First Basil Harvest

In May, I planted some basil and have been anxiously been waiting until the leaves were large enough to harvest. I was able to do my first harvest last week and it was delicious! I used fresh basil to make Basil Butter that night for our bread at dinner and then used some fresh cuttings later in the week for pizzas.  I dried the rest in my oven (140 degrees) for 1 hour 45 minutes. I have already used some dried basil in my cooking, and the container smells awesome! Granted, I didn't get very much this time, but it grows quickly! It's almost time to harvest some more. Here are pictures from the first harvest!

Freshly picked leaves, waiting to be washed.

Washed and ready to be dried!

Mod Podge Cereal Box Mail Holder

I finally had the opportunity to do some serious crafting today. My mom took my daughter for the morning so I could have some Me time. Here's part of what I did today:
I decided to use an empty cereal box as a mail holder because our mail is ALWAYS disorganized. Here's what I did!    

Thank you Quaker Oats for being delicious and for being empty so I can use you!

I took the box above and misplaced it, but David had finished his box of the Cinnamon flavor (some seriously delish cereal people) , so I used his instead.....

 And cut the top portion off.  Then, I took it outside and spray painted it white to cover the orange, lettering, fruit and cereal bits pictured.

Yep, it's on top of my Avon box. They make good desks when you are on the floor catching up on your tv shows ;)

 

 

Then, I used some fabric scraps I had..... I found this prettiness at Walmart for $1, yay!

 This picture is a bit blurry, but will have to do.  I used Mod Podge to attach the fabric to the recycled cereal box.  Mod Podge is excellent. I have made many crafts with the aid of Mod Podge and it makes a great glue/sealer all in one.  I used a play dough rolling pin to flatten it out and then used one of those fake credit cards people get in the mail to completely smooth it out.  Then, I took it outside so it would dry quickly. While it was drying, I worked on various other crafts I had going and also made the sign for my mail holder. I used a small rectangle of black cardstock. I attached silver scrapbooking stickers that spell "mail" to the cardstock.  When the holder was dry, I used Mod Podge to attach the sign to the front of the holder and then did another layer of Mod Podge on top. I placed it back outside and went back to working on my 5.6 million other things I had going at the time (multi-tasking!).  Once the mail holder dried, I applied a clear spray sealant several times and allowed it to dry. Here is the finished product:

I think it turned out pretty cute! And, it will look nice on my shelf. Woohoo to a crafting project completed!
Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Crafting time

I am in some serious need of some crafting time. I will have to make some time tonight to work on some things. I have some Christmas ideas for people (already!) and I need to start working on them. A co-worker and I were given some blank holiday/birthday/thinking of you cards today for the classroom and we each grabbed some for ourselves. :)  I will be using the ones I got for crafting. Some are perfect for a friend's gift at Christmas. Can't wait!  That's it, tonight after I put Sarietta to bed, it will be Mommy time! Yay!

Me

The love of my life. This is still my favorite picture and probably always will be!

My little one, minutes after being born :)

 My little one, at 15 months.

This is my little family. David and I have been together almost 3 years and while the last few years have been very hectic and busy, we hope the next few are somewhat calm. We are so lucky to have an amazing daughter, Sarietta. She is my joy.  David and I both work full time and both attend school part time. I am attending USC to hopefully get my Masters in Communication Sciences and Disorders. David hopes to finish with a degree in Computer Technology. We have a fiesty little pug/dachsund mix named Cece, she's a handful! Pictures of her to come later :) 

So, there's my intro for people who may not really know me all that well. I have been making a lot of crafts lately. My idea for Sarietta's art display is finally done. I will be taking pictures of it tonight and hopefully posting tomorrow!

New Blog

Well, I actually created this account months ago, with intentions to start blogging as soon as I was done preparing for Sarietta's first birthday party. As you can tell, that didn't work out so well. Her birthday was in January and here it is June. Procrastination, anyone?  However, it is now my full intention to provide whomever reads this blog with some entertainment and hopefully some neat crafting ideas. Originally, I wanted to specifically make this a craft blog, but I feel that I will be expanding on that some. I am very excited to begin documenting some of the neat things I have been doing.  So, keep reading and I'll try to make an intro post later on today/this week :)