Customer Appreciation Pic: Olivia the Pig First Birthday Party

 We got back into town late last night and I'm still feeling all groggy. So while I get myself back into the swing of things I hope you enjoy these fun customer appreciation pics.

This was from this little lady's party last year (I know I'm so behind) and her mama ordered another outfit for her party a few weeks ago. But I realized I hadn't ever shared these ones and they are so cool!

I just made her polka dot ruffler (the outfit in the first 3 pictures) but I think her party looked so stinking fun that I wanted to share all the shots she sent.

 Seriously I think I need to do a costume change at my next party. Doesn't everything look amazing!

 And isn't she the cutest? Love love love the ruffles and the fabulous boots.

And of course what party isn't complete without a pony. Pure awesomeness, I can't wait to see how her party went this year!


Also if you haven't already entered, I've got a giveaway open for personalized letterhead. I think this would be fabulous for a gift maybe for a teacher or mother in law. Any ways there aren't many entries yet so your odds of winning are super high. Enter here just by leaving a comment, easy peasy.

Giveaway: Personalized Letterhead

Hey all I am living it up in the Pacific North West on the Rotten Musicians  tour and PAX trip (check some of the tunes out on my music page). It's been super fun and a nice little break. Lucky for you guys I have a cool giveaway for letterhead from Uprinting while I'm living it up cramped into the back of an explorer with four boys, band gear and sleeping bags.

AnywaysI've never really been big about thank you cards and letters and stuff but lately I've received a few that make me really want to try and get better about that kind of thing. Really it's a pretty cool habit and it's so fun getting snail mail. Also I think it would be really fun for those of you with etsy shops to right fun notes to your customers. Actually I can think of a bunch of fun ways I'd used this. I really wish I could win, but I can't so I hope you guys spread the word and enter.

Prize Details
500 pcs. Letterheads for One (1) winner
5.5” x 8.5"
70lb Offset
Front Only Printing
4 Business Days Print Turnaround Time
*Free Shipping
Restriction: Limited to *US residents 18 years old and above only

To Enter just comment on this post telling me what you'd use the letter head for. Extra entries for pasting a link to the giveaway on Facebook, your blog, twitter, etc. Please leave a separate comment for each entry

Giveaway Closes on September 7th at 11:59pm PST.

Thanks so much for Uprinting  for offering this giveaway. Make sure to check out their other printing services, they also have envelope printing which would be super cool to go with some personalized stationary as well as other printing services.

Customer Appreciation Pic: Zazu Baby

I've been getting all these amazing customer pics lately. Gorgeous babies and amazing photography. And this one is no exception. My musicmaker hubby isn't a baby person at all but when he saw this picture she commented how pretty this little lady is. He's so right, she is just stunning in my little zazu ruffler. Any ways keep them coming I absolutely love them. See more by the talented photographer Heather Swanner behind this shot here.

Girly Circus Birthday Party

Once upon a time a little girl turned 2. She had a super fun party but then Halloween orders struck and I forgot all about the pictures until she was close to turning 3 yikes! So before L has another birthday party next weekend here's a little of what we did last year, it was super cute and yummy.

I made a fun birthday banner using a cool circus font that I found at 1001freefonts. My sister made all these really cool tissue paper pom poms and she hung them from her porch covering. It looked awesome.

Who doesn't love food on a stick. The strawberries were so cute and my mom and sister just did a little round of tissue paper and a bow for the double stuffed oreos. With just a little cute tissue paper over chucks of styrofoam a quick and easy little stand was made. And I was so impressed with the kiddos, the strawberries were polished off super fast. They also made chocolate covered marshmallows on lollipop sticks too but they were melting so they stayed in the kitchen.

It was a good old fashion hot dog BBQ.  Hot dots, homemade buns, popcorn, potato chips and grilled zucchinni.

They made these stinking adorable "ice cream cone" cupakes. They were so cute. Cones with cake in it and frosting on top so they looked just like ice cream cones but they were really the biggest cup cakes you've ever seen (or ever given a bunch of preschoolers). Man she's grown up so much in just one year!

My mom pulled out the cotton candy maker that she's had since we were little and it was a huge hit. We just rolled up some colored paper for the handles and the kids drooled over the spun sugar.

I made a few games. Soda cans covered with paper and numbers. The idea was to stack them and throw a bean bag to hit them down. I also made a bunch of bean bags with numbers and thought the kids could throw those into hulu hopes. They were still a little too young for these games (they were 2-3 at the time) but I think this year it would definitely work.

In addition to the games we set up a craft table where the kids could make masks out of paper plates, feathers and other goodies. This went way better than the games. Seriously I think crafts at birthday parties are awesome.

Of course there was good old running in the grass, presents opening and hanging out with good friends. And last but not least they gave everyone cute sweet inspired temporary tattoos. Look how little Langdon was! Now he's got a new brother, holy cow how fast things change with little ones and just one year.

And just in case you weren't around last year to see my masterpiece of an invite, here it is again.  Next up, princess strawberry party.

What's for Dinner: Week 96

 (Ricotta and Squash Galette and Baked Chicken)

We're only home a few days this week because we're going on tour. Yup one of the bands the Rotten Musicians is going on a tour. This is the band that I do back ups and dance like a maniac on stage for. Plus we'll be going to PAX, a video game conference. I know kind of a weird vacation but I'm totally looking forward to it.

If you guys have suggestions on places open late, cheap or dive kind of treasures in Portland and Seattle I'd love to hear. I'm sure things will be busy but just in case we get a chance to eat somewhere fun I'd love to have some suggestions to give to the boys...yup it'll be me and a bunch of boys.

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Steak Quesadillas	Grains and nuts: granola bars, ww pasta Veggies: zuccs, spinach, lettuce Fish: Shrimp
Monday	Shrimp and Pea Alfredo
Tuesday	Driving to Boise
Wednesday	Portland
Thursday	Portland
Friday	Seattle
Saturday	Seattle

Giveaway: Ruffle or Plain Diaper Covers

Just in case you don't follow Rae Gun on facebook I wanted to let you know I'm part of a gigantor giveaway. I ♥ Crochet is celebrating over 5,000 facebook fans. Crazy right? Anyways click on over to see the details of the giveway it ends 8/23/2011. And if you want to be a Rae Gun facebook fan I'd love that (I try not to do too many updates so it's not spammy, I hate that).

Recipe: White Bean Dip and Veggies

I have to work to get my veggies. Even then I'm always trying to find more ways to trick myself into eating more. My mom made this veggie dip for one of the parties earlier this year and I totally gobbled it up. I can prep a whole munch of veggies on Sunday whip up a batch of dip and eat it all week. It totally satisfies the salty snacker in me. It looks so basic but I'm telling you this is amazing and I'll eat load of veggies with this (p.s. it's good with tortilla chips too).

White Bean Dip
1 Can white beans (like cannaleni) drained
1 clove garlic
1/4 C olive oil
2 TBS lemon juice

Blend it up in a food processor and enjoy. Yup it's that easy

My favorite veggies are blanched (boiled for a 3-5 minutes) green beans, and asparagus and raw carrots . But we've also served it with peppers, jicama, celery, cuccs and blanched broccoli, whatever veggies you like really would totally work.

Tutorial: Painted Dresses

I saw this neat idea for painting fabric over at The Girl Creative. So I decided to try it out with the naughties a couple weeks ago. I cut out some dresses but before I sewed them up I had the girls paint the fabric.

I wasn't sure how this would work out so I just used the colors I had on hand (Gryffindor colors anyone?). But fabric paint is pretty cheap and you only need a little for this so if I decide to brave it again I'd probably buy pinks and purples and blue yeah that would be fun.

All I did was use fabric paint diluted with water so it was kind of the consistency of water color paint. I'm really glad they were nakes because even then L somehow got paint on her panties (did she sit on the brush?) and T managed to flick paint all up her legs and on my porch -even though the paint was on the grass when they were allowed near it. Umm yeah.

It was cool and the girls were really proud of their dresses so I think it was worth the headache of having little ones paint.

It was interesting because the paint kind of bled on the yellow fabric but on the white fabric it held it's shape a lot better. Fabric paint comes in so many colors and really anything you can sew can use custom fabric and I bet older kids could even paint some cool images.

Treasury Love: August Leo's Step Right Up

Check out this darling treasury put together by fellow EtsyKid member babswool. Aren't the lions so cute? Anyways if you want to see more from these talented artists check out the collection up close where you can get links to their shops. I'm kind of in love with the lion hat with ear flaps.

What's for Dinner: Week 95

(cauliflower soup and jalapeno rolls)

Yeah so last week didn't go as planned, at all. We had more going on than I realized. Plus I wasn't feeling like going to the market. This week I've got almost everything on hand.

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Cauliflower Parmesan Soup and Jalapeno Cheese rolls	Grains and nuts: granola bars, ww pasta Veggies: zuccs, spinach, lettuce Fish: Shrimp
Monday	Shrimp and Pea Alfredo
Tuesday	Sausage and Zucchini Squash Galette
Wednesday	Eat Out
Thursday	Tomato Wine Basil Sausage Pasta
Friday	Bacon Potato Corn and cheese quiche
Saturday	Stuffed Shells

Weber County Fair Jingle

My hubby as many of you know is a crazy musician with loads of bands and projects. He recently was approached to make some music for a jingle for the Weber County Fair. He's never done a jingle before but he did the music and 'singing' they gave him all the words. Any ways if you're in Utah you may hear it on the radio.

Here's a link to where you can hear it (watch out it'll autoplay really loud), I'm not sure how to embed it, if any of you can tell me I'd love to know. Be warned it's totally cheesy and super dorky but isn't that what a jiggle is supposed to be? And if you want to hear some of my husband's real music you can check it out here (I highly recommend Dani Lion if you haven't heard it yet).

Tutorial: Easy Egg Crate Caterpillar Craft

My nieces made these cute caterpillars out of egg crates and I just thought they were so darling and simple I had to show them with you guys.

All you do is chop up an egg crate, punch or stab some holes where the antennae should go, let the kiddos go crazy with paint and after they dry string pipe cleaner for antennae and add some googly eyes and stickers or foam pieces or anything else you want .

So cute right?

What's for Dinner: Week 94

(payson salmon dinner)

So the Payson salmon dinner was amazing. It was huge and absolutely delicious. Apparently they've been doing it for years. 57 to be exact. They basically fly in loads of salmon, save all the fruit tree wood that was trimmed in the Spring and then grill like crazy. Seriously it was a giant park full of people eating salmon. And the portion was double what you'd get at a restaurant. yum yum

Day	Main Meal	Goals (Veggies, Whole Grain, Fish)
Sunday	Brie Chicken and Artichoke Pizza	Grains and nuts: granola bars, ww pasta Veggies: zuccs, spinach, lettuce Fish: Shrimp and fish
Monday	Corn Jalapeno and Carnitas Pasta
Tuesday	Chicken Cobb Salad
Wednesday	Eat Out
Thursday	Seafood Mac and Cheese
Friday	Chicken and Two potatoes
Saturday	Stuffed Shells

Show and Tell: Baby Gorilla

Is everyone you know and their sister having a baby? Yeah me too. Remember my friend Jamie with baby Max? Well her sister is also prego and ready to pop. I made this little gorilla outfit for Amie's second baby coming sometime this next week I think. It was a last minute surprise shower that was so fun.

Any ways just wanted to share the gorilla cuteness. I'll get it in the shop when I get a second.