Butterflies and Caterpillars

These boys love to craft! After they were done, we read them The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Jar Full of Wishes

First, I want to send a BIG thank you to Melissa for all the hard work and time she dedicated while being a part of Mamma T.  You will be missed but I know she will text me and say "les, oooo I did this awesome craft, post it." Even if she's not here she will probably be doing some behind the scenes stuff.  Thank you Melissa and I totally understand.  

Ok back on track, one of the assignments I had for my Persisting Stars class was to make a jar full of wishes. So I got a piece of paper cut it into strips, wrote down each of my wishes, and tied pretty ribbon on around them. I closed my eyes whispered the wish and dropped in a mason jar. Sounds silly? Try it! Everytime I say "I wish......". I run downstairs write down and throw it in the mason jar. Wishes do come true :) Who says we are too old to still dream and make wishes?

Leslie

So long, Farewell

I am what you would call a classic over-achiever, and with that sometimes comes over-acceptance. You know what I mean - "Sure, I can do that. And that? Oh yeah, I love that so I'll do it too. Oh and I can squeeze this in as well." Okay, I admit it I have a problem. =) First step.

When I started blogging on Mamma Tortilla I had always intended on finding a balance between home, photography, and crafty blogging (I have so many rough drafts of schedules to fit in everything - it would make your head swim!) but I honestly don’t think I’m going to be able to do it. That's hard for us over-achievers to admit. I have to place my husband and baby girl first, and then it's nice when I can get around to my business once in a while=) So as much as I love crafting, and blogging about it, I'm going to stick to blogging about photography and let Les run with Mamma T!

(Don't tell anyone, but, the real reason I'm leaving is because Leslie thinks I smell and said I had to go find a new blog because she was having trouble breathing. She's mean like that. Don't let her fool you!)

I love it here and hopefully Les will let me come back occasionally (if I shower=) Well, as long as she didn't read what I just wrote about her...oh well.

Make your life beautiful!

Where Creativity Was Born

picture by Melissa West Photography

As Mother's Day is fast approaching, I stop and reflect the years and what the birth of my children have done to me, besides giving me the biggest blessings in the world, they brought CREATIVITY with them! With each birth, a burst of creative energy rushed through me. I realize that my children have opened hidden passages that were secretly suppressed deep inside. They have held my right hand, god on the left and lead me down a path of self discovery. It's amazing! The last couple of weeks, with so much chaos going on, I finally had a moment to myself and it just clicked. I know where I am supposed to be and where I should go.  Would love to hear what amazing changes your children have brought you :)

P.S.

Melissa has a new photography website, please go check it out :)

happy earth day

Happy Earth Day! Be kind to our Mother Earth starting now and forever:)

Homemade Hair Clips

Now that my baby girl has enough hair, I am so excited that I can put clips in it! It helps to stop comments like, "Oh, how old is he?" To which I want to reply, "Oh, you mean the "he" in the pink dress?" People. If only everyone were perfect like me.=)

Okay anyway... I got a pack of alligator clips as Michael's and a pack of snap clips at the dollar store and yesterday I tried my hand as some girly hair clips. I love how cute they turned out and so super easy! All you need is ribbon and hot glue.

For this one I glued yellow ribbon on an alligator clip.  Then I took a thin strip of knit fabric, folded it in half (so the edges were both facing down) and rolled it.  Then covered the bottom in glue and stuck it on the clip.  Possibly my favorite so far! So bright and cheerful.

And this one...come on how stinkin' adorable is this?  Two pieces of red ribbon hot glued in a circle and a stripe of black at the top.  What was that...5 minutes?  So fun!

For this one I used my ruffle foot and sewed a stripe of material then wound it into a circle and added a vintage button.  Ohh, I'm on a roll and dinner might never get done=)

 

A few inches of black ribbon and one button later...I had a clip that was meant for Bella but...

was stolen by mamma=)  

Okay, if you have been wanting to try your hand at little girl clips - go for it!  It is so fun to see what you can come up with.  

Make your life beautiful!

Menu Board Tutorial

Today we are joined by my (Melissa) amazing sister Andrea. Today she is sharing something that will help you greatly with your menu planning and shopping lists. enjoy!

*******

I am so excited to be guest posting on Mamma Tortilla today! I'm a wife, daughter, sister, friend and mama of four little ones, five and under. I love chocolate, sleeping, reading, singing, hanging my clothes outside, and all things crafty. I'm not so fond of getting up early, meal planning and making grocery lists. But they simply must be done, and the sooner they are, the more time there is for crafting, right? I'll admit I've made more than one trip to the grocery store without a list and suffered the consequences! I'm free to sneak in a lot more crafting during nap time when I know what's for dinner.


So, here's my solution … while it is technically a craft (since it involves a glue gun ;), it's really more about getting the necessary done so I CAN craft.


I started with a magnetic wipe off board. But, it was so white and … white. Not something I wanted to look at every day. So I grabbed some fabric scraps and ric rac, (because, really, ric rac is so awesome); heated up my glue gun and a few burnt fingers later, it was much more pleasant to the eye. I did miscalculate and put eight spaces for each week … oops! It's turned out to be a nice place to jot down staples that I run out of during the week that aren't part of my actual meals, like mustard or flour. I used permanent marker to write in the days of the week. They don't show up that well on the dark fabric I chose, but I've found I rarely refer to them.

The next step is to write out all the meals you make on a regular basis. I decided to color code mine by category: crock pot meals, quick meals, soups, breakfast meals, and one category that covered everything else. I laminated scrapbook paper and put a magnet on the back of each one. It's not necessary to laminate them, but it makes them more durable and if I was going to go through all that work, I didn't want to have to maintain. I left one color blank to be used for planned leftovers and I write on this one with a wipe off marker. All of the other ones are written on with permanent marker.

You could just write in meals with a wipe off marker, but having all of your meals lined up in front of you makes your meal planning so much quicker. Other family members can easily choose meals, or you can choose based on what's on sale, or what you know will be in season.


We do our grocery shopping once every 2 weeks, and usually on Tuesday because it's buy one get one free pizza night at Whole Foods :) So you'll notice my dates start on Tuesday and end on Monday.


Here's how this works for us:


STEP 1: write in any events that will shape your week (ex. birthday party and dinner at church).

STEP 2: choose meals … I like to chose according to what my schedule looks like. So a busy day would be a crock pot meal and a night where we're going out is a quick meal. It also helps to have them color coded so I can quickly see if I have a good variety of meals.


STEP 3: write in preparation needs … I soak my beans overnight to be ready for cooking the next day, so I need to write that in for the night before I'll need them. Meat may need to be defrosted, or the crock pot prepped the night before so you can start the meal first thing in the morning before leaving for the day. This is a huge step for me. I'd often make up my meal plan, but fail to prepare for the next meal, so dinner time would come and I couldn't make what I'd planned because the meat was still frozen.

STEP 4: make your grocery list … this dreaded task is now a breeze. All the meals are in front of me, I just go through and write down the ingredients for each one, check my pantry to see what's already on hand, and check my staples, which I've already listed on the board as I ran out of them.


An added benefit of the magnet meals is that if our plans change and I make another meal or I just don't feel like making something that night, I can rearrange the magnets. I know that everything is planned out according to our schedule, so I know I have to take that into account.


This board has saved me a lot of stress and has helped us tighten up our grocery budget, too, since my meals are laid out and my grocery list is streamlined.


That's it … now, I'm off to craft.

*****

Andrea,  Thanks so much for taking the time to share this with us! This is so much prettier than the paper I have on my fridge=p  Need to get our glue guns out=)

LDC Desgins

I am so happy to be guest blogging on Mamma Tortilla today!

First of all I will let you know who I am. My name is Lindsay, I am the creator of LDCdesigns. It started two years ago (although I have been making things my whole life) when I began making purses and selling them while I was in High School. Then I began going to school at Acadia University in Nova Scotia where I began to blog about what I was doing and what inspired me. This summer, when I have less work to do I hope to start selling some of my things on Etsy. Anyways.. here is a bit of what I have been working on lately..

Normally I do mostly Purses and wallets like these :

However, since I ordered theses awesome bobby pins from AT Supplies, I have been working on making cute little hair pins. One of favorite bobby pins uses this awesome diy from A Beautiful Mess.

[Photo from A beautiful mess]

These little braided embellishments can be used for almost anything! Pins, hair clips, key chains.. whatever you can think up! I even made some little ones into earrings.

Here are a few of the bobby pins I have made lately

I also have made some larger ones into hair clips.
You can put some leaves on it like I did to make it look like a little flower!

You can also attach them and make a necklace. I really want to try and attach a bunch of little ones to make a bracelet.

I just love this diy because there are so many awesome possibilities ! If you want to try something else, you can use yarn and braid it instead of fabric. It is a really cool alternative to fabric.

I hope you find this DIY as useful and inspiring like I did!

Lindsay C

LDC designs

On My Way..

on my way

to Florida for my sister-in-law's wedding :) Be back next week. Special guests will be here while I'm gone. Congrats Jen on your big day!

The Chickens Are Here

Please Welcome

Four Beautiful Baby Chickens

Born April 4, 2010

With Love,
Leslie, Scott, Austin and Chloe







hehe!! The chicks get their own birth announcement :) It was so special for them to be born on Easter. We are so excited to have them. I'll post more pics as they grow :)


Leslie

Pillow Week: Sand Dollar Pillow Tutorial by Leslie

I was inspired by this Pottery Barn pillow for this tutorial which I instantly fell in love with. I'm ready for the summer and thought it would be great to add a beach feel to my house :)

So let's start:

Materials:
-2 17 x 17 pieces of white fabric
-beige fabric (scraps will do)
-hot glue gun
-1 button
-5 pieces of rope each 5 1/2"
- pencil
-blank piece of paper
-white thread
-sewing machine
-scissors
-poly-fil

1. Draw your sand dollar on a blank sheet of paper to create your pattern. Then cut the pattern out and place it on your beige fabric.

2. Center the sand dollar on one of your 17 x 17 pieces of white fabric and sew around the edges. You can also zig zag the sand dollar on to give it a design.

3. Take the five pieces of rope and place them on the sand dollar, creating a tear drop with each. Then hot glue each one into place like this.....

4. Hot glue the button in the center of the sand dollar. Next, draw five small tear drops in between the ropes with a pencil.

5. You will then zig zag stitch inside the lines.

This is what it should look like when its all done!

6. Time to make the pillow :) Take both pieces of white fabric and place them right sides together. Sew around with a 3/8" seam. Making sure you leave an opening to turn the pillow inside out and for stuffing!

7. Hand sew the pillow closed using a slip stitch. ALL DONE!

I heart pillows!

Hope you enjoyed our last tutorial for Pillow Week!! We had so much fun doing this. A BIG thank you to Obsessively Stitching, Samster Mommy and The Sewing Dork for doing all the beautiful pillow tutorials this week. You girls ROCK!


Lots of Pillow Love,

Leslie & Melissa