Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 13): Tween Scrapbook Party

By bobbi
October 8, 2013
No Comments

Note: This is a busy month with school, family and traveling to my sister’s wedding so I will only be doing one Pinterest Party this month (skipping the 4th Tuesday.) However, I will leave the link-up open for the whole month so you have plenty of time to link up and share with the rest of us! 🙂 Enjoy!

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me every 2nd and 4th Tuesday as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, did, or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards.

Not on Pinterest? No problem. Link-up your own creation to inspire us so we can pin it to our own boards. It can be a recipe, sewing project, Catholic craft, homeschool project, organizing/ homemaking tip, themed birthday party, whatever you’d like. Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for 10 days so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. Don’t have a blog? No problem. Tell us about it in the comment box. Or post your photo and a description on the RoL Facebook page. 🙂

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For Bella’s 12th birthday she originally wanted a Newsies themed party but she decided to have a Scrapbook Party instead. However, to give her a touch of the Newsies, I incorporated them into the invitation.

I took a copy of the playbill and added a “You Are Invited” sign and quote for the cover of the invite.

I used picmonkey.com to make the inside of the invite. (Sorry but personal info is blacked out. ;-))

When Bella and I were looking for party supplies and decor she found these Art Journal Kits and wanted to buy one for each of her friends.

They were a little more than I wanted to spend for 5 girls but I counted it as part of her gift and just cut costs on other items.

For decorations we went to the Dollar Store and bought a red table cloth, plates and napkins for $3. I opened up the table cloth and added a strip of butcher paper down the middle. I opened up a couple of the napkins and used them as decorative squares.

I got some containers I had around the house and labeled them.

We already had a big collection of various stickers, scrapbook pages and found washi tape on clearance at Target and Michael’s.

For the name tags I used a pack of thank you note I had and cut them down to size.

One of the girls used her name tag for her scrapbook cover.

Here are some other covers.

And here are a few pages I snapped as they were putting them together.

Lastly, during the party I took a photos of the girls outside. I printed them a copy so they could add it to their scrapbook.

Bella had a lot of fun with her friends and she loved the party and activity. It’s a birthday we’ll always remember. 🙂

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Now it’s your turn.

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

2. In your post, link back the original blogger/idea, rather than your Pinterest pin. That way credit goes to the proper person. 🙂 (But feel free to add your Pinterest profile link so we can follow you!)

3. Add a link back here so others can play along. Here is the html code:

4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

You have ~~10 days~~ A MONTH to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!

Lastly, you can follow me on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/rol_bobbi/. 🙂

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoodReads or Instagram. 😉

An InLinkz Link-up

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 11): Easy Angry Bird Birthday Treats for School

By bobbi
September 10, 2013
2 Comments

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me every 2nd and 4th Tuesday as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, did, or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for 10 days so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately.

Don’t have a blog? No problem. Tell us about it in the comment box. Or post your photo and a description on the RoL Facebook page. 🙂

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It’s a busy week so I’ve got a simple project for this week’s Pinterest Party. Recently John-Paul celebrated his 4th birthday and he wanted to bring a special treat to school for his fellow pre schoolers. The school discourages cupcakes and other sugary treats so we were thinking of getting little packs of graham crackers. Since JP loves Angry Birds, I picked up a box of the Angry Bird crackers. I then went online and googled a picture of Angry Birds in a birthday setting. I copied it onto a Word Document and used the Angry Bird font “Feast of Flesh” to write, “Don’t be angry. It’s John-Paul’s birthday.” Here’s what it looked like.Then I found an empty basket and an old remnant of blue ribbon.

Five minutes later, viola! John-Paul loved it and it was a hit with his little friends. 🙂

That’s it! How about you? What have you created this week? Tell us about it in the comment box or link up your post below. 🙂

* * * * *

Now it’s your turn.

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

3. Add a link back here so others can play along. Here is the html code:

4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

You have 10 days to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!

Lastly, you can follow me on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/rol_bobbi/. 🙂

An InLinkz Link-up

Meatless Meals (Vol 2): Minestrone Soup

By bobbi
September 3, 2013
2 Comments

(The link to the original post of this recipe, dated 2/25/23, was broken when we were updating posts from the old blog and I can’t fix it so I am just reposting it with a new link here. Thx.)

***

I originally got this Minestrone Soup recipe from my sis and pinned in on my Pinterest What’s Cooking board. I’ve made it a couple times before changing a few things to make it perfect for my family. The original recipe is on the thick side and we wanted a little more broth/liquid in our soup without diluting the flavor. Here is what I put in it.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups sliced carrots
4 cups chicken or veggie broth*
1 cup water
4 cups tomato sauce
1 mini bottle of red wine or 1 cup of red wine**
1 cup canned kidney beans, drained
2 handfuls of fresh green beans, cleaned, prepped and blanched***
4 zucchinis, quartered and sliced
1 teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons basil
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup small sized wheat pasta (ie. shells, rotini etc)
Grated Parmesan cheese for topping

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot, heat olive oil over medium-low heat. Add onion and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Add celery and carrots, sauté for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Add chicken broth, water and tomato sauce. Bring to boil, stirring frequently. Add red wine. Reduce heat to low. Add kidney beans, green beans, zucchini, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, the longer the better.
3. Meanwhile, cook the pasta until tender. Drain water and set aside.
4. Place a serving spoon of pasta in a bowl. Ladle soup on top of pasta and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Enjoy!

* Obviously, for a Lenten meatless meal, I used veggie broth and it was still really good!

** We aren’t really wine drinkers so I hate opening a big bottle to cook with because we never finished it. Instead I bought a 4-pack of the mini wine bottles, such as the one below, which is a perfect for various recipes.

*** I always blanch my green beans for 7-8 minutes before adding it to the soup. I have never tried throwing them in raw so I don’t know if they’d be tender enough or still a little tough.

This soup is a huge hit with the family, especially when served with a slice of fresh baked bread or ½ a grilled cheese sandwich.

And, you may ask, is it kid friendly? I’ll let Matthew answer that question. 😉

I think those Popeye arms speak volumes. He likes his veggies and pasta!

His messy smile proves it.

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 10): Christmas in July/ One Annual Family Gift

By bobbi
August 26, 2013
1 Comment

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me every 2nd and 4th Tuesday as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, did, or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for 10 days so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately.

Don’t have a blog? No problem. Post your photo and a description on the RoL Facebook page. 🙂

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I love gift giving! I get a thrill at seeing a person’s face light up when they open a present, especially when I worked hard to find something that is unique to them and their interests. If it were up to me I’d send presents to all my extended family – brothers and sisters (I’ve got 8 of them) and their spouses and my nieces and nephews but unfortunately our budget does not allow me that pleasure.

As we’ve gotten older and more of my siblings are getting married, we had to figure out a way to handle the birthdays, special occasions and holiday gift giving.

We decided that each family would give the other family one annual family gift. It could be store bought, handmade, food, whatever worked for the family’s budget. We also thought it would be fun to choose a month other than December to send the gifts, hence this year for my brother, sister-in-law and nephews, it was Christmas in July! (Okay, I was actually late in sending my gifts so it was Christmas in August. But my procrastination didn’t matter since there was no set time table.) 😉

After making my list and purchasing gifts, I was ready to turn on some Christmas music and wrap. One nice thing about doing this gift giving in summer is that I have plenty of time to wrap and put things together without the stress of getting things done by a certain holiday deadline.

I had such fun putting everything together and I hope my brother and his family like it. 🙂

I’ll wait another month of two and then I’ll get a package ready for my sister and her family. 🙂

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Now it’s your turn.

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

3. Add a link back here so others can play along. Here is the html code:

4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

You have 10 days to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!

Lastly, you can follow me on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/rol_bobbi/. 🙂

An InLinkz Link-up

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 9): Mini Traveling Office

By bobbi
August 13, 2013
5 Comments

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me every 2nd and 4th Tuesday as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, did, or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for 10 days so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately.

Don’t have a blog? No problem. Post your photo and a description on the RoL Facebook page. 🙂

* * * * *

My Pinterest Boards –pinterest.com/rol_bobbi/

The Pin That Inspired This Post – The Traveling Blogger

Back in April one of my favorite organizing bloggers, Jen at iheartorganizing posted The Traveling Blogger. She talked about how she keeps her traveling “office” organized.

Source: iheartorganizing.blogspot.com

I was particularly interested in how she used a makeup bag to hold her office essentials. I was smitten with the idea and every time I went to Target or Ulta I’d browse the make-up bags to see if there was something I could use in a similar fashion. I tried a few but they landed out being too small or too big or didn’t have enough pockets and I returned them back.

It’s August now and back to school supplies have been calling my name. I really wanted to get my traveling office together because I knew I’d be spending a lot of time in the car once school started and I was shuffling kids around and waiting in parking lots for school bells to ring. During those moments I always have a few spare moments to get some work done or a card written and mailed.

So when I went to Target this weekend, in between buying Q-tips and toothpaste, I passed the make-up bags and spotted this gem.

It had three zippered sections, sleeves for pens and was roomy enough to fit a lot but not too bulky for my tote bag. (I did not realize it at the time but when I went back to reread Jen’s original post, this was the exact make up bag she had purchased. No wonder she said it was perfect. It is!

So I gathered all the things I wanted to have in my mini traveling office: a mini journal, a small notebook, post-it notes, scissors, tape, mini stapler, staples, paper clips, binder clips, a cute little tin to hold the clips and staples (thanks for that mom ;-)) sharpie, pens, markers, thank you cards, blank note cards and stamps.

That may seem like a lot of stuff but it fit..and I even added a roll or two of washi tape since taking this pic. 🙂

Sometimes I feel a little bad that I get more excited about office supplies than actual makeup but what can I say. I’m a nerd that way. All I know is that I love my little office set, almost as much as the Hello Kitty pencil case I had in the 4th grade. Some things never change. 😉

UPDATE: It’s been over a month and I still love my little mini-office. Right now I am participating in the Planner Addicts Photo Challenge and for Day 9 I had to list my favorite essential while planning. My mini-office won hands down. 😉

* * * * *

Now it’s your turn.

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

3. Add a link back here so others can play along. Here is the html code:

4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

You have 10 days to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!

Lastly, you can follow me on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/rol_bobbi/. 🙂

An InLinkz Link-up

Revolution of Love

Do small things with great love.

Tag Archives: pinterest party

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 13): Tween Scrapbook Party

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 11): Easy Angry Bird Birthday Treats for School

Meatless Meals (Vol 2): Minestrone Soup

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 10): Christmas in July/ One Annual Family Gift

Pinterest Party & Link-up (Vol 9): Mini Traveling Office