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Showing posts with label Wine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wine. Show all posts

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Things I'm Diggin' Part 3

Sharing some of my current favorite things...


My cousin-in-law gifted this to me shortly after Liam was born. Her friend owns the Wisconsin-born company and hand crafts each product in small batches with pure ingredients. I've had this oil for 5 years and it still hasn't run out! It's made with 100% pure rice bran oil, ylang ylang, geranium, lavender, grapefruit, clary sage, fennel, palmarosa and wild orange. It smells amazing and I use it whenever I feel STRESSED or want a little scent on my wrists.



Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a huge fan of local store Olivu 426. I've tried out MANY of their products and love a lot of them. But this one is my go-to when I just need a pick-me-up. If I'm feeling stressed or tired I spritz this on my face and neck and I get an instant refresh. And it has a pleasant rose water scent. 



I bought this one on a whim on my way to the checkout counter at Ulta one day. I'm a sucker for anything coconut or vanilla. And this one, when I smelled it, took me right to the beach! Some coconut scents smell fake to me, but this one smells just like fresh coconut-milk-out-of-a-coconut. It's not thick like a lotion, it just glides on more like water and leaves a light coconut scent and soft skin.



I'm convinced that EVERY mom, dad, grandparent, daycare teacher and caregiver should own one of these! I found it at a local kitchen store and have loved it since. You just pop the grape or olive or tomato into the hole, push the green stick down and BOOM you have a quartered grape, etc. It's pretty safe too - I let Liam use it with my observation. 



I bought these at a local kitchen store as well and love them. The package comes with four different sizes. I store them in a cupboard above our microwave for easy use. They lie flat and don't warp or curve or stain and they're dishwasher safe. Also important - they're BPA free and FDA approved.



Ceramic Berry Baskets
I'm a ceramic berry basket dork! I love them. Because they're PRETTY and I can display an ordinary thing (fruit) in a pretty way. I got mine as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago and have since gifted them to other people. They can be hard to find at actual stores (although I have seen/bought them at Pier 1, Crate & Barrel and HomeGoods). Online is your best bet.



Fizzy Chill Red wine-in-a-can 
I love a glass of wine or champagne after the kids are in bed. But I do not want to open an entire bottle of champ or wine and let the rest go to waste (I'm not a fan of corking wine or champagne). So these work out perfectly for me! I found this Fizzy Chill Red, which I drink cold. It's a sweeter, fizzy wine that's a nice little treat at the end of the day.




Mini Korbel Brut champagne bottles
I pour myself one of these on occasion too. And no wasted champagne afterwards!




Calling all parents/grandparents: you need to let your kids try these. Completely mess-free coloring, other than a few water drips here and there. Perfect for the CAR, for restaurants, in the church pew, on an airplane. And it keeps them occupied for a while.




My kids love this thing. We've had it a couple of years and we play with it at least once a week. We got this one at Target. A great gift idea as well.




Love, love, love these. They get played with EVERY day in our house by both kids. They're expensive but some things in life are just worth it! My kids will spend a good hour at a time playing with these. The only downside is that they end up everywhere! 




A friend suggested that I use this after I told her I have thousands of emails in my inbox (eek). I signed up and it significantly helped lighten my inbox. This is FREE to use and really easy to sign up. If you're someone that gets lots of emails, I highly suggest you try this out!





I'm a granola snob. I'm picky about the texture and flavor. I've never eaten a granola like this one before and I LOVE it. Chloe loves it too! It's not giant, chunky, hard bites (not a fan) - instead it's these light, crunchy bean crisps that pair so good with the almonds and cranberries and seeds and yum-o maple syrup tossed in with it all. We like to eat it dry as a healthy snack. Heading to my cupboard now....




To see other things I love, click here:





Please let me know what YOUR current faves are in the Comments below!

Friday, March 21, 2014

An alphabet surprise!

My friend Sarah hosted this month's Crafty Club on Tuesday evening. I had sent out the invitation a few weeks ago to all of the "crafty ladies" as I call them. Sarah was planning to show us how to make the craft below - painted birds on top of jars. Perfect for storing jelly beans for the upcoming Easter:


Little did I know....Sarah had secretly planned a totally different craft (behind my back, you sneaky woman) and all of the ladies knew about it beforehand. She picked out a craft that will soon be hanging in our baby #2's nursery!

I got to Sarah's house about 10 minutes late the night of the craft (because Liam pooped in the bathtub and I felt guilty leaving Matt to clean up the mess all by himself) so all of the crafty ladies were already there when I arrived and had a little "surprise" for me :)

Sarah had hung up some pink & blue balloons and had a beautiful bouquet of pink & blue flowers for me to take home. And then she unveiled the real craft that we were going to be making.

Here's the craft that we ended up REALLY doing:

Sarah found the idea on Pinterest.
The plan is to hang it in the nursery above baby #2's crib.
I just LOVE that there's a little "I love you" hidden within the alphabet.

The theme of the nursery is owls & nature (we left it the same from when it was Liam's room). The color scheme is chocolate brown, aqua and green. Here are a few quick photos of the nursery, so you can get a feel for the vibe:



Instead of painting all of the cardboard letters white, Sarah bought various paints and craft papers to decorate them with. She picked out brown, green and blue papers and paints, which should go nicely with the colors in the room.

Between the seven of us ladies we painted and decorated all TWENTY SIX letters of the alphabet within a couple of hours.




As the letters were finished we laid them out to dry.

Here are the pink and blue flowers that Sarah surprised me with :)

And everyone else had wine. Lots of wine.

And flipping delicious peanut buttery bars.
Oh how I could have eaten the entire pan by myself...

Here are all of the letters complete. Obviously they're not laid out & glued together
properly yet. Sarah and I decided it'd be easier to just bring the stack of letters over to
my house and we'll glue them all together here. I'm excited to see it hanging on the wall
when it's all done, which I will share with you soon :)

____________________________
I feel so blessed to have the friends that I've made in this good 'ol town of Sheboygan. Kind, loving girlfriends who I can always count on to make me smile! Thank you Sarah and ladies for being so cool :)


Thursday, February 27, 2014

Button flowers

This month's Crafty Club was hosted by me.

I created and hosted the very first Crafty Club in May of 2013, so that means the club has been going strong now for ten months! Each of us seven ladies has hosted the craft + we had our Christmas get-together in December. I'm so happy that everyone has enjoyed the club and is committed to making it a success!

I'm pretty darn sick of winter and I'm ready for some sunshine, flowers and green grass. So I wanted this month's craft to reflect my anxiety for Spring. 

I looked through my gazillion Pinterest pins and found one that really shouted "spring" to me.  I pinned this one quite a while ago:


A really cool lady named Leigh-Ann created this craft, so I need to give her credit! You can check out the craft + other creative ideas on her blog here:

I went ahead and whipped up a sample the night prior to hosting the craft. I wanted to make sure I had all of the correct supplies and that it would turn out okay (you never know when you see something cool on Pinterest if it's going to work out for you). This one was definitely doable and I think it turned out pretty cool!

Here are my finished button flowers...


All of the buttons were donated to me by my mom, my grandma and my mother-in-law. Cute buttons are cool. FREE cute buttons are even better! Liam helped me separate the buttons by color into little glass bowls...


I bought a jumbo package of embroidery thread from Hobby Lobby for $6...

 I set up six little workstations for the ladies. Each with an embroidery hoop (only $1.19 per hoop at Hobby Lobby) and a piece of fine linen fabric (I bought one large sheet and cut it into pieces). 

And of course we needed brain fuel, so I made little fruit kabobs...

...and mini pudding trifles (so easy -- Oreos on the bottom, a vanilla instant Jello layer, a chocolate instant Jello layer and then some crushed Heath bars on top). 

 Oops...I forgot to take a photo of the numerous empty wine bottles. Way to go ladies!

Joy and Janine concentrating deeply...

Everyone used 8-10 buttons as the flowers and then embroidered little stems underneath each one.

Sarah's blue/turquoise theme...

 Erin used pink and raspberry colors...

Oranges and browns...

"Blingy" buttons were used on this one...

Andi's finished hoop. She glued a cute little ribbon to the hoop and I think it finished it nicely.

Here's the 2nd hoop that I started. I will finish the stems someday...

Now I have to decide where I'm going to hang these things...
I think I'll hang one in our little green bathroom and maybe give the 2nd one to someone as a gift.


Have a good Friday!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Lot of corks

When Matt and I moved back to Wisconsin a few years ago we started writing on wine corks after we'd finish a bottle. We'd get a Sharpie marker and write the date and the occasion for which we were drinking wine. Occasions such as a great meal we were eating, or an anniversary we were celebrating, or the friends we enjoyed the bottle of wine with.

Fast forward a few years and we have an entire large, glass vase filled with these corks!


I feel blessed that we've been able to enjoy this many bottles of wine together, with great meals and great friends & family. But I'm afraid it also may indicate that we've consumed a bit too much wine!

It was really enjoyable to look through these corks today and see what we've written on them. Here are a few of my favorites:
I'm pretty sure this is the first one we wrote on.
Celebrating our new home back in Wisconsin.
Celebrating our 3-year wedding anniversary in 2010.
A friend visiting from Florida. 
Friends visiting from Oregon.
Enjoying Matt's delicious homemade risotto.
This is probably too much information, but I think this may have been the night that we conceived Liam.
Thank you Mr. Robert Mondavi!!
Not much wine was consumed during this time :)

Our first bottle of champagne after Liam was born.
Self explanatory.
Enjoying a tenderloin.
Some of our favorite wines. I'm glad we saved the corks :)
An assortment of wine and champagne bottles consumed
on numerous New Years Eves.

Does anyone else keep their wine corks? What interesting things have you done with them? Any arts or crafts projects?