Dirt Cake Galore

Have you ever made Dirt Cake for dessert? If not here is my mother's recipe. I helped her make this for Mother's Day dessert. (Well kind of- I did what I mostly do... got in the way and ate the ingredients!) Yummy!!!!

Dirt Cake Recipe

(45-50) oreo's crushed (we used our feet to crush....just kidding)

mix 8 oz. of cream cheese

1/2 a  stick of margarine or butter

1 cup of confectionary sugar

some gummy worms (option)

**once everything is mixed SET ASIDE

mix the following until it thickens:

12 oz. of cool whip

2 boxes of vanilla pudding (reg. size boxes)

3 1/2 cups of milk

**after mixing SET ASIDE

Take a clean pail or in our case we used a mixing bowl that kind of looked like a pail.

-start with a layer of the cookies and cream cheese mix as the bottom layer.

-next a layer of cool whip mix

-continue this layer pattern until you reach the top of the bowl and make sure to end with a layer of the cookies and cream on top.

**final piece to the recipe is to take some fake flowers and wrap them in plastic sandwich bag or saran wrap and stick in the middle of the Dirt Cake.

And Yet Another Yarn Wreath

So, this yarn wreath was made for about $1.50 total. I found the wreath for .50 at a yard sale, the yarn at a yard sale for .75 and the flowers at Craft Bits and Pieces for .25.  I decided that this one would be for my grandmother who lives in an assisted living home. She recently celebrated her birthday May 4th.  The red yarn wreath I ended up giving to my other grandmother who just celebrated her birthday May 11th and the purple wreath went to my mother for Mother's Day. Below is a pic of the newest yarn wreath.

Mother's Day Gift

I spent last week creating some funky felted wool balls for the other part of my Mother's Day gift.  I made a total of 9 for my mom and she seemed to enjoy them. Below is the pic of how these turned out.

Funky Felted Wool Decorative Ball Project

I received this awesome ceramic bowl from my parents for Christmas; however it's sat empty since due to not having any idea what I wanted to do with it/put in it.  During Saturday Art at my friend Leslie's house I've had my eye on these neat felted balls she had made and sitting in bowls around her house. I bought a kit years ago and felted 3 little pumpkins for Halloween but that was the extent of my felting experience.  Leslie had taken a class on felting and was generous enough to show me how to create these felted wool balls. I tried to video tape it from my camera so that I could post a little tutorial; however my camera battery died after 30 sec.! Darn!

There are tutorials online though that you can find and a lot of different directions on how to felt wool.  I used stuffing as the center to use less felt as felt is expensive. I also found an entire bag of wool at Craft Bits and Pieces (a second hand arts and crafts store) for $3.00!!! Amazing deal!!  I've created 9 medium to large felted balls and 5 small ones (I'm still in the process of making a necklace with the small ones) and I still have a bunch of felt left.

Anyway loved creating these felted wool balls. It's relaxing and creative. You can create whatever you want as far as colors and designs.  I used hot water and soap when finished to tighten the wool up instead of keeping a fluffy look and to dry them I put them in the oven at 150 degrees and left them until I remembered to check them (about 45min.). I just put them in the oven to dry them faster because I'm impatient. You could put them on a towel and set them in a sunny spot and let them air dry. That would be the eco-friendly way.

My next step is going to be to had ribbons, yarn, beads, etc... into some of them. I'll post them when completed.

The Art of Imperfection

I recently read the book "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown. The concept is how to learn to let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are. It's an easy read and I would recommend it to others to read.  I created a reaction piece after reading the book.

Big Sister Little Sister Arts and Crafts

My good friend Teresa is a Big Sister for the Big Brother Big Sister program in our area (www.bbbsr.org/). Her little sister, Destiny is in 9th grade, on her way to being a track star and is very talented when it comes to arts and crafts. I was honored for them to invite me to partake in an afternoon of fun, art and food!  This past Sunday I provided both Teresa and Destiny with a tutorial on making the yarn wreaths so that Destiny could make one for a gift for Mother's Day.  We used smaller wreaths and colorful yarn. During our breaks from creating Destiny and Teresa set out to teach me a little bit about baking (not my area of expertise). They made us a delicious Apple Cobbler. Yummy! I should have taken a picture of that to post! Below are our wreaths. Give a shout out to Destiny for her awesome wreath making skills!


                                                                 Destiny's Wreath

My 3rd Wreath.

My Father: The Secret Poet

I've learned over the past year that my father is a secret poet. He often writes my mother poems and sends them via email or leaves them around the house for her.  This is quite different from when my sister and I grew up where we often only saw the stoic traditional father figure who was rarely outwardly sentimental. On Valentine's Day my father sent this poem to my sister and I. My sister didn't know he had written it until I told her. She thought he got it off the internet. The secret is now out, dad! Here it is:

Love For My Daughters:

My beautiful daughters, I was blessed with two of you...
You will never know how proud I am of all the things you do.

You came into my world, so tiny and so small...
And I was in awe at the wonder of it all.

Then you placed your little hand in mine...
There was no denying, my heart was yours 'til the end of time.

I have watched you both throughout the years, laugh, cry and grow...
And it is difficult to know, that someday I will have to let you go.

I just can't imagine, a day of my life without you...
Because you're a part of me and my love for you is true.

So just remember, no matter how old you are or where you may be...
There's someone who needs you and loves you and that someone is me!