100 Followers Giveaway!

Alright, peeps, it's time for a GIVEAWAY!!!

My giveaway will have three prizes, which means three winners!

On with the prizes!

I am a big hat lover.  I love throwing on cute hats when I don't want to don't have time to do my hair.  So . . . 

The first giveaway is your choice of a brown or black distressed military -style cap!

The winner of the hat will also have their choice of two satin flowers that they can clip onto the side (like the ones in the pictures.  I have a bunch of colors so I will let the winner know which colors I have and they can pick two out of those options)

{Isn't my model gorgeous?  It's my beautiful sister!  I made her model these back in the summer :) }

The second giveaway is an adorable Fleur de Lis stretchy ring!

I love, love, love all things fleur de lis right now.

And the third giveaway is . . . a surprise!!!

It will be something handmade by me :)

By the way, the first two prizes can be found at my other blog, Binga Bows.  At least the ring can.  I'm in the process of adding the hats . . .

RULES:

Here are the ways to enter the giveaway . . . 

{Make sure to leave your email address so I can contact the winners}
 

1)  Since this giveaway is a celebration of my followers (yay for you!), you have to be a follower of Loving Every Second!  Leave me a comment letting me know you are  {1 entry}

2)  I just barely (as in right before I made this post) started the Loving Every Second Facebook page!  "Like" Loving Every Second on Facebook and leave me a comment on my wall, if you want!  Come back and leave me a comment here letting me know you did so  {1 entry}

 3)  Tell me what your favorite post on Loving Every Second has been so far!  Leave me a comment letting me know  {1 entry}

4)  Put a link on Facebook or blog about this giveaway (it's easy to do, just look for the icons at the bottom of this post and click!).  Leave me a comment for each one that you do {1 entry each}

That's a total of 5 possible entries!

Giveaway will be open until Midnight (MST), Friday, March 4th.  Winners will be announced on Saturday, March 5th.

Good luck, everyone!!!

Oh. My.

Have you seen these at the store?

These, my friends are bad, bad news because they are so freakin' good!

Seriously, I can't stop eating them.

I might need to make some cookies with them.

And when I do, I will share.  At least the recipe.  Unless you live by me, then I'll share the actual cookies w/ you.  Otherwise I'll eat them all myself!

Wanna know why they are so good? 

1)  Because you don't have to unwrap any wrappers!

2)  They have peanut butter.  'Nuff said.

3)  The peanut butter in these is WAY better than the PB in the regular Reese's.  It's creamier.  And oh so good.

4)  They are the perfect little size.

Oh man.  I'm in trouble.

I have zero will-power when it comes to peanut butter!

Blog Hop

I'm SO excited about this new blog hop I've linked up to!

The Girl Creative is hosting this lovely party.

I've done other "Blog Hop" linky parties, but I love to read blogs about crafting.  This party is for blogs that are just that!  Creative, crafty blogs!

So if you have a "creative" blog, head on over and link up.

You don't have to do a post about it (like some blog hop parties make you do to join), I'm just so excited about this one that I had to share with all of my creative bloggy friends!

PS - here's a sneak peak of my giveaway that's coming up!

100!

 

Yahoo!

I've reached {over} 100 followers!!!

Plus I've got over 100 subscribers through my RSS feed!

I feel like the popular girl at school today :)

Since I'm celebrating, I feel a giveaway in the very near future, so stay tuned!

And thanks for following/subscribing!

Just for fun, I'll add a few more !!!!!!!!

 

{Image found HERE}

Creamy Chicken Vegetable Soup

What up, everyone?

Happy Monday!

Let's kick this week off with a delicious soup recipe, shall we?

This soup is SO good!

 Cold weather = comfort food at my house.

My tummy loves it!  My hips?  Not so much . . .

Everything in moderation, right?  :)

Here are the ingredients:

2-3 large chicken breasts

4 medium potatoes, diced

1 1/4 cups chopped carrots, chopped

2-3 celery stalks, chopped

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

4-5 Tbsp butter

4-5 Tbsp flour

2 cans corn, drained

32 oz chicken stock

3 cups heavy whipping cream

1 tsp salt

Start by putting the water for the potatoes on to boil.  While that is getting ready to boil, dice up the potatoes.  Add them to the water.

While the potatoes are boiling, it's time to cook the chicken.  I grilled mine on the stove in a frying pan in a little bit of olive oil.  Make sure you season it with salt/pepper.

While the chicken is cooking and the potatoes are boiling, start chopping up the rest of your veggies.  Check the potatoes so they don't get overcooked and drain the water.  Set the potatoes aside.

Once the veggies are chopped, add them to a frying pan in some olive oil along with the garlic.  Next, you guessed it!  Season it with salt and pepper!  Cook until tender.

While the veggies are cooking, shred the chicken (once it's cooked).  I shred mine with two forks.

 Now it's time to start your roux.  Melt 4 to 5 tablespoons of butter in your soup pot.  Then add 4 to 5 tablespoons of flour and whisk together.

Cook the roux for a few minutes to cook the raw flour flavor out.  Then you will add the chicken stock.  Add it slowly, stirring with a whisk while you pour it in.  Bring to a boil and then add your cream.

Once it's heated through, add the rest of the ingredients to the pot.  Add your salt a little at a time to make sure it's not too salty.  

Now your soup is ready to serve!

I served mine with focaccia bread and a yummy salad:

My salad was a wedge of iceberg lettuce, crumbled bacon, diced tomatoes, feta cheese and blue cheese dressing.  Crisp and delicious!

I can't wait to make this soup again!

It was definitely comfort food at it's best.

What's your favorite comfort food?

Cute Kindle Pouch

I love to read. 
My husband rocks and he got me a Kindle for Christmas.

I like to use it at the gym, which means it goes in my purse.

There are also sippy cups, water bottles and who knows what else in my purse, which means that my new Kindle could get goo-ified (didn't know that was a word?  Well here at Loving Every Second it is!) at any given moment.

I decided to make a cover for my Kindle to protect it from all those mysterious gooey things in my purse.  Isn't it cute???

I wanted to put vinyl in between the fabric layers to give it that extra protection from juice/milk/water and whatever else that is wet.  And I decided to use fabric I already had.  The only things I had to buy were the batting and the vinyl.

Now, I'm not really a sewer.  So I recruited my mom, who is a wonderful seamstress, to make it help me.  I told her what I wanted and she went to work!

We measured the fabric/vinyl/batting (all the same size - don't forget two cut your lining the same size, too.  I used the same fabric for the lining and the outside) to fit the Kindle, which ended up measuring 10x15.

Since the fabric had an easy quilting pattern on it, my mom decided to quilt the outside.  So she quilted the outer fabric/vinyl/batting all together.
Love it!

Next, take the lining and outside fabric (which now includes the batting and vinyl), right-sides together  and pin them.

We decided to do a circular flap, so using a large plate as a curvature guide, we traced:

Then cut:

Next, sew the right-sides together.  

Clip the corners.  It will make the corners easier to pop out when we turn it all right-side-out.

Since the flap is circular, we cut little snips to help it spread (or something like that):

Now it's time to turn it right-side-out:

Using scissors, we pushed the corners out:   Next, fold the fabric at your opening in, 

                                       getting it ready to sew together:

Then sew it together :)  :

Now you will figure out exactly where you want the folds to be and sew the sides together:

We sewed some velcro on and we were (almost) done!

So cute!  And exactly as I envisioned it.
But the front was a little plain:

I needed to add a little embellishment onto the front.

I wanted it to be a little funky, so I found some fabric scraps that I already had, made some rolled fabric flowers and hot-glued them on:

I love putting my Kindle in it's new, beautiful, homemade little pouch!

And I feel so much better putting it in my purse now, knowing it is protected.

I had so much fun making this (with all of the glorious help from my wonderful mother!) that I decided to make some more little pouches.  I'm already planning on making one for my iPod and maybe one to put my chapstick/lip gloss in.


PS - This project cost me less than $5.00 since all I had to buy was the batting and vinyl.  Can I get a woot woot!

I will be linking this up with:

Happy {Valentines} Day!

 

Image found HERE

I hope you all get to spend some quality time with those you love today!

And I hope you eat some chocolate.  

Cuz what good is Valentines Day without a little chocolate?

Social Parade Blog Hop

I'm a day late, but I wanted to join in on this blog-hop:

Also, Craft Gossip featured my {Love} Wreath, along with 24 other Valentine crafts.  Go check them out!

Cutest Valentines Ever!

I have seen this adorable idea floating all over blogland and I had to jump on the bandwagon!

Aren't they the CUTEST Valentines ever?

And my daughter {loves} them.

Good luck getting your Valentine stuff together for your Valentine this weekend!  I'll have to take pics of the basket I'm putting together for my husband.

{Happy Weekend!}

RSS Feeds

I've had a family blog since 2007, but having a crafting/recipe blog is new to me.  I thought I'd share some of my nuggets of wisdom to all you other new bloggers out there.

Did you know that there is more than one way to "Follow" a blog?  

Those of us who have our own blog want lots of "Followers."  But there are other options to following blogs besides clicking the "Follow" button on someone's sidebar.

I use Feed Burner as my alternate to Google Friend Connect (clicking the "Follow" button).  Having an RSS Feed (like Feed Burner) gives people who want to follow your blog in a "reader" (like Google Reader) easy access to subscribing.

If you're curious, go ahead and click on my RSS Feed button (the orange one under "Subscribe Now" on my sidebar).  It will give you the option to choose where you would like to subscribe to my blog (Google, Yahoo, etc).  That way, if people don't have a blog, they can still follow you without being a "Follower".  They will be a "Subscriber" instead.

I personally use Google Reader and LOVE it!  If more people had an RSS Feed, it would make me happy.  When I become a follower of a blog, it doesn't automatically add it to my Google Reader.  I have to do it manually.  Having an RSS Feed takes out the middle step for your readers.  Plus, with Feed Burner, my readers also can choose to have new posts emailed to them.  So many options!

Does any of this make sense???

I have over 100 subscribers through Feed Burner and almost 100 followers through Google Friend Connect.  That brings my grand total to almost 200 followers, people!  If I didn't have my RSS Feed button available for people to subscribe to, would I have as many followers?  I don't know.  But I do know that I like to give people options.  

And it's fun watching the number of subscribers and followers grow!

And as soon as I reach 200 subscribers/followers, there may be a fun little giveaway . . . stay tuned!

XOXO

This is a little piece of Valentine art that I made last year.

{The lighting wasn't the best when I took these pics.  Sorry for the poor picture quality!}

So simple, yet so fun!  I loved how these turned out last year and was excited to pull them out again this year.

I used the $1.50 mini frames from Walmart, glittery chipboard letters and some fun, Valentine-y scrapbook paper.


Here it is displayed next to my {LOVE} Birds Valentine craft:

It was definitely a thrifty project, and you all know how much I love me a thrifty project!

Speaking of thrifty projects, there's a super fun linky party over at Young Nester.

You can link up recipes/projects that cost under $10 to make.  I can't wait to look around at all the thrifty projects people have linked up!

Blog following parties!

I'm linking up again this week to this lovely party:

Two wonderful blogs I have found through this linky party are Military Spouse House and FabuLESSly Crafty.  Hop on over and check these ladies out!


And I'm linking up to a couple new "Follow Me" parties this week:









So welcome to all of you who are visiting for the first time!I hope you like what you see and become a new follower of Loving Every Second!   PS - Jen at Tatertots and Jello featured my Strawberry Vanilla Rice Crispy Hearts!