Todays Mama give-a-way

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
crafting stuff,, a cricut, scarves ,
necklace and a new printer

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
plaques my daughters made for me

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
a quilt
4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
a camera
5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?
iphone, camera, and house stuff
6. What is your favorite holiday food?
my mama's cornbread dressing and mother-in-laws potato salad
7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
gift tags, tote bags and chalkboards
8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
Rudolph and any of the family Christmas specials that come on TV
9. Favorite holiday song?
Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt and I wanna hippopottamus for Christmas
10. Favorite holiday pastime?
Taking the annual Christmas photo for the cards that usually dont even make it to
the mail box,, and going to the Christmas parades.

To enter to win all these cool prizes below simply answer the questions in this meme, make sure to post links back to TodaysMama.com and Provo Craft (use this link: http://bit.ly/4ikY3c ) and tag your friends!





If you're a follower of my blog consider yourself tagged and get in on your chance to win some of these goodies.. good luck and Merry Christmas

I won I won i shot the BB gun

Ha ha ha,, thats what the kids used to say.. But anyway I won a give-a-way,, a handbag/totebag..and I love bags/purses/totes of all kinds so i'm really excited,, cant wait to get my 'prize in the mail.. I entered the give-a-way at The Shabby Chic Cottage and won a bag from Pink Oyster Designs - she makes handbags, totes and backpacks from weathered sails. They are just tooo cute. She is very talented. Here is a picture of one of her bags,, I hope its the one I won. Thanks Gina for hosting the carnival of give-a-ways and thanks Kim for the great bag.

Its Christmas time and some cake

Been really busy working on some Christmas yard art, patterns borrowed from a coworker of Jeff's,, Thanks Nicky! These were really fun to paint and not at all hard like I've always thought. Cant wait to get them outside. I hope to add a Fireman Santa and some others next year.





This was a cake for a coworker of Mel's,, she had the pan from when her 10 year old was 3 and he thought it'd be so cool if his little brother had the same cake he had at that age. These character cakes are not so easy to follow once that cake is turned out of the pan, but all in all it wasnt that hard to do. Just had to improvise a little bit.



I'm linking to these great parties today.. go check 'em out! You'll be glad you did.

bear "wreath" me

ha ha ha ,, i know ,, its corny, i couldnt help it.. but anyway every Wednesday from now until Dec 25th Rena` is hosting a wreath party at her blog, Cottage and Vine ,,


it can be wreaths you've made, would like to make or just really pretty ones that you like.. so go here and link up with your favorites.. This is my first one. It was inspired by Rachels wreath here and is really simple. She even tells how she did it, you cant go wrong with that. I plan to add a little bit of spray snow on mine, when i"m not being lazy I have a chance.
Thanks for stopping by.. and please leave a comment,, they make my day!

Favorite Recipe

There's a recipe party going on over at The Shabby Chic Cottage so I thought I'd share our favorite cheesecake recipe.. Go on over and see all the wonderful recipes being posted.

Homemade Cheese Cake

When my kids were younger they loved me to fix the cheesecake in a box with strawberry topping and it is really good. But about two years ago I found this recipe from somewhere for a homemade cheesecake.. and OH MY GOSH it is reallly good and so simple.

2 - 8oz packages of cream cheese (let it come to room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 graham cracker pie crust

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla and mix. Pour into the pie crust and bake at 350 for about 45-50 minutes.. the top will brown slightly and rise, as it cools it will settle down. Serve it plain or with your favorite topping. Enjoy.

click here to go to home page and older posts

Its a Saturday night special

Linking up again with Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors for her Saturday night special anything goes party... While visiting some blogs this week i saw this that Melissa made and went to the dollar tree and found the things to make my own,, I didnt find the white candles for the middle part but I found some plain glass holders and made two of them and they were so pretty for a cheap little quick project thrill.. and then I come home today and the evil little kitty had knocked them off the table and now there's only one.. I added some poinsettas I snipped from a flower bunch today and it looks complete now.




Be sure to go over to Donnas and join in the fun and share what you have or just be inspired by all the goodies others have made.

Blog Hop Party

If you're here from the DIY showoff blog hop,.. Welcome to Simply Southern,,,, please look around, leave comments,, and Have a great weekend!!

Its their birthday

Katelynn and Robert's birthday.. Went to their birthday party/dinner at their house. We ate outside and had a good time. Happy Birthday Katelynn , Happy Birthday Robert.. love ya'll

Robert wanted the bumblebee car from Transformers... this was close as i could get it.


Katelynn just wanted roses and butterflys. Done!

Tiered plate/cake stand

I've been eyeballing all the tiered plate stand things i've been seeing around blogland and wanted to try one out for myself,, I picked up the two glass candle sticks at a yard sale for 50c each and the other stuff I had already. The top and bottom tier are lids from some tins and the middle one is the top of a sturdy gift box. The very bottom base is part of a candle holder. I just used my glue gun to put them together, cause i'm impatient like that, but really should've used gorilla glue or E6000.. for now its holding its own and will stay the way it is,, later i plan to prime and paint it. I added a simple burlap table runner underneath. I made a runner with drop cloth and some christmas fabric and within an hour had spilled melted candle wax on it,,, thats so not right,, maybe i'll share that one later.


I'm linking up to the Saturday nite special over at Donna's place - Funky Junk Interiors - If you've never nosied around her site,, you are missing out,, she is really creative and loves to make unique and unusual home decor and other things. And the best part is she shares all that info with her readers.. Thanks Donna . So go now to the Saturday Nite Special. and see what everybody else is sharing tonight.

These are a few of my Favorite Things...

I'm joining Melissa and some other really great bloggers for a "Favorite Things" party today,, go on over and check out her blog if you haven't already and join in the fun.


My favorite things . . . and all this is besides my family of course who are my absolutely, hands down, no doubt about it favorites of ALL!!!

*FAVORITE singer of ALL time ~ Loretta Lynn. Ever since i was really young,, i've loved Loretta. She has such a distinctive voice and most if not all her songs have a story behind them. I love that.


*Favorite hymn - "It is Well" ...I love the song and the story behind how/why it was written. I love to hear it sung in church. I only recently learned of the story behind the hymn, I had never heard it before. Its so sad but we gained a beautiful song from it.

This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the S.S. Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sailing ship, the Loch Earn, and all four of Spafford's daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, "Saved alone." Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.
(taken from Wikipedia.com)



*favorite washing powder - I love that it makes your whole house smell good when your doing the laundry and well since I (or somebody in the house) does laundry every day that's a good thing.



*most favori-t-e- food is shrimp,,, fried, boiled, sauteed, shrimp sandwich, shrimp ka-bob, etc,, you get the picture.. I like em any which way they are served.

*favorite drink.. COKE,, and preferrably from Sonic.. mmm mmmmm

*some favorite movies ... Little Women, Coal Miners Daughter, Under the Tuscan Sun, Grease, Dances with Wolves, While you were sleeping

*Flea Markets ~ We have one near my house and I love to go on a cool day,, you have to dress warm and there are space heaters going through out the building,, its peaceful to just walk around and look. Magazines are one of the things i look for when i go, you can find some good ones and most are 50 cents are cheaper.



*Favorite books - Years ago I worked with one of the sweetest ladies i've ever met, Jo, and to this day beleive that God set her straight in my path (another story for another day), but she loved to read. Since it was just she and I in the office and we had lots of down time we read alot during the day. I've always loved to read but had never read any of Janet Dailey's books.. She brought them to work one day for me to borrow and I was hooked after the first one and couldn't wait to read the others. I found them at a yard sale awhile back and even now when I'm just wanting something to read they are still my favorite. If you've never read any of her books,, you really should and these are the perfect ones to start with.



Well these are just a FEW of my favorite things,, I could go on forever but that would be a really long post. So be sure to stop by 320 Sycamore and read about others favorite things.

Crafting crafting crafting

EDITING:: Joining the party over at Donna's ~ FunkyJunkInteriors .. not only does she do some of the most amazing makeovers and projects there's a linky party for window treatments tonight,, so go,, take a look at what everybody has done!!



Been finding all kinds of things i want to do this week.. Lindsay from LivingwithLindsay featured this bookpage wreath,, and I thought that is too cute and I can do that, so I did it that very night.. this was a really simple project and it didnt take too long, although i think mine might need a few more pages added here and there. If you want to see the original inspiration click here.



I've had the letters cut out to make this sign for weeks now, I was gonna do it my usual way but decided to paint them on this board that was originally a "BOO" sign from the dollar tree..


I also made a simple little valance for the kitchen window,, which looks much better than the ugly lacy one that was there.. (dont look at the dirty blinds)


A few weeks ago i finally got around to making some drapes for the living room, out of drop cloth, what else? I love them and this material. Got lots of ideas for the rest of it.



Thanks for stoppy by and looking around. I'm off to find more stuff that I won't have time to do.. happy crafting!

Mama birthday

Celebrating with mama for her 66th birthday,, WE love you mama.. you are the GREATEST! She's my friend, loyal supporter of everything i do, best mamaw in the world to my kids, great cook, the ears to listen when i need to talk, the best loving mama anyone could ever ask for.. Hope you had a wonderful Birthday.

All about the cake

Randy & Kelly are getting married in December and Kelly's bridal shower was yesterday. This was her cake. My FIRST time ever doing roses.. I started practicing only 3 days before and believe me the verse that says "I can do all things through Christ who strenghtens me" was never more true than this weekend. Yes, God will even help you make roses. Cant wait for another reason to practice some more.