Up and Running on YouTube

I have been brainstorming for a while on what I could do to add to the awesomeness of what Fabric Nerds has to offer. After talking with a couple of friends and running around some ideas, I came up with what I think is a great addition to the Fabric Nerds website...YouTube Tutorials! 

After getting over my camera shyness :) and figuring out how to take a video and semi edit a video, I came up with my first tutorial. The first tutorial is on how to make quick and easy Fabric Braided Coasters. It is a perfect project for all those scrap fabric pieces you have lying around that you don't have the heart to throw out but they are not big enough to do any of your projects in mind. They would make awesome gifts for a house warming party, Christmas, etc... when given as a set. They are quick, super easy, and one of those projects I just love because the color combination possibilities are endless.

Here is a sneak peak of what mine came out like...

Well I hope you like it. Bare with me through these first couple of videos as I try to learn the art of movie making :)

<3 Kris

Fabric Nerds

Birthday Celebration!

Tomorrow I turn the BIG 3-0! I am still unsure how I feel about it yet.  I know it is far from old but at the same time I feel like I am officially a GROWN UP, even though I have been married for 6 years and have 2 beautiful redheads and adulthood has been around for awhile now. :)  To celebrate this momentous occasion my hubby and I are headed out of town to BOSTON!!! Back in the day (before kiddos) we would make it a yearly tradition to head up to Boston catch a baseball game and explore the city. It's one city that this country girl actually loves! Since having the kiddos sadly me and the hubs have not gone on an overnight trip by ourselves in the last 5 years! So needless to say we are in desperate need of some ALONE time. A HUGE THANK YOU to my Mom, Sister, Brother-in-law, and Mother-in Law for tag teaming the kiddos to make this trip happen for us!

I was reading this article the other day called "Turning 30: 30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know" and I am glad to say I have done and know majority of the items on that list YaY! After reading it I was thinking about things I have learned in these 30 years and here they are...

1. Having a couple of AWESOME friends that you can count on any time day or night to be there for you (and vise versa) is so much more important than having tons of "Acquaintance Friends".
2. Sadly some people even as adults, will just never grow up and leave the high school drama behind. Accept that fact and move on to what is important in YOUR life.
3. Life is short. Make the relationships you have with people count and be worthwhile.
4. It's important to stop at times and take a deep look at the life you are living. Are you content and happy where your life has taken you? If not stop and alter that path to help lead you to the contentment and happiness we all deserve.
5. No matter how much you want to, you can not change someone. The only things you have control to change is yourself and your behaviors/actions in situations.
6. Living a simple life is not wrong. It may go against the grain of society and people might think you are an odd duck for not caring about the materialistic things in life, but it is NOT wrong. 
7. Finding happiness and joy is so much easier when you look at the simple things life brings you instead of all the other stuff.

That is all I got so far. All of these 7 things have been huge life lessons for me in the last couple of years and they are still work in progresses but I am getting there. 

What are some life lessons that you have learned along the way?

To celebrate my BIG 3-0 Birthday even more, Fabric Nerds  is having a HUGE one day only sale. Tomorrow, Fri July 20th take 30% off all orders $30 or more!! Use coupon code: BIG30. (Note: All orders placed on Fri-Sun will be shipped out on Monday)

Happy Fabric Shopping! 

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend full of family, friends, and fun!

<3 Kris

Easy Peasy PJ Pants

This past Father's Day (or as my daughter calls it Daddy's Day) we decided to go on our first family camping trip. To make it a little extra special I thought I would whip up some camping pj's for the munchkins. My kiddos are 21 months and 4 years old, so anything Momma makes them is always awesome :) I did some searching on Pinterest and found a super easy tutorial at this awesome blog, My Cotton Creations. Her photo tutorial has great detail and is really easy to follow. I whipped up these pj pants in no time! Just a bit of a warning once you realize who easy they are to make you might decide to stop buying pj pants and making everyone you know a pair :)

Here are some photos of the kiddos modeling their pj pants on our camping trip...

All the fabrics you see in the pj pants can be purchased at Fabric Nerds. For my daughter's pants I used Daisy Cottage Main Print and Fly a Kite Yellow Gingham (for ruffles seen in first pic). For my son's pants I used the picnic print from the Crabtastic Line. 

A HUGE ONE DAY SALE at FABRIC NERDS is coming up next Friday, July 20th. I am celebrating something BIG and wanted to celebrate BIG with all of you. Stay tuned during the week for more details on this BIG event.

Summertime Recipes: Part 2

My husband, bless him, gets up at 5am for work. Call me a late sleeper or a lousy wife but my body will hate me for the rest of the day if I wake up before 6am. So needless to say I am not up at 4:30 cooking up some breakfast for my man. Because of this, his breakfast typical consists of some type of variety of Pop-Tart. Definitely not anywhere near a contender for the most nutritious, filling, or energy packed breakfast. These past couple of weeks I have started to make some giant muffins the night before. They are quick, easy, and absolutely delicious (plus this recipe will save you money and a trip to the bakery). The best part of this recipe is its versatility, you could use it for all different muffins such a blueberry, banana nut, strawberry, the possibilities are endless.

Peach Crumb Muffins

Ingredients:

Big Muffin Tin

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

3/4 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 - 1 1/2 cups diced up fresh peaches (or your fave add in)

Topping:

1/2 cup white or brown sugar (your preference)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, softened and cubed

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Line muffin tin with muffin liners (or just thoroughly grease muffin cups)
3. Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.
4. Add oil, egg, and milk into dry ingredients mixture, and mix well.
5. Fold in peaches
6. Fill muffin tins up to the top (this will create nice giant bakery style muffins)
7. Make Crumb Topping: Mix together white/brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter until stars to resemble a nice crumb topping.
8. Sprinkle crumb topping over muffins
9. Bake for 22-24 minutes in the oven or until done (mine took 23 mins, check if they are done by inserting a toothpick into the center)
10. Enjoy this bakery worthy breakfast you just created!

<3 Kris
Fabric Nerds

Summertime Recipes

I just love the summer time and all the yummy fruits and vegetables it brings. I love to experiment with my cooking and baking this time of year and around by me there are tons of different Pick your Own Farms that help with my experiments. Check out Pick Your Own Farms, it's a great site to find farms near you. I have been getting a little more courageous and creating my own recipes incorporating some of these yummy fruits of summer.
The first recipe I made is a Raspberry Swirl Angel Food Cake with a Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze. It is by far one of the best cakes I have ever made and is a great light dessert for the summer heat.

Raspberry Swirl Angel Food Cake 

w/ a Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze

Ingredients:

1 box of angel food cake mix (or you attempt angel food cake from scratch)

1/2 cup of Raspberry Jam (approx)

Pint of Raspberries

Glaze:

1/3 cup of whipped cream cheese (approx)

1 Tbsp of lemon juice (or more to taste)

Splash of vanilla 

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Make angel food cake according to box directions (Reminder: DO NOT flour or grease bundt cake pan)
2. Stir approximately a half a cup of raspberry jam in a bowl until jam becomes more liquidy and less jammy (don't you love my complex and technical terminology)
3. Gently fold in the stirred jam to the cake batter until you see a nice swirl of raspberry throughout
4. Pour batter into bundt cake pan
5. Bake according to box

Glaze: (All to taste. Make it as lemony or not so lemony as you wish)

1. Beat cream cheese in mixer until smooth and creamy
2. Add in lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix until creamy
3. Gradually mix in sifted powdered sugar until you get the right fluid consistency (if the glaze is not liquidy enough just mix in either a little bit of water or more lemon juice until your preferred consistency)

Constructing the Cake:

1. Once the cake has fully cooled, remove it from the bundt cake pan and flip right side up.
2. Take a spoon and  drizzle glaze all over the top of the cake
3. Make a ring a glaze around the center hole of the bundt cake (will be used as glue to hold the raspberries)
4. Once cake is glazed fill the center of the bundt cake with raspberries and make a ring of raspberries around the hole of the cake

Enjoy! It is absolutely delicious! I have received nothing but compliments and wanting the recipe from everyone that had a piece.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a delicious Peach Crumb Muffin recipe! Great for summer breakfasts!

<3 Kris

Fabric Nerds

Kona Modern Quilt Giveaway

This week's giveaway from my Quilt Market adventure is a FQ Bundle of Kona Modern Quilts by Cynthia Frenette for Robert Kaufman Fabrics. The bundle consists of 6 FQs and retails for $16.00!!! 

Enter by making a purchase at www.fabricnerds.com (no minimum purchase required) by Weds. July 4th and your name will automatically be added into the drawing. Winner will be chosen by random using random.org and announced Thurs. July 5th


Good Luck Everyone!


<3 Kris

World of Couponing

Yes I am one of those :)

Last week I posted a status on my personal facebook page about an awesome deal to get Big G cereals for .38 cents a box. I thought I was the only one who would care but was so excited I just had to write about it. To my surprise I got an outpouring of responses.  While I do not take couponing to an extreme, what I do, do majorly helps our family out in the finance department. 

We are a young family of 4 living in NJ and are a one income family. When we had our youngest Luke (who is now 21 months) my husband and I had a long talk about whether or not I should go back to work.  Daycare in New Jersey on the cheaper side near us would run about $1800/month for both kids, which was about what I was bringing in before we had Luke. It would have been a complete wash, so we made the decision for me to stay home. We told ourselves to give it 1 year. If we could make it past the first year we could do it. It has now been almost 2 years! (yay!) I am not going to lie some months are stressful in the finance department but we get through them together. We have had to change our way of living and thinking in many different ways but from doing that I have found my family and I find such happiness in simpler and littler things than we ever had before. 

My husband is not a doctor or a big CEO of a company to have made our decision of me staying home easier. We are just an every day blue collar working class family getting by. My husband works harder than anyone I know to provide for all of us and I could have never asked for a better man to call my husband. I can only hope that one day my daughter will find a guy who is as much a family man as a working man as her daddy is.  Being able to stay home with the munchkins has given me the opportunity and the time to finish up my Master's that I stopped once my daughter was born and has also given me the opportunity to venture into the world of business ownership. While I may have student loan debt that my great grand-kids will probably be paying for me and we can't take big fancy vacations right now. I can honestly say I am happy and content with every choice we have made and I see nothing but positive things for my family in the future. We have become a very close knit family already.

Now onto the savings!!

Just took a trip to Target & Shop-rite and shaved about 50% off my total. Here is how I did it:

Target:

Note: Target allows you to stack coupons by using a Manufacturer and a Target Coupon)

• Archer Farms Trail Mix is on sale for $2.99 -Target has a coupon for 1.50 off 2   (Knocks each bag down to $2.24)
• Right Guard Hair/Body Wash is $3.49.  Target  has a coupon for $1 off 1 (print x2) and Coupons.com (use zip 90210) has a coupon for $2.00 off 2 knocking the price down to $1.49 a bottle.
• Nabisco Crackers (I bought Ritz and Wheat Thins)  On sale for $2.00. Target has a coupon for $1 off 2 boxes and Coupon Suzy (type in zipcode 90210) has a coupon for $1 off 2.  Price per box is now at $1!
• Dial pump soap - $1.27  Target has a coupon for .50 cents off/1. Making total .77 cents
• Up and Up ibuprofen - .99cents/24 count   Target has a coupon for $1off/2. Total .98 for 2 bottles!
• Right Guard Deodorant $3.34  Target has a coupon for $2off/2  and  Coupons.com (use zip 90210) has $2 off/2. Total cost $1.34/deodorant!

Total before coupons: $26.89 + tax

Total after coupons: $13.89 + tax

TOTAL SAVINGS: $13.00!!!

Shoprite:

Note: Shoprite doubles most coupons which are under $1.00

• Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cereal (Caramel Nut) On Sale for $1.99 Coupon at Kellogg's (free membership) .50cents off/1  Total price: .99cents!
• Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cereal (Honey Nut) On sale for $1.99. Coupon at  Coupons.com (use zip 90210) .70 cents off/1 Total Price: .59 cents!

Total before coupons: $3.98

Total after coupons: $ 1.58

TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.40!!

For the little shopping I did today I saved my family $15.40 and everything bought were things we use and need.. no extreme 70 jars of mayo here! ;)

A lot of you are saying no way can I take the time to figure out sales and coupons and when they line up, right? Trust me with 2 young kids running around, school work, etc.. neither do I. But today is your lucky day because there are FREE websites to do that for you. check out Krazy Coupon Lady and Coupon Mom. They will match up sales and coupons, what the best deals are, and where to get the coupons, for grocery stores, big chains (e.g., Walmart and Target) and pharmacies.

I dare you to give it a try. I guarantee you will be hooked when you start to see the price drop at the register!

Happy Couponing Everyone!

<3 Kris
Fabric Nerds