MY BUCKET LIST OF TRAVEL

We LOVE to travel!! 

More than that, as we have been discussing travel and where to go, we have decided that we LOVE to explore new places.

I decided that I needed to make a Bucket List of our travel.

Something that we can cross off.

Something, that if we forget where we want to go, we will have a list of options.

Here it is.

The ever evolving Bucket List of Travel.

ASHLEY'S

1. Vancouver - Bouchart Gardens

2. Quebec City

3. Disneyland Paris

4. Shanghai Disney

5. Hong Kong Disneyland

6. Tokyo Disney

7. Hawaii

8. New Orleans

9. Baltic Sea

10. Maine

11. Martha's Vineyard

12. Nauvoo

ANDY'S

1. Antarctica

2. Africa

3. South America

4. Asia (not sick)

Hopefully sometime we will be able to cross some of these off, and I am sure we will ALWAYS be able to add more.

Until then... Happy Trails!

A NEW BLOG

A little while ago I started working on a new project for myself...

A NEW BLOG!! 

I decided that I would start a new blog that was not very personal, but would be a place for me to put the tutorials, pictures, recipes and fun stuff that I don't mind anyone taking a look at.

Also, I have been interested in the basic blog knowledge, and this blog has been a great opportunity for me to find out a WHOLE LOT more about blogs.

So, come on over to my new blog, and if you like it, follow it!! :)

Project Bazaar

FLOWER CORKER HAIR BOW TUTORIAL

Last week I had a tutorial published on The Ribbon Retreat's blog!

I was super excited to make and share this fun springtime bow with all their readers, and now on my blog too!!

Hi Ribbon Retreat Readers!! It's Ashley from Sweet Mama J's Boutique.

 Today, I have a Korker Flower Hair Bow tutorial for you, just in time for Easter!!

I absolutely LOVE The Ribbon Retreat's  beautiful selection of ribbons, especially for fun hair bows!

Here we go...

For this project I used: 

 3 - 8 inch lengths of Double Ruffle Ribbon in light pink

3 - 7 inch lengths of 5/8" Solid Grosgrain in white

Enough ribbon for Korker bow in 3/8" Delight-Sheer/Satin in white, 3/8" Solid Sheer in lime, and 3/8" Swiss Dots in pink with white.

1- Lined alligator clip in white

1 - 10 mm crystal sticker

Fray Check

Hot Glue 

  

Take 1 of your pieces of Double Ruffle and fold it in half.  Make sure you make a crease that you can see when unfolded.

Unfold it and put a small dab of hot glue on the crease.

Fold bottom end up to meet the crease making sure to secure in hot glue.  Repeat with the top end, remember to make sure to secure in the hot glue.

Repeat all three steps with the remaining 2 pieces of the 8 inch length and all 3 pieces of the 7 inch length.

You should have ended up with 6 loops.

Take the first loop with the cut ends up and put a small dab of hot glue on it.  

Put the second loop on it cut ends facing down so the 2 loops form an X.

Put a small dab of glue on top of your X and put your third loop to cross through the X, as shown.

Repeat the steps with your remaining loops to have 2 flowers, one smaller than the other.

Put a small dab of glue in the middle of the larger flower and place the small flower so the petals straddle the petals of the larger flower.

Press together firmly.

At this point you can do anything with the middle of your flower, such as, add a button, some cute rosettes, a ribbon sculpture or even just keep it the way it is.

I have chosen to add a Korker bow to the middle to make it fun and festive.

I made the Korker bow with the free instructions found on The Ribbon Retreat's site.

After making my corker ribbons, I cut them all to about 2 1/2 or 3 inches.

Make sure to seal your ends using your preferred method.

For my Korker bow I used the needle and thread method to attach them together and then secured the thread on the bottom of my Korker bow.

Put a small dab of glue on the bottom of your corker bow and attach it to the middle of your smaller flower.

 

Put a very small dab of glue on the back of your crystal and attach it to the middle of your Korker.

Gives it a little bit of bling, that all princesses have!

 

Put a small line of glue along the top of your alligator clip and attach to the back of your large flower.

 

Press firmly to secure. 

And there's a Beautiful Hair Bow.

Just in time for Easter!!

Think of all the other occasions that would go perfectly with this cute Korker Flower Hair Bow!!

Thanks to The Ribbon Retreat for allowing me to share with you guys today!!

GLASS CLASS

Last September my hubby and I went on a cruise with some family and friends.  It was exotic, and amazing and fun!

The boat that we were on was also BEAUTIFUL!! 

We cruised on Celebrity Cruise Lines and our fantastically beautiful boat even had a hot glass studio and show!  Well, needless to say, I was INSPIRED!  

So, later, when I found a Groupon for a hot glass class at Circle 6 Studios for only $25.00, AND you got to make and keep a flower, I HAD to get it!!

I bought the Groupon, scheduled my appointment and went off to glass class.  I am not going to lie, when I got there and they were going over the demo of what we would be doing and all the safety of it... I WAS SCARED!!  I was #9, so when it was my turn I had seen 8 people already do it, and I was petrified!!

I walked up to the instructor and he asked if I was ready, I said, "NO!"  He laughed.

I worked through it and it ended up being REALLY fun!!  

During our 2 hour class we were able to get glass out of the oven, and then shape it into a flower of our choice.

I seriously made this!!

AMAZING!!

ROME & GREEK ISLES CRUISE

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SIGNATURE

Here's to trying to expand my technical horizons and giving the signature a try.

"Better put my hand in, wish me happy landing. All you got to do is.... JUMP!"

P.S. It seems to have worked. Yay!

CLOSET SHELVES!

Remember how I told everyone that I had big plans to put holes in all my walls?  Well, that included something in the closet!! My closet has been DRIVING ME CRAZY! It is SO cluttered and I kept tripping on my shoes.
I have have been thinking for a while (ok, a REALLY LONG while) that I needed to do something about this, like.... some shelves.
I DID IT!!

I added closet shelves almost ALL by myself!!

It wasn't rocket science... but I did it! And I was pretty proud!

YAY!!

SCRAPPY OWL FOR AMELIA

I have wanted to make something cute for my brand new niece who arrived a few short weeks ago, but couldn't quite figure out what.
Until... I saw a tutorial for these ADORABLE scrappy owls.
I couldn't pass it up, so, here she is!!

Congratulations to Casey & Tori on your beautiful new addition!!

WHO COULDN'T USE AN ADORABLE OWL?

PRETZELS... YUM

A little while ago, a few of my friends and I decided to have a pot luck finger food craft day,
and I had wanted to make soft pretzels for a while.



I figured this would be the perfect opportunity!!



I used a recipe that I found in my Woman's Day magazine, that can also be found here.

They turned out great!! I made 3 kinds, and loved all of them!

WHAT A GREAT DAY!!

SEWING FUN!

I found a super fun sewing contest online through one of my blogs and I thought that it would be SUPER fun to enter!!

 

A while back my AMAZING sister-in-law called me up and said that she had found the PERFECT outfit for her daughters 1st birthday party.  However she did not want to spend so much money for one adorable outfit.  I told her I would look at it and see what I came up with.  

Complete with matching hot pink and zebra ruffled bumkins.

I bought a clearance dress from Target to get measurements for the chest and length, and dug deep inside to remember all the things my mother had taught me years ago about sewing.
For the bumkins, I did adjust a tutorial I found at Just Tutorials to use a non-knit cotton, and then added ruffles.

  

I think it turned out adorable!!

I am pretty sure most of the cuteness comes from the model!! 

DAY 1: EPCOT...

 

We decided to start this vacation a day early and spend the day at Epcot in Disney World.  Andy and I have decided to go back in the spring for a week, and when we priced everything out it ended up being more cost effective to upgrade our Disneyland Season Passes to the Premier Pass.

We are official DISNEY CRAZY!

We started the day in Future World and then headed back to the World Showcase for the afternoon.  Julia had not been the future world in a very long time and was experiencing many of the attractions for the first time.  I LOVE LOVE going with first timers!!

As we headed back to the World Showcase we OF COURSE had to stop to share a pastry in Norway.   They are too good to pass up!

 

 

We then made sure that we caught the show in the American Pavilion, which I had never seen before.  

It was great! I left feeling like the 4th of July!

What a great feeling!!

 

We then had to hurry, so we could make our dinner reservations at 'Ohana.  It is our favorite restaurant on Disney World property, and always try to stop there on our way through Florida.  Since Andy told them we were celebrating our 10th anniversary, they ran out of Anniversary buttons and gave us Just Engaged buttons.
 
 They also gave us a table with the view of the fireworks and brought the table lei's and gave us cupcakes with candles in them.  It was really fun!!

WE'LL SEE YOU SOON!