A Good Deal for Bath and Body Works!!

Yesterday I was inspired by my blog friend BA to start thinking about teacher’s gifts for Christmas. She found these

at Bath and Body Works and posted about her score here!

It got me thinking about what great gifts these would be, especially if paired with one of the travel size hand lotions. Today I received an email with a notice of free shipping on orders over $25 so I clicked on over and started shopping. I know BA fell in love with the cupcake scents, but since I was shopping online and couldn’t sniff, I had to go with something I already knew:

Peppermint Twist

 

and

Vanilla Bean Noel   

 

 

 

 

 

I put 5 each in my shopping bag @ $1each and then added 10 of these:

 

 

 

 

 

at $3.33 each for a total of $43.30. I started wondering if there might be a coupon for a discount on the total out there so I looked around and found one at http://www.couponcabin.com/coupons/bath-body-works/ for 20% off your whole order!! You use the code: SEPTHX. Since the shipping discount was automatically applied, it let me use the code for the discount! So my grand total for the whole order including tax and shipping was $34.64!! Not bad for 10 teacher gifts! I’ll add appropriate candy like mints and kisses and put them in a plastic bag like BA had, only I’ll have to get mine at Dollar Tree!

I think the free shipping was only for today so GO SHOPPING!!

Help! Please!!

I have not been able to view my friends/followers box or anyone else’s either….for about a week, this is what I get after the page loads:

But when I click the diagnose button, I don’t get anything other than the possible problems but no solutions.

Hey, it’s bad when you can’t tell who your friends are! ;-)So, help please?!?!?!?

Thanks…in advance!

Sharon

Warm ‘n Wonderful Wheat Bread and a Great Deal on Taste of Home Magazine!

I love to bake bread, especially in the fall! There’s just enough of a chill in the air to really appreciate the warmth of the oven and the aroma of fresh baked bread…mmmm…

I think I have found a new favorite recipe! It’s easy, makes two loaves and comes out light and airy with a wonderful wheaty flavor. Here’s the recipe.

Honey Wheat Bread

2-1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour (I used bread flour)

3-1/2 cups whole wheat flour, divided (fresh ground is best)

2 packages (1/4 ounce each) or 5 tsps. active dry yeast

1 cup milk

1-1/4 cups water

1/4 cup honey

3 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon salt

 

In a bowl, combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups whole wheat flour and yeast. In a saucepan, heat milk, water, honey, butter and salt to 120°-130°; add to flour mixture. Blend on low speed until moistened; beat on medium for 3 minutes. Gradually stir in remaining whole wheat flour and enough of the remaining all-purpose flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Shape into two loaves; place in a greased 8-in. x 4-in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 375° for 40-45 minutes. Remove from pans to cool on wire racks.

This is how it looked 5 minutes after it came out of the oven!  

Yes, we were burning our mouths, but it was sooo worth it!

I found this recipe at Taste of Home online. I love their searchable recipe database! I also love their magazine! Right now there is a great deal on a  Taste of Home subscription. It’s only $3.99 for a year! You can read more about how to get it at that price by clicking here:

There are offers on a couple of other good magazines too!

Cook up something warm and wonderful!

Winners! Winners! Winners!

Good Monday Morning!!! When I posted the closing date of the giveaway, I had no idea that the following weekend would be so busy and that I would have to wait until Monday to announce the winner. So without any further waiting…..
The WINNER is:

Comment #17, as generated by random.org, Heidi Wendland!

Congratulations Heidi! We think alike on the fall decorating…I love the “smells” of fall too!
Thank you everyone for entering and giving me some awesome ideas for fall table decorating and the input on what to do with my gate-leg table. I’ll be sharing more on that soon.
There were some other winners on Friday, not through my blog, but over at The CSI Project. I love it over there! The challenges over there provide me with a lot of inspiration! On the weeks that they are hosting something that I want to participate in, I stay on top of getting a project finished because of the deadline to enter. It’s not a month long project that I will tend to think that I “still have time” I know that I only have from Tuesday ‘til Thursday or I’ve missed it…and I have …more than once! I work so much better with a deadline…even if it’s getting cleaned up for company coming! :-) I also get so excited when I see all the other projects…I usually end up wanting to try several.
I love these from Nine to Midnight Designs.

and I want to try something like this from Infarrantly Creative for my laundry room which is a work in progress.

My friend Nikki from Nikki’s Nifty Knacks and I both made the Top 10! Woo-Hoo!!

Here are Nikki’s Ballard Boxes:

Lori’s comment: “I am a sucker for silhouettes and the fact that you can hide stuff in these storage boxes is such a plus!  I am all about hiding the ugly inside something cute!”
And my Ballard Birds:

Lori’s Comment:”The birds in this project were so great.  SO cute!  But it is really the sticks that they are standing on that I love!  I actually have some ideas on how I am going to implement them into some holiday decor!!  So excited to have such a great tutorial on how to make them!”
Thank you Lori for liking my little birds and your kind words!
Lori from Be Different, Act Normal was the guest judge this week. She has a link party on Saturdays that I can’t wait to join!

Here is the Calendar for the upcoming challenges at The CSI Project:

I also had a small but winning (at least in my book! ) project this past week. I found this wooden basket at the thrift store time ago. It was looking a little tired.
After wiping it down with some Murphy’s Oil Soap. I dry brushed some opaque black acrylic paint over it     
and was amazed at the transformation!

Instead of old and worn out, I have aged with detail

and warmth…

I love it when a little project like this turns out so amazingly wonderful! It took me all of about ten minutes to do this!  I filled it with some ummm…filler…
and now I just need to find the right spot for it! :-)
So, it’s been a winning weekend!
Sharing my wonderful new wooden basket at:


and some of the parties listed in my sidebar like


Come along and check out some very inspiring projects! I found a new link party here:

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! It’s been a good week for me, how about you? I’ve accomplished some cleaning, craft projects, cooking and even some home school! lol After such a loooong HOT summer, we got hit with a small dose of winter here in The North Georgia Mountains. We had highs in only the low 60’s   for several days with lows dipping down into the low 30’s! It finally feels more like fall today with highs in the 70’s but we don’t really have any leaves changing yet…everything’s a little funky this “fall”.

Since I finally have had the chance to catch up on some blog reading, I thought I would try the Friday Newsflash again. I enjoy sharing the fun, and unique projects and recipes and the giveaways as well as all the thrifty finds that I come across during the week. So here’s this week’s flash!

Jan at Bobbypinsboardwalk is hosting a giveaway for this beautiful bird pillow!

Drop by her blog for a visit, you’ll stay a while. She has some excellent tutorials and a warm and inviting atmosphere.

Tracy over at Tracy’s Trinkets and Treasures has a Fall front porch that I’m envious of…I’d copy it if I had a front porch! ;-)

I love this candy jar from A Pumpkin and a Princess! I’m going to try making one of these soon! I’ll have to glue the lid on though or the candy corn won’t last five minutes at my house!

I was honored  to have my fall fabric wreath featured by Roeshel over at The DIY Showoff! 

Especially since hers was my original inspiration! :-)

She is having a DIY Fall Festival Link party. Go link up and share or just check out some of the fun fall projects already there.

Be sure and enter my giveaway for a $45 CSN stores GC by clicking the button below. It will be open til midnight tonight.

Happy Friday!

Ballard Inspired Birds

I’m entering these Ballard Inspired Birds

over at The CSI Project. As usual I’m barely getting them in on time…You can check out the original post with tutorial  here: Ballard Inspired Birds. Come over to The CSI Project and see all the other Ballard inspired projects!

Have a great day!

A $45 CSN Store Giveaway….and My Fall Wall

Okay, so I was wondering what the problem was….I had announced my giveaway and little linky party so that I could get a peek at some decorated tables and there was very little participation compared to my last CSN giveaway. Had I made it too hard or confusing? I didn’t think so…Then I talked to one of my married daughters who was on her way to pick up,of all things, a console table that she had found through Craigslist. That brought up my giveaway and I told her she needed to enter. To make a long story short, she thought that this giveaway was for a console table…not a gift code like last time! I told her no, that it was a gift card like last time and then wondered how she got that idea anyway. I hung up the phone and quickly went to my blog…OOPS!…nowhere had I mentioned that my giveaway is for a $45 CSN Stores gift code! :(
I hope this post will make it clear…the giveaway is for a
$45 CSN Stores Gift Code to be used at any of their 200 online stores!
****ETA**** The Giveaway is closed***Winner to be announced Monday, October 11, 2010 To enter, please leave me a simple comment,By Clicking HERE do you decorate, or would you decorate a console table if you had one. For a second entry, link up a picture of your table (I love visuals) or one you would love to have (check out some of CSN’s console tables). For a third chance let me know if you are a follower and lastly leave  a 4th comment if you share this giveaway on your blog or Facebook. So you can be entered up to 4 times with 4 separate comments! :-)
Sorry for all the confusion…when I get excited, I forget what I am doing, like forgetting to take “before” pictures when I get started on a project!
Now, on to my “Fall Wall”! I am amazed at how my tastes have changed since I started blogging! There was a time I thought that I would never have a topiary in my house….but then, I fell in love with this one, and had to make one of my own! Next, I started seeing empty picture frames hanging on walls or standing on shelves, and I thought “what a waste of space”. I should have known better! Slowly, I was drawn to large empty frames at the thrift stores and admiring them hanging on walls or on mantels in blogland until last week I bought one! Then I was inspired by Roeshel’s fabric wreath  and knew what I was going to do!
First, I have a long wall in my “dining area”. We are living in our basement and our living and dining areas are one large “room”. There has been a quilt rack (with one of those awful heart cut-outs in it) hanging there for the whole 10 years we’ve been living here. I’ve been out of love or even like with it for years, but it never occurred to me that I could take it down! Silly huh?
I realized that wall was the perfect place to hang a framed fabric wreath. The  quilt rack came down quickly and easily and I had a fresh space to work with.
I sanded my .75 frame and gave it several coats of ORB.

While it was drying I got started on making a wreath like Roeshel’s

over at The DIY Showoff. Click on the picture above to go to her excellent tutorial! There are a few differences in how are wreaths came together. First, I started using the Gorilla Glue and then changed my mind…that was gonna be a lot of time and glue if I glued each one of those little fabric pieces, so I skipped that step. It is holding together well. Secondly, I had to use 2 yards of fabric to cover my wreath. I don’t know if Roeshel’s fabric was wider (mine is 36”)or if she used less, but her wreath called for one yard. She also found fabric that “looked good on both sides”. If I do this again, I will look for that type of fabric. I was going for the look of fall leaves on the wreath, so I think it is okay, but you do see a lot of the backside of the fabric. I tried putting it in the wreath with both sides in and it didn’t really seem to make a difference. 

I didn’t stop to take a bunch of pictures as I went along, so let’s just “skip to the end” (has anyone else watched The Princess Bride enough times to quote most of it? LOL) Here is my Fall fabric wreath hanging in my “empty” picture frame.


I moved my twig candle holders to either side of the frame and gave the candles a fall makeover by tying leaves around them with twine.


I’m tickled with my Fall Wall and so glad that quilt rack is finally gone! I have some more fall projects happening too. I’m a little late to catch most of the Fall Festival linkys, but I will be showing this at the weekly parties listed in my sidebar as well as any special events still going on and listed below. Check some of them out for some other fall inspiration!
I found a few Fall themed parties still going on, like the Fall Get-together at It's a Blog Party!
Maryann at Domestically Speaking is having a wreath party! Come check it out!



 
I'm also sharing this at Today's Creative Blog Get Your Craft On!

And I found a new (well, new to me, Tuesday Party)