Recycled Crayons

Do you have a lot of broken crayons? Do you have a child like mine- who delights in peeling the paper off crayons? Don't despair! Hold on to them and you can make...... Recycled Crayons! :)

A couple of weekends ago, my girls were BORED so I decided I'd finally saved up enough broken crayon bits to try out Recycled Crayons. The 'recipe' I decided to go with is this one from Make & Takes. I had a cheap muffin pan that I decided to sacrifice, but there are lots of different ways to make them, like this one that uses a microwave and candy molds, or this one that uses a heart shaped silicon ice cube tray. The hearts are really cute- especially if you used them for these Valentine's Day cards! Ok... enough tangents.

Here are the crayons all melted (note: in the Make & Take instructions she said to cook them about 7-8 minutes, ours took almost twice as long to get completely melted). To speed up the re-hardening process I filled up the bottom tray and empty cups with ice cubes.

Here are the finished products: (after a couple of them got broken from super vigorous usage). We love them!

And finally...here's the Crayon Peeler using her new recycled crayons.

This is Peedie.

Peedie is a gosling.

A small, yellow gosling who sometimes forgets things.

This is our 2 1/2 yr old's favorite book right now. It's called Peedie by Olivier Dunrea. She can recite the whole book by heart. It's about a small yellow gosling. He has a lucky red baseball cap. He also forgets things sometimes.

Peedie has some friends.

BooBoo who likes to eat things.

Gossie who likes to wear bright red boots.

Gertie who likes to wear bright blue boots. Gossie and Gertie are best friends.

And Ollie. He's kind of stubborn. And he stomps around alot.

Here's why we love these books: Olivier Dunrea's illustrations are simple and beautiful. And the stories are short, funny and sweet. For a look at all the books in the Gossie & Friends series go here. (plus the pictures are much much better). For some biographical info on Olivier Dunrea go here. We can't wait to meet the latest friends- coming out Spring 2011!

Dream Dinner

I've just been drooling- I mean looking around The Pioneer Woman Cooks and had to share.

First up is her Layered Salad recipe. I was looking through the comments, and liked some of the changes people suggested, like switching out red bell peppers for the tomatoes, and red onions for the green onions... Not so sure about the mayo/sour cream dressing- it seems really THICK, but since I've liked every PW recipe I've tried...

Then there's the Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce or even better the Pasta alla Vodka which was my favorite dish at my favorite Italian restaurant in NYC Angelo's (they add Pancetta and it is delicious).

And finally for dessert... check out the Pretty Little Brownie Bites. sigh. I like to torture myself by visiting the Brownies & Bars post. Nutella Caramel Hazelnut Brownies. Need I say more?

If someone makes those Nutella Caramel Hazelnut Brownies please tell me. I'm saving them for my birthday in December.

p.s. sorry about the lack of pictures... I'm still fuzzy on the rules about when it's ok to post other people's pictures. It's time for me to do a little research!

You are the Winner!

A few days ago I got up and checked my email, and was greeted by this message:

"You are the Winner!". And the best news is- it was for real!! I won a giveaway!!! And it was an AWESOME GIVEAWAY!

Judi Ketteler has written a book called Sew Retro: A Stylish History of the Sewing Revolution + 25 Vintage-Inspired Projects for the Modern Girl.

It's full of beautiful pictures...

a little sewing history...

and 25 awesome projects!

The best part for me (being an instant-gratification kind of a sewer) is all the one day projects!

If you want to see a full list of all the projects in the book, go to Amazon and check out the Table of Contents! (I love that Click to Look Inside feature). Now the book in itself is a great prize, but to top it all off- Kathy Miller from Michael Miller Fabric added 5 (!!!!) yards of the fabric of your choice to the giveaway. Narrowing down which fabric I wanted from their amazing collections was not easy :) but I finally did it, and a couple of days ago it all came in the mail.

First up is Climbing Lantern Pods by Laura Gunn. I have the green version and have been wanting the turquoise version...

then Poppy Silhouette- also by Laura Gunn

Hummingbirds by Patty Young (you can't tell from the bad lighting in my picture, but the background is white)

And finally two coordinating Christmas Prints from MM's Funky Christmas collection. I've been eyeing this since last Christmas, and decided it will be perfect for some cute Christmas outfits for the girls!

Santa Yule Trees

and Santa Play Dot

And finally just because they are nice over at MM they threw in one of their cute gnome bags:

My kids especially love the baby gnome on the back:

A BIG thanks to Judi Ketteler and Kathy Miller- they totally made my week!