Sunshine in my pocket

Easter Trio & a Spring Thank You Gift

By KariV on March 23, 2013 in Easter, Gift Ideas, Holidays

I’ve been working on TWO holidays at once: Easter and April Fool’s Day planning. I don’t usually do much for April Fool’s Day, but this year we are having an outdoor party on that very day, and so I MUST have a little fun! (Don’t you agree?) I’ll be sharing my April Fool’s pranks in a later post, but for now here are some Easter prints I’ve been designing and re-designing.

The first one is really a reminder to me to get moving on all these projects and party plans! Ha! I need to post this one on my phone for a while as a wallpaper!

Which one would you choose to display?

I love the “Hello, Spring” in a frame. Now that I look at this picture, I think I might need some white “Spring” frames! Any suggestions on where to find some cute ones?

You might notice my little spring jars that I decorated up with some Easter vinyl. I cut these vinyl Easter creatures (bunny and blue robin) with my Cricut die-cutting machine and adhered them to the jars. Then I filled them with chocolate treats, printed a 2×3 of the Hello, Spring printable and used it for a tag on the jar.

I’m using this one as a special thanks to a friend who has helped me out so much! Hope she likes it.

Have a wonderful 2 days of holiday celebrating!

P.S. If I get enough requests, I will make these Easter printables available to you on this post!

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Taste Test Tuesday — Mexican Vanilla vs. Watkins Vanilla

By KariV on March 19, 2013 in Favorite Things, Taste Test Tuesday

Attention, anyone who loves to bake!! What kind of vanilla do you like to use in your baking? I have been using Mexican vanilla for years, and I love it! However, one day my husband brought me home a bottle of Watkins vanilla and I knew it would turn into a taste test challenge for sure.

I first asked all my friends who liked to bake what kind of vanilla they liked to use. My great Aunt used to own her own bakery and pastry shop, and she likes Trader Joe’s vanilla. So I had to add Trader Joe’s vanilla to the challenge as well. Unfortunately, when I went to Trader Joe’s to get “their vanilla,” there were 2 kinds to choose from. So what did I do? I bought them BOTH.

So let me introduce you to the contenders:

A) Watkins Vanilla

B) Trader Joe’s Bourbon Vanilla

C) Trader Joe’s Alcohol Free Vanilla

D) Mexican Vanilla (yes, that’s the biggest bottle of them all! What can I say, I love to bake and I use it all the time!)

E) McCormick’s Vanilla (used only in the caramels)

In order to be completely fair to all the vanilla contenders, I made 3 types of vanilla items to taste: vanilla caramels, vanilla mini cakes, and vanilla pudding sauce. We had the most volunteer judges in the history of our taste tests….maybe because this sounded like a DELICIOUS opportunity?!

This was a blind taste test and each item was given a letter. The judges were instructed to rank each vanilla into first, second, third, and fourth place.

I held two separate taste testing sessions, in order to get all the judges in! And as the sessions progressed, I soon realized that the judges were voting for DIFFERENT vanillas for the caramels, pudding sauce and mini cakes! In fact, ALL the judges had different votes except for one judge who voted for the same vanilla in first place each time.

It was apparent to me that there was not going to be a CLEAR winner in this taste test. So I had to pull in a professional analyst: my husband. He quickly drew up a spreadsheet to tally the points for each contender. Here’s how the judges voted:

For the Caramels

In first place, was Watkins Vanilla, with 11 of the 15 votes

In second place, was Mexican Vanilla, with 8 of the 15 votes

For the Pudding Sauce

In first place, Watkins Vanilla

In second place, Mexican Vanilla

For the Mini Vanilla Cakes

In first place, Mexican Vanilla

In second place, Trader Joe’s Alcohol Free

**I was surprised by the votes. I expected my favorite (Mexican Vanilla) to take first place. But overwhelmingly, Watkins Vanilla placed first by a wide margin in 2 out of the 3 tests. The interesting thing was, the judges agreed that this taste test was DIFFICULT, because there really wasn’t a bad one of the bunch. In fact, most judges agreed that each item was delicious, however, a couple judges had a slight NEGATIVE reaction to either the Bourbon Vanilla or the Mexican Vanilla.

After much analyzing and deliberation, we have declared the winner to be WATKINS VANILLA!

I am sure I will continue using Mexican Vanilla, but to switch things up a bit I am now adding Watkins to my vanilla repertoire. I should also mention that we used the Double Strength Watkins Vanilla, which contains more vanilla bean and less alcohol.

(NOTE: Many people have asked me where you can get Watkins vanilla, and so I am including a link HERE to a Watkins representative for your reference. Please note that I do not receive compensation for any vanilla purchases. However, I have been told by Jennifer that if you CALL her rather than place an order online, she may be able to SAVE you on shipping costs. 🙂 I love to save money for my readers!)

So, what do you think? Do YOU agree with our results? Do you have a vanilla that you swear by? Let me know in the comments below.

Thank you, judges! Stay tuned for our next Taste Test Tuesday: VANILLA ICE CREAM. (Do we have a vanilla theme going on here?) I’m looking forward to it!

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Dose of Sunshine (and Rainbows) Monday — Rainbow Dinner Party

By KariV on March 18, 2013 in Dessert, Holidays, St. Patrick's Day

I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day. We had a birthday dinner celebration for my Mom’s birthday! And it turned out bright and cheerful. So for this Dose of Sunshine, I decided to share the Rainbow Dinner Party we had. I hope it brightens your day!

rainbow-skittles

I was challenged to decorate for this dinner party with only dishes I already had! (Shop for dishes much? I guess my husband thinks I have too many! What? Is that even possible?) So I started out with some rainbow skittles in mini glasses and added a bit o’luck tags…can you see the gold (rolo) at the end of the rainbow? I used the “Little Bit o’ Luck” printables from here.

The gold chargers I already had, as well as the white plates (they are the buffet plates from Crate and Barrel). Other items I already had: the silverware, goblets, vases. I did supplement with some shamrock papers for the runner (from JoAnn’s), and flowers (daffodils and carnations from Safeway). I colored the water in each flower vase in a different color of the rainbow.

I love the way the individual fruit salads turned out! Strawberries, Clementines, Pineapple, Green Grapes, and Blueberries make for a happy rainbow fruit salad. (And delicious! I made a vanilla pudding sauce to go with the fruit salad, but I found that the fruit was so sweet on it’s own that we didn’t even use the pudding sauce).

For dessert, I made Texas Sheet Cake Cupcakes (a favorite around here)! And I found these sour rainbow candies at WalMart, so we of course had to make a rainbow on our cupcakes. I used a little stabilized whipped cream (from Trader Joe’s) as the clouds, cut the rainbow sheets in half and put them into the cream. My nephews loved this part! I even let them make their own rainbows on the cupcakes.

We had some cupcakes to deliver to a friend who also has the same birthday, and so we wrapped them up in this cute cupcake box, tied with a green bow, and added a “Little Bit o’ Luck” tag to the top. I decorated only 2 of her cupcakes with the rainbows…since they are a little sour. Those chocolate cupcakes are so delicious on their own, but those rainbows are just adorable. So which one wins…adorable or delicious? I will let her decide! {Note: my nephews LOVED the sour rainbows…it might be a kid taste?}

We decorated with LOTS of flowers…a dinner party is made even more amazing with flowers! The ones on the left were a gift to my mom from a good friend (thanks, Erin, she loves them!) And I printed out the Luck printable in the frame from here.

It was a colorful and fun dinner. And I used *mostly* everything I already had on hand. I love that!

Have a happy Monday!

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Shamrock Search for kids — free printable!

By KariV on March 15, 2013 in Freebies, Holidays, St. Patrick's Day

Two of my adorable nephews are coming over this weekend for some St. Patrick’s Day celebrations! It’s also my Mom’s birthday so we are really going to have some fun! I put together these “Looking for Luck” books to help us on our nature walk (it is such a beautiful weekend)!

I had fun with my new glitter tape to add a little sparkle. Inside, I have designed a nature scavenger hunt, some games and activities, and a coloring page.

I thought it would be funny to bind them with Lucky Charms and Irish Spring packaging…or is that just plain weird? It’s bound to get a few chuckles.

I used my “Zutter Bind-It-All” to punch and bind the books. But if you don’t have a way to bind, just staple the pages together. (see picture above). You can use a little green ribbon to add some flair…but who am I kidding? These are for KIDS, they won’t care if they are bound with Lucky Charms or have a ribbon on them! So anything goes here, really.

Here’s a quick view of the inside activity pages:

I think my nephews are going to have a little fun with this. Let’s just see how long it can entertain them!

To download the pages, please like my page here:

Then download the pages here:

2-13 looking for luck page 1 thru 4

2-13 looking for luck page 5 thru 8

And, if you decide to try these out with your own kids, grandkids, neighbor kids, or nieces/nephews, please let me know how they like them! 🙂

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Taste Test Tuesday — String Cheese

By KariV on March 12, 2013 in Favorite Things, Taste Test Tuesday

I like to have string cheese on hand for when I need a quick snack, so I thought string cheese would be a good taste test Tuesday subject. While it may not be as exciting as, say Salted Caramel Chocolate bars or Vanilla Caramels, I think some “healthier” options are also great for reviewing!

The contenders are only 2, but they are the “Big 2” when it comes to string cheese. Here they are:

Precious Stringsters, the brand you can find at Costco VERSUS Frigo Cheeseheads, the brand that claims to be “America’s Favorite.”

This was a very quick taste test, and easy, since there were only 2 contenders on the docket. And the judges actually liked both brands….they said “these are both good,” and “I would eat either one if I had them on hand.”

All good comments, and better than what I had to say about a less well-known string cheese I tried a couple months ago. It was a clear package with black writing on each individually wrapped string cheese serving. I searched to find this particular brand to report back to you, dear reader, but I could not find it! (If I do track it down, I will update this post). This particular string cheese was practically inedible. Nobody would eat it, except the dogs. [If you know the one I’m talking about, please comment and let me know!]

Back to the 2 contenders. After all was said and done, one edged out ahead of the other…

THE RESULTS

The judges declared that the winner was creamier and more pleasant (less chalky). And the winner is (drumroll please):

PRECIOUS Stringsters String Cheese #1!

So it seems that “America’s Favorite” was actually NOT the favorite this time. While the Cheeseheads string cheese had a chalkier taste, some judges declared that it had a cheesier flavor! Even though they liked the cheesy taste of the cheeseheads, the judges said that the chalky-ness up front could not beat out the creamy taste of the Precious Stringsters!

[A special thanks to all our judges.]

What is your favorite snack? Favorite string cheese? Go give these two a try and see what you think.

Stay tuned for our next Taste Test Tuesday! All you Bakers out there, take note: the next taste test is VANILLA! What is your favorite vanilla to use in your baking? I can’t wait to reveal the results of this exciting taste test!

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