The Cutest Little Cupcake Toppers You Ever Did See

Last spring I signed up to make a few treats for a dessert auction. One of the cakes ended up being an epic fail, but y'all, these cupcakes turned OUT! I was working on a different craft a day or two before the auction, and I was using lace trim, some pom pom trim (I've told y'all about my obsession of all things pom pom trim, so I always have a lot on hand. #obsessed) and of course my hot glue gun. All the sudden the inspiration for these darling little mini toppers just hit me. After I made the first one I just wanted to make a million more! Here they are on display at the dessert auction.

Look at these little darlings all in a row! :) This is before I hot glued the toothpicks on.

Here is one while being made...basically I cut the little strips of trim and if I was layering any I would hot glue them together with tiny dots of glue on each end. Then I hot glued the toothpicks to the back.

I mean, right? I love them.

Here's the cake I made for the auction that was NOT an epic fail. Mmmm, you can never go wrong with yellow cake and chocolate frosting!! :) Also, Jared has been trying his hand at candy making lately, and those are his little blue creations next to the cake. #hesadorable #thosecandiestasteddelish



So these cupcakes on their sweet little stands with their adorable little banners on top...precious, right?! I am still dying over how cute these turned out.

I am now looking for excuses to make these...maybe for my daughter's birthday party?? Months away...lol. I'll have to invent some kind of event to make these for before then! :)



Fashion Love :)

I kind of LOVE fashion, like, a lot. Most days I'm in pajamas, workout pants (even though I haven't worked out), or let's be honest, underwear. But nonetheless, fashion brings me joy. Clothes, putting outfits together, pinning adorable outfits that give me inspiration, and hello the actual SHOPPING - I love it all. :) I mean, I could gaze at my fashion pinterest board all day. Oh wait, I already do that...:). I'm excited to post some of my fav outfits on the blog from time to time. I hope someone can find some fun outfit inspiration from these posts like I do from so many bloggers. :)

One of the things I love most about fashion is creating a totally different look by just switching out a few things, or even just one thing, and in this case, accessories. For the outfit below, I switched out the necklaces and earrings, and oh what a difference!

 Dress: Old Navy; Earrings: Nickel and Suede (HERE); Necklace: Target (in store...I just got it this week!); Boots: Aldo; Shirt: Can't remember...either Jane or Groopdealz :) (Just keepin' it real as always:).

 So here I changed out the necklace...a big difference right?! Both super pretty looks, but very different. I LOVE this necklace! (Nordstrom - HERE)

 Alright, now we have these gorg maroon earrings instead of the gold. LOVE! Once again the earrings are Nickel and Suede (HERE). Can I just say how OBSESSED I am with Nickel and Suede?! Obsessed.

 And now we're back to the pretty purple and pink necklace, but this time with the maroon earrings. Which look is your favorite?! I adore them all, obviously, or I wouldn't have posted them. ;) But for real, which do you like best?



Okay so, in an effort to keep it real once again, I have to say how much I LOVE flat lay photography, and why. #1 why for me right now is that I don't have to actually put the outfit on, do my hair, makeup, clean the gunk off my mirror and all the other clutter that might be in the pic, and the BEST part is, the clothes don't even have to FIT me for them to look adorable in the flat lay pic. Yes, right now that gingham shirt is a little too tight, so I probs won't be wearing it in real life for quite some time, and the dress is a tad short so it's not something I wear a lot. But that's okay. It is still so fun to post outfits...at least I can post them if I can't wear them right? Just keepin' it real, as always. :)


Oh and Y'ALL. Did anyone notice the rug?! I die. I am so in love with it. I got it at Goodwill, but it was brand new from Target! And right now it's on sale! (HERE) Love, love, love it. 

Mama's Got Skills - Newborn Photos

Y'all, I have bragged on my mom before. She is the woman who can do anything. I've always known that. But WOW, I did not know that she had such epic photog. skills!

 

I am absolutely in LOVE with these photos that she took of our little sweet boy! He was around 10 days old in these pics. I'd bought this basket at TJ's months before he was born with his newborn photo shoot in mind. I scouted and scouted for a photographer whose style and price were both on point with ours, and I couldn't find both.

So, I was going to splurge on his photos and go with a couple in our ward whose work is AMAZING! Like stunningly beautiful. (Check out Wride Photography here). Then one day just for fun I wrapped my little newborn in this cute little swaddle and put him in the basket, snapped a few pics aaaaand...they were awful. But, I ran downstairs anyway and told my mom she needed to see how cute he was in the basket on my bed! She about died when she saw him and grabbed her basic point and shoot camera and whipped out these absolutely beautiful pics of my sweet baby boy. With a little brightening up on the computer, they were perfect!

 

Ah, just look at that sweet face!!! I LOVE how this picture turned out!

Same picture just zoomed out a bit and black and white...I'm a sucker for a good black and white photo!

My cute mom and our sweet boy mid photo shoot. My babes sure lucked out in the grandma department. :)

This is the pic we used for his birth announcement. It turned out darling!

Mom, THANK YOU! You are the best. I will treasure these photos forever!!!

Welcome to the World, Little One

Our newest little man made his big debut 6 months ago already! And he is the absolute sweetest baby in the whole world. My heart is just completely stolen.

 

Say hello to our new sweet boy. :)

This picture is from when he was a little over a week old. Preciousness!

Now he's a sitting up, one toothed, smiley, crawling machine. Here he is on his special blessing day at church! Daddy gave him the most beautiful blessing. :) 

Stinking adorable, right?! I call him my joy boy, because he just brings so much happiness to our home and to me as his mom. 

I just love this little (BIG) guy!

 

It's amazing to me how full one person's heart can be. My heart already seemed pretty full with the love I have for our two oldest kids, and now this  guy joins our family and fills it up even more. :) It's astounding, the amount our hearts can love. And sometimes it just hits, you know? You'll have a moment where you feel like your heart might burst from the amount of love it's holding. Those moments are the best.

Like right now, I'm looking at my three little kids playing and eating their lunches. My funny girl is chanting 'Blowout, blowout, blowout' because I just got done cleaning up the little man's massive blowout and yes, we have a song we sing whenever he has a blowout. :) Baby bro is sitting up like a big boy munching on some play food. And my oldest boy is lounging on the couch with his lunch, humming a happy tune. Life is good. And my heart is full just watching them. :)

We may be potty training and sleep training (with pretty much no success) and teething and manners learning. Sister may have bitten her older brother hard enough to produce tears earlier and I definitely haven't showered in a few days. But life is still pretty perfect. I love these kiddos so much. 

I put the iPad down after writing all that and my sweet three year old came up and said 'I need some mama.' :) She's never put it quite that sweet way before - my mommy heart beamed! She climbed up into my arms and then my five year old said he needed some mama too and hopped on. :) Then of course little bro was crawling/crying (cryling, if you will, a verb this little guy has worked hard to perfect:) and made his way right to the feet of my rocking chair, so I pulled him up and we all rocked in my rocker for a few minutes. I was feeling the love for sure. :)

I can't imagine my life without these three kiddos. One by one they've joined our family and shook things up in the process, and completed our family a little more with their sweet little spirits. Here are all three of my babies the day our youngest was born. Oh my heart! 

      

Just look at them. How did I get so lucky? Well actually, I do know that luck had nothing to do with it. I thank my Father in Heaven daily for these sweet babes. :) Welcome to the world our newest sweet boy - we're all pretty stoked that you're here to join in all the craziness and we're so excited to continue to watch you grow. It's such a privilege to be your mama and to get to teach you about God and to love you. These past 6 months have been a party and we're ready for more! :)

4th of July Mantel

Happy Independence Day! I have really gotten into the spirit of this holiday this year. I'm so grateful to have been born in and to live in this magnificent country. How truly thankful I am! My son has really gotten into learning the 50 states lately, so it's been fun to teach him about our amazing country for this special holiday! I've honestly never decorated for the 4th of July before, but I was just totally feeling it this year! (Check out my 4th of July pinterest board...I'm just loving all of it!)

 

So say hello to my 4th of July Mantel. I love, love, love it!

 Once again I found about a million amazing printables from some super talented ladies, and I was SO excited to use some of them for this mantel! I'll walk you through each one and give these ladies the proper credit!

The gorgeous blue Shining Sea printable is from Bettijo over at Paging Supermom! A big thanks to her - I adore this part of the mantel! :)

I so love this God Bless America print from Melanie over at The Crafty Cupboard. Her 4th of July mantel is beyond adorable! I absolutely love everything about it! Thanks to Melanie for sharing this beautiful print! :)

The absolutely darling centerpiece of the mantel, the Map Silhouette, along with the equally adorable Statue of Liberty Silhouette, are both from Kensie Kate. This is the first time I came across Kensie's blog, and I went on a pinning spree! She designs the cutest quotes and I added quite a few pins to my Inspiration board on pinterest. I'm so glad I found Kensie's blog, and a big thank you to her for sharing her amazing work! Her Map Silhouette is just so perfect as the centerpiece and I can't help but smile when I see it. :)

 And now to talk about my darling little pom pom garland. Isn't it so sweet?! I tell you, I can't get past this craze of mine for pom pom trim! (And I don't really want to get past it!:) It is SO fun to design with! There are so many options for colors and sizes that it really can be hard to commit to which ones I finally decide to use together (like for my spring mantel garland). I'm so happy with how this one turned out though!

 I got the large white pom pom trim at the Hob Lob. I feel like this trim would be perfect for a winter mantel - you know, snow and all that wintery stuff. Some of the super adorable winter mantels out there, like this one from Landeelu, almost make me want to decorate a winter mantel in between Christmas and Valentine's Day next year. But the fact that I loathe and detest the cold weather and snow just doesn't add up with decorating a mantel dedicated to snow and cold weather. So someone pelase go buy this chunky white trim at Hobby Lobby and do something amazing with it this winter! :)

 The teeny tiny red pom pom trip is from JoAnn's. It's just too sweet! I think I have an especial weakness for the tiny pom pom trim. :) And the dark navy blue I found at Wal-Mart. Thank you Wal-Mart! (It sounds weird to say that). Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's had no sign of navy blue pom pom trim. I was pretty disappointed. And then I found this perfect trim at Wal-Mart! Yay! :)

 I made a few more felt rosette balls to go with our 4th of July décor this year. Love this little white one and the navy blue! (I used the same method that Amy at Idea Room uses for both her heart wreath and rosette balls. Tutorial here! :)

 The kids were loving some Wonder Pets time while I was snapping pictures of the mantel. Gotta love that Ming Ming! "This. Is. Sewious". :)

 I found this sweet little wooden USA, along with the wooden American flag on the right side of the mantel, at the beloved Dollar Spot at Target. YAY! 

There you have it. A happy little 4th of July mantel for a happy little 4th of July. :)

We started our festivities last night at my in-law's neighborhood party - fireworks, BBQ, and music! The kids had such a blast! Tonight was a BBQ with friends, and ANOTHER BBQ tomorrow night! You can never have too many barbecues in one weekend. I just love this holiday!

 

Happy Independence Day 2015!!!

Spring Mantel

Spring is here! Definitely one of my most favorite times of the year. Usually, after a long, cold, dark winter, I am just bursting with the anticipation of spring to finally arrive! This winter has actually been super mild (YAY!) so I haven't been quite as desperate for the warmer weather and sunshine. But I am still so happy that it is officially spring! And with that comes my new springy mantel set up. I kind of love it - a lot!

 

So much bright cheeriness. :)



This darling pom pom garland...I'd been dreaming of making it for weeks, and I think it pretty much makes this mantel! 

When I was thinking of what kind of banner or garland I wanted to make for the spring mantel, I just kind of imagined something made up mainly of different colors of pom pom trim. I seriously adore pom pom trim. Every time I see it I want to buy it in every color and size, even before knowing what kind of project I'd do with it. It tempts me every time! :)

 

 I decided to do a pinterest search to see if anyone had done anything similar to what I was dreaming about. I found this darling pom pom garland tutorial at Lolly Jane and immediately pinned it - SO cute, and along the lines of what I knew I wanted to go for! I think maybe a bit of subconscious inspiration also came from this super cute Halloween garland I saw on pinterest this past fall. It's actually from Desirée at The 36th Avenue, who is also the super talented person who designed and shared the mint printable below! I remember now that I had wanted to create a garland like Desirée's for Halloween, but never got around to it. Maybe next year! And at least it helped inspire this cute spring garland. :)

 

When I finally decided to get going on making my garland, I searched all of my favorite craft stores for the perfect pom pom trims, and I finally hit the jackpot at JoAnn's! (As I've mentioned before, I just cannot bring myself to drop the "'s" off of JoAnn. It's just so wrong to simply say JoAnn...even if that is the actual name. Lol!) I found the pink pom pom trim, the tiny, sweet white pom pom trim, and the pleated yellow trim there. The yellow just spoke to me! It wasn't anything I was planning to get or have even worked with before, which isn't surprising since I don't do much sewing or crafting with ribbon or trim (besides pom pom:) at all! But I just knew it would go perfectly with the pom pom trim!

 

When I got all of my cute trim home, I actually didn't do anything with it for a couple of weeks. It still made me smile though just to look at my pile of colorful trim and envision what I would make out of it. A few weeks ago I finally started hanging up the trims and playing around with how they looked together. I got them all pinned up on the mantel just how I liked it, and I was so happy with how the pink, white and yellow looked together!

 

I had also come across some darling mint trim at Wal-Mart and snagged it right away, but I kept debating back and forth with whether or not I wanted to add it to the garland. Jared helped me by taking pics of me holding the mint up to the garland so I could see how it would look when hung. I finally decided to add it, and I'm so glad I did! I hot glued the mint to the yellow. I LOVE how it all looks together! Yay!

I was searching and searching online for the perfect printable about the Savior, to bring Easter into this mantel, since Easter is a BIG part of Spring, and every day. :) One Sunday night I came across the beautiful print by Desirée, over at  The 36th Avenue, that you see below. It says "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives...Job 19:25". I absolutely love it! She made it in several different colors, and it was tough for me to decide which to use! But since I have a thing for mint, I went with that one. Thanks to Desirée for creating and sharing such beautiful prints that speak of the Savior. I find such hope in His love for me, and I know that He lives. :)

Oh this little pink bird. It's just too sweet for words! Not too mention my sweet  baby girl in the picture behind it. I love that fun pic of our family! It's an oldie but a goodie. :)

The white and pink tissue balls are actually a part of my Valentine's decor, but I think they work perfectly for spring as well! I followed Amy's tutorial over at The Idea Room to make them. I've followed Amy's blog for years - love her and her blog!

 I am so loving this bright and fun "Hello, Spring!"printable by Heidi over at Happiness is Homemade. Isn't is so cute? I saw it on pinterest and knew it would be perfect up on the mantel for spring! Thanks to Heidi for sharing this adorable print!

Seriously, these two prints are just so lovely!

I love this picture of my Savior, which is one of the many beautiful pictures that can be downloaded for free at LDS.org. I love how His arms are outstretched, ready to receive us, to receive me. I love my Savior more than words can express. The link to this picture is here and also, here is a link to the entire Gospel Art collection.



Can I just say again how this sweet mantel makes me smile? :) It is so fun to create, in whatever form that may be. I guess for me, in this case, it was taking random things and putting them all together to make something bright and beautiful. Love it.

 

I can't end this post without a little word about Easter. We celebrated in such a special way this year by following along with Mercy River's observance of Holy Week, doing the activities and reading the scriptures that talk about how Christ spent each day of His final week on earth. It made the whole week, and especially Easter Sunday, that much more meaningful! I want to share my testimony that Jesus Christ lives. He overcame death, and because of Him, we and each of our loved ones will also overcome death. I think of those in my life who have passed on that I miss so dearly. And what comfort to know that they, all of us, will overcome death because of our loving Savior! And we'll be together again. Spring is new beginnings - new life. Happy spring and Happy Easter! :)