Father's Day giveaway

Great Father's Day Giveaway for Bloggers from Bella Savvy

This is all her information. She gave me the ok to share what she wrote. You will find this same information on her blog.

This Father’s Day, Black & Decker wants to help one special dad get his backyard prepped and turned into an oasis for summer-long grilling and entertainment — without the added expense. Of course it can also be a special place to call his own, if he wants.

Black & Decker, as I’m sure you already know, is an iconic global manufacturer of quality power tools and accessories, hardware and home improvement products that are sold in more than 100 countries. They provide consumers with products that help make every day living and working easier and more efficient.

What dad wouldn’t want that?

GRAND PRIZE:

One grand prize winner will receive each of the following:

• 20V MAX Lithium Drill/Driver
• 2-speed Quick Clean Sprayer
• 36V Lithium High Performance String Trimmer with Power Command
• Garden IQ Hand Tools Series — including pruners, hedge shears, steel trowel, culti-hoe, heavy duty hose nozzle, water hand hose attachment, miscellaneous safety items AND work gloves
• Total value of $500

WHEN: 

The event will begin on May 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm. EST and will end on June 3, 2012 11:59 pm.

Cost: FREE in exchange for your participation and event publishing

Event sign up is limited to the first 200 blogs on a first come, first serve basis.

What is required?

• Post an announcement on your blog by May 18, 2012 11:59 pm. EST.
• You must publish the html in full provided to you concerning this giveaway on May 20 12:01 AM (I will check posts as of around 9am est that morning and will start deleting those who have not done so).
• You must agree to mention the giveaway on Twitter and Facebook at least once after the giveaway has started!

Ready to join?

Fill out the Sign Up form with your information. If you have any questions, please email Dee at bellasosavvy@gmail.com.

{Homemade bread}

I have made this bread recipe from The simple Dollar website, and it is good, just time consuming. As you are doing the kneading and rising on your own and by hand and tracking the time for each step.
Then I saw this bread recipe that uses a bread machine. I had a bread machine once and donated it because though I like the idea of the ease of a bread machine but I hate losing half my loaf because of the mixing blade. 
So I then I found Crystal from Money Saving Mom's tip and recipe where she does the bead in a machine just using the dough cycle then moving it to loaf pan to rise and then bake. Also super easy. So here goes my bread machine recipe trial.

I had my recipe printed out and got all the ingredients out. You add all the ingredients in the specific order to the machine. 

Then I selected 9 for the dough cycle and hit start. And waited. It was about an hour 20 minutes that it did its work.

I then pulled the dough out and formed it into a loaf with a smooth top (not hard just hard to describe) and put it in the loaf pan that I had greased with shortening, and let it rise 20-40 mins. and it looked like this when I put it in my oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

And this is the beautiful, light and fluffy bread that I had available. It has been such a hit already that I have made it 2 more times and will make more tomorrow. 
I also tried the dinner roll recipe that works the same way with just as amazing results. Will share those pics next time I make it as they disappeared so quick ;-)

{Many Thanks}

I want to say a Huge Thank you to Anne of Green Eggs and Moms for her awesome guest post and replying to comments for my maternity leave. You have had an awesome post which is one of the most commented and viewed posts on my blog. You have driven more traffic and received some awesome feedback!! 
Thank you so much for being your super cool, awesome, sweet self!! I can not express how thankful I am!

{New Site} from some Blogging Rockstars

I am posting about this today because it is the day this site goes Live with awesome Tips and tricks and How-to's on how to Really REALLY use your DSLR camera in MANUAL mode. When I am back to work from Mat Leave and have some extra cash, I will be taking several of their classes.

Shootflyshoot.com is a website started by Kevin of The Lettered Cottage blog that he does with his lovely wife Layla. Kevin runs Shootflyshoot.com along with his friend Josh.
Here is a short video about it that Layla shared on their blog.
INTRO with outtakes! from Shoot Fly Shoot on Vimeo.
The first class they will offer starting today is Photography 101 (2 hr and 40min class) and its just $69. AND because its on video you can pause, rewind and re-do over and over to get it down. They show you the buttons and settings and walk you through it several times, AND you will have access to it forever.
Be sure to hop over and check them out and show some love on opening day!

{Yummy Tiramisu Recipe}

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By Lockerz

Tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts. Surprising to my husband because I LOVE CHOCOLATE!

Jayna has a simple recipe posted that I can't wait to try.

Check out her post with the recipe and step by step pictures here at Behind the Studio.

I will let you know how it turns out when I make it.

{Things to Love Roundup}

Heather at Family Friendly Frugality shared this deal at Snapfish!

I LOVE ordering photo books! It’s so much neater than putting individual prints into an album and it makes a great gift! Snapfish has a *HOT* deal going on right now! 40% off Photo Books with the Snapfish promo code BOOKIT40!

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Ginger Snap Crafts shares a DIY photo pendant tutorial

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This blog- Cute and cool Creations, shares an adorable Valentines scrapbook set. I would say this is a must have whether you scrapbook or not. I can see a TON of uses for the patterns!

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Perfect Valentine Printable from My own Road's Blog

Found here.

Also available in gray and teal.

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And Finally from Richella of Imparting Grace:

Hope you enjoy these Great February finds as much as I have.

{Choose Joy}

 I am going to take some time to talk about a special and heart wrenching topic. I have followed this blog off and on for a while- Lil Blue Boo. She has an awesome clothing line, and recently has been dealing with a lot of tragedy. You can read Amy's post about what is going on with Ashley here at Evys Tree Blog. 

They are in the process of having an Auction at the end of this month to help with some of the medical expenses for Ashley. Please share this info, share her story, share the blog, share about the Auction. Read Ashley's story, and Check out her blog

FAQs:

Now on to some frequently asked questions:

When is the auction?
February 27-29, 2012. It starts at 8pm PST/11 pm EST and the end times will be staggered through the evening on the 29th, the exact ending times will be noted within each listing. Please note that Hyenacart auctions end 2 minutes after the last bid.
Where will the auction be held?
On a special site hosted by Hyena Cart. It is under construction right now, the address will be shared as we get a little closer to the auction date. You will need a shopping account on HyenaCart.com in order to bid.
What kinds of items will be offered?
We have been privileged to get donations from some very large handmade and unique companies. I think you will be THRILLED with what we will have to offer. So far we have a wide variety of items…photographers offering fabulous packages for all over the country, many doll makers and clothiers, and a large amount of clothing vendors. We will be posting previews of items as we get closer to the date…but let me just tell you, SAVE YOUR MONEY. I promise, you are going to want to bid on this stuff.
Can I make something for the auction?
Donations were only being accepted from businesses…and currently we are not accepting any more donations.
I don’t like auctions, but I want to help… How?
No problem! There is a donate button directly to your right on my sidebar. This button is linked to Ashley’s donation account and she receives all the funds that are received through it. Anything you can give to Ashley would be AWESOME.
Unfortunately, the Team Ashley tee-shirts designed by Stephanie Corfee have sold out…THANK YOU to all who purchased one to support Ashley. Missed out on one? No worries, we’ll have other ways you can show your love and support for Ashley. And again, in the meantime…don’t forget the donation button!!
What happens if I win one of the auctions?
You will be required to pay within 24 hours of the auction ending. All payments will be made by paypal. Please make sure your Paypal shipping address is correct, that is the address we will ship to, no exceptions. We are unable to accept money orders or e-checks. If you are unable to complete the transaction, the item will go to the next highest bidder.
I am outside of the U.S., do you ship internationally?
Items can be shipped internationally unless the listing description states otherwise. Some items will be services, so don’t bid if you are not in that area. If you are outside of the U.S., the donor of the item will contact you after payment has been made to make arrangements to ship your item, you may be responsible for the shipping charges.
How much of the proceeds go to Ashley?
100%. Team Ashley has donated their time and is not taking any salary or compensation from this auction. This is currently the only auction endorsed by Ashley and Lil Blue Boo.

We hope this helps answer some of your questions! Please feel free to follow along, we will be posting more updates weekly. If you click on the Team Ashley Logo over on my sidebar, all the blog posts regarding the auction will be housed there.

Thank you friends! You are all amazing. We are blown away by the love and support you are showing our friend…a friend to all of us, yes?

Big hugs xoxo

{Guest Post Part 2}

Be sure to check out Part 2 of my Guest Post over at Peace, Love, & Poop for my 2nd go at nursing.

Find it Here!

{Great Gift Idea}

Crafterhours was one of the first blogs I began following. I just saw this pop up on my feed from last week, and I can't tell you how excited I was to see it. I had to share it right away! 

This is a DIY audio book idea having family members read a book to your children. Genius. No need for a special priced book sold in stores that they can record into and it one day break. You have to read this. I hope to get this done at least for next year. I Love special gifts like this!

crafterhours: Record Your Own Kids Audio Books: A Tutorial:

{Allergy Free Cake and Icing}

I found this cake recipe that I decided to try with my son who has dairy, egg, corn, and nut allergies. Yep all that, plus a few others...YIKEs. His birthday is coming up and I needed to find something he could eat, and wanted to do a trial run of it to see how it would come out.
 
So she has a blog I have been following because of the allergy issue and she has great recipes (Milk Allergy Mom ) So I went here first looking to see if she had shared a cake, and this is one she makes for her dairy and egg and nut allergy boys. It even has flavor variations!!! Thank you so much Jamie for sharing your allergy journey and this cake recipe. Keep reading, pictures below.

Cake recipe and variations:

This is the chocolate cake recipe:

1.5 c flour

1 c sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder (for chocolate cake)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup oil

1 c cold water

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients and pour into greased 8" or 9" square pan. Bake in oven until done. Check at about 20 minutes.

Substitutions:

VANILLA CAKE: omit cocoa, double vanilla, add 1/4 cup of more flour

SPICE CAKE: omit cocoa, add 1 Tb pumpkin spice, add 1/4 cup of more flour...and try Pillsbury dairy and egg free cream cheese icing!

ORANGE CAKE: omit cocoa & vinegar, use orange juice for the water, add 1/4 cup of more flour

LEMON CAKE: omit cocoa, use lemon juice for vinegar, can add some lemon extract, add 1/4 cup of more flour

 NOTE; when greasing cake pan- use NON DAIRY spray!! we usually use OLIVE OIL and just rub it on the pan with a flour sack cloth.

Icing Recipe

(From mom2sweetpea in a comment to the above cake)

My son is allergic to eggs, nuts & dairy. Because of him I've started taking cake decorating classes. I make my own buttercream frosting, and it is allergy-free for him too. This recipe is good if you want to do designs on your cakes because it will dry a bit and hold shapes. It is:

1 cup solid white vegetable shortening (I use Crisco-not the butter one!)

1 tsp of vanilla (use clear if you want the frosting to stay white-you can use other flavorings too)

7-8 tsp of water

1 lb pure can confectioner's sugar

Pinch of salt (this keeps it from being super sweet from all that sugar!)

Blend on medium until thoroughly mixed

I also add 3/4 cup cocoa sometimes to make it chocolate!

SO we were all a bit skeptical about how this would taste and turn out. Which is the main reason we wanted to check it out first.

 So they turned out pretty darn yummy. They were very moist, like melt in your mouth moist and we all enjoyed several of them. I will probably cook it a bit longer because they were almost too moist.maybe only 5 minutes or so extra.

As you can tell my girl thought they were really  yummy and had several that she herself decorated.

So yes I am pretty excited to have these to look forward to at my son's birthday party. I am so glad that he will have food that he can eat that is also yummy. I am excited that we will have a chance to make ONE cake or one batter for everyone without worrying someone won't like it or that some food could get contaminated and he could end up with a food he can't have.

{Tiny Prints Event}

Ok I am super excited to tell you about this awesome Blogger event I was invited to by Mommy B (aka Jennifer) at www.mommybknowsbest.com. It was hosted at Fran's Filling Station off Park Rd in Charlotte. It was my first visit to Fran's and it was sure yummy. First off the appetizers- we got the bacon wrapped tater tots, the corn nuggets, and they were so good. But I will have to jump ahead to tell you about dessert. I got their peanut butter pie. Oh dear, that was sure good. I was torn though because the lemon marscapone cake sounded divine as well.  Back to the event, I met some great other bloggers that Mommy B will be sharing in pics on her site so I won't share everything right yet, but be sure to check out her blog for more details of that. We had Chris Garner of TPS Photography share with us some great tips on photography for bloggers and using the camera properly. He was very entertaining and is sending his power point and notes to us via email to make it simpler. He is having a special event with an awesome deal for your Christmas cards, so it also totally worked with our Tiny Prints event. Chris is an internationally certified professional photographer, only one of 42 in the state of NC. He also completely guarantees you will love your pictures or your money will be refunded. I will list more of his contact info at the bottom of this post.

So now I want to tell you about Tiny Prints

I had always known of Tiny Prints but mainly seen them as baby announcements. And therefore figured they also did many other types of cards. What I didn't know was that they also do gifts, favors, and photo books. One of the ones on display at our event was a Holiday cookbook that also showed these awesome ways to package things into gifts. I honestly could have swiped that book and brought it home with me.


I really fell in love with the planners they have available. They have weekly, monthly and wedding planners that you can personalize. see the details of it here

Be sure to check out their holiday line. There are some great ideas.

We had an swag bag ( eeeekkkk my first swag bag) and it looked like this.

We had samples of several card types, a set of Thank you notes, and a Free Photo book. Hmmm now what to use that for.......I can't decide.

 Thank you Tiny Prints and Jennifer!



But get this, I found an awesome idea that I am in LOVE with, and can just imagine several uses in decor and great ways/reasons to save some cards long term. You ready?

A Christmas card that is an ornament!! How sweet is that! You know what I pictured immediately? A 4 foot tree full of ornament photo Christmas cards! I can save ones of family and close friends over the years and even cut them into ornaments and put them up to show the kids growth over the years! I am definitely doing that this year!




Thanks for sticking with me through this post and I hope you found some things on Tiny Prints that you didn't know existed. I was very surprised at some of the options!

Some helpful links for you to check out by our wonderful hosts:

Tiny Prints: http://www.tinyprints.com/, Facebook, Twitter

MommyB Knows Best: http://www.mommybknowsbest.com, Facebook, Twitter (and http://www.thecharlottemoms.com)

TPS Photography (Chris Garner): http://tpsphotography.com/, Facebook

Fran's Filling Station: http://fransfillingstation.com/, Facebook,Twitter

And some of the cool bloggers I met:

Maricris G: ZensibleMama.com, Zensiblelife.com, Zensiblereviews.com

Jamie R: Mamamommymom.com

Susan K: Reallifetravels.com

Kelley C: http://foreverslikeadream.com

Lisa F: http://www.adailypinch.com

{What I Love Online lately}

Well its been a bit of a crazy couple weeks. My work has been odd and I have been home with the kids more, which actually means less crafting time because my son is a mamas boy and I can't get anything done when he is awake. I did get a few projects done on Friday when my hunny was home too, but I have to finish writing up the posts. I took LOTs and LOTS of pictures so that I Have a great step by step tutorial.


I also have several reviews of different products and stores I have been working on for the upcoming gift season that I hope helps you determine some gift ideas and narrow down which way to go for some things. I am gearing up for my first blogger event this Friday night thanks to Jennifer @MommyBknowsBest. You should totally check out her blog. Great review blog for mom and kid products and places. I have also written up a Media Kit and working on collecting sponsorship for 2 Blog Conferences coming up in 2012. See I have been busy! :-)



So for now, I had to share with you some quick, cute things that I have found and LOVE online in the last couple weeks. Hopefully get started on some of these soon!

DIY Wrap and Scarf

This is NO Sew, so Anyone, ANYONE can do this!

Thanks to Behind the seam for this easy post!

Simple Ribbon Tree Shirt

This is another No sew project- craft glue works perfect! see her easy to follow directions

Find this tutorial at BJaneBrewing

Silhouette Tutorial

I love the look of silhouettes and would see this as a great idea for Christmas presents

Jones Design Company does a great picture tutorial on how to do this yourself.

Find it here

Great Craft room decor and organization

I Will be making this and out it in my craft room that is currently being Redone.

This has such a cool look to it and you can easily access your threads and see your colors!

LOVE!

Find the tute here

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