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Announcing: #BackToSchoolWeek for Busy Moms (starts on Sunday!)

By KariV on August 15, 2013 in Uncategorized

I’m excited to announce the Back To School Week coming up, where I am joining forces with 20 other amazing bloggers to bring to you some great school craft ideas, snack ideas, and easy crock pot meals (because I know you are busy)!

It starts on Sunday…and I’ll keep you up to date on all the news. So be ready because Sunday kicks off with a Twitter party (more on that soon) and a GIVEAWAY with lots of awesome prizes!

Next week is going to be full of “Back to School” and prizes; I can’t wait! So come back Sunday to see all the details on how you can WIN and get some great new school ideas.

See you then!

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Follow Me on Bloglovin’

By KariV on August 6, 2013 in Uncategorized

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I just linked my blog to Bloglovin, which is a way to follow blogs all in one place. It helps to see at a glance what has been published on your favorite blogs and then you can click through to check them out. I am still learning how to use this myself, but I think it will be a very handy tool! So, if you want to follow my blog using this convenient tool, click the link above and follow the instructions. Thanks!

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Personalized Water Bottles

By KariV on July 18, 2013 in DIY, Gift Ideas, Paper Crafting, Uncategorized

Here’s another goodie I designed and created for Girls Camp! The first thing I think about for camping is WATER. And I was in search of the perfect water bottle to give to the girls. (The camp director wanted their NAMES on the bottles…and you can bet I took on the challenge.)

It was fortunate for me that I found these metallic water bottles at the Dollar Store! I had to visit 6 dollar stores in order to find enough of them! Each store had a few, or none…and since I am not the type to give up, I just kept on going to more stores until I found matching bottles. (I was happy to finally find victory!)

Since our colors were grey, pink and chevron, I thought the metallic work work out perfectly. And then I found the pink herringbone vinyl (which is sort of like chevron, right?) and I just knew it was a great match.

To make these personalized water bottles, first adhere the pink herringbone vinyl.

Second, trim the black shiny vinyl (I cut it into 1 1/2″ strips)

Third, cut the silver metallic vinyl letters with a die cut machine. (I used my Cricut and the Lyrical Letters font)

Adhere the metallic letters to the black vinyl strips. And cut them down into flags after you put on the letters.

Here’s a tip for cutting the perfect flag end: Cut the middle of the flag first, up about an inch. Then, cut from the bottom left side up to the cut mark in the middle…and then cut from the bottom right side up to the cut mark in the middle. Voila! A perfect flag every time.

Last, adhere the flag with letters to the water bottles with the pink herringbone already attached.

I think they turned out pretty cute, don’t you? (And there’s a sneak peek at the pillowcases I made…coming in another post!)

Bonus: here’s a sweet little (easy) gift sack I put together for a treat:

It’s just a white lunch sack (small size) with chevron ribbon, white coffee filter flower, and clothes pin with washi tape! Sometimes you need a sweet little gift that takes just minutes to put together. 😉 {Inside are the best animal cracker snack bags.}

And here’s the start of getting things all boxed up. I hope they like them! And here’s what I love: acting as camp support (ie: making all these little gifts and helps) without actually GOING to camp. (In fact, I will be in California the whole time they are at camp).

But I do love still being a small part of the celebration. Happy day!

Now I hope you are not tired of pink and girly YET, I have another camp post coming soon!

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The Best Bruschetta in Minutes (Guest Post)

By KariV on July 16, 2013 in Cooking Light, Recipes, Uncategorized

It’s time for some Garden Bruschetta! I am excited to be guest posting at Mom Endeavors with my VERY favorite Bruschetta recipe. So if you have tomatoes from your garden (or even from the grocery store), then try this easy recipe here. I’m also sharing a tip for putting this together FAST (no more tedious chopping).

And while you are there, don’t forget to leave a nice comment or two. Enjoy!

I’m off to make some Bruschetta now…this has my mouth watering. 🙂

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Taste Test Tuesday — Sweet Pork (Cafe Rio Copycat) with NO cola involved

By KariV on July 9, 2013 in Dinner in Minutes, Recipes, Taste Test Tuesday, Uncategorized

There are a lot of Sweet Pork (Cafe Rio Copycat) Recipes out there. But have you noticed that most of them call for Coke or Dr. Pepper? Well, I’ve tried my fair share of these recipes in the past…but since I strongly dislike colas (yes, all of them) I found that I did not like those recipes that included them! {Plus, I sorta have an aversion to cooking with soda pop.}

SO, I’ve been searching for a good recipe for sweet pork that didn’t have cola in the ingredient list. I’m happy to announce that I found a couple recipes and then put them up to the Taste Test Challenge!

The great thing about these recipes is: you put all the ingredients in the crock pot to cook all day (easy!), then just shred up the meat and add in the sauce. I love that!

After I cooked up both recipes, I put a taste of each on small plates for our judges. And then, when they picked their favorite, they got to make an entire sweet pork salad (or burrito). Now those are some lucky judges!

Sorry about the half eaten salad in this next picture…it was SO good that I forgot to take a picture before I ate most of it!

We used the following for our salads:

Fresh cooked tortillas
Cilantro Lime Rice
Garlic Black Beans
Lettuce
Peach Mango Salsa
Kari’s Garden Salsa
Cheese
Cilantro Lime Dressing

Oh. My. Goodness. I think these homemade salads are SO delicious! (They do rival the restaurant — however, there is something lovely about having all the ingredients ready and a salad made-to-order for you at the restaurant!)

Just to make sure of our results, I took both cooked recipes to my brother and sister-in-law (who just had a baby! yay!) to try out. The difference was, they would warm theirs up for dinner the next night. And they both liked the SAME one.

THE RESULTS:

Surprise! It was a TIE. I know, I know. I can’t believe it either.

So today, I am going to share with you my mother’s recipe for Sweet Pork.

And I will link up to the other cola-free Sweet Pork recipe ~~as soon as I get permission!~~ Permission granted! Here is the Sweet Pork Recipe that was a favorite among 50% of the judges! (Thank you to The Sisters Cafe for such an awesome recipe!) If you do try this recipe, be sure to try their Garlic Black Beans as well…so good!
[Note to judges: this was recipe 1 for all of you that picked the first sweet pork sample as the winner]. This one has a small hint of a spicy kick to it (probably from the enchilada sauce) that was delicious, and this one was definitely quite a bit sweeter than the other.

And the other 50% of the judges liked my mom’s recipe! {recipe to follow} This was, in my opinion, the easiest of the recipes. You just mix together all four ingredients (yes, only four ingredients!), add on top of the pork roast, cook it up all day, take out the pork and shred it up, and add back in some of the sauce (not all of it….it makes a lot of sauce!) [Note to judges: this was recipe 2 for all of you that preferred this one]

*Recipe here

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I used the green can of El Pato (jalepeno salsa). The yellow can said “hot” and I was a little ~~scared~~ hesitant to try it. If you like a little more spice, try the yellow can.

So there you have a couple of the BEST cola-free Sweet Pork Recipes! Give them a try and let me know what YOU think! I just love a good Sweet Pork Salad. 🙂

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