This post, soba noodle salad with almond butter dressing, is sponsored by BabbleBoxx.
Nothing says summer entertaining like pasta salad, and this soba noodle salad recipe takes a delicious Asian twist with fresh veggies and a refreshing almond butter salad dressing.
This Funfetti Easter Cheese Ball would be an adorable and delicious addition to any Easter table.
I’ve always wanted to make my own homemade vanilla extract. I finally made my first batch early this spring. My goal was to make a large batch to keep some for myself, and to share with others for gifts at Christmas.
Vanilla extract is a thoughtful, DIY gift for nearly any recipient: friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, teachers, or holiday hostesses. After all, nearly everyone keeps vanilla extract in their pantry, right?
Summer break may be coming to a close, but I’m not ready to throw the towel in on summer lovin’ just yet! Today I’m thrilled to share an amazing curated collection of summertime food, activities, crafts, and beauty tips from some of my fellow bloggers. I think you will love this round up of amazing summer time posts filled with ideas and yummy treats.
Time to get your craft on! Today I’m excited to share four projects perfect for kids. Even better? They look so good you’ll actually want to display them on the fancy, do-not-touch tree.
Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.
These projects are so kid-friendly you won’t have to finish them by yourself. Mom win all around! 
A few weeks ago I shared my difficulty in letting go of baby clothes. Well, it goes far beyond baby clothes. Today I’m going to share how I recently made an upcycled t-shirt dress using outgrown knit shirts.
Do you love the look of those great pallet signs on Pinterest (my own version here!), but not the time and labor that goes into them? You’re in luck! Today I’m going to share with you how to make a faux pallet sign in just 10 minutes using inexpensive wood print paper.
I can’t help it – I’m a sucker for retro inspired candies. When I stumbled across candy wax bottles the other day, I had a retro Soda Shoppe Valentine’s Day idea I couldn’t get out of my head.
Merry Christmas! Hopefully yours was spent with loved ones creating new happy memories. If your kids were fortunate to receive gifts this season, it’s time to start those thank you notes. I love using templates to keep it a bit more manageable for the kids, especially with Eve just learning to write this year.
Here are the thank you notes I whipped up to use this year, and I’m offering them here as a free printable. Enjoy!
I recently tried to convince my husband to paint an entire wall of our dining area with black chalkboard paint. He didn’t quite have the same vision I had, so he asked me to hang a chalkboard until we could come to an agreement.
I agreed. After all, I’ve had a giant frame in storage that’s been waiting to be used for years. I bought it at a garage sale for around $10 which was a steal…but how do you fill such a large frame without spending a fortune? The chalkboard was the perfect solution.
If I hadn’t already had the frame, what I really would have wanted is a rustic wood frame. However, since this was likely temporary, I wanted to make this as easy and inexpensive as possible.
The problem: the frame was gold. Really gold. I debated on what to paint it. Silver? Weathered white? Blue? I haven’t committed to a color scheme in our new home yet, so I went with a safe, muted silver. I spray painted it with Krylon Brushed Metallic paint. I had planned to rub wax or wood stain to bring out the details, but I didn’t love that effect on the test areas so I just left it silver for now.
For the actual chalkboard, we bought a piece of thin plywood and I sanded it with a hand sander until it was really smooth. After cleaning it with a lint-free cloth, I painted four thin coats of Rust-Oleum Chalk Paint in black, using a foam roller. I sanded lightly between layers when necessary and removed all the dust with a lint-free cloth. When the paint was completely dry, I rubbed entire board with a large piece of sidewalk chalk to cure it, and then rubbed it with a lint-free cloth to erase it.
You can wipe it clean with a damp cloth for a clean crisp look, or with a dry cloth, which I prefer, for a true, messy chalkboard look.
So far, our family loves this addition to our home. We post fun quotes and verses, and the children love to use it for creating their own art, as well.
In addition to being shared on the fabulous blogs to the right, this post was also shared on Stone Gable Blog.
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Today’s April Fool’s gag is brought to you by the (brown) letter “E” and frozen milk. Don’t worry, I made actual brownies to soften the blow of this joke.
What are your favorite April Fool’s Day gags?
One of my favorite things to do on the weekend is make sweet breads that we can snack on all week long. While they’re not always the healthiest recipes, I like that they’re homemade and a less processed than anything we’d pick up at the store. I always cook sweet breads in an 8×8 square pan. I find that the bread cooks more evenly and we avoid the crispy heels that none of us are a fan of. We pack them in lunch bags for dessert or for an after school snack.
Our favorite is banana bread, but it’s safe to say this Apple Pie Bread is now going into the rotation!
I got the recipe from Pip and Ebby and made a few small modifications:
Ingredients:
BREAD
TOPPING
Instructions:
Do you prep snacks and meals? I’d love to hear your tips, below!
I just love the tasted of malted milk powder! As a kid, my mom would often top plain vanilla ice cream with sprinkling of this powder, and our favorite ice cream shop in town had a popular malt with 2x the malt powder. Yum!
I wanted to introduce my kids to the same flavor, so when we came up with the idea to create our own ice cream truck, I went on the search for a good Malted Milk Ball ice cream. Unfortunately every recipe I found included eggs, which I didn’t want to mess with. So, I came up with the following recipe using our Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker*.
What you’ll need:
What to do:
The result? Amaze-milkballs. Ahem.
What do you think? Are you a fan of Malted Milk Ball ice cream? I’d love to hear your favorite ice cream flavor in the comments below.
*No ice cream maker? No problem. Once you’ve reached step five, simply put the container in the freezer for 2 hours or until it begins to freeze slightly. Stir in the malted milk balls and stir after another hour to evenly distribute, if necessary.
