Altered Egg Cartons for Easter

I have a lot of 2017 photos to share of showers and misc, but thought I'd show what I've been working on this week for fun Easter gifts.

I bought some egg cartons online a few years back for CHA ...that ended up getting lost between here and GA, so wasn't able to teach the class in CA...but thankfully, I had purchased a few extra for myself and had never done anything with them until now.

This first one is my favorite. I painted the carton brown and used a bunny from the Target Dollar Spot that I added a ribbon and pompom tail to, along with a sentiment from Cutting Cafe's Easter Mini Words Printable Set.

 Each of the boxes have 6 plastic eggs that can be filled with candies. I tried to coordinate the eggs with the outside papers.

  the bunnies for these cartons also came from the Target Dollar Spot and were just wood. I covered them in designer papers and added a bow.

 

 

this plaid designer paper is a free download from eyeinspire, see the link below this post

  this carton is Reese's inspired, 3 mini Reese's fit into each egg.

 

 and then these....the bunnies are cut from Lori Whitlock's pink bunny cutting file. the sentiment i made 

 

egg cartons *this is where I got mine, but I see the price has gone up quite a bit from when I purchased them. you can also get them here, at Target in the Dollar Spot (if I remember right those were a 4-pk), and from Stampin' Up!

free plaid digital designer paper from eyeinspire

Lori Whitlock's Pink Bunny Cutting File

Fishing Theme Baby Shower

I forgot to take pictures, but here is the invite for a fishing themed baby shower. The printable image is from Dollar Graphics Depot.

BFB Grace and the Preacher

Grace and the Preacher by Kim Vogel Sawyer is a story set in Fairland, KS during the Depression Era. This story is about Grace Cristler who is a postmistress and had pretty much given up on finding a husband. When her preacher uncle decides to retire, Grace is responsible for finding a replacement. She starts to fall for one man, who applies for the position, who she only knows through correspondence. 

What she doesn't know is that Theophil Garrison is on the run from his past. 10 years ago, Theo decided not to help his cousins with a robbery and now that they are out of jail, they are after him with revenge.

I loved this story with an unusual twist to it. Kim Vogel Sawyer has a beautiful way of writing that makes you feel like you are there.

• More Info
• Author Bio

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Industrial Farmhouse Bridal Shower

I ♥ the theme of this next shower. The bride to be has chosen Industrial Farmhouse for the theme for her wedding and I know it will be amazing! She is a wonderful party planner and I always love seeing all the parties she hosts and will have to say I was a little intimidated giving this shower. I mean...giving a party to the party planner??!! But it turned out to be a nice shower even with the bride to be not feeling well.

It all started with this invite. I used Cutting Cafe's Mason Jar Shaped Card Template cutting file and altered the file by "squishing" the jar down to a squatty one.

The bride to be's wedding colors are metal and mints/aquas so I used those colors along with metals, woods, and glass for the industrial part of the theme.

The backdrop is an old vintage tablecloth to cover up the ugly white board.

All of this below was taken from my home. I have a little vignette I put together every year and this was for my St. Pat vignette and the colors worked perfectly. Obviously, I don't have "from miss to mrs" in my home. LOL I spray painted the primary colored magnet letters a cream color and then spell out phrases. I framed a piece of sheet metal I found in our shed that I cut to size.

The dried hydrangeas I have used at several showers and they were really starting to fall apart. I spray painted them with mint and aqua glass paint. ♥ how that turned out on the brown petals! The glass "vase" is a starbucks coffee bottle that I spray painted with mint glass paint. For added fun, I used blue glass insulators and stuck them in a rusty bed spring and added a battery operated candle which fit perfectly.

 It was fun to do a different layout using long tables instead of round ones.

 keeping with the metal theme, we had gold paper plates and silver plastic cups. for added whimsy, turquoise and white polka dot napkins, turquoise forks, and aqua striped straws.

for food we had donuts (bride to be's favorite), key lime bars, chocolate covered pretzels, 

and fruit cups.

sign in table

 here is the gift I made her with DH's help as I was running out of time and had to be gone a lot that week. He glued the wood together for me and I did the hardware. Now I want one!

inspiration for the industrial tray
key lime pie bar recipe
mason jar clip art

Chocolate Dipped Key Lime Pie Bars

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

35 mins

Author: Kathleen Siegle

Serves: 16

Ingredients

Biscoff Crust

• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• ⅔ cup ground pecans
• 1 cup Biscoff Cookie crumbs
• ¼ cup sugar

Key Lime Pie Filling

• 3 large egg yolks
• 1½ teaspoons finely grated lime zest
• ⅔ cup fresh Key lime juice (you can also use regular limes)
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)
• Melted dark chocolate

Instructions

Biscoff Crust

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line a 8 x 8 inch baking dish with parchment or foil.
2. With a food processor, blend the pecans, biscoff cookies and sugar. Blend in butter until it resembles wet sand.
3. Press into the bottom of the baking dish and bake for 10 minutes. Set crust aside to cool.

Key Lime Pie Filling

1. In a large bowl and using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks and lime zest until it thickens (5 minutes).
2. Add condensed milk and beat on high for about 3 minutes.
3. On low, mix in the lime juice until just combined.
4. Pour on top of cookie crust and bake for 10 minutes until the middle is just set.
5. Put aside to cool and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.
6. Once they have chilled for the preferred time, slice into 3-4 inch squares and dip the corners into dark chocolate. Sprinkle with sea salt and lime zest. Place them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and chill until the chocolate sets.

New Biker's in Town

This fun baby shower was inspired by the baby's parents who love motorcycles. The colors were inspired by the parent's wedding colors.

I saw a motorcycle diaper "cake" on Pinterest and had to give it a try.

 Here you see the bottle/pom poms show up again 

Invitation inspiration
motorcycle image I turned into an svg cutting file
Layered Labels 3 Cutting File: Pretty Paper Pretty Ribbon labels mounted under motorcycle
Diamond Plate Embossing Folder
White Ink: Paper Trey Ink
My Pinterest Board

Mission Conference Ladies Supper

Every year our church has a mission's conference where local missionaries and/or missionaries home on furlough come and speak at our church. On Monday night the men meet together for supper with the male missionaries and the women with the women missionaries.

Through conversation before the conference, I found out that one lady in our church was doing all the work! I offered to help her out and she had me do the decorating and dessert. Since it was close to Valentine's Day, I went with that theme. I like to decorate with reds, pinks, and aqua for Valentine's Day.

We had strawberry spinach salad, baked potatoes with BBQ pork, green onions, sour cream and shredded cheese and yummy chocolate and vanilla raspberry cupcakes.

 We kept it very simple for the decorations, letting the salad and the cupcakes be a part of the decor.

I spray painted cold coffee jars with aqua glass paint and made yarn pom poms. With my Silhouette, I cut hearts and layered them and tied around the jar with a little tag that had the mission's conference theme on it.

 

Book Review: Amish Weddings by Leslie Gould.

Amish Weddings by Leslie Gould is the newest book I've read from Bethany House.

This third book in Neighbors of Lancaster County series is about Rose. She is in love with Rueben, who is predictable, stable, and taking his time to set a wedding date. Then in walks Trevor, an army buddy of her brother-in-law. Trevor is exciting, unpredictable, and easygoing.

I liked this book in that I really didn't know how it was going to end. There were some plots, twists, and turns that definitely were not expected.

I don't want to give too much away, as I pass these on to some of my readers to read when I am done. I definitely would suggest this whole series by Leslie Gould.

**I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for my honest review.**