Muddled Mint Passion Tea Lemonade

I've made a little resolution this summer to find healthier alternatives to sodas, sweet teas, and powdered flavored waters.  I don't like the idea of so much sugars, artificial sweeteners and otherwise non-nutritious calories filling me up all day.  In order to not get bored, I've had to come up with new ideas on what to drink.  No doubt, it has been harder than reaching in the fridge for a can and popping the top, but overall worth it.

Muddled Mint Passion Tea Lemonade has been a favorite so far.  Here's what  you'll need:

*Fresh Mint
*2 Passion Tea Bags
*2 cups filtered drinking water
*1 tablespoon pure honey
*juice of 1 lemon
*1 lemon wedge and 1 spring of mint for garnish

The Tazo brand of passion tea has been my personal fave

Take a few leaves (3-5 based on your preference) of fresh mint and 1 tablespoon of honey and place it in the bottom of a large glass.  Muddle the leaves and honey together and set aside.  Note: "muddle" is a fancy word for mash & mix.

Meanwhile, heat 2 cups of water in a microwave safe dish for 3 minutes.  Then steep 2 tea bags in the water.  Note: Steep is a fancy word for dip, dunk, then leave it to sit.  After leaving the tea bags to sit for 3-5 minutes, remove & trash them.  Pour the warm tea mixture over the muddled mint and honey.  Stir to dissolve honey.  Add juice of one lemon, then ice to the top of the glass, then the remainder of tea.

Garnish & enjoy!  Feel free to add additional honey if you like yours a little sweeter!

Crabby T-Shirt

If you're a huge fan of Mini-Boden catalogs, you'll love this DIY.  Every time I get a new catalog in the mail, I oogle and google all the cute clothes for little ones (pretty stylish stuff for big people too).  Unfortunately, the item is no longer available through Mini Boden, and I have no way to share an inspiration source.  Shucks!  I'll have to be more on the ball next time.  Anyway, I fell in love with this crab t-shirt when I saw my sister-in-law making one for her little one.  I just knew I'd have to make one for my little girl too!

Cute, no!?  This applique consists of three templates, drawn by hand.  If you're not comfortable with free-handing, you could always print out a picture of a crab and trace it.  The three pieces of the template are the 1) body 2) right legs 3) left legs.  For the legs, I chose a mini print floral fabric and for the body, a red and white polka dot.  I also used buttons for the eyes.  The buttons are vintage.  As in, stolen from my mama's sewing basket.  They add a nice touch for her little granddaughters, I think.

For the detailed instructions on how to make and attach your own appliques, check back to the how-to on a prior post HERE.

I think these little girls are digging their summer t-shirts.  What do you think?  They like them, they really like them!  Yippee!  And for $4 tanks plus a few scraps of fabric, add in a little time - they're stylishly cheap (I mean chic) too!

Which means, I think it's time I start planning for some Halloween and Christmas appliques already!  Ohhhh, I should plan to make another trip home soon so I can have mama sew a little more for me.

I mean, spend time with my family.

-insert cheshire cat grin here - 

This project shared here:

A Bowl Full of Lemons

Best Potato Salad Ever!

Photo Via Wegman's Website

I have not personally made this recipe yet, but it is on my to-do list for this weekend.  I recently enjoyed this yummy tater salad at a bbq picnic my sis-in-law hosted this past 4th.  Her friend brought it along and was nice enough to share the recipe.  And I'm passing it along to you, 'cause it's good stuff.  Seriously, good...like one of those recipes that makes you say, "screw the diet and give me the good stuff".  Click the word 'recipe' below and it should take you directly to the Wegman's site for printing!  Enjoy!

RECIPE

Boredom Buster

 

Got some cranky little ones around?  Here's something fun to do when they tire of swimming at the pool.  It would also be great for VBS, at a party, or for a classroom or Sunday School class.

How To Make Your Own Colored Sand

Here's what you need:

*Large bucket of sidewalk chalk
*Salt

Here's what you do:

Using plastic containers, take one piece of chalk and pour about a cup of salt over it.  With your fingers, roll and rub the chalk into the salt.  Eventually, the chalk turns into colored sand.  Experiment with 2 pieces of chalk for darker colors, more salt to lighten colors, etc.  We used the bottoms of old milk jugs and poured the extra into ziploc bags.  But if you're the more tidy and organized type, you could also buy ziploc or tupperware style containers to make and store your colored sand in.

Tip:  
I found the best bang for your buck for sidewalk chalk was at Michael's for $4.  Use one of their 40% off coupons, even better.  Best price I found for salt was forty cents (!!!) at the Dollar General.  Just to help you estimate, 1 container of salt will fill one large bottle.  Or, you can buy one container of salt per color of chalk and have plenty of extra made for future projects.

How To Make Layered Sand Art

You need:

*Funnel

*Plastic bottles with lids

*DIY colored sand

*Small measuring scoops

Here's how:

Using the scoop (the extras from  powdered oxy clean work well), add colored sand to the clear plastic bottle, layering as much or as little as the child likes. Each child's will be different as they decide what colors to use where.  Fill to the top and screw on the plastic lid.  Be careful to keep the bottle upright, as shaking it or turning it from side to side will mix all the colors and ruin the layered effect.  Kids can then add stickers, labels, tags, ribbons, etc. to their bottle if they want to!  Any plastic bottle will work and kids can experiment with different shapes and sizes.  Basically, just use whatever is in the recycling bin...once you've washed & dried it, of course.

You can easily fill an afternoon just making the sand, and the next afternoon making the bottles.  My kids were easily occupied for an hour or more rolling chalk into salt.  Cousins and grandparents got in on the action too, and we took pics of all the fun we were having! Only, now I can't find them.  Which brings me to this request, please don't judge the quick Iphone pic.  Sometimes, that's all I've got around.  Actually, I just couldn't find the first pics we took of this project and today, I was just too lazy to get the big camera and go through all the fancy editing.  But!!  This is a super fun activity and I wanted to share - So....enjoy!

Bleached out Tee's!

I recently stumbled on a new magazine in Barnes & Noble and fell in love.  I was inspried by the custom bleached shirts I saw and decided to give it a go myself.  Here's what I did.  Using my computer, I printed numbers and anchors from clip art images I have on a print shop program.  You could also use clip art from Word or Google images.  With my copier, I enlarged and/or reduced the images as needed to fit on the tees.  I used card stock so that once I cut the images out, I had a template ready to go.

 Using my templates, I then traced the shapes onto freezer paper.  I cut the shape from freezer paper and ironed them onto my shirts, following the instructions listed directly on the freezer paper box.  Be sure to iron the edges down really well.  I didn't do that on a few shirts and the bleached leaked under the stencil.

 
Make sure you have an area outside prepped for business.  We put black plastic sheeting down to protect the landscape and everyone wore gloves, aprons and art smocks.  The kids also wore protective googles (aka swim goggles).  We inserted cardboard squares inside the shirts.  We filled squirt guns and spray bottles with bleach, undiluted.  We liked the spray bottles best, and liked changing the nozzle for a streamlined or full spray.  The squirt guns were harder to fill and leaked a bit too much.

Once the kiddos had sprayed down the shirt with their preferred spray pattern, I took a hose and washed down the shirt.  The water also released the freezer paper pattern.  We then took the shirts inside to machine launder and dry.

Instant Custom Tees!!

Tips:  Some colors worked great.  We had great luck with red, navy, and teal.  Grey and pink did not turn out as well.  Don't be afraid to let the clorox sit long enough to see the color start to change.  I was nervous about burning holes into the shirts and didn't leave the bleach on long enough for some of the tees.

To find out more about the magazine that inspired this project, check out this post.

This project is linked up here:

Design Dazzle's Summer Camp

Tip Junkie Tip Me Tuesday
Creation Corner's Friday Link Party 

Freckled Laundry's Air Your Laundry Friday

Just Beachy!

Need a fun, cute & quick idea for picnics this weekend?  I thought these would inspire you. I made them a couple of years ago for the fourth.  Just any old box recipe muffin or cupcake mix will do.  Cover 2/3 of the top of the cupcake with white icing (again, store bought for convenience) and top with "sand" (aka brown sugar).  Fill in the remaining top of the cupcake with blue icing in wavy patterns.  Top with an umbrella (a little hard to find, so buy them when you see them and keep them on hand).  And top with a "lifesaver" candy.  Instant cute cupcake!

Now, ain't that just BEACHY!?

For other beach and fourth inspired fun, check last year's post here.

This post linked up here: