Homemade Nutella

My kids love Nutella. 

Nutella is loaded with crap.

Mommy stopped buying Nutella :(

Along comes a recipe for Homemade Nutella on Pinterest and I'm determined now that I have a Vitamix to make it. Shopping trip to Costco today and as I'm headed to the check out there is a display with Hazelnuts. I buy them with loads of excitement in my mind and tell my boys that Mommy is going to make them Nutella at home.

No time to waste, I get started on what I envision being some sort of heavenly treat.

Recipe found here.

Ingredients

• 2 cups (8 ounces) blanched hazelnuts
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• ⅓ cup cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons hazelnut oil or coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ⅛ teaspoon salt

Now let me start with saying that I saw blanched hazelnuts and I knew at that moment, I didn't buy blanched anything! These nuts had skin on them! Now I need to blanch the hazelnuts before I can even start the Nutella making process. So back to Google I go and find this site. I can totally do this. Boiling water, baking soda and ice. Easy! The skin basically fell right now. Now I can get started! 

Roast nuts. Complete. 

Gather all ingredients from cupboards. Not so complete. 

I knew I had powdered sugar, but not enough. I can't just quit here so I go back to Google. I have a Vitamix, so I'm convinced I can make my own powered sugar, right? Right!!

 Now I can throw this crap away!  I have my own ORGANIC powdered sugar.

Nuts are roasted. I can officially continue making Nutella!

Ingredients in Vitamix. Blend. Complete.

Taste test. FAIL! This does NOT taste like Nutella. I'm so sad. I think it needs more sugar! 

However, I now know how to blanch nuts and how to make my own powdered sugar. Success!

Self-Discipline Bulletin Board

Our elementary school does a new bulletin board each month, it corresponds with the character trait. I searched all over for ideas on a bulletin board for SELF-DISCIPLINE. Guess what? Nothing! So back to the drawing board I went. A few ideas came and left. Finally I thought of this little idea and I'm so excited my Sister in Law, Brenda, was able to help me execute it! Thank you Brenda!! The 1st grade teachers came up with the quote they wanted...so here is the fun we had with it! We have words written on the drops of water that represent what self discipline means.

Creatively Yours,

Katie

Bedroom Makeover

My oldest daughter has been begging for her room to be decorated since we moved into the house (only a year ago). I never had the things I wanted to make it look just right for her age so I put it off. With her birthday coming up in December I started talking to my husband about what I wanted to do. He is in construction so doing the things I wanted would be perfect and I knew he'd go for it.

First things first. My daughter only had a bed frame, no headboard. This was the first on my list of things to do. I was dying for an upholstered headboard so I started searching Pinterest. I finally came up on a couple blogs that helped with my inspiration. I loved this bed, but the instructions were...well not quite enough. After another search I came upon this site and the instructions were much better...but I tweaked it just a little. Here are some pics from start to finish.

I then decided I wanted to paint her dresser and she needed a chair. I picked a color to match the fabric I had and then found a chair at Good Will for only $4.99.

I didn't post enough pics for a tutorial, but the links above were perfect for me!

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out this quote. I loved being able to use my own fonts and have it turn out exactly like I expected. Silhouette I heart you!

Dreamlights

I'm a bzzagent and they have an awesome product for review right now. I would LOVE to get one for my daughter. She hates the dark and refuses to sleep without her closet light on and door open. I think a product like this could help us out tremendously! http://www.bzzagent.com/daily/view/dreamlights. Hook us up with this "dope" item Bzz!

Father's Day Subway Art

I have recently become in love with subway art. I have a picture frame in my house that I change out monthly or as a new holiday arrives. I found this one at The Pink Ink Doodle and I have already sent it to Sam's to be printed for my frame. 

Thanksgiving Turkeys & Pilgrim Hats

What a fabulous day! Friends. Sewing. Food.

I love the holidays and I especially love making clothes for my kids. I think part of me just loves them to look adorable and the other part of me secretly loves that extra attention they get from looking extra cute in something homemade! (even if it's not made by me).

So like I posted yesterday I had seen a post on a blog Paige & Brooke for the turkey shirts. Well my friend Amy & I knew it would be a little too girlie for our boys so she mentioned a pilgrim hat...she had no idea how serious I would take her. So I came home, google'd pilgrim hat clipart and we were ready to sew!

I invited some of my best girls over and we had a blast sewing and making these shirts for our girls. I even held one friend hostage at the end of the night to force her to finish this project...I did this by feeding her and her children! (Leaving her poor husband to fend for himself).

Please pardon my dust because this is my first tutorial by pics.

I first found the clipart....

Cut the hat into individual pieces, we decided we wanted to use 4 different fabrics for the top, buckle, belt around the hat and rim of the hat. Using Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 Double Stick Fusible Web, can be purchased at most craft stores, you trace these individual pieces onto the paper (do not peal the front or back off of the fusible web.

After this step is complete, trace the shapes out...still keeping both of the sheet of paper on top and bottom of the fusible web.

You then lightly iron the shape onto the BACK/WRONG side of the fabric. And of course I don't have a picture of this...sorry!

You will now have the fusible web ironed onto the back of the fabric and the paper still on one side. Cut the fabric for all 4 shapes. For the buckle we needed a little bling. Thanks to Caroline she decided to use the rick rack from the turkeys for the pilgrim hat.

Before you take the paper off of the back of the buckle shape fold it in half lengthwise and cut 2 small slits. (as shown by my beautiful model Caroline).

You can then thread a small piece of rick rack into the buckle. (Adorable idea)!

Now take the paper backing off of all of the pieces and place them how you want them on your shirt. Iron away! Make sure they are all stuck on. You can now pull out the sewing machine and do a few test runs on a scrap piece of fabric to make sure you find the stitch that you like, we tried a few before we found one we really liked.

Here is before and after the sewing. I seriously love how all of our shirts turned out. I am not 100% finished the the girls turkeys, I have to sew on the button eyes and a beak.

Now for some fun pictures from today!

Thanksgiving Shirts

I found the most adorable Thanksgiving shirt idea on a blog Paige and Brooke. Tomorrow I have a few friends coming over so we can have a go at it! Stay tuned for my first craft post!

I am thrilled to get this blog going. I have a personal blog and I'm honestly behind on posting, but my "early" New Years goal is to write on both blogs at least 3-4 times a week. Gosh, maybe I shouldn't call it a New Years goal, I might break it before that day even gets here....so maybe we will call it a personal goal! I can't wait to share my random, but very exciting days with you!