Minnie Birthday Party

Well Addison's 5th Birthday has come and gone...  I can't believe how fast time goes by.  Anyways, my weeks and weeks of researching and creating ever little detail of the party paid off.  It was a total success... other than I didn't get pictures of it all!  Here is what I did take pictures of.  Most of the ideas were from Pinterest so be sure to look me up and check them out!

AMAZING CrockPot Meal... Chicken Tortilla Soup

Those of you who know me, know how picky I am.  Though I'm a picky eater, I'm a different type of picky than my husband.  I am picky of the quality of my food whereas he is picky on what he will even try.  This soup falls into that category.  Not only did my husband LOVE this soup, but my dad (I only eat homemade Italian food and steak guy) loved it too!  He honestly ate half of what I made in one sitting!  All I'm trying to say is, try it!  You wont be disappointed and its sooooo easy to make!!

CROCKPOT CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP

• 2 chicken boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cans Ro-Tel
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cans low-sodium chicken broth
• 1-2 cups of water
• 1 packet of taco seasoning

• tortilla chips
• sour cream
• shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese

Put chopped onion, cans of beans, rotel, chicken broth, water, and taco seasoning in CrockPot and stir to mix. Put chicken breasts on top of mixture and make sure they're at least partly submerged in liquid. Cook on high 6-7 hours or low 8-9 hours. Before serving remove the chicken breasts from soup and shred, if needed, (sometimes they'll just fall apart on their own, but sometimes they need some help). Return chicken to CrockPot, stir to combine.

To serve put a few tortilla chips in the bottom of a bowl, ladle soup over tortilla chips, top with shredded cheddar cheese, and a dollop of sour cream, serve with more chips if you like. Enjoy! 

Homemade Laundry Soap...

Homemade Laundry Soap That Lasts One Whole Year!!

Sick of buying laundry soap?? Me too, so I started googleing homemade laundry soap and this is what I found!  This stuff is awesome because it is way stronger then the store bought laundry soap. You only have to use 1 Tablespoon per load. 1 year of laundry soap for less than $20, have I got you sold yet? This laundry soap also works just fine in  HE washers.

Here is what you need:

1 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz) found in the detergent isle

1 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg) found in the cooking isle

1  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz) found in the detergent isle

3 bars of Fels-naptha soap, found in the detergent isle

2 small containers of oxyclean or store brand oxyclean (try to get about 3.5 lbs total (1.58 kg)) found in the detergent isle.

(this is optional, I added it into mine because I have pretty messy kids and the cleaner the better)

(you can also use pink Zote soap instead of Fels-naptha. I had really wanted to but could not find it anywhere) **Update: My sister found pink Zote soap at Home Depot**

You should be able to find all of these items at your grocery store.

This detergent is fairly mild smelling, it is not over powering. If you love a strong scent you may have to add a fabric softener to each load.

Start out by grating your Fels-naptha soap just like cheese. You can use a food processor or just use your hand held grater, what ever you have.
**Don't worry the Fels-naptha will dissolve in your washer even if you only use cold water like me.**

Toss all ingredients in a 5 gallon bucket lined with a garbage bag. This part makes your whole house smell great. Once everything is mixed store soap however you like. Wasn't that easy? Sure was! Enjoy your soap.

**Update**

-This detergent is safe for HE washers and should be added to the barrel instead of the dispencer.
 -This detergent is safe to use on cloth diapers and sensative skin.
-It does not have a strong scent, you can add laundry crystals to the batch to add fragrance.
-Some have used other bar soap instead of Zote or Fels-Naptha. I have personally not tried it but from the feed back I get it sounds like any bar will work.

Fold Up Crayon Pouch

Last year for Addison's birthday party favors I had these made in Strawberry Shortcake fabric through someone one Etsy (another on of my favorite sites).  I recently came across this tutorial that would have saved me some money.  These would also be really cute for in the classroom.  Enjoy!

Fold-up Crayon Pouch step-by-step instructions (and nifty little illustrations) on how to make our Nested Fold-up Crayon Pouch.

The instructions follow below. If you make this, let us know in the comments and if you have any tweaks to the instructions, we'll welcome the feedback!

Updated: To make it easier to make this away from your computer, here's a PDF to download and print out: Download crayon-pouch.pdf

Materials: 
You will need

• 2 pieces of fabric 11" x 5" (we recommend a cotton like Calico since you can pick up one remnant square for quilts and have enough fabric).
• 1 piece of coordinating felt 11" x 3".
• 1 24" piece of coordinating ribbon which you will fold to form 2 12" pieces.
• Scissors, pins, thread, sewing machine (or hands), a box of crayons

Construction Instructions:

1. Line up your felt piece with the bottom edge of your fabric. Be sure that you've place the felt on the image side of your fabric.
2. Next, take the folded ribbon and place it on top of the felt, about 3/4 the way down from the top of the felt edge.
3. Then, make a "fabric sandwich" by placing the second piece of fabric on top of the fabric piece one, felt and ribbon. The image sides of the fabrics will be touching each other. Be sure to leave a bit of the ribbon exposed.
   
4. Now that you have your "sandwich" of fabrics, apply a stitch around the perimeter of the rectangle. Be sure to leave one small area unstitched so you'll be able to pull the pouch inside out.
   
5. Next, turn the pouch inside out by gently pulling the inside pouch fabric through the hole that you left open. Once your pouch is complete reversed and in the correct position, you may  choose to press the pouch with an iron to make it flatter and easier to work with.
6. Because the slit that you left open is still raw, you will next need to fold over the edges to match the rest of the pouch. Baste the area you've just folded. Once you have folds that match up with each other, stich another border around the perimeter of the entire pouch. BE SURE TO CATCH THE AREA YOU LEFT OPEN.

7. To reinforce your pouch, stitch once more around the perimeter of the pouch. These stitchs should be about 1/4" away from the first perimeter stitch you just made.
   
8. At this point, you have a fully formed pouch (minus the slots for the crayons). In this final step, you will create the little slots that you'll place your crayons in. Depending on how many crayons you want to hold and the width of the crayons, you can mark the appropriate widths using chalk (or eyeball it). For this case, we marked off columns that are about 3/4" wide. This gave us 11 slots for crayons. If you make the slots a little wider (say around 1" each, you usually can fit two crayons in each pouch).
   
   The stitch that we used is one continuous stitch that starts at the bottom of the second column and then continues to snake around the rest of the pouch. When stitching, we use the perimeter stitches as guides and try to stitch directly on top of previous stitches. Since no horizontal stiches are sewn on the top part of the felt (only the fabric), you're not in danger of sewing closed any of the crayon slots.

9. That's it! You now have constructed your crayon pouch. Fill with crayons, roll-up and give to a child who loves to draw.

My New Addiction

I am addicted to Pinterest.  It takes over my every free moment.  I even have the app on my phone which disappointingly does not work that well.  For those of you who have not yet discovered this amazing website, beware... it will consume your life.  Pinterest is a virtual pin (or bulletin) board, where you can pin anything that interests you, and collect them under different categories.  You first download the "Pin It" book mark, and then while surfing online, if you find something that interests you that you want to refer to later, you "pin it."  For example...let's say you are searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, and you find it... just "pin it" under a category on Pinterest, and you can go back to it later to get the recipe, or just lick your computer screen.  Pinterest is especially useful for design, food, and craft ideas, where the visual image is important.  


Take a look at my Pinterest page:  http://pinterest.com/kristin_edwards/   I have categories for DIY, teaching, holiday ideas, party ideas, yummy food, etc. 

Addison's 5th Birthday Party

Now that graduation and Christmas are over with, it's time to start thinking about Addison's birthday.  Well that's not entirely true... I've been thinking about it, now I need to actually start planning it!  Thanks to lovely Pinterest and Etsy, I had TONS of amazing ideas.  Now I just need to start creating them!  Since we are going to Disney in March, we have decided on a Minnie Mouse theme.  This words especially well since the colors will coordinate with Addison's color scheme in her bedroom.  I also have decided I'm going to applique a shirt for not only her, but all of her little friends as party favors.  We will see how that turns out ;)  Now all the fun things that I plan to work so hard on can be used in her bedroom!  Here are some of the ideas I'm hoping to recreate...

31 Reasons to become a consultant...

Here are 31 Reasons to become a Consultant:
1. Learning to be independent, courageous and strong.
2. I love purses
3. Extra income for kid’s extra-curricular activities
4. Quitting my regular job
5. Have some ME time
6. Children will be grown & gone in just a few years…filling the empty-nesters void
7. Building your first home!
8. To pay for pre-school!
9. Needing a 2nd job
10. Staying home with kids & even grandkids
11. Provide those little extras, eating out, the movies.
12. Provide an income; help pay the car payment, the mortgage, and the utilities.
13. Outlet from wife and mom roles
14. Faith based business
15. Recognition for accomplishments
16. Encouragement from other women
17. Private School Tuition
18. Get out of debt
19. Be there when the kids get off the school bus
20. Part time hours, full time income
21. Making friends
22. Remodeling a house
23. To earn a free vacation
24. Respect from family and friends
25. Helping other women help themselves
26. A single mom, needed a second job without compromising her family life
27. Stepping out of the comfort zone, personal growth
28. To impact my community
29. To make my kids proud
30. To accomplish something for myself
31. To be around positive Proverbs 31 women31. For the flexible work schedule

I Joined Thirty-One Gifts

My name is Kristin Edwards and I'm an independent consultant for Thirty-One! I recently began my career as a consultant to earn extra income for my family.  Thirty-One is a faith based company whose name is derived from Proverbs 31. The founder’s mission is to celebrate, reward and encourage the woman in the family…and that is exactly what we do!!  


Why Thirty-One? I love Thirty-One for many reasons. Our products sell themselves; they are fun, whimsical, functional and personalized! Who doesn't love giving or receiving a gift with their name on it? With Thirty-One, even if you don’t see something for yourself (which I guarantee you will!), you will see the perfect graduation gift, teachers gift, bridesmaids, mother’s day, birthday, baby shower or just because gift!!

Thirty-One can provide you with additional income to satisfy the need in your life. For me, it was being able to make extra money with my own schedule. For others, Thirty-One is a fund for grandchildren, shopping sprees, teenagers clothes, a new car fund, credit card debt, mother’s day out, dance/karate class…or just some fun “me-time” away from the hectic busyness of day-to-day life!

Please look through the current catalog and let me know if there is something that catches your eye! I would love to help you with the next step; whether that is ordering, hosting a party or starting your career as a consultant!

Blessings,

Kristin Edwards

Like it? Place an Order!

Love it? Host a Party!

Want it all? Become a Consultant!

Questions or more information:

330-219-7095

KristinEdwards5866@gmail.com

http://www.mythirtyone.com/KristinEdwards

More File Folder Storage...

How creative is this???  Not only are these cute, but very inexpensive! Lets not leave out that these file folder holders (dish strainers) come with pencil holders!  What more could you ask for?

Kristin

File Folder Crates...

How adorable are these?  I am creating one for my daughter.  It will contain a file folder for each grade in school and any other memorable things to save.  This is also very cute for use in the classroom!

Kristin