July Travels and Tie Dye

My summer has been busy! Since I am a teacher, I have been a stay-at-home mom this summer.  That said, since I am a teacher, I cannot handle chaos or hours on end without something to do.  My kids seem to be the same way and cannot handle idle time.  So, our July was full of many trips....

We went to Rehoboth Beach over the 4th of July, we also went to Lake Tobias, Mt. Gretna and the North Museum.  I highly recommend any of these places. More photos of our August travels coming soon!

In July, we also celebrated my daughter's 7th birthday.  Not sure where the 7 years have gone, nor where my baby has gone, but time marches on as they say!

Emily wanted a tie dye birthday party, so we had one.  Unfortunately, I was involved in the activities, so I do not have many photos :(

These were my supplies for my first attempt to make chocolate covered strawberries. 

These were the finished product....tie dyed chocolate covered strawberries! 

Delicious! 

Sidenote.... do NOT make ahead of time.  I made this mistake and they turned to mush. You need to make them and eat them on the same day or the next day at the latest.  I used white candy wafers from Wilton (bought at Michael's), melted the chocolate in the microwave and rolled them in colored sugar. So easy and so pretty in the end!

We also made tie dye cookies. Ironically I do not have a picture of the finished product.  I am trying to get better at this!

I enlisted the help of my mom to make these delicious vanilla cookies. I found the recipe in the July edition of Martha Stewart's magazine.  I actually bought the magazine for the sole purpose of these cookies that were on the cover!

FYI.....my cookies did NOT turn out like these. I am determined to figure out why!  I may be making spider web cookies for Halloween to figure it out! But, aren't they pretty?!

These are the vanilla cookies.  Can't you smell them?! They were delicious and so easy to work with!

I also made cupcakes (from scratch, I might add) from my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook that she got as a wedding gift.  They were really good, also.  I can say, I will not buy a pre-packaged mix anymore.  They were so easy to make and tasted really good!

And here is the birthday girl helping out...with her, oh so helpful brother!

Finally, I made a Happy Birthday banner from a tutorial that I found on Moda Bake Shop (access tutorial here). Of course, I had to modify it and continuously play with it as it was made, but my daughter chose the fabrics.

I hand stitched the letters onto each pennant using DMC floss and a simple backstitch. 

 Once again, I did not take a picture of the finished project. I admit, it is a major downfall of mine!

But, here is the finished party!

Tie Dye Bliss!



Until next time, take time for you!

Colleen