Happy Friday

Friday13 Happy Friday

Happy Friday, friends! I hope you had a great week. We are enjoying a few beautiful warm days here, and hoping it stays like this for Sunday. Here are a few fun things I have seen around the web lately, thought you might enjoy.

  • I was just talking to a friend about how Easter baskets are feeling more like Christmas stockings, and I was feeling like I should be looking for little gifts to fill ours up. A big AMEN to the mama who wants to bring the holidays down a notch.
  • I talk a lot about using all natural food coloring. This is why I am so afraid of artificial food colors and dyes.
  • There is nothing I love more than articles about downsizing and simplifying and how it improves their life, it feeds my minimalist soul.  My space is small. My life is big.
  • And speaking of material possessions, I am kind of obsessed with these images of kids around the world showing their most prized possessions.
  • Sitting on my night stand ready to be started this weekend is Bloom Happy Friday.  If it is even half as good as Nella’s birth story post I will be happy. (oh, and if you have somehow never read this post, be prepared to cry, a lot.)

 

Emily @ Peck Life - I’m new to your blog! :) Such fun Friday links! Kelle’s blog is one of my FAVORITES and I love bloom – it’s a tear jerker for sure! Happy Easter to you!

kaleyann - Thanks for stopping by, Emily! Happy Easter to you as well.

Easter Inspiration

Even though we have been dying eggs for weeks already, I feel like Easter snuck right up on me. There is less than a week left and there are still so many fun projects I want to do. Here are some of my favorite Easter-themed DIYs that I have seen lately. I am hoping I find a bit of time to do some of them before Sunday! Links to the original sources are below.

EasterDIYs Easter Inspiration

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Naturally Dyed Eggs Go Ombre

NaturallyDyedEggs02 Naturally Dyed Eggs Go Ombre

Remember these colorful beauties from last year?

NaturallyDyedEggs01 Naturally Dyed Eggs Go Ombre

We had a ton of fun trying different “recipes” and seeing the amazing colors that emerged. But when all was said and done, I was really partial to the cabbage dyed aqua eggs. I loved how they really picked up the uniqueness of each egg, and the color varied depending on how long they were left in the dye.

So this year I wanted to do a bunch of eggs, all in the cabbage dye.  We boiled our cabbage, dropped the eggs in, put it in the fridge, and waited. And waited. And waited. After about an hour, my 3 year old decided that our eggs were done. At that point, they had just begun to turn a nice robin’s egg blue, but weren’t even close to the deep aqua I love. So we compromised. I told her we could take 1 egg out every hour(ish). It was a fun experiment to see each egg come out darker than the last. And as we pulled out one egg after another, I realized that this was even better than leaving them all in the dye for the same amount of time, because we were left with a lovely assortment of varying shades of aqua.

NaturallyDyedEggs04 Naturally Dyed Eggs Go Ombre

To make this color I boiled half of a purple cabbage, chopped, in a few cups of water for about an hour, or until all of the color had left the cabbage. After the liquid had cooled, I drained the cabbage, reserving the liquid in a large bowl. I added about 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, and a dozen eggs. I put the whole bowl in the refrigerator and let it sit there for the next day, puling out an egg every hour or so. (Be sure to check out the rest of the color recipes here.)

NaturallyDyedEggs03 Naturally Dyed Eggs Go Ombre

This was a fun project, but the waiting was really hard for my 3 year old. She was excited to look at all of the eggs at the end, and play with lining them up and sorting them according to color. But the amount of time it takes to dye eggs naturally to deep colors is sometimes too much for little kids. If you are looking for a way to make egg dying more interactive and fun for the little ones be sure to check out my post over on Modern Parents Messy Kids about painting eggs with watercolors.  It was a huge hit in our house! Now I am trying to figure out a way to do that with my natural dye…

NaturallyDyedEggs05 Naturally Dyed Eggs Go OmbreThis makes such beautiful eggs, I might just have to make it a regular thing at our house.  Why reserve these lovely eggs for just Easter time?

Kate - Um, these are AMAZING. They might be my favorite Easter eggs that I’ve seen so far this year (which is saying a lot, because there are some sweet ones on Pinterest!) They’re just simple and of course, BLUE. Great job!

kaleyann - Thanks Kate! You are so right, there are so many amazingly fun and creative eggs out there on Pinterest this year!

Tinker Bell Juice

TinkerbellJuice01 Tinker Bell Juice

Don’t you love eating at restaurants where your food looks like a piece of art, beautifully prepared on the plate? Or buying something that comes in the most divine packaging, so unique that you can’t bear to throw it away? And I don’t even drink coffee, but it seems to me that part of the allure of Starbucks is the fun names that all of their drinks have. It’s all in the presentation!

So why do we slap boring healthy food on a plate and expect our kids to eat it and like it? We need to present it well. Put it on a fun plate or in a cute glass, with fun accessories, and for sure give it a good name. Which is how the Tinker Bell Juice came to be.

We are in a huuuuge princess phase over here. I don’t like it, I don’t promote it, but I do exploit the heck out of it when I need to.

You don’t want to wash your hands? Oh, because princesses always wash their hands.

You don’t like this green juice I made? Well, did you know that its actually called Tinker Bell Juice, and she made it green just like her?

Yes, it works every single time.

So back to the Tinker Bell Juice. It is so easy and actually pretty delicious. You add equal parts pineapple and kale to the juicer. Taste it, and adjust quantities of each, if necessary. Put it in a nice glass with a fun colorful straw and tell them that Tinker Bell made it. They will gulp it down and ask for more. If you have a little one who isn’t into princesses (lucky!!) you could also call it leprechaun juice, turtle juice, frog juice, or anything else that will get your kids to drink it. Sell it!

TinkerbellJuice02 Tinker Bell Juice

For a long time I resisted the green juice craze. But one day I tried this pineapple/kale combo and realized it was actually good. So we have been drinking it, and liking it. Yay for green juice. I have been told that this is really “green juice lite”, so I guess I will try a few other green juice combos. Stay tuned for the results…

The Easiest Cloth Napkins

ClothNapkins1 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

Up until a few years ago, I was adamantly against using cloth napkins. To me, cloth napkins were formal, uptight, and they didn’t feel good. They were just too stiff and perfect to actually clean your hands. A far cry from my beloved paper towels that we used at every meal. (Classy, I know) Plus, I didn’t need another thing to wash.

While trying to “green up” every other area of my life, this had me feeling pretty guilty.  But I just couldn’t make the switch to cloth.

Then I found a napkin (well, actually a towel) that changed my mind. Easy to use, easy to wash, absorbant and feels so good!

Disclaimer: These are so simple to make, you don’t even need this tutorial. And if you already know how to sew, you really don’t need this tutorial. I can sew in straight lines, but thats about it. I don’t know technical terms, and I pretty much make everything up as I go. So basically, read at your own risk.  :)

ClothNapkins2 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

You will need:

  • a pack of Elly Dishtowels from Ikea
  • scissors
  • an iron
  • a sewing machine or needle & thread

ClothNapkins3 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

1.  Unroll the dishtowels. Using the crease already in the middle of each towel, cut each in half.

2.  Cut off the tag.

ClothNapkins4 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

3.  On the edge that you just cut, fold it over twice and iron it down.

4.  Sew a straight line along the ironed hem.

ClothNapkins5 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

That’s it! In about an hour (probably more like 30 minutes if you are actually good at ironing and sewing) you will have 8 nice little cloth napkins. But feeling them at this point might make you think that I am a little crazy. Because they don’t feel so soft and crumply and perfect yet.

ClothNapkins8 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

Run them through the washer two or three times, and then you will see their true beauty emerge. They will look perfectly ready to use. Even if you are the OCD type, please resist the urge to iron these napkins. They are supposed to look like this!

ClothNapkins6 The Easiest Cloth NapkinsThese napkins are so easy to make, they make the perfect gift. Wrap them up in a cute little Anthro Farmers Market Basket or other decorative bowl or pot, and they are ready to be gifted!

ClothNapkins7 The Easiest Cloth Napkins

If you are like me (or how I used to be), resistant to cloth napkins because they seem to formal, or precious, try these.  They are every bit as casual and easy as a paper napkin, but so much more absorbant and eco friendly!

I would love to hear about your napkin habits! Do you prefer cloth or paper? Or do you do without napkins altogether and wipe your hands on your shirt if you need to?

kati - cute! i still haven’t switched over from my 1/2 size paper towels… i know, i know :p

kaleyann - The half size paper towels! That is exactly what we used! :)

Morgan - We are cloth napkin users big time BUT with that said I have a huge stack of ones that are made from cotton (so they aren’t fancy) but they don’t absorb well at all. I like the idea of using kitchen towels instead. I have learned to stop using cotton (quilting type fabric) for anything that needs to be absorbent (bibs included!) because they just can’t meet those demands. Glad you are enjoying your napkins!

Morgan

kaleyann - It is so funny that you say that, Morgan, because the main reason I used to resist cloth napkins is because they were the cotton that doesn’t absorb anything! What a difference a nice towel fabric makes.

Mary - I love these. I have been wanting to switch but we are pretty bad about using paper napkins. They are just so easy. :(

Nikki - We have been using the flour sack tea towels. I love that they are white… For now
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003BS4856