Ok, Ladies~ Get your aprons on....

Banana Nut Muffins~

6 Tbsp butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 eggs (good luck!)

4 very ripe bananas

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

2 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and sugar.

Mix in eggs, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Combine salt, soda and flour.

Mix dry ingredients into creamed mixture.

Stir in walnuts.

Bake 25 minutes in muffin cups lined with paper liners.

You'll have to watch the time... may need more or less. Use the toothpick test.

My New Treasury~

You may be in it!

Big Decorative Tassel Tutorial

So I found this cute little birdie at Michaels in my fav color~ green.

He was just a few dollars and I thought he would make the cutest tassel.

Last night I finished the project.

I made a little tutorial as I went along to share with ya'll.

There are a thousand ways to make these tassels so feel free to share your ideas as well.

This way worked out great for me with the supplies that I had on hand.

Here's what you need:

*A cute "figurine"

*Variety of fringe trims and ribbons

*Some kind of a base to adhere your figurine to. (Can be a wooden candlestick holder or anything you have on had that fits the size of your figurine. I used an empty plastic sour cream tub because it was perfectly sized, lightweight and on hand)

*Glue stick and gun

*Strong adhesive for bonding the figurine to the base

*If your figurine doesn't have holes in it to tie a ribbon for hanging (mine already did) and it happens to me made out of wood, you can screw in an eye hook for hanging.

Here's what I used:

Notice that I forgot to include the adhesive in the picture, so I just wrote it in.

I used E6000 which has warning notices all over the bottle.

It does have a very strong scent, so I went out to the garage when using it and put on my

"old man mowing the yard" mask which helped.

(which may or may not be upside down????

Don't know which way those things are supposed to go!)

So just use whatever strong adhesive you are comfortable with.

Oh, I forgot to put a glue gun and sticks in the pic as well. Opps~

Step 1~ Adhere the Figurine to the base with strong adhesive and let dry

Step 2~ Make a puffy "base fringe" to fill up the base~

How you go about this will depend on what size you want your tassel to be and what supplies you have.

I wanted a big, puffy tassel and had the entire sour cream cup I needed to fill up.

Plus I didn't have a lot of "puffy" fringe on hand.

So I used eyelash yarn for knitting.

I made a pompom ball, only I didn't cut mine into a ball shape, but left it as a bell shape instead. (I did this by tying my string through the loops rather than around the whole pompom ball.)

Then I hot glued it up into the base of the sr. cream cup.

Step 3~ Add fringe and ribbons~

Again, this will just depend on what you have on hand.

I got that fantastic tulle trim and burlap trim from this shop.

So I hot glued the burlap into 3 loops and adhered them to the base.

Next start hot gluing on your various trims and ribbons working around and around the base. Make it as thick, colorful, puffy, skinny, crazy as you want.

At this point my husband, Josh, walked by and asked, " What is that?"

"It's a tassel" I said.

"Who's it for? Paul Bunyan?" he asked.

Yes, it is big and puffy, and I love it that way!

But it needed a bow. So I made one out of that fantastic burlap with a pretty ribbon as the center. Then just hot glued it on.

Step 4~ Tidy up loose ends~

Now I trimmed up the eyelash yarn base, shaping it and trimming off the excessively long strands.

Then I tied a ribbon (I used eyelash yarn again) through the top for hanging.

Here is when Josh walked by again and asked if it was supposed to look like that.

Well, I guess there is no particular way that it is supposed to look. Just make it look however you want it to look. I wanted it to look big and puffy and that is how it turned out. :)

The final look:

Would love to hear your ideas/questions!

Cheers~

New in the shop~

#1 and 2 in a series of 3 new "Puffer Bird" cards~

The little birds have been stuffed with batting making them puffy!

Of course, they each come with a handmade envelope as well...

I have admired Alona's work for so long.

You can always find this listed as one of my Etsy favs

and it is on my list of things to buy when we finally get into our own home.

Today you have a chance to win one her custom initial necklaces!

Hop over here to enter the giveaway!

Good luck

(kinda....actually I hope I win! ) hee!hee!

:)

So pretty today! A great day for fun at the playground:

What we've been up to.....

I thought once the holidays were officially over,

things would slow down,

but seems like things are actually speeding up! :)

We had such a fun Christmas!

I tried once again to get a serious Christmas picture, but Lucas had another idea:

It's so much fun to watch the boys anticipate Santa's arrival!

Zachary made sure Santa knew exactly what he wanted:

And they made sure he was rewarded with milk and cookies:

Josh and I got to attend a holiday party for grown-ups:

And we got to visit with both sides of the family!

Since returning home from Dallas, here's a little of what I've been working on.

Sorry about the shabby photography!

I've been wanting a necklace with an organza flower embellishment, but didn't want to shell out the money for one, so I made one for myself:

(please excuse the double chin and the underarm. I had to take this one of myself)

And since you can usually find me in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, I decided to make myself a skirt:

I also was able to make a cute crocheted pink scarf that I don't have a picture of, but hopefully can post one soon. I'm thinking about including scarves and jewelry in my etsy store, but just not sure yet....

Next on the to-do list: planning a baby shower, January teacher appreciation gifts for my son's school's staff, re-stocking my store, and a few projects for family members.

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