halloween post!

Back at the beginning of October I thought to myself, 'I don't want to start decorating now, it's way too early'...and then the month snuck by without me even knowing! Oops.

I know I'm not the only one this has happened to...right? :)

Anyways, back to our craft.

A couple of weeks ago there were some guys finishing the basement in the house next to ours. I had come home from picking my son up from school and I noticed a huge pile of 2x4 and plywood scraps lying on the driveway.

I went to the basement window and called down to the workers to see what their plans were for the wood. They told me it was all to be thrown away, but if I wanted to I could take any of it.

GOLD MINE!

I ran to the other few homes on our street and told the other moms about our awesome opportunity, you should have seen us, we were like vultures buzzing around picking out what we wanted. We all had our kids loading up their arms with little piles of wood, and ideas were racing through my mind of what we would should make.

This is our first project.

Priority Chef Garlic Press Review

I have a review for you that I am super excited about!

This is a garlic press from Priority Chef.

And it is my new best friend :)

 I don't know how I have been cooking for so long and have never had one of these, I love it!

I haven't ever minded mincing garlic with a knife, but I can never get the pieces small enough, well this press sure takes care of that for me.