Artsy at Sweetest Petunia!

Jacky from The Sweetest Petunia is featuring my designs on her blog today and hosting a giveaway!

Go here to check it out

I love her blog, its the latest addition to my RSS feed!

A Baby "Shower"

My new friend Kaleesha is having a baby boy any day now. A few of my other friends and I threw her a little baby shower. Get it? Shower? As in rain?

I love this idea, but I cant take any credit for the creativity here. I got my inspiration (and basically copied everything) from here.

The cupcakes were my favorite thing. I took about a million pictures of them.

(maybe I will show my DIY/temporary tiered cake stand some day soon)

I finally had a reason to get my hands on some adorable straws!

The final spread. Tons of good food! Im just going to come right out and admit I have a serious weakness for trifle. I saved a bowl of it after the party, you know to share with Brad, but ended up eating the whole bowl myself during nap time the next day. Have I no shame?!? Guess not.

Kaleesha, good luck birthing your little man into the world! Cant wait to see him!!

Special thanks to my dear friend (and look-alike) Lindi at Love the Day for the awesome party designs! And Daisy, you are mad with the scissors girl! And Tara, Kelsey, and Breanne my co-conspiritors, love you guys!

Im Featured, Plus a Giveaway!

Hey Friends!

Have you been over to The Nurse Mommy yet?

Its a cute blog that specializes in product reviews and lots of giveaways, cant go wrong there right?

Well guess who is being featured today??? Yep, me! Im so excited!!

Head over there and enter to win a lil sumpin' sumpin' special from my shop.

(Even if you blog stalk me and never leave comments :) )

Another fun blogger will be featuring me and hosting a giveaway soon! Im so excited. Make sure to like me on FB for reminders!

In completely unrelated news:

My cousin Daisy is visiting for the summer. She deserves her own post!

Im going night swimming in the ocean tonight!

I just watched Tanlged for the first time this morning (loved it, duh!)

Ive typed this whole post while sword fighting on the side. Im a multi tasker.

Have a great weekend!

Bathing Beauties

We like schedules (pronounced "shed-yule" if you please) around here. We try to do things pretty much the same everyday for our bedtime routine.

Its the usual business:

dinner

bath (although those two can flip flop)

brush teeth

vitamins and water

read

song

prayer

music on the iPod while they drift off to dream land.

Avery is even more ruled by the routine than I am. But sometimes, we live a little crazy and skip a bath (like if they were swimming in the pool in the yard all afternoon. You might think its gross, but I count it!)

We skipped the bath on Saturday night and had it on Sunday morning before church instead. Im so glad we did!!

I love a good baby bath picture. Usually they turn out all yellow and dark for me. But since we were bathing in the morning, the lighting was awesome!

And the only mustache that EVER looks good, is a bubble one!

Im a firm believer that everyone looks better when wet, kids are no exception! These two were squeaky clean!

Moral of the story: I should loosen up a bit on my shed-yule. The pictures might be great! And my boys hair will smell more like the mango smoothie shampoo during church. Bonus!!

Place Mat Mini Tutorial

Hi there.

I want new place mats.

Ive seen a few cute ones in stores lately, but the crafty side of me ALWAYS says, I could make that!

So I did.

Disclaimer: These are in no means perfect. I was kind of rushing, and I was really hot. Im always a little irritable when Im hot. Sorry. But they are just for casual dining around here, so perfection really doesnt matter! Ok. I feel better now that thats off my chest.

I found some super cute fabric at Walmart and I got a half yard in all five colors. I had to stalk around a lady who was trying to buy the same fabric. I have no shame, especially at Walmart.

First, cut your fabric 1/2 inch larger than you want the final product to turn out. I used some other place mats I have as a guide. Mine measured 19 1/2 inches by 14 1/2 inches.

Cut your batting (it can be as think or this as you want) 1/2 inch smaller than the fabric, so 19 inches by 14 inches.

Sew your fabric front sides together, leave a little hole to flip it inside out. I forgot to do this on at least one. Hello Seam Ripper, old friend!

Stuff the batting in and top stitch all the way around the edge making sure to close your flipping hole at the same time.

Quilt the mat. I chose to do a diagonal stitch about 3 inches apart. I just eye balled it. Not going for perfection here remember? But you could get as lazy or fancy as you want here.

Iron it flat and there you go!

Set your favorite Hula plates on and fix yourself a Spam musubi. Too much?

Ive got 4 more of these babies to whip up and a few coasters for my work peeps. But right now, Ive got some pizza to make! (and some Samoa ice cream to eat)

Have a great weekend!

Aloha!!

Rosemary Garlic Rolls

I have some crazy big herbs growing in my yard. Its one of my favorite things about living in Hawaii. My rosemary plant is so pretty. It smells so good when the sun warms it up. But I hardly ever use it. Can you see the basil forest in the background? HUGE! Wonderful.

Today I was determined to use some! What I did was super simple and really really tasty.

I just whipped up my go-to breadstick/pizza dough recipe. I love this one because its EASY and fast. It doesnt require hours of rising.

After the dough was ready I scooped it into balls then brushed it with melted butter garlic salt and chopped up rosemary.

Pretty!

So good! Brad better get home from work soon. I bet I could polish off this whole pan.

My basic dough:

1 1/2 C warm water

1T yeast

2T sugar

1t salt

3-4 C flour

Topping:

3-4T melted butter

garlic salt sprinkled on top

chopped rosemary

Add yeast, sugar, and salt to the warm water. Let it sit for a few minutes.

Add flour a cup at a time. If dough is too sticky add more. Kneed it a few times.

Let the dough sit for about 10-15 min. Put it into you pan (see below for options). You can bake it now, or let it sit again. Either way is good. Just depends on your schedule!

Then bake at 425 till lightly brown usually about 10-15 min.

Make sure you spray the pan with non stick cooking spray! I learned that one the hard way.

You can either make this into pizza dough (one x-large or 2 meds or in my case, one large and two kid size) or smoosh into a cookie sheet, add butter and garlic salt, cut into strips before baking, or make small rolls like I did this time. You could also spread with melted butter and cinnamon and sugar.

And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone for participating in the giveaway!

Congratulations to the winner, Michelle D!

Dont feel bad if you didnt win, your are all "winners" in my book ;)

I hope you all have a great week! Im excited for this week for some reason.

Maybe its because its Monday morning and my house is pretty much clean!

Maybe its because Im back to my 2 work days this week (rough right?)

Maybe its because my injuries I got when I feel down the stairs a few weeks ago are finally healed up (mostly) and I can go running again!

Maybe its because Im super excited for my awesome cousin to come visit next Sunday. She'll be here ALL SUMMER! Yay!

-Artsy

Filling the shop!

Aloha!

TGIF! Its been a crazy week around here!

And to kick off the weekend, Im stocking the shop!

Im also going to do a little GIVEAWAY!

To participate in this giveaway all you have to do is:

1. "Like" me on Facebook

2. If you already "Like" me on FB (thank you!!), post a FB status update about the giveaway and link to the shop or this blog post.

If you aren't a Facebooker, don't worry I've got plans for another giveaway soon! So stick around...

Go HERE to like me on FB. If you post about my site leave me a comment on my FB page and let me know!

The winner will get to choose one item from my shop!

The winner will be announced Monday morning Hawaii time.

Hot Buns

This is the perfect recipe for all your upcoming grilling! I came across it first on Pinterest, my new love. (follow me here!)

Homemade Hamburger Buns!!

I have been wanting to try this for a while. Especially with a package of buns (and not even the good ones) going for about $4.50 at my local grocery store.

So Avery and I whipped these babies up!

Go HERE for the recipe.

I had to make a few changes. Sadly I didnt use any whole wheat flour. I brushed the tops with a beaten egg and sprinkled sesame seeds on top. I think they will be perfect with the terriyaki turkey burgers Im making for dinner. Im hungry...

Pineapple Whips

Ok friends! What Im about to share with you, will very likely MAKE your summer. Its made mine and summer hasnt even started! But to be fair, its always summer here :) It is a wonderful invention called "Pineapple Whips" or if you are at the Dole Plantation, "Dole Whips"

But first, a little pineapple lesson. Did you know pineapples grow on a plant that pretty much looks like the top of a pineapple? One plant will only produce 1-2 pineapples and they take 14 months to grow. Thats longer than a baby! Here is Baker looking at a little pineapple, around here they dont grow in barrels but in really big fields. I would hate to be the one to have to pick them by hand!

And now for the whips!

I want to give a shout out to my super awesome friend Kelsey for giving me this recipe!

You will need:

1 fresh pineapple cut up. The canned variety wont do.

1 cup of sugar

3 T lemon juice

First cut up your pineapple into chunks

have your other ingredients handy

Put them all into the blender. I had to do two batches, just split it all as evenly as you can without getting two precise, just eyeball it. And blend it up!

Pour the mixture into empty ice cube trays and re freeze.

After the cubes are nice and frozen, put them into the blender or food processor. I had a hard time getting mine to really blend will in the blender so I switched over to the food processor. I think the blender would work if your cubes arent frozen really hard, just mostly frozen.

Here is the action happening! (Just keeping it real with my messy-ness)

And voila! Pour into bowls or glasses and enjoy right away! I prefer mine with a long tea spoon from my childhood :)

Just when you thought there wasnt anymore pineapple fun to be had...

Kristen playing the ukulele! Aloha Kristen!

The two cutest pineapples in the bunch!

Aloha! Jus doing a little pineapple hula. You're welcome.