You've heard of an Easter egg hunt, but not a birthday present hunt!

My son's 5th birthday was just last week and he came up with a great idea. I always hate wrapping presents and wasting the wrapping paper!

This is what he told me, "You've heard of an Easter egg hunt, but not a birthday present hunt!"

What a great idea...I love having a reason to be lazy...

My mom and I hid his presents all over the house and he ran around finding them. He had way more fun hunting for them than he would have unwrapping them! Give it a try!

His favorite present was from Grandma and she was so nice to buy his big brother one too!

My New Dance Skirts...enter to win one!!!

I am so excited to announce that I am going to be selling my handmade girls wrap dance skirts in a local dance studio!!! One of my friends is an amazing photographer and has just sent me the photos from our shoot..

I am so happy with them that I am going to be giving one of the skirts away!!!

I am going to use one of these photos on my tags to hang from each skirt and am not sure which one looks the best. So, I would love some input from you!

To enter my giveaway, please follow my blog and leave a comment telling me which photo you think I should use on my tags. For an extra entry, like my on facebook. The winner can choose from a few different fabrics and sizes!!!

The winner will be chosen on August 31st...so make sure I have your email address.

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Whoopdwhoop Craft Swap

I have been participating in the Whoopdwhoop Craft Swap. It is free and a really great idea!

How it works is that you list some items on their website and receive "whoops". You get to choose how many whoops your item will "sell" for, between 1-5. When you have enough whoops, you can request any item from any other member. If they accept, your whoops will be given to that member. They will send the item to you. If someone requests your item, you will receive their whoops. Then you will be responsible for the shipping charge.

Does that make sense?

Well, I have received a beautiful mermaid print from Whoopdwhoop. I bought a cheap frame from the Dollar Store. Here is the before and after.

I just painted the frame a nice green color and glued some colored shells around the frame. I got them at Joannes. I hung it up in the bathroom and love it!

DIY Dress From 3 Pieces of Fabric - Tutorial

I made this dress for a friend to wear to her 20th high school reunion this summer. It was super easy and really turned out cute!

For this dress, I recommend buying 2 yards of fabric. I made this with 1 1/2 yds, but it really cut it close!

I don't really measure, but just wrap the fabric around the bust and body. The bust should be tight, so that it doesn't fall down. I like to fold the fabric in half so that  I don't have to sew the top neck line.

The body part needs to be big enough to fit and hang loosely around the biggest part of the hips. If not, it will be clingy and look gross. In the middle, I gathered the body piece a bit and then sewed the two pieces together, stretching a bit as I went.

Since this is a nice stretchy knit fabric, I didn't even hem the bottom, just made sure to cut it very straight. I just cut a long strip for the tie and that's it.

When wearing it, I recommend safety pinning the tie to the dress from the inside to keep it in place and to hide the seam where the 2 pieces are attached.

Healthy and Yummy Chicken , Vegetable and Pasta Soup

If any of you live in an area where Bountiful Baskets is available, please try it! Check the website www.bountifulbaskets.org for availability in your area. It is a food co-op run by volunteers. I paid $15 for a basket of fruit and a basket of veggies. For $10 extra, they will guarantee all produce to be organic.  They also have add ons available. I was able to get 8 lbs. of fresh strawberries from California for $12! There is also fresh bread, herbs/spice packs, oranges, apricots, tomatoes, etc available. This is what I got this week:

Sorry about the quality of the photo! I wasn't thinking in blog mode!

I boiled chicken breasts so that it would be shredded chicken. I cut up some white potatoes, carrots and celery and cooked some pasta. I also got out a can of corn. Then I added it all to boiling water with Lipton onion soup mix. It was a little bland, so I added onion pepper salt and it was perfect! Very easy, healthy and so good!

$3 Bird Feeder - Another Mod Podge Project

This is my mom's birthday gift this year. Isn't it cute?

I got all 3 pieces at the $1 store. I Mod Podged the bird with scrapbook paper and used E-6000 to glue them together. It was such an easy project. The hardest part was waiting for the glue to dry!

End of the School Year Gift Idea - Otter Pop Holder Tutorial

The end of the school year is coming up and I want to do something cute for the kids. I saw this idea somewhere and can't remember where...sorry!

I'm going to make an otter pop holder for each kid and bring otter pops for the kids on the last day of school. They help to keep their little hands from getting too cold while eating them.

Just cut 2 rectangles of felt. Mine are about 2 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches. Lay them on top of each other and zig zag stitch both sides, which will leave a tube. For decoration purposes, cut the sides with pinking shears. I'm sure the kids will love these and they're so easy. It should take under an hour to make enough for the whole class!

Check out the linky parties to the right that I'm linking up to this week!