You're Beautiful

Please go check out Tiny Buddha for some inspiration!

The author by Lori Deschene shared these 35 tips that I found to be wonderful....

1. Smile. As the quote goes, “I’ve never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful.”

2. Be there for someone who needs you even if there’s nothing in it for you–give without expectations.

3. Make a sacrifice for someone you love.

4. Admit a mistake, even if it’s hard to say you’re wrong, and work to make amends.

5. Share your struggles, putting your ego aside, to make someone else feel less alone.

6. Create something that helps people. A song, a blog, a support group, a non-profit–anything that inspires.

7. Help a child feel good about him or herself.

8. Tell someone what you appreciate about them, even if you feel vulnerable.

9. Forgive someone without needing to hear the words, “I’m sorry.”

10. Give someone an uncomfortably long hug when they need it.

10. Create positive energy around you by thinking positive thoughts and acting with positive intentions.

11. Sit with reality without judging anyone or anything.

12. Accept someone for who they are instead of trying to change them to who you want them to be.

13. Treat people like you want to be treated.

14. Notice something simple but beautiful in the world around you.

15. Acknowledge the beauty in others, instead of feeling threatened or competing with other people.

16. Be the change you want to see in the world, as per Gandhi’s suggestion.

17. Tap into your personal power and do something that makes a difference in the world.

18. Find strength in a challenging moment. It’s not easy to do, and you deserve credit for it.

19. Talk kindly about the world around you instead of gossiping or complaining.

20. Forget yourself for a minute and do nothing but listen to someone who needs it.

21. Measure a person by their best moments, not their worst.

22. Give yourself the same courtesy–focus on the good you’ve done, not the mistakes you’ve made.

23. Take the high road when someone hurts you instead if being cruel or catty.

24. Make someone laugh. A smile can literally melt stress and pain away. How beautiful of you to do that for someone else!

25. Make someone cry–tears of joy that is. People want to feel moved, inspired, motivated. Never underestimate the power of touching someone’s heart.

26. Keep an open mind instead of sticking with a judgment or assumption.

27. Love what you’re tempted to fear.

28. Be the voice of optimism when the people around you need it badly.

29. Show humility when your accomplishments would make it easy to stand above people.

30. Handle rejection or failure with grace. It’s far more easily said than done–and it sounds so cheesy and cliche–but accepting loss gracefully makes you a true winner.

31. Show unbridled enthusiasm for something that excites you. All children are beautiful, and I think their unadulterated joy has a lot to do with it.

32. Hear what someone means, not just what they say. Anyone can nitpick. Not everyone actively works to be understanding.

33. Imagine a world where people know peace, and do one small thing to create it.

34. Honor the values that matter to you. Showing integrity is the first step to feeling good about yourself.

35. Accept and love yourself–or as Ben Folds sings, “Learn to live with what you are.”


I shall be back tomorrow with some Halloween goodness!

Mmmm Puppy Chow

We had friends over for dinner on Saturday to enjoy some of Ryan's famous egg rolls. As always I like to set out some munchies and of course something sweet is always a plus! I decided to make Puppy Chow. My grandma used to make this for me and I believe that there is another recipe floating around that is similar and called Muddy Buddies...

In any case you start with a box of Crispix Cereal....

l.

1 12 oz box Crispix

1 6 oz bag of semi sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

Melt the chips, butter, and peanut butter.

Stir in vanilla

Combine the chocolate mix with cereal in a large bowl with lid or paper bag. Stir to mix.

Add 2 cups powdered sugar and shake until coated.

I toss mine in the fridge to set but you don't have to.

Mmmmm Serve.......

Ryan doesn't like peanut butter but he liked this mix as the peanut butter flavor really isn't too strong. In fact everyone seemed to like this mix and it was super easy to make. I am sure you could use any type of crispy cereal for this. Pretzels or Cocoa Puffs sound like especially good substitutes to me!

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Friday Fix-Idea Organization

I find so many different wonderful ideas that I want to try on blogs and craftster. These ideas range from crafts to recipes to decorating ideas. I have found tons of different printables thanks to fellow bloggers. It all very inspirational but a bit hard to keep track of.

I do a few different things to try to keep track of things I have printed, stencils, ideas, recipes, etc. My computer is of course the most help. I use my scanner to scan in neat or one of kind ephemera before I use it so that if I want I can reprint it later for another project. I save all these pictures along with stencils, tutorials, and ideas in folders on my computer.

I print out recipes and try to remember to include the link on the print out (so when I share here I can link back!) and I file the recipes in a three ring binder. If it turns out good it's kept if not it's easy to toss.

I also have a three ring binder where I store printed patterns, stencils, and pictures. It's easy to locate what I want when it's all in one spot and I can just flip through the pages.

What do you do to keep your crafty ideas organized???

Everything Looks Better on a Model

Remember the post I did a while back about some handmade baby stuff I made? Well the hat looks so much better being modeled by baby Brody! Happy Birthday Brody 09/11/2010.

Mmmm Rib Rub

I am relatively new to making ribs at home so we have tried a few different ways of cooking the meat with different combinations of sauces and rubs.

I have found and made the BEST ribs. I now cannot find where I got this recipe from but whoever had this up thank you!!! I altered it just a bit from the original. First you want to make your rub. I halved this recipe as I only made one rack

1/4 cup paprika

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp celery salt

2 tsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp chili powder

Rub this all over your rack of ribs. Place ribs on a foil lined cookie sheet (with raised sides)

Place in an oven preheated to 275 degrees and cook for 3-4 hours. If the ribs are getting too brown lower the temp some. The longer you cook em the better.

Once they are done in the oven preheat your grill to medium heat, throw the ribs on, slather em with sauce and cook for about 5 minutes on each side. Careful not to burn the sauce.

The orginal recipe I found had a recipe for homemade sauce but we are partial to Sweet Baby Rays in my house so that's what we used. These ribs were so good and this is the recipe that will be used from now on. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Note Cards

I have recently been enjoying playing with stamps and such to make different notecards. These are my favorite that I have made so far and were sent to a partner in the Ongoing Wish Swap. It's also a great way to use up scrap paper as either the card itself or the background.

Friday Fix-Herb Saver

This is such a fabulous idea that I found on Tip Junkie and I just had to share! I don't buy many fresh herbs because they go to waste if not used right away. But fresh is best so you can save your fresh herbs buy putting them in ice cube trays with water then freeze em! I did this with the cilantro pictured above and actually just used a cube yesterday for marinade I made.

Mmmm Nothing Smells Like Homemade Bread

I made this super easy, super tasty no knead bread over the weekend. I have been eyeing the recipe on Craftster for a while now. You can find the orginal recipe here.

I only made half the recipe as I didn't want to waste dough....

You will need:

4 cups of warm (105-115 degrees F) water

7 cups of all purpose flour

1 package of yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

Add the sugar and salt to your warm water. Stir the yeast into this warm water mixture then let it sit for about 5 minutes. It will become a little foamy on top, like this....

This is how you know the yeast is working :)

Start adding your flour

The first 4 cups first, then add the remaining three cups one at a time. It will form a sticky dough.

Cover and let set in a warm spot for 2 two hours to rise. You will need a large bowl if making the whole recipe.

After the two hours just pop the covered bowl in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight. I left mine in over night and see how it fell?

Scoop out 1/4 (or half) the dough and form into a loaf onto a greased cookie sheet. The dough is sticky so flour up your hands!

Do the same to make a second loaf.

Let the dough rest at room temp for 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 450 then turn down to 350 and put the dough in. Bake for 55 minutes.

So super tasty!!! If you make the entire dough recipe you can pop the remainder in the the fridge and use it for up to five days to bake fresh loaves or you can make all the loaves and freeze the leftovers. Per the orginal recipe writer you can reheat the dough by popping a frozen loaf into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Hope you enjoy!!!

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Friday Fix-Who spilled the beads?

Did you spill some beads or sequins? Wrap a nylon or thin fabric around the hose of your vacuum. Hold in place with a rubber band and use to pick up these small items. Just be sure to hold the hose over a bowl before turning off the vacuum!

Resin Pendants

A few new resin pendants. I am not sure why these didn't turn out as well as some others I have done. I think I need to buy a new bottle of resin or something. My favorites are the blue glitter and the last green one.