Color my Heart!

I have had this bag of broken misfit crayons laying around for a while. I have been hoarding them to some day make those cute little shaped crayons. We were shopping the dollar section at Target and I came across the heart shaped silicone trays and I thought it might be a fun activity for the weekend. Its not like we have anything else to do (sarcasm). I thought they would make cute Valentine's giveaways at school. As I was searching for my bag I realized we have a LOT of crayons. I caught my child hoarder "saving" some of the broken ones. I did a batch of the hearts when she wasn't looking, don't get upset with me, she has PLENTY of crayons.

To figure out what to do I did a google search for how to make them. Basically you have to unwrap all of the crayons. This step I did not enjoy, neither did my 8 year old. I recommend using scissors or a razor blade to cut the wrappers, this helped a lot. Despite the effort, it makes a cool pile.

Then you break them up into small pieces.


Then you put them in the silicone trays. I realized later that we were using an ice cube tray. Probably not so smart on my part but it didn't melt...too bad. I also put the trays on a baking sheet. Bake them at 325 degrees until the crayons melt. Let them cool completely, have patience! I broke one because I don't have patience. This is what you get! So cute right?

I am going to put these in little plastic bags and tie with cute ribbon. I don't know why I can't just give out paper valentine's like everyone else. Then again if you read anything in this blog I am sure you are not surprised that I don't do those! Happy Valentine's Day!

The Cheer Bow Saga

Yes...it is a Saga. My daughter shocked me last year when she asked to cheer at her school. I had thought she would want to play basketball but she really wanted to cheer. Well she LOVED it! So much so that I signed her up for competitive cheerleading after that. She had more of a love/hate with this but I think this was more because it was a LOT of hard work and she never had to work that hard for anything in her life up to that point. Coming off of a long competitive cheer season and looking at many different kind of cheer bows I knew that her school squad's bows could use an upgrade. They were cute, but they were pieces of ribbon tied to a ponytail holder. I was on a mission to get the girls cuter cheer bows this season until they told me their was no budget. Of course there isn't. I said to the coach, you know what, I will just make them. I can get the ribbon cheap. Ugh why? Why do I volunteer for these things! I used my daughter's cheer bow as a guide, her squad was the youngest so they have more of a pinwheel type bow. I struggled with this, I'm not going to lie. I was doubting my crafty skills but then I remembered that I had a mini Bowdabra! That saved me and I created this. The school colors are Silver, Blue, and White.


Then I found out I had to make 43, no 45, no 46. Yes the number kept growing. After I ordered all of the ribbon I found a pair of last year's bloomers. Look at the pic, you know what happened next. I had the wrong blue and opening day was in a week. AND I had no idea how to match up that color to the ribbons on line. Hence the ribbon adventure when we met Scoobs!



I FINALLY got the right ribbon but ran out of time before our trip to Colorado to finish them. The next week I was up until 3am making all 46 bows. It snowed that day and I was praying they would cancel so I could have more time. Not so much. I took this pic of the bow in my daughter's hair and realized I forgot to fray check the edges. Ugh this project is never ending!!!


The following week I had to add the fray check to all of the bows which I had to do between games and while they were in the cheerleader's hair! Then I sat at the game and fixed all of the ones that hadn't been passed out yet. This is the final fray checked cheer bow.



The bows look so cute in the girl's hair. Though next year, I am going for a much simpler design, the double layer took a lot of time. 46 doesn't seem like a lot until you start making them. I may also be adding some more ribbon hair bows into my Etsy shop. The possibilities with that Bowdabra are seriously endless! Haha.

Crazy 8's and Megaphone Cakes!

It seems the only thing I have been consistently doing with this blog is recapping my daughter's birthdays. This past weekend was her 8th birthday. I begged her the night before to stay 7. I told her she could still grow but always needed to stay at age 7. She said, "Mom, I can't do that. But don't worry when you turn 65, you can stay 65 forever." I find it hilarious that kids have no concept of age, however I had hoped that I looked younger than 65. Guess not!

My life has been crazy hectic since January 1. The addition of Scoobs has added to the fun. I feel like I have a newborn. I am not doing well adjusting to my new schedule and my time management seems to be on vacation somewhere far from here. The ex wanted to take our daughter to NYC for her birthday to get her an American Girl doll for his house. Fine. Well that meant she was not going to be at school on her actual birthday and I needed to do her school treats a day earlier then I had planned in my mind.

I am going to take a break from this story to talk about my baking cabinet. It's relevant I promise. Growing up my mom always had baking cabinet. An entire large cabinet dedicated to baking supplies. Within the cabinet was pretty much the supplies to make any baked good you could think of. My sister and I both have baking cabinets. Keeping them stocked is typically part of grocery shopping, key word, typically.

After a fun night at Chick Fil A with one of her friends we get home at 9pm and I had nothing made for the birthday treat. I had purchased supplies to make cool magephone shaped cake pops but I was too tired. I convinced the little one to let me just bake her cupcakes. She picked out her cake mix (yes there were 3 options in the cabinet), her sprinkles (yes there are SEVERAL varieties), and I was relieved. Until I started looking for cupcake liners. Here is what I found: St Patrick's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. What I didn't find was any plain. It was 10:30, the kid was sleeping and there isn't a husband around here to send out so I could go to the store. So I started thinking of plan B. Why wouldn't I just use the other liners? Because that's not how I roll. I have set a high baking standard at her school. Out of season cupcake liners will not do! Then I thought I would make her a chocolate chip cookie cake, but I didn't have chocolate chips. I was frantically texting my sister for ideas to which she replied, "What is going on over there". I replied, "Poverty and lack of time". Recent personal budget restrictions and lack of time to actually grocery shop have caused the baking cabinet to not get replenished. My next idea was cake in the perfect brownie pan. Has anyone done this? I chickened out, it was 11pm at this point, I didn't have time for a failed experiment. Fine I will make brownies, crap, that pan only makes 18 and I need at least 26. And of course I only have 1 mix. Then it came to me! I had mini muffin pans and I did have plain white mini cupcake liners, and christmas, st patricks day and halloween ones too. :-) I had a can of tub icing that was supposed to be for the cake balls. And her birthday treat was created. Brownie bites, with a swirl of icing, pink sugar sprinkles and a heart sprinkle on top. Whew! I now have a nice long list of items needed for that cabinet to avoid such crisis in the future. Do you have a baking cabinet?

The Saturday after her birthday I decided to throw a small party for her. Her real present was Scoobs, upon getting Scoobs I informed her that she wouldn't have a friend party but my parents were in town so we had a little get together. I surprised her with her cake. This cake was probably the easiest I have ever made. I used an 11x16 sheet cake pan. I cut diagonal lines starting at the corners of one side. Then I used the remaining cake to cut out the handle. I tinted the buttercream hot pink and smooth iced the cake. Then I piped the premade Wilton black icing for the design.

It was a jam packed weekend with parties, cheer leading, and the Super Bowl but we had fun and I think I successfully gave Bella some pretty awesome birthday baked goods despite having an amateur stocked baking cabinet. I am not even going to start thinking about her next birthday. At least I know I am good to stay at 65! :-)

What is sexy about skiing and what is not

I am going to interrupt the recent posts about Scoobs to talk about my ski trip last month to Breckenridge Colorado where my sister and I came up with a list of not so sexy things about skiing. Not to forget about Scoobs, we left for this trip 2 days after we brought Scoobs home. I was so relieved that my ex husband stepped up and watched him for me so we could get Scoobs and still go on our trip. I'm not gonna lie, getting on that plane was a little harder than I thought it would be. But Scoobs did great with them and to my surprise was thrilled to see me when I got back.

Ok, back to skiing. Here is my list:

1. Sexy: Wearing long underwear under your ski stuff to stay warm while on the slopes.
Not Sexy: How you look when you are only wearing your long underwear.

2. Sexy: The cute guy who looked like Chad Smith and was so sweet fitting my daughter, niece, and nephew in their ski boots. see pic below. :-)
Not Sexy: Walking in Ski Boots. I mean seriously, I tried, there is nothing sexy about walking in those things, even when you unbuckle the top straps.

3. Sexy: Rocking a Ski Helmet on the slopes. Smart is the new sexy on this, and no worries, your sexy sunglasses still look great with the helmet.
Not Sexy: Well not wearing a helmet. I am shocked that people not wearing helmets is the minority these days.

4. Sexy: The view of the mountains as you are riding up the ski lift.
Not Sexy: Trying to get off of the ski lift, falling, and having the ski lift worker pick your pathetic butt up before the next group gets off. Ski Lifts = my nemesis!

5. Sexy: Ski Instructors teaching kids how to ski.
Not Sexy: Trying to teach your own kid how to ski. I don't recommend this.

6. Sexy: The view from 10,000 feet.
Not Sexy: Altitude sickness. Seriously I might be more of an ocean girl than a mountain girl

and Finally:
7. Sexy: Totally rocking a challenging Blue Trail.
Not Sexy: Not so gracefully falling and eating a mouthful of snow when you get to the easiest part of the trail and then blaming it on your son. Oh I wish I had that on camera! (Thanks for the laugh on that one sis!)

Overall the trip was fantastic, it was great to spend quality time with my family and it was awesome watching my daughter learn how to ski for the first time! Colorado is beautiful, if the altitude and I got along better I would consider moving out there some day. What can I say, I am sucker for those colorado guys in their plaid shirts, scruffy beards, and North Face Jackets. Now that is sexy!

Beware of Rolling Trash Cans

I can only imagine what was going through Scoobs’ mind as we were walking out of the shelter. I can tell you for certain one thing, there was no way in hell he was going to get into my car. There I am, in the parking lot, asking the dog to get into the car, who doesn’t really know his name yet, and he won’t jump in. I am thinking for sure they are going to come back out and get him. Thankfully, the volunteers who introduced us to Scoobs were outside walking another dog and she told me that when she put him in the car, she had to lift him. Ah…got it. So Scoobs is finally in the car and we are on our way home. First we need to stop at my ex husband’s house because he and his wife have graciously decided to watch Scoobs for us while we went away to Colorado. This was offered before we knew we were getting him. I had some concerns on how this would be for him but seeing as though the shelter told me that taking him home and then boarding him while were away was a better option than the shelter, I felt like we were ok. This was all contingent on Scoobs getting along with their dog. Did I have a back up plan if this didn’t work? No not really. THANKFULLY the dogs got along great. My daughter was off to dinner with them so I was flying solo on bringing Scoobs home. Now I clearly remember bringing my daughter home and feeling somewhat scared and clueless but this was a bit different. I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea truly what kind of dog he is or what happened to him. As soon as we got home I kept him on the leash and let him explore, which he did a lot of. Then I gave him some food and showed him his blankets, crate, and toys. As I was making myself some dinner he decided to park in the kitchen with me and lay on the floor.

I thought it would be fun to take him for a walk. We did a loop around the neighborhood and all seemed to be going well. I was thinking, ok maybe I got this. Then we were walking and there was a dog running around the neighborhood without its owner and didn't have a collar or a leash. I start to panic because I know Scoobs will want to play with him but I have NO clue what this dog is like. Fortunately one of my neighbors was outside, knew of this dog and called its name to go away. Eventually the owner came out and brought him back inside. I was talking to my neighbor for a bit and then went back to the house. It happened to be recycle day so I thought, ok, I will bring up the recycle can from the street. BAD CHOICE. Scoobs started FREAKING out. I kept moving which was not the best idea and he wiggled out of his collar and started to run away from me. OMG! So here I am running through the streets of my neighborhood calling for a dog who has only known his name for 2 weeks. He of course keeps running. Finally, he stopped, I walked calmly towards him and he sat and let me put on his collar. As I have told this story others have told me their dog feels the same way. So maybe this story can help you. My next item of business was to give him a bath, I wanted to wash the shelter off of him. To my surprise he just stood in the bath and let me wash him. After all of this fun, I was exhausted. He went right into his crate and we went to bed. It was this night that I realized I needed to start writing all of this down, because I had a feeling this would be the first of many hilarious Scoobs adventures!

Life comes as you fast!

After spending some time getting adjusted to the fact that we might not get Scoobs I decided to call the shelter and check on the status of my application and inquire about the puppies they told me about. I called on a Monday around 3:30, she asked for my name and said “Well your application says approved pending a meet and greet with the family”. Um, excuse me? The shelter point blank told me yesterday that I had no shot at getting this dog and now you are telling me he can be mine! A wave of excitement fell over me followed very quickly by a wave of fear…yep straight up fear. The shelter was closing so we had to do the meeting the following day. THANK GOD!

After work I went directly to PetSmart armed with my “What I need to have at the house when I take home a dog I have no clue what to do with list” that I ran by pretty much everyone I know that has a dog. I wandered around the store for about 2 hours. I started with leashes and collars and I am annoyed that there are no good boy dog collars (a new Purplelicious dog line might be coming out as a result of this). Then I wandered to food, picked out a few toys, and then stared at the dog beds for close to an hour. First of all, why do they cost as much as a human mattress? Why are the patterns SO ugly? And the better question, what the heck size bed do I get? Feeling very overwhelmed the store dog trainer walked by and I asked for help. She talked me off of the ledge and said I didn’t need a bed right away and just to give him one or two blankets to lay on. Whew! She also gave my cart the once over and said I was in good shape with what I purchased for his first night at home.

Then I get home and my house looked like a tornado blew through it. Christmas still has not been put away, there is a staging area for all of our ski clothes (oh I didn’t mention we were going away? I will get there), and really just general mess because I am single mother who works full time and also has an accessories business. What I “should” have been doing that night were some Purplelcious orders and those 45 cheer bows I was on the wild ribbon goose chase for, instead I cleaned my house top to bottom. I threw stuff away, folded clothes, vacuumed every room, mopped the floors, and made sure there was not one thing a dog could chew on the floor. I was up until 2am. I don’t think I have ever cleaned this thorough for anyone. Before I went to bed, I laid out all of the things I bought, set up his food bowls, found a place for the dog food and treats. I grabbed 2 of my daughters old fleece blankets and brought them into bed with me. I felt myself becoming a “dog person” and I didn’t even technically have the dog yet.

The next day I could barely concentrate at work. I was so excited at the possibility of getting Scoobs but also very scared. Could I do this? How will I know what to do? What if the meet and greet doesn't go well. I picked Bella up right after school and we went to the shelter. The meet and greet was awesome! He had so much fun running around the yard. Easily warmed up to Bella and really just wanted to play. You can tell he had enough of shelter life and wanted a place to run around! We were out there for a while, I am not sure if this is standard. The whole time I was thinking, "Are we good? It seems he likes us. What more do they need to know?" Finally the volunteer told us he thought we were all a good match and we could finish his paper work and take him home! What was ever more fun is the volunteers who were with Scoobs when we met him came to the shelter during our meet and greet. They said they wanted to say goodbye to him since they saw he had an adoption pending. It was cool to see them there, right at the moment we knew he owuld definitely be ours! I signed the paperwork, got the folder with all of his medical stuff, and was given the leash. Shaking with nerves and excitement we walked out of the shelter doors and our lives with Scoobs began.

The Application Process...and what a process!

Trust me, I get it. The application process to adopt a dog is a big deal. After what these dogs have been through, its important to make sure new owners will give them the life they deserve! I also learned that adopting a dog is bit like real estate. You have to act fast! I needed references since I have never had a dog. I was really hoping that would not hurt me. I envisioned them flipping to that page and saying, Ugh NO WAY, she’s a dog newbie. BUT thank goodness for amazing friends, especially ones that went above and beyond in telling the shelter how good I would be with a dog. They may have had a little too much confidence in me.

The night after meeting Scoobs I felt this very new feeling of emptiness. I missed him and he wasn't even mine. Then I felt myself checking my email every minute to see if the shelter replied to the follow up I sent via email because they were closed when we got home. I didn’t hear anything back so I called them when they opened the next day. I was basically told that the application ahead of mine looked really strong and that the chances of them getting Scoobs was really good. I felt my heart sink. Then it sunk even deeper when I had to share this news with my daughter. My daughter declared that she wanted to go to the shelter to see him anyway. And that is what we did. I thought maybe if I turned on my charm and showed that we were serious about this (were we?) maybe that would work in our favor. Visiting an animal shelter has got to be the most depressing thing ever. Seriously. Those poor little puppies, looking up at you with those eyes, silently screaming, “pick me, pick me!”, confused about why they are there and wondering what happened to them. Then there are the more aggressive ones that scare the crap out of you by jumping up on the cage. Understood hyper doggie, I don’t blame you for wanting out. We found Scoobs and he came right up to us with his tail wagging. Then he walked to the back of his kennel, grabbed the toy we got him the day before and showed it to us. Did you get chills? I was amazed and it made me want him even more, if that was even possible. His sheet said he was abandoned and animal control picked him up. Poor little guy. While we were looking at him one of the volunteers started talking to us. I told him we were the second application on him. He told me that to date everyone that was supposed to come pick up Scoobs has ended up not showing up. The volunteer at Petco told me the same thing. I couldn't imagine!! And to hear that, being the second application I couldn't help but hope that it would happen again with the people ahead of us so we could be the ones who show up and take him home! After our visit we looked around at some of the other dogs but we didn’t want anyone but Scoobs. I spoke with the people at the shelter, asked if maybe we could do the meet and greet since we were there and they basically told me to try to look for another dog. More heartbreak! They told me they transferred a poodle mix to another shelter and that they had some Bischon Poodle mix puppies set to be fixed that week. They said once my application was approved I could find the dog I wanted. We left the shelter, I was sad and my little one was filled with a bit of rage. I gave her the long talk in the car headed to the other shelter that Scoobs might not be our dog but the right one for us will come. Yada, yada, yada, she wasn’t buying it, neither was I for that matter. I always knew she was smart.

We arrived at the next shelter only to find out that said poodle mix just got adopted right before we got there. Of course we looked around, felt the ting on our hearts looking at more sad puppy eyes. I decided to take her to one more shelter and again, same story, same tears, and we just didn’t like anyone better than Scoobs. I knew the application ahead of ours was set to do their meet and greet the next day and to be honest I went to sleep hoping that it wouldn't work out.

I may have lost my mind…

Its a new year and again I find myself trying to breathe some new life into this blog. Well I think I have found a new muse. Look for a series of posts and new adventures about a little guy named Scoobs! I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them!

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“That’s IT, I am getting a dog” I cried into the phone to my sister as I sat in the car with a screaming, scared 6 year old waiting for the police to come to my house because we discovered someone broke in while we were away. This was about 2 years ago and I didn’t really take action on that statement for a couple of reasons. 1. I didn’t really have the time and more importantly 2. We aren’t really "dog people". Now before you get upset let me explain. My mom is allergic to dogs and I am allergic to cats. Pets weren’t really an option in our house so I never grew up with a dog which I say doesn’t classify us as dog people. That does not mean that I don’t LOVE dogs, it just means I have absolutely no clue what to do when it comes to them.

Fast forward to last week when I was running around to all of the local craft stores looking for the perfect blue ribbon to match my daughter’s cheerleading uniform because I volunteered to make the hair bows. Being an overachiever sometimes gets the best of me but I will blog about those later. My daughter was not happy on this ribbon quest since we were already in 3 stores and she was getting hungry, NOT a good combo! I decided to stop and get us some lunch but the place we wanted to go didn’t have any parking spots (really?). So I promised her, “Just one more store” and we will come back, so she agreed as long as she got to buy something at the store. As we are walking into the craft store, they had some dogs outside of the PetCo. I asked Bella if she wanted to visit with them, but I think I may have wanted to more. See over the past couple of months, the idea of adopting a dog came to the fore front thanks to a post on a friends facebook page about a poodle mix that was thrown out of moving truck (Heartless jerks!). I thought about it, my sister gave me 7 reasons why I should go for it, I don’t remember all of them but they all made sense and I said ok let's do this! As soon as I sent a message saying we wanted to meet him, someone else adopted him. This sparked the research/stalking of local animal shelters websites and facebook pages and even a visit to one, where I told my daughter we were “just looking”. If we weren’t going away for Christmas, we would have started on this road a lot sooner! It also helped me realize that it was possible to adopt a poodle mix which I was in the market for due to their hypoallergenic tendencies. I had hoped that a poodle mix breed might be a dog my mom could be around. Back to last week, we walk up to the dogs outside with those little “adopt me” vests on and see this adorable tan and white dog, who is very friendly and named Scoobs.


I asked what kind of dog he was and she said a poodle mix. This is where I knew I was headed for trouble and I said, “Of course he is”. Scoobs captured our hearts, we played with him for about an hour, then went inside the store and bought him a toy which he loved. I think the volunteer was totally ready to go home but she let us sit and play with him. Throwing caution to the wind I filled out an application on him. As I was filling out the application I had to ask for help on every question. I thought, here you go, this woman is going to deny you right from the start. We were told we were the second application but to fill it out anyway as sometimes applications don't go through. We said our goodbyes, thanked the super nice volunteer, finished shopping, finally found a place to park for lunch, went home and waited to see if he would be ours.

Candy Everybody Wants

For a while now I have been thinking about how I can create some cute upcycled items for Purplelicious. At the same point that I had that thought I saw a little girl in Target wearing a Skittles headband. That was pretty much all I needed. I started asking everyone to give me candy and snack wrappers. It is funny how the people at work feel like they are making some sort of weakness confession when they hand me candy wrappers. The prize for who collected the most goes to my daughter who would bring home 6-7 snack bag wrappers everyday from school. It caught on so much that one day she was absent and her best friend collected them from her. Here is just a small sample of all of the wrappers I have collected. What's your favorite?



The first creation made with the candy wrappers were bookmarks which I talked about in a previous blog. I have recently made one for myself from a Reese's wrapper.


Then I tested out some wristlet keychains. I brought these to a craft show and I sold a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup one to a guy named Reese. The candy wrapper keychains can work for guys too!


And then of course I made headbands. The headbands have a solid grosgrain ribbon on the back which is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. I had a few more styles of these but they sold at the craft show. Don't worry, I will make more, look at the pic above, I have PLENTY of wrappers!


I can even make custom items with your favorite candy. These were a special order for some good friends.


I am really having a lot of fun making these items and it feels good to convert trash into something fun to wear. I will slowly be adding these to my Etsy shop to keep your eyes peeled! These are a great way to enjoy your favorite candy without the calories...unless of course you are the one giving me the wrapper!

R.I.P. Iron, its been real

Anyone reading this who sews, cooks, crafts, etc knows that you work best on your home turf using the supplies and tools that you are used to. Anytime you have gone over to someone else's house to create your art, it just doesn't feel the same using their tools. There is an exception to this, when I go over to sew at my moms, I have no issue, since all of her sewing tools are pretty much the best you can buy. Though you will still catch me using my own scissors, which are inferior in quality than those at my mom's but it just feels weird using another pair.

About a year ago my sister came up to do a craft show with me and was forced to use my work area for her crafts. Well let's say this was a little difficult for her, mostly in the area of my iron and ironing board. Making my accessories requires a lot of iron use so my ironing board and iron take quite a beating. At that time there was not much left of a my ironing board cover. My sister was kind enough to buy me a new one, which was later destroyed. What I didn't know was that she secretly took a picture of my iron and sent it to my mom. Let's just come right out and say that my iron is a potential safety hazard. It is so old and it has fallen so many times that the plastic cracked at the handle where the wires are. Mind you it still works like a dream and that occasional shock when it is filled with water is normal right?

Fast forward to last month when my sister was in town again and discovered that while I did buy a new ironing board cover (purchased by me a few days before she arrived), I was still using the same iron. I arrived at my mom's one day and was informed that she got me a present! It was a Rowenta Iron!!! This is one of the tools at my mom's that I adore using and might be one of the best irons. I was instructed by my mother to stop using my old iron immediately because it is a safety hazard and start using the new one. Well old habits die hard, that new iron is still in the box but I am busting it out today...no really I am. Before you hate on me, don't act like you don't have something similar to this in your workshop/kitchen. If you do I would love to know what it is and if it is a safety hazard may this blog serve as your intervention that upgrading from a hazardous tool to a shiny new upgraded tool isn't such a bad thing! :-) Happy Creating!

Fun with Bookmarks!

Reading is something that I have always enjoyed. In fact, my ultimate happy place is me sitting on the beach, with my toes in the sand, listening to the ocean, while reading a good book. I am so happy that my daughter also enjoys reading and is slowly starting to get into chapter books. As all of these new chapter books are coming into the house, I knew that I needed to make some bookmarks for her, because buying them is a ridiculous option in my world. The idea first started as using scraps of fabric to make bookmarks and has later evolved into the use of something a little more fun than fabric. I realize we are in the technology age of e-readers and iphone apps but I would like to hope that there are still some people around, like me, who enjoy the feeling of turning the pages of an actual book. I know I can also count on kids still reading books the old fashioned way, at least for a couple more years!

I have recently begun thinking about some ways to incorporate up-cycling into my Purplelicious accessories. I have started collecting candy bar wrappers and snack wrappers. Correction: My daughter has been collecting the snack wrappers at lunch during school at the rate of 5-6 per day, it seems kids eat a LOT of Cheetos and Doritos. If you are a fan of those snacks...I will have some products coming soon for you! I think I have a future sales/marketing rep on my hands. Anyway, I have a lot of ideas for these wrappers (which I will blog about later) and initially bookmarks were not one of them, until I made a small error while experimenting with one of the accessory ideas. I was left with the Hershey bar wrapper that was the perfect size for a…you guessed it, a bookmark! I added some ribbon made from 100% recycled materials and here you have it. With the exception of the iron-on vinly on top of the wrapper this is made with recycled materials. Fun!

Then I experimented with another type of candy and created this! My daughter pronounces these “Mike a Likes”, I refuse to correct her. The reward for her cuteness, this bookmark is currently holding her place in “Where the Sidewalk Ends”. I will slowly be adding these and other candy and snack wrappers to the Purplelicious Etsy Shop so be on the look out!

Don't worry I didn't forget about fabric! In a few short weeks I will be teaming up with Michelle Ciarlo-Hayes of MKC Photography and Kicks by MKC at a booth at the Haddonfield Craft and Fine Arts Festival. We thought it would be fun to make something that was a combination of both of our talents and we came up with…right again, you must have had your Wheaties this morning. We are pairing up some of my fun fabrics with Michelle’s resin Art charms. The charm on the bookmark coordinates with the fabric but can be detached and used to accent anything that you can attach it to. Honestly I think it looks perfect as it is on the bookmark but would also make a really cute necklace! Depending on their popularity at the show, they could possibly show up at an Etsy shop you are very familiar with!


I hope all of you are enjoying gathering the books on your summer reading list. For those of you that have already been to my happy place, I am completely jealous and will try not to hold it against you. If you find you are tired of folding down page corners and/or using scrap pieces of paper as bookmarks, you know where to find me.

Hippie Chick!

The majority of the hits I get on this blog are for my tie dyed cupcake post. Which can be found here, if you are curious. When the letter came home from school that my daughter's first grade class was having a Coffee House where they would read poems and needed to dress like hippies I was immediately excited! Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong era because I like so many things about that time period. The kids made tie dyed shirts in school and the parents were tasked with accessorizing the outfits hippie style. The headband was simple. I have two peace sign headbands in my Etsy shop to choose from, my daughter has her own version of both. For this she opted for rainbow peace sign headband.


The kids needed to wear jeans so I wanted to make her hippie jeans. I had a pair of old jeans and I found a stash of peace sign bandannas I am guessing from another time I made a hippie halloween costume for myself. That and I am also a fabric hoarder. I cut out the shapes, adhered them to some heat and bond (also something I had "in-stock"), and ironed them on to the jeans. I think they came out pretty darn cute. Here is a picture of my hippie chick. Where is her headband, you might ask? In her desk, she completely forgot to put it on for the show. While I can't make hippie jeans for your little ones I can definitely help them channel their inner hippie with the peace sign headbands. I may even attempt to tie dye some fabric for headbands this summer, ya dig?

Bridal Accessories with a Wild Side

Let's face it, almost every one of us has a wild side, but very few are willing let everyone know about it, especially when it comes to a wedding theme. One of my very good friends recently got married and her theme was Zebra print and Pink. For a wedding you ask? Yes, and I will tell you, thanks to a lot of talented and creative people this color scheme looked amazing and was a surprising mix of fun and classy. Since I was lucky enough to attend the wedding, it was very cool to see everything come together.

When my friend told me about her theme choice, I knew she would need some custom designed invitations and luckily I had a friend who specializes in such matters. Kaleidoscope Design Studio is a graphic design company that specializes in custom design work for all of your needs from business to weddings. For this wedding, she created the most beautiful zebra and pink inspired bridal invitations, place cards, water bottle labels, and thank you notes! If you need Custom Bridal Invitations done, check this site out, she does amazing work!

Here is where I got involved. First up, since this friend is also a co-worker we threw a surprise shower for her at work. I of course was tasked with making the cake. For this I decided to do cupcakes. This friend is a huge fan of cakeballs but with the amount of people at this shower I couldn't make that happen. Instead I opted for basic vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. To add a little fun I found black and white polka dot cupcake wrappers and I tinted the buttercream hot pink. To add an additional level of flair I used kitchen scissors to cut mini marshmallows and I dipped the sticky side in pink sugar crystals. I took of picture of them using the Hipstamatic App on my iphone and I love how the colors look so that it the picture I am sharing below.

I was so honored when the bride asked me to design the hair flowers for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Zebra print and pink seemed like a big challenge until I arrived at the fabric store and found a beautiful zebra print satin fabric. The rest was easy. For the bridesmaids, I opted for a pointy 5 petal flower using the zebra fabric as the petals. I accented the center of the flower with a hot pink rhinestone button. For the flower girls I went with my standard black satin hair flower with rounded petals. To incorporate the zebra print for them, I covered fabric buttons with the zebra satin and used them as the center. The bride and bridal party loved them. Since I was a guest at the wedding I also had the chance to see my hair accessories in action which was very cool. One of the bridesmaids was kind of enough to pose so you could see how this bridal party used the flowers. I listed the zebra flower in my etsy shop, you can find it by clicking here.



Today I have another formal hair flower design I want to experiment with. This idea was inspired by my brother's upcoming wedding where I have also been asked to create the hair flowers for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Since my daughter and I are included in that mix, be prepared for many pictures of those in action! This is not the best picture but I am going to add a twist to the red flower on this pattern.

I enjoy everything about making things for Purplelicious but designing custom flowers for weddings is my favorite. I like being able to think outside of the box, work with different fabrics, and experiment with various color combinations. Hopefully more of these custom orders will find their way to me in the future!

Caramel Apple Cupcakes!

I realize that this blog has been a little heavy on baking experiments as opposed to sewing experiments, but don't worry. I have a few new accessory ideas that I would LOVE to tell you about, if I ever stop baking and work on one of those ideas. Ok, in keeping with the cupcake theme I decided to try a cupcake baking experiment. I feel like it is time to branch out from basic chocolate and vanilla, but really I had a tray of apple slices that I forgot to put out for my daughter's birthday party that were going to go bad. I could have easily used them to make a Jewish Apple Cake which are delicious and simple but I wanted a challenge. After all the easy route is never all that fun. I immediately thought cupcakes, through the power of google and the keywords "apple cupcake" I came across something that read, Caramel Apple cupcakes. Whoa, this got my wheels churning and I wanted an apple cupcake with a caramel buttercream. Sounds easy enough! I searched through a couple of different recipes until I found two that I liked. Each component belonged to a different recipe but I like piecing different things together. It keeps things fun.

Here is the Apple Cupcake Recipe. I must admit that I have rarely made a cake from scratch, I almost always use mixes. (I guess my secret is out now). As I was making this batter I was starting to get concerned. I have made enough cake mixes to know what cake batter looks like and that was not what was in my mixing bowl. This batter almost comes out like a cookie batter. When it was done I re-read the recipe several times to make sure I didn't miss a step. My tips if you are working with this recipe: Slowly add your apples, too many will cause the "batter" to come apart which causes them to crumble in the wrapper after they are baked. Also it might not hurt to spray the liners with a little cooking spray. (I learned this trick one time I tried to make brownie bites in cupcake wrappers). Despite the less than perfect baked cake result they tasted amazing!


Now onto the buttercream. Here is the recipe I used for the Caramel Buttercream. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into here until I was about halfway into making the caramel. The recipe says to make the caramel using the microwave, this made me nervous for some reason so instead I made it on the stovetop. I cooked the ingredients over low heat. This took a while, but I was patient and I just kept stirring. I put a lot of love into this caramel. Then I realized I should have been using a candy thermometer. The recipe says its done when it is thick and bubbly which seems easy enough to decipher but it isn't. My concern was that I was going to cook it too long and end up with hard caramel that wouldn't mix into the buttercream. Fortunately I lucked out with this. As it cooled it was still smooth. If you make this I would suggest using a candy thermometer JUST to make sure you don't cook it too much. Also this recipe makes a LOT of caramel, you can probably cut the recipe in half unless you like having a lot of caramel around the house. The buttercream is very easy to make and the caramel mixes right in. I added the 1/4 cup and tasted it, I felt like it needed more caramel, I kept adding a little at a time until I felt like the flavor was there.

Here is what they look like cut in half. They are very rich and have a very buttery apple taste. The buttercream is a good compliment to the cake. At one point it tasted like apple pie a la mode. I brought them into work and they were devoured in less than 10 minutes, that makes me think they were pretty good. If you decide to make them if you have any other tips feel free to share! Enjoy the caramel apple deliciousness!

7th Birthday Cupcake Fun!

I am fairly proud of myself for getting out of having big birthday parties for my daughter. It's not that I am against them, while in daycare she just didn't have a circle of friends close enough to her. Now that she is in 1st grade, I am out of excuses and we already did the trip to American Girl Place in New York. I started to research birthday party ideas in the area but we have already been on a birthday party circuit and everything has already been done before. If you know me, I don't like to do the things that everyone else does. I came across a place that did cupcake decorating parties and a light bulb went off when I looked at the price per kid. Granted I have never taught a group of 1st graders how to do anything but I do know how to decorate a cupcake and do crafts. Isabella's 7th Birthday party was decided.

I immediately went to Etsy for the invitations. I found this adorable shop called TrinityStStudio. Her shop is filled with so many creative invitations. She also does coordinating items like stickers and thank you cards. Which reminds me, I need to order those. This is the design I ordered,Cupcake Trio Birthday Party Invitation I just LOVE the colors and they became the theme colors for the party.

My next stop was to Oriental Trading company, I ordered cupcake necklace kits, princess crown kits, and cupcake boxes. Everything was starting to come together. Then I was reminded that I needed to make birthday treats for school. I happened to be looking at my new Cake Pops by Bakerella book and my daughter saw the Cupcake Bite balls and declared that was what she wanted. Its her birthday so I said why not. They were SUPER easy to make and came out so cute, they tasted good too.

With the birthday party looming I was starting to have some doubts about what I had gotten myself into. In talking to some of the mom's at cheerleading that morning they were in so many words, saying, "Yeah good luck with that". I knew that preparation was key when having 14 1st graders at your house. I also decided that if all hell broke lose I had Just Dance on the Wii! I had spent so much time baking cupcakes, prepping necklace kits, and setting tables that I had given ZERO thought to how I was going to decorate the Giant Cupcake for the birthday cake...the biggest detail! The giant cupcake pan is a good time. The possibilities are endless with how to decorate it. I would have loved to use fondant but I know the kids don't like it all that much. I went with buttercream, sprinkles, twizzlers, and a few starbursts. I decorated it, like a cupcake. Genius right? I basically piped stars in strips on the base and then stuck the twizzlers in between the rows. Then used my giant star tip and swirled the icing around the top. The individual cupcakes had little alphabet toppers that said Isabella. I made them by softening and rolling out a few strawberry starbursts and cut them out with my letter fondant cutters.

Next time I would probably make the letters bigger and use the cherry starbursts, the letters got a little lost in the icing. I also used WAY too much of the blue coloring for the bottom, the colors were supposed to match the theme on the invitation. Like always, I am my own worst critic. The cake was a hit and so was the party. It seemed like the girls had a good time and I was able to complete two crafts and teach them how to decorate cupcakes. I did have to play my Just Dance card, with about 10 minutes left, the soda and sugar kicked in and I had lost their attention!

Here is where I run into problems with Bella's birthday, with every successful birthday idea, next year has to be bigger and better. I guess that is less of a problem and more of a challenge. Fortunately, I am always up for a good challenge! Happy Birthday to my favorite person in this universe, Isabella!

"The Best Day Ever"

The 4th of July definitely ranks pretty high on my list of favorite holidays. For me I feel like it marks the official start of summer. I know technically Memorial Day is but I am also a huge fan of fireworks, so maybe it is the presence of fireworks that seems to make it more of a kickoff to summer!

My holiday weekend didn't start off so great as I clumsily injured my pinky toe while working in my yard. Thankfully, it is starting to feel better. This injury reminded me of a few other 4th of July injuries that required trips to the ER, I am glad this did not warrant that. But in case you were wondering, your pinky toe may be small, but when injured it HURTS!

Today my plan was to stay off of my foot and do lots of craft show prep since I have two back to back shows coming up starting next weekend, as well as a 100 custom embroidered keychain order. Just as I was about to settle in and star the sewing madness, my 6 year old reminded me that I promised her a trip to the movies. After carefully weighing some other times this weekend to go I decided to just let the sewing wait another way and spend some time with my little one! We went to see Toy Story 3. It was so completely adorable and like everyone else I cried at the end. I saw it in 3D and found nothing 3D about it, so if you go save a few bucks and see it on the normal screen. At the end of the movie, Bella gave me a hug and said, thanks mom for taking me to see this today. Ok, well that made it all worth it!

We happened to catch a 7pm movie so we were home around 9pm. We kept hearing the sounds of fireworks, I was feverishly online trying to find out where they were coming from when I made a spontaneous decision to just get in the car and find them. Mind you while I am in my pajamas, we dash out of the house and just start driving. We stumbled upon a location where we could view the fireworks that were actually in the next town over. To my surprise there were other cars in this spot too, I wondered if they were on the same mission as us. Bella was loving it and I of course loved watching the fireworks. It was a clear night so the stars were out, I overheard her wishing on a star and my heart melted. The apple doesn't fall to far with this one!

My Little Fireworks Hunter (bad camera phone pic) Since we were already out and about I decided we might as well finish off the night with some ice cream from our favorite local place. I didn't tell Bella where we were going I just started driving. She was very excited to discover we were getting ice cream. I broke my major rule of being out in public in my pajamas to get us our ice cream but some things are worth breaking rules for! My Ice Cream of Choice: Chocolate and Vanilla Twist Custard with Chocolate Jimmies! In the car on the way home Bella told me that this was "The Best Day Ever" and I would have to agree. I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in my to do list that I forget that sometimes I just have to put the list down and enjoy some simple and spontaneous times with my kid. The reward of doing that always seems to outweigh that of crossing things off the to do list. Take some time to enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend too! Have a safe and happy 4th of July everyone!

A New Kind of Bridal Fabric Flower

One of things that I love about having this business is the chance to do custom orders. Some are definitely more challenging than others, but something positive always comes out of it. Be it a new accessory to add to the shop, a chance to learn a new technique, or an opportunity to think outside of the box even more.

Back in February I received an email about my white satin bride hair flowers. A customer wanted me to make something similar to accent her daughters wedding gown. It seems that they did not order the dress with the flowers on it but ordered some extra fabric in the hopes of finding someone who could make the flowers for them. Wow! They sent me a picture of the gown and I made two sample flowers in the hopes that one of them would work. This is a picture I took with my phone (which explains the poor quality), it shows the flowers on the dress I was trying to duplicate.



The other flower was adapted slightly from my other hair flowers, see the Purplelicious Bride Hair Flower Blog to check out the flowers. The one I created based on some of my original designs is the one they ended up going with.

I have to say it is a complete honor to be asked to make anything for a bride. To know that your creation is going to be a part of her day is an amazing feeling. I was a little bit nervous about actually making these flowers for a gown! For some reason that seemed like a bigger deal than make a hair flower. It was also really fun working with the fabric that was used to make the dress, I could just feel the quality of it. Below is a picture of the finished flowers. The bride's mom found rhinestone centers to use that matched the bride's earrings, so they got sent as is.



But I thought it might be fun to see what this flower would look like with one of my rhinestone buttons, don't be surprised if you see this show up in a certain Etsy shop sometime soon!



I have been having a lot of fun making fabric flowers and have a bunch of ideas for some new designs. But like usual, I've got plenty of ideas but not enough time to make them all happen. With a big craft show coming up I might find the time and will be sure to share whatever I come up with!

"The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" Cupcakes

It is just terrible that I have not posted a blog since January. I would promise to try to get better at it but I don't want to let you down. I do have some cool projects I am working on that I want to share with you so there may be hope for me yet!

A couple of weeks ago, I picked my daughter up from school and she was beaming with excitement. It was finally her turn to be student of the week. She was actually the last one in her class to have a turn but I was told later by the teachers that being the last kid is a good thing. It means they are patient enough to wait for their turn.

The first project was Bella's all about me page. For this I took out all of my scrapbooking supplies. This is where I am grateful for my craft supply hoarding tendencies. You never know when you are going to need fun paper and letter stickers! We also used some crayons and Bella really enjoyed making a rainbow design for all of the borders. My favorite part about this is when asked if she had one wish what she would wish for, she put Sun and Hugs. That's my girl!

For the rest of the week we needed to send in various things that are Bella's favorites. The "main event" of the week was when I got to go into her class and read them a story. This also entails bringing some sort of snack for the class too. All along Bella knew she wanted me to make cupcakes but we were a little undecided about what book I was going to read. Being the last kid, a lot of her books were already read to the class with the exception of the Pigeon books, by Mo Willems. Those books are pretty much our favorites around here. I like the pigeon because he has so much attitude and it is really fun to bring that out when you are reading them. You can read more about them here: http://www.pigeonpresents.com/

So being the overachiever that I am I decided to make cupcakes that matched the books. Being the last student of the week I felt it was a go big or go home situation. After a consultation with my fellow baker brain stormer, my sister, she sent me a picture of a hot dog made out of candy. It was decided. I would read the 4 pigeon books to the kids, finish with "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" and give out the cupcakes!

Here is how I made the "hot dogs". Again I will add that I did not come up with this idea, it was based on a picture I found on flickr. Basically you need circus peanuts, tootsie rolls, icing tinted yellow, and green sour patch kids. It is a pretty easy process. Cut the circus peanut in half, but not all of the way and then work the tootsie roll in. Pipe a little yellow icing to look like mustard, then add cut up green sour patch kids for the "relish". Here is a picture of the "hot dogs" all lined up and ready to be cupcake toppers.

For the cupcakes I made a batch of vanilla and a batch of chocolate. With 26 kids in the class, there is no way around making 48 cupcakes! I just swirled some homemade vanilla butter cream on them and topped each cupcake with a "hot dog". Here is the final product.

I had such a blast reading to the kids. I was a little nervous at first, I am not sure why. But I could tell for Bella it was so amazing to have her mom come in and sit in her teacher's chair and read to her class, even though I embarrassed her when I really got into acting out the pigeon! Here are some photos of us reading to the class. They were scanned so I apologize for the quality. The kids got a kick out of the cupcakes and so did the teachers. Even though right after this I had to rush into work and had 30 minutes to prepare for an impromptu meeting, it was completely worth taking the time out of the day to be there for Bella and also a great excuse to make another creative cupcake!

Happy New Decade!

The fact that we were about to start a new decade did not even dawn on me until I was on my return trip from Orlando after Christmas and I was reading a People Magazine. I know, you are probably thinking, "What does she live under a rock?". Well I actually do. If by rock you mean a full time job, combined with single parenthood, combined with running a small business. It was Christmas, I was busy. December was pretty crazy for Purplelicious, it marked the most successful holiday sales season to date! Awesome!

In addition to making fabulous holiday gifts for everyone I got to work on some new stuff too! For starters I got to work on my first sorority keychain order! I hope these Alpha Sigma Alpha ladies love their sorority wristlet keychains! I personally love the fabric and thread color combination!


I also designed a new fabric flower pin. I made this one using Christmas Fabrics but have a few non holiday ones cut out. I am excited that I have found another thing I can do with my fabric scraps! FUN!

I spent Christmas in Florida with my family. While I was there I embarked on a new creative journey I like to call Lego Building. I don't think I even remember the last time I put a Lego kit together or even built with Legos. But on Christmas morning when my nephew/godson asked me to help him, I could not resist him or the challenge. And challenge it was, I honestly did not move from the kitchen table all day. I now have a love/hate relationship with Legos but managed to put 5 pieces together for him. I am resting up so I am ready to tackle more kits for him when I visit them again! Thankfully my little one has not taken a liking to them, I think I will try and keep it that way!


I guess I am supposed to set some goals for the new year/new decade but I am procrastinating like usual. I do know that I have a lot of new accessory ideas and am trying to think a little more outside of the box. I know that to keep a business growing innovation is key. Wow, look at that, I am already goal setting! Before I get out of hand and end up with an "impossible to achieve" list I will quit while I am ahead and wish everyone a Happy New Year (a couple weeks late!) I look forward to sharing more Purplelicious stories with you through this blog and making many fabulous accessories for you in 2010!

Turkey For Two!

About a month ago when I was talking to my mom I realized that there was a pretty good possibility that I would be alone this Thanksgiving. Most of my family was going to be out of town visiting other family members. I had the opportunity to go to Florida with my parents and join the rest of my family there but since I just started working again, I have limited vacation time and would have had to fly out on Wednesday. NO THANK YOU. Instead I saw these couple of days an opportunity to spend some much needed time with my little one. With me working and her being in school we are lucky if we get an hour a day together before we both fall asleep and start the day over again. I am so very grateful that I got many other offers to spend Thanksgiving with others but chose a relaxing day with my favorite person on this planet!

We started the day with a trip to the movies. We went to see A Christmas Carol in 3D of course. I thought the movie was very well done, the actors did a great job, and the 3D effects were really awesome. But it was kind of dark and Bella was scared for most of it. I could feel her shaking at some points. During the movie I felt bad for taking her but at the end when I asked her if she liked it, she said she really did. She was surprised that I was surprised by her response. I guess if she liked it then that is all that matters!

Then it was time for me to get cooking. Bella requested that I make turkey for Thanksgiving. Now I was not even sure if she would like it but I made it anyway. I bought a little 7lbs turkey breast and made us a little turkey dinner. I roasted the turkey with baby carrots and potatoes. Last time I checked she liked carrots and potatoes but all she ate for dinner was a few pieces of turkey and refused to let me put gravy on it. She is SO picky. I can honestly say that she does not take after me when it comes to food! Overall I think our little turkey dinner for two was quite delicious! I can't wait to make my favorite turkey leftover sandwich tomorrow!

We ended the evening with one of my favorite activities to do with her...bake cupcakes! We made devil's food cupcakes. I taught her how to crack eggs tonight and she did one perfect on her own. My little baker prodigy! I decided to make homemade chocolate buttercream icing because I love it. And I remembered that I bought a new large star icing tip that I had not used yet. I LOVE how the icing looks using the bigger tip, they look more professional. They taste so good, I need to find a way to get them out of my house so Bella and I don't eat them all!

As much as I am thankful that I have a great family I can honestly say that I truly enjoyed having a day that celebrating my little family. Sometimes it is nice to take a break from all of the craziness and enjoy the holidays for what they are about, celebrating with the ones we love. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!