The past two days I have spent some time making cards.  This is one of my all-time favorite paper-crafting activities.  How can I resist mixing and matching papers, stamps, and cut-outs?  I can't!  There is just too much fun to be had.  

So, I made a big mess.  Thankfully, I have my wonderful craft area to work in now.  Plus, I was able to leave my mess out last night and clean-up after I finished up today.  Before, I was always hesitant about doing that.  My kids are old enough to leave most of my things alone without asking first and my dog seems to have mostly outgrown the "eat anything & everything left out" phase.  Yay!

Since I was preparing for vacation, then gone on vacation, & also needed some time to recover from said "vacation", I haven't been really been crafting much for the past little while.  What's wrong with this picture?  Hmmm...  Time to get back into the swing of things.  So today I figured I'd better get to it.  After all, I had already bought some outdoor fabric to re-cover some old pillows for my patio.  Since I thought the pattern and colors were so cute, I couldn't resist and bought a little more material than I thought I would need. 

So, today was the day!  Earth Day...why not?  After all, this will reduce waste by not just tossing out the old pillows.  Instead, they were recycled via re-covering them and are being re-used on my corner patio!  Plus, I used some of the extra material to dress up the patio tables a little.

We haven't done a really big family vacation before, so we decided it was time.  My oldest daughter starts high school next year and we wanted to do something fun together before then.  So...we decided to go to Orlando, FL.  

What did we do?  Spent a few days at DisneyWorld and a few at Universal Studios.  Plus, we did a little shopping and went to a few restaurants.  The hotter weather, more humidity, and sore feet were worth it!  We all had lots of fun together and enjoyed our trip.  Even our dog seemed happy when we he came home from his first kenneling experience.  

There was a picture & post for "pancake cups" that I saw on facebook yesterday and just had to give it a try.  They seemed to have turned out really well, in my opinion.  Before removing the pancake cups from the muffin tin, I went around each of them with a cake tester to make sure they wouldn't stick to the sides of the pan.  They all came out with no problems.  

For the batter, I used 2 cups of Krusteaz buttermilk pancake mix & 1 1/3 cups water.  Then, I used a scoop to fill all the tins with the same amount of batter and what d'ya know?!?  My guess was right on...it made one dozen (just over half full) which is what I was going for.  

The directions I saw posted on facebook were really easy to follow.  The pictures below each have a little step of what I did since you never know when a post might go missing or a link might break.  LOL

An easier upgraded version of Chicken Salad for sandwiches.  The bowl has a mix of canned chicken, fat-free cream cheese, chopped tomatoes, diced cucumber, crumbled turkey bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, light mayo, minced garlic, and dill seasoning combined.  The recipe I used (and tweaked a bit) was from a Pampered Chef cookbook (Club-House Chicken Squares), but this recipe is pretty much the same.  We ate it on wheat bread (as sandwiches), instead of the refrigerated crescent roll dough.  Mmm...good!

Not much crafting going on so far this week, but I did make the kids happy with some pudding pops.  It's nice to get some smiles when they get home from school!  Even my oldest daughter isn't too old for a pudding pop...who can resist?!?  Plus,they were made with sugar-free, fat-free cheesecake pudding mix & low-fat milk.  :)