corn cups

How many of you love Anthropologie's window displays as much as me?  Well last spring I was obsessed with their recycled plastic bottle flowers as seen below.

Cool right?  Well I was determined to do this craft at the teen center I manage.  {Here's the back story-  we were fortunate enough last spring to receive grant funding from a local utility for education on energy conservation.  With the funding we developed a living room style classroom focused mainly on energy conservation but also other sustainability methods; we named the program "Energy Saving Adventures"}.

So… the teen center throws away about this many corn cups on a weekly basis.  Better than throwing away the plastic ones right?

Well I knew we could do better and at one point it just hit me.  The main draw in our "Energy Saving Adventures" logo was a tree.  Why not create a tree at the entry to the classroom as a visual draw to what we are doing inside.  

So I took this cup...

…and made these flowers.  

The students at the center helped of course.  We cut down the sides of the cup, bent the strips back and took them outside to spray paint.  The cups are attaced to the wall with a very small nail.

he will be...

Well I finished up the baby shower (or should I say sprinkle) invites.  Pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.  I opted for the easy route this time and purchased semi DIY invites from Target.  I used two different fonts from the kevin & amanda blog.  Attached the provided ribbon.  And made some cute paper buttons for that extra touch. 

diaper wreath

To some this may just look weird, or maybe even hideous?  But to those who know how baby showers work I hope you can appreciate the creativity.  First let's start with the inspiration photo and tutorial found on the little brown house.

the little brown house

And ta-da my {cute as a button} inspired diaper wreath… 

turkey and trails

The mr. and I were very thankful for the invitation to share thanksgiving with friends, so we made this hostess gift.

I used my embossing gun to make the "thanks" tag.  I love embossing!

And that is my first cheese ball (thank you Cece)!  Here's the recipe in case you want to give it a try.

{olive cheese ball}

ingredients

8 oz. cream cheese

4 to 5 ounces crumbled blue cheese

1/2 stick of butter (I may omit this next time)

can chopped black olives

2 tablespoons chopped chives

1/4 cup chopped walnut

crackers

steps

1.  Take cream cheese, blue cheese and butter out of the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for awhile.  

2.  Cream the first three ingredients in a bowl until they are mixed well (I used my kitchen aid mixer).  Add the well drained chopped olives and chives and mix well.  

3.  Put the bowl in the refrigerator and chill for an hour or until firm.  

4.  Place chopped nuts on a plate. Form a ball with the chilled cheese using a spatula or your hand.  

5.  Roll the ball in the chopped nuts and place the ball back in the refrigerator to chill for a few more hours. 

6.  Serve with crackers.

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The following day we skipped black friday shopping and hit the trail.  This particular trip was rather cold so we were able to test out some gear for Nepal (12 days!).