Easy Peasy Skirt

I wanted to share something I managed to make this last week in spite of all the craziness.  I made that skirt down below.  I love it!  It turned out a lot more full than I originally wanted it but I ended up adoring it!  It might add a little bulk to me but I don't even care.  I have worn it twice this week styled two different ways and I really liked both.  When I saw my mom today she told me I looked like I stepped out of The Grapes of Wrath.  I was thrilled.  Sweet lady!  Enjoy the fantastic pictures- HA!  Yeah and ignore the fact that with the flash of the camera my shirt went see through.  At least I hope it was just with the flash that it had been see through- knowing my luck, however, it was see through all day long!  Great for visits to the hospital!  Give the patients a thrill!  I need to invest in a full length mirror and then find a place to stick said mirror.  Maybe these types of debacles could be avoided in the future.  Oh jeez!   

Me getting sassy with my bad self! 

 I had to include a picture with the babies.  Nicco let me put his hair in a ponytail today.   Not only let me put it in one but asked for it!  I was so excited!  He wanted to look like his daddy.  Which also thrilled his proud dad.

 Back to the skirt.  About six months ago I was given a bunch of beautiful upholstery fabric.  Like a ton- so much so that I wouldn't have been able to use it all so I decided that it didn't have to necessarily be used for the house!  I began dreaming of the things I could make from my stash.  So I started with this skirt.  It was just two rectangles sewn together and then a casing for elastic to go through at the top.  I measured it out to be about 3 times my waist size (on accident!  I love happy accidents!).  Oh and I put in some hidden pockets!  I love a good pocket!  So easy and so awesome.

polish the stars

tea rose home

free pretty things for you

not just a housewife

Sunday Songs

The place I work plays surprising cool music most the time.  When I heard them playing this song I was crazy excited!  I love it!

Is it ebelskivers or abelskivers?

I have been a bad naughty blogger!  I am sorry for my absenteeism but life has gotten in the way the last little while.  Which is a totally lame excuse right?  Yeah for sure!  It seems like sometimes life kicks you right in the pants and doesn't let up!  But I am back with a cool little recipe! 

Have you ever heard of abelskivers?  They rock!  It is a little round ball pancake thing that tastes kind of like crepes and has been dubbed little ballls of heaven at our house.  That sounds vaguely crude.... oh uh sorry.... I will try and pull my mind out of the gutter!  You need a special pan to make them.  It looks like this:

source 

and you end up with this:

We dipped ours in butter and then powdered sugar.  Super simple and freaking delightful!  

This is the recipe I used from the Idea Room.  The source that I used for the picture of the pan has a great recipe too!

I pretty much followed it to the letter!  However I had to make my own buttermilk since we were out.  All that takes is 1tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice to one cup of milk.  Let it rest 5 to 10 minutes and you are ready to go!

Man oh man!

This is ridonkulous!  I saw this over on the thoughts of nicholas and had to share here!  This is my all time favorite Michael Jackson song!  This version is so insane.  These two are crazy talented!

Sunday Song

Still loving them.  More than ever!  My husband may have figured out why I adore them so much.  Their most recent album Contra sounds so so much like Paul Simon- who is my all time favorite artist ever!  So  I have a tender spot for them because I have a tender spot for the wonderful Paul Simon- and for my dad who introduced me to Paul Simon and Simon and Garfunkel in the first place at a young age.  I have a huge soft spot for my dad for sure!

Happy Birthday Nicco!!

It is my sweetest boy Nicco's 4th birthday today!  Happy Birthday to him!  I am so happy that boy is part of my family.  He is gentle.  And kind.  He is so concerned about his little sister and it melts my heart.  They love each other so much that they hug after they get out of primary and nursery on Sunday because they missed each other so much!  He loves taking pictures and he is getting pretty good!  He is smart and funny!  He loves to wrestle and play games.  He likes drawing and doing crafts- which I love!  He is polite.  He loves to learn new things.  He always wants to jump in and help me cook.   Which stresses me out sometimes!  He has and is still having to overcome some obstacles and he does it with a smile on his face.  In so many ways he is so much more mature than his age.  I am getting choked up thinking about him growing up.  I remember the moment they put him in my arms.  It wasn't anything like I thought it would be.  He made my heart grow 3 sizes that day.  He got me to get my head out of my arse and start getting on track.  My little star shine!  Enough blubbering for one day!  We have a birthday to celebrate!

Fun Website!

this picture is from the instructables website

I am totally on love with the website Instructables.  I think this screen printing is going to be one of my first projects off their site!  Until I gather all my materials there is this and this and this to keep me busy. 

And this and this to keep the kids busy!  So many fun things to do and only a life time to do them!  

Sunday Song

I am having a small but intense love affair with this band!

Photo Friday

 You can now follow my blog on bloglovin!  Just look for foxandsparrows!

I was featured!

Go check out the little post I did on The Thoughts of Nicholas.  He is doing a weekly feature called Tattoo Tuesday and he chose me to be his first.  It probably has something to do with the fact that I am the wife in the equation!  HAHA!  

Typewriter art!

I just found an amazing artist named Keira Rathbone.  She makes incredible works of art with vintage typewriters.  What a unique medium!  They truly are amazing.  Check out this youtube video of her.  Pop over to this article for another video and more pictures.  Not only are her pieces beautiful but that girl has got some serious style.  What a neat retro look!

Can you imagine the meticulous work it takes to create one of these pieces? 

Two books....

For my birthday this year I posted a list of 27 things I want to accomplish before I turn 28.  

My 27 before 28.  One of them is to read 12 books.  That may seem super easy to most people but I get obsessed with finishing the book.  Everything comes 2nd to getting that next chapter read.  Feeding my children and bathing and forget about getting any dishes done!  I am sort of kidding but mostly not!  I have learned to avoid reading because of that very problem.  What can I say?  I love to read!  I love to sit down with a book and often times I fall in love with the characters and the scenery.  That happened with the 2 books I just read over the last two weeks.  I read the first two books in the Kane series by Rick Riordan. (a third is due out nexy spring!)  These books deal with Ancient Egypt.  Oh my my!  I love Ancient Egypt.  So much so that I think I was an Ancient Egyptian in a past life!  For reals!  I was freaking Nefertiti people!  Actually I probably wasn't.  A girl can wish though.  Anyways........  I highly recommend you read both the The Red Pyramid and 

The Throne of Fire.  Keeping in mind that they are Young Adult books.  They are meant for teenagers and you can tell when you read them but they are for sure worth the read!

So now all I need to do is read 10 more books and I can cross that off my list!

Sunday Song..

Photo Friday

banana boat......

I had to share this recipe really quick today.  This is banana boat.  I am not totally positive why it is called that but oh my gawsh it is wonderful!  My momma used to make this for us when we were kids.  It is a layered dessert of epic deliciousness!  I made it over the weekend and I might be making it again this weekend!  That is how much I love it.  Just so you know this is way better the first day.  It still tastes good the next day but the bananas start to brown and what not.  One last thing- this makes a big banana boat for my big family so depending on the appetite and size of your family or gathering you might want to half the recipe!  On to the recipe.  

Banana Boat

Vanilla pudding-

2 boxes prepared or one batch of the recipe that follows

1 box nilla wafer cookies

4-6 bananas- 

depends on size and how banana-ie you want it.

You will cut them up into "coins" as you layer

1 or 2 lb container cool whip- 

again that depends on how much cool whip you like

Now start a layerin it up!  I like to start with a layer of nilla wafers.  Then a layer of banana slices.  Then a layer of about two to three cups pudding.  Continue layering until you run out of pudding.  For the last layer spread your thawed cool whip over the top.  I like to let it sit in the fridge for a few minutes.  That way everything melds.  Wait for as long as you can.  Which for me is literally a few minutes.

For the vanilla pudding I doubled this recipe from Martha Stewart.  I did change it a little so this is my version of her wonderful pudding.  This is the doubled measurements.

1 1/3 c granulated sugar

1/2 cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

5 cups 2% milk

8 large egg yolks

6 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

Set a mesh sieve over a large bowl and set aside. In a large heavy skillet off of the heat whisk together sugar, cornstarch and salt.  Slowly pour in milk. Whisk until cornstarch is dissolved.  Add all eight egg yolks and whisk until completely combined.  Turn on heat to medium and whisk constantly until bubbles start to form and pop.  Reduce heat to low and constantly whisk for one minute.  Immediately pour through mesh sieve into your large bowl.  Stir in vanilla and softened butter.  Put saran wrap right onto surface of pudding and cool for about an hour in the fridge.

naptime crafters

delicate construction

4th of July

We had a fun and super relaxed 4th!  Luckily Nick and I both had the day off. Which is crazy like whoa!  In the morning we went to our neighborhoods pancake breakfast and bike parade.  It is lead by a firetruck every year.  The kids love it!  We decorated up the kids wagon and pulled them along while they waved and yelled hi to people.  After that we went home and worked a little in the garden and the kids took naps.  Our sweet friends had us over for a barbecue and then it was down to the park for the big firework show.  It was so so great!  Nicco screamed the whole time and Lola sat saying Wow!  We headed back to our friends house and they put on an awesome firework display.  This year is the first year that aerials were legal in Utah!  That is a huge huge deal!  There were aerials everywhere.  It was way fun.  PLus it was Lola and Nicco's first time doing sparklers.  They loved it!  It was great!

Our patriotic wagon

 Nicco and his bestest friend Aiden.

Lola and her sparkler 

Easy Peasy dress!

See Lola's dress?  The one that has straps that need to be fixed? I made that!  It is two bandanas sewn together.  I added a casing at the top for some elastic to tighten it up and added levi straps.  The straps are a little skeewompaus but I am so proud of it!  I love it as a matter of fact.  She loves "pitty" dresses.  So much so that she will keep them on.  At least for a little while.  It was the perfect dress for the 4th of July!  I see a few more bandana dresses in here near future.  It was easy peasy!  If anyone wants a full on tutorial I would be happy to put one together as I will be making millions more of these!  Especially considering I bought the bandanas for a buck a piece and it took me 30 minutes to make.  YAY for inexpensive crazy fast baby dresses!  Sorry for the quality of pictures!  Trying to get that girl to sit still for 2 seconds is a fight to the finish!   

Another picture of the girl baby for good measure!

tea rose home

sister stuff



free pretty things for you




fireflies and jellybeans

creation corner

naptime crafters

delicate construction

Sunshine and Carousels giveaway!

Everyone head over to Sunshine and Carousels!  That lovely lady, Erin, is giving away a
Diana Mini 35mm camera!  Holy cow!  I would be so happy to win that camera.  Like over the moon excited.  And to boot you can put 3 entries in.  Count em people!  Three entries!  Not too mention that her blog is a wonderful delight to read.  It is one of my daily's.  So much talent!        

Sunday Song

Inspiration

These are two things that are inspiring me today.  I love them both!  The 33 ways to stay creative is so so right on!  I like every single one of the ideas.  I am printing it and posting it everywhere.  I need the reminder all the time!  I want to be creative everyday.  If you know me at all then you know I really like skulls.  I am not sure why but I think they are amazingly interesting.  And that one with the colors!  I am searching for the original artist because I would love a print of it to post in my home.  It reminds me of a sunset!  A sunset skull... sounds dreamy and creepy!

creative list, sunset skull

Photo Friday