Easy as 1,2,3 Dessert

Here is an extremely easy, quick, delicious, light, & half way healthy dessert. All you need is 3 ingredients!! I needed something to bring to our family Fourth of July potluck & I had like no time to make something gourmet, so I looked around my house to see what I had on hand . Even though I had no time I wanted it to appear I had spent hours on it, thinking about it & creating it and of course I wanted it to be festive in red, white & blue...... this is what I came up with.

You want to create this? You can it is SUPER EASY & made with things you probably have on hand already

Ingredients:

1 Box of Angel food box cake

1 1/2 big containers of light Cool Whip

Fresh Fruit

Directions:

1. Make angel food cake as directed on box & let cool completely

2. cut the cake up into bite size pieces

3. start with a layer of angel food bites, then a layer of cool whip, then I did a layer of fresh blueberries

4. repeat the angel food bite & cool whip layer  then add your fresh raspberries on the top

5. eat & enjoy!!!

Red, White & Blue

Red, white, & blue, parades, candy, swimming, eating, and of course fireworks......yep we are talking fourth of July! Any holiday is a wonderful time of year that I look forward to each year..........when I was a young kid we had our traditions for each holiday that we could always look forward to. My parents were great at putting their kids' needs before theirs and making sure that we had a lifetime of great memories and lots of family time & I strive to carry out that tradition to my kids.

I like to make a big deal of their birthdays, holidays, big achievements, & milestones _ and I don't mean making a big money sucking production out of these things, but making it a big deal for my kids. It doesn't take a lot of money, toys, & gifts in order to make it "the best day EVER" for your kids.....Just use your creativity & spend time with them & they will love it, remember it & cherish it forever. 

This past week was July 4th & one of my husbands traditions & memories of July 4th as he was a kid was taking part in the kiddie parade in our small town & since our children are now all about the age to go into the parade by themselves I wanted to make it a memorable tradition for them also, so they decided that they each wanted to ride their own bikes threw the parade. In an attempt to keep them involved in the process I had asked them if they had ideas or how they might like their bikes to be decorated in red, white & blue. My oldest son was all about superheros, My girl was about sparkle, & my littlest one (not quite 2 yrs. old) was just excited to be doing whatever his siblings were doing ;) So we put our heads together, gather things from around the house & got to decorating and this is what we came up with.

My girl had a blast & was decorated on the front & back of her bike

 Using bows, ribbon, straws on some of the spokes & creativity we got them red, white & blue

 My youngest loves to make noise so we had to give him noise makers on his bike :)

Notice the Captain America Shield we created for my oldest son's bike....it may not be perfect but he LOVED it & couldn't wait to show it off

My girl got her sparkle by adding blue glitter to her name plate we created

Memorial day traditions

Memorial day is a day of appreciation, honor, respect & admiration for those that have served in our country.

When I was a kid our Memorial weekend tradition was to go camping with the family & close friends enjoying & celebrating the first weekend of summer with lots of mouth watering foods, laughs, stories & outdoor games. Today my own families traditions are some what the same in the sense that we always have an abundance of mouth watering foods, laughs, spend it with lots of family around & enjoy outdoor games if weather permits. But since my husband is a farmer we don't go camping as this time of year we are busy planting making sure we can feed the world. We start our morning off by having our own flag raising ceremony at our house followed by us & many others partaking in the Memorial Day Ceremony at our local small town cemetery where a lot of my husbands loved ones that have past are buried. They have a group that comes to raise the flag, talk briefly, shoot off some blank rounds & then we go around & visit the grave sites. In the afternoon we all go back to the farm to enjoy a bountiful buffet & good company.Another tradition of Memorial Day is the potluck & that is how we choose to do our food selection on Memorial Day. My in-laws supply the hamburgers & hot dogs and the rest of us supply some other kind of dish of our choice, this year I decided to bring my fruit pizza for all to enjoy. Hope you all had a great Memorial day and Memorial day weekend, & remember to always thank a soldier for fighting for your rights to live in this beautiful country we live in!!

DIY Barn Wood Sign

 I have been seeing barn wood signs all over the place lately & I am obsessed with them! they fit right in with my personality & decor of my house, and a lot of my friends' also :)

We live on a farm & happen to have a huge pile of old barn wood at our place that is just calling my name & so I undertook a few barn wood sign projects the past few months & here are a couple of what I have done.

Supplies:

Barn wood (can also used pallet wood boards or other wood)

Scrap pieces of wood

Nails

Hammer

Paint of choice

1. Cut your barn wood to size you prefer

2. Use your scrap pieces of wood to run vertical on the back side of your wood & nail them into your barn wood (this will secure the pieces together to make a larger sign like the one on the left)

3. Paint whatever you would like on the sign

Ceiling Decor

Via Forever Fresh

When you walk into a wedding reception & the ceiling is decorated either with soft, romantic fabric, glamorous lights, chandeliers, lanterns, grape vine balls, pomanders or a combination of a couple of these it takes your breath away. People have ceiling decor for various types of reasons: to cover the venues ceiling &/or walls to transform the venue, to add romance to the venue, to bring the room down in size & make everything proportionate, whatever the reason may be, it never goes unnoticed!

Fabric with with or without lights added

Via Pic Stoppin

Chandeliers

Via Zena Dia Design

Grape Vine Balls

Via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Lanterns

Via Mahnita

String Lights

Via Super Weddings

Strike A Pose! Continuing Trend into 2013

Have you ever attend a wedding reception gone to cocktail  or social hour & you just kinda feel like there isn't a lot to do, so you are just kinda hanging out until the supper & dance starts? Well we have just the thing for you! Entertaining your guests is a HUGE part of every wedding - you want your guests to go away from your event saying "this was the best ever" or "I haven't had this great of a time at a wedding in a long time." Let's face it you want your guests to remember your event & be the first thing people think of when they hear the word wedding - fun, eventful, memorable, & beautiful! 

Photo booths used to be used more so for the birthday party & high school type of events, but why not have them at your wedding? They are fun & entertaining! Photo booths showed up at weddings in our area about 2 yrs ago & have become very popular. They are great to use as favors for your guests or just to add that extra fun to the night to keep your guests engaged & socializing.

 Now you can either hire a professional company that specializes in photo booths for you, see if your photographer offers some type of photo booth thing (as many do now), or you can create your own photo booth -adding personality & charm to your event.

The newest Trend right now is the DIY photo booth & we love this concept! I mean the possibilities are endless, you can create it for next to no money, you get to be creative, it will be one-of-a-kind & guests will feel more connected to you & your event.

Make it as fun, silly or chic as you want all these are found Via Pinterest

 

 

 

 

Green Envy with Succulents

Via Blue Magpie Invitation

Today a lot of brides are going green. They like things Eco-friendly,  & love to use all hues of green. Emerald green is rich & lush, with mint green being soft & romantic, let's not forget bout lime green for the fun & flirtacious. One green trend that we have been seeing a lot of lately is the use of succulents, they used to be thought of as just country feeling, but you can make them fit into any feel you are going for with your wedding depending on how you use them. Take a look at some of these very creative, modern, elegant & fun ideas to do with succulents.

Via The Knotty Bride

Via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Via Wedding Bee

Up Lighting

In our area up lights is a modern way of completely transforming our old(er) hotel venues which we mainly have around here into something fabulous & breath-taking! Up lighting is also great to use with fabric like behind backdrops to really illuminate the light. Our up lights are LED up lights which means they are made up of lots of tiny small red, blue & green LED bulbs which gives us the option to make a whole array of colors to create for you, they last so much longer, & they stay cool to the touch.

Photographry by: Forever Fresh                      Via:Forever Fresh Decorators

Candlelight

Candlelight, something that has been around since the beginning of time. It used to be used in place of electricity (since that was not yet invented) & to help keep you warm. These days it does about the same thing for weddings: not only do you use ALOT of candles in place of the big over head lights that most venues have, but it automatically sets a pure romantic, intimate feeling that helps to "warm up" any venue. We see candles being everywhere in weddings still today from the church to the centerpieces. It is always bright, welcoming, & romantic.

Here are just very few of  our weddings we have recently done with lots of candlelight.