Holiday – Page 3 – Short Stop Designs

Trick or Treat Popcorn Munch + Free Printable

October 13, 2016

It’s National Popcorn Popping month, and with Halloween around the corner, I’ve decided to “dress up my popcorn.” With all this candy floating around the stores, it’s hard to not want to buy any before Halloween, am I right? So if you’re like me, or have some extra candy lying around, you’ll want to try this popcorn recipe, because it is pretty stinkin’ good! And believe me when I say I will be making this again after my kids get their haul on Halloween.

Things you’ll need:

Original SkinnyPop Popcorn (4.4 oz) or 2 bags of microwave popcorn

Orange Candy Melts

2 Cups Chopped Chocolate (mixed variety)

Sprinkles

First of all, meet Danny. This recipe has been Danny tested and Danny approved! And his approval is important since he is our popcorn eating machine! 🙂

Pour half of your popcorn in a bowl and pour melted candy melts over the popcorn and mix well. Make sure you cover as much popcorn as you can with the candy melts.

Lay out your chocolate covered popcorn on a cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil and sprinkle as little or as many sprinkles your heart desires. Stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes or until the chocolate has hardened.

While your chocolate covered popcorn is in the freezer, roughly chop your candy. My mix included Twix, 3 Musketeers, Snickers, and Milkway, but you can use whatever chocolate candy you have.

Pull out your chocolate covered popcorn and start mixing in the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. If some of your chocolate popcorn is stuck together, go ahead and break it up, it doesn’t have to be perfect. If you’re serving this at a party, set aside some sprinkles and chocolate and sprinkle it on top.

Or if you’re handing this treat out to friends, use some bakers twine and this Halloween Printable to hand them out with! I hope you’re enjoying this time of year as much as we are!

Halloween Trick or Treat Tag – download here

St. Patrick’s Day Survival Kit Printable

February 26, 2016

ST. PATRICK'S DAY SURVIVAL KIT

We aren’t very big into celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in our house, but as a kid, I’ve always hated the idea of getting pinched if I didn’t wear green. Green also wasn’t (and still isn’t) my favorite color so I usually had nothing in my closet for St. Patty’s day. Fortunately for my kids, they are big Oakland A’s fans and they have no problem sporting their green and gold pride. With that being said, I still thought it would be fun to give them a little goodie bag of knick knacks to keep them pinch proof on this upcoming green holiday, and I’m sure you’re kids (or friends) will love getting this St. Patrick’s Day Survival kit too!

ST. PATTY'S DAY SURVIVAL KIT

It’s the easiest thing to put together. Just round up some St. Patrick’s Day goodies from the Dollar store, or Target’s $1-$3 spot. Could be anything from a green necklace, temporary tattoos, stickers, buttons, nail polish, socks, etc. Stick them inside a Party bag (I used 4in x 9.5in / 10cm x24cm), and seal them up with these St. Patrick’s Day Survival Kit. Your kids and friends are going to love getting this, especially if they completely forgot to wear green on St. Patty’s Day!

ST. PATRICK'S DAY PRINTABLE

Grab the printable here!

Save

Super Hero Valentine’s Day Printables

February 10, 2016

This post contains affiliated links.

SUPER HERO VALENTINE'S PRINTABLES

JD has been so into Star Wars lately, I thought for sure he was going to want Star Wars themed Valentine’s cards. Glad I didn’t start making any, because when I asked him what he wanted to give his friends for Valentine’s Day, he said he wanted to give away super hero cards! I saw so many cute Super Hero ideas, and I loved the one with the sucker dressed as a super hero, I just knew I wasn’t going to have a lot of time to put that one together. I was rattling my brain for a candy that would fit with a Super Hero card, and the one that kept coming back to my mind were Pop Rocks! I loved those as a kid, and thought it would be they’d be a perfect pair!

The best part about Pop Rocks is that they’re super cheap at the Dollar Store – $1 for a 3 pack! Perfect!! It is seriously the easiest thing to put together. All you need is…

Materials:

Super Hero Valentine’s Day Printable – grab here.
Pop Rocks
Scissors
Stapler/Tape

SUPER HERO VALENTINE'S DAY CARDS

Print out your super Hero Valentine’s Day printables, and staple one on top of each Pop Rock packet and you are done! Simple as that, and they are quick to make. I cannot wait for him to pass these out to his friends!

SUPER HERO VALENTINE'S DAY CARD PRINTABLES

Valentine’s Day Printables

February 5, 2016

Valentine's Day Printables

With just over a week away from Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d put together a roundup post with some of my Valentine’s Day printables… just in case you were still looking for decorations for your home, party or in need of some Valentine’s cards to pass out.

cupcake-display

Valentine’s Day Banner & Cupcake Printable – grab it here

Mustache Valentines Day card

“Be My Valentine” Card for Boys – grab it here

Thanks a Bunch Valentine

“Thanks a Bunch” Valentine’s Printable – grab it here

Valentine's Day Printables

Valentine’s Day Printables – grab it here

valentines card heart

Printable Valentine’s Day Cards – grab it here

Valentine’s Day Donut Banner – grab it here

XOXO valentine's Day Candy and printable

Valentine Print & Candy Bag Tags – grab it here

valentine's donuts

Valentine Donut Printables – guest post over at Eighteen25

“Thanks a Bunch” Valentine’s Printable

February 2, 2016

VALENTINE'S THANKS A BUNCH TAG

How fun is this little Valentine’s gift? This is one of the easiest and quickest gifts to put together, and it still looks good enough to eat! 🙂 I saw these candy roses at Walmart the other day, and wanted to use them as a gift somehow. Originally, I thought this would be great gift to give to teachers (which is why you’ll also see “Thanks a bunch for being a great teacher” on the printable as well), but didn’t want to limited to just teachers, so I made sure to add a “friend” tag as well. This tags could also easily be attached to a bunch of real flowers, or if you can’t find candy roses like in the picture above, there are some great tutorials on Pinterest for Hershey’s kisses rose buds that would be pair perfectly with this tag.

Grab your “Thanks a Bunch” Valentine’s printable here.

Watercolor Valentine’s Day Print

January 26, 2016

I’ve recently been in love with some watercolor art lately, and thought I’d try my hand at it with this print. I’ve made them in two different sizes, 8×10 and 5×7. Its the perfect way to show some love this Valentine’s Day. Pick out a fun frame to stick this print in or spray paint an old frame into a gold one for some elegance.

WATERCOLOR VALENTINE'S PRINT 2

Download your Watercolor Valentine’s Day Print – 5×7 | 8×10

Valentine’s Day Donut Banner

January 14, 2016

I’m keeping with a theme this week. First it was these cute Mini Valentine’s Day Donuts, then I did a guest post for the girls over at Eighteen25 with a Valentines Donut Printable (which I’m super excited about!), and now I’m finishing the week with this fun Valentine’s Day Donut Banner!

My husband and I just bought our first house and we’ve been living in it for 2 months now. We absolutely love the place, especially since we didn’t even see the house in person – that was super lucky! I do not recommend it! The house is a little outdated, in some areas but it’s something we can live with. One of those places is the fireplace. I will say this, one of the best features about our fireplace is that it’s gas burning and we love having moving nights snuggled in front of it. The eyesore of the fireplace, for me at least, is everything surrounding it… there isn’t much of a “fancy mantel” and hopefully one day we’ll be able to change that.

But for now, I get to come up with different ways of decorating it with this Donut Banner. It’s a fun and playful way of displaying X’s and O’s throughout your house. Warning: it might make you hungry for donuts. 🙂

Grab your Valentine’s Day Donut Banner here.

Save

Easy Mini Valentine’s Day Donuts

January 10, 2016

mini valentines donuts

It has been crazy these past few months. We moved into our new home, I worked full time for the holiday season, and celebrated our youngest’s 2nd birthday. Now it’s time to get back to working on this little blog of mine.

We’re getting pretty excited for Valentine’s Day at our house. So yesterday, I decided to do something fun with my kids while dad was out of the house. These mini Valentine’s Day donuts are so easy to put together, my kids understood what to do pretty quickly, and they’re 5 (almost) and 2. The best part, you only need 3 ingredients!

Ingredients:

Package of Glazed (or plain) Mini Donuts – like Hostess or Little Debbie’s

Candy Melts – feel free to choose your favorite Valentine’s colors

Valentine’s Day Sprinkles

mini valentines donuts 4

Dip your donut into a bowl of melted candy chocolate.

mini valentines donuts 5

2. Let any extra candy melts drizzle off of your donut and set on a cooling rack.

mini valentines donuts 2

3. Grab your favorite sprinkles (look how cute those hands are! I know this picture is pretty much unnecessary but it was too cute not to share).

mini valentines donuts 3

4. Sprinkle your hearts desire on your donut.

mini valentines donuts 6

5. Let your donuts sit and dry off for a little bit until the chocolate has hardened. And you’re all done!

Super easy and great to do with your kids. The only downside is the clean up. Like I predicted, the sprinkles got everywhere, but it was totally worth having them do something that didn’t involve sitting in front of the TV or iPad!

What a perfect gift to give away for Valentine’s Day too!

mini valentines donuts 7

Save

Fall Centerpiece & Thanksgiving Tag Printable

October 15, 2015

With fall in the air, I was inspired to create a fall centerpiece using simple decor after coming across the online flower delivery company, BloomNation. Because I had taken a couple of floral arranging classes back in college I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try my hand at floral arranging again. I was never good at it, and I’m still no where close to a professional, but it was obviously one of the classes I enjoyed going to most. It was fun, and on few occasions a little stressful trying to come up with something that looked good. I was always so impressed with what my classmates’ arrangements, and how different ours were from each other when given a specific assignment. You can create so many different arrangements, and the best part about flowers is, it will (for the most part) always end up looking beautiful.

One of my favorite flowers are hydrangeas, so when I saw it in the shop I immediately knew I had to use it. I always thought of it as a spring/summer flower, and quickly turned to Pinterest to see if I could use hydrangeas in a fall arrangement. And to my surprise, I found a bunch of beautiful fall ideas using hydrangeas.

I knew I wanted to make my centerpiece pretty neutral in color, but wanted to add a few fall colors to the arrangement without making it look overly colorful. Aside from hydrangeas, I used daisies, mums, carnations, lilies, and added some wheat to give it a little bit more of a fall/Thanksgiving appeal. I added some of the wheat to the napkins, and used a striped burlap ribbon to wrap around the napkins and mason jars. This was such a simple and easy table to put together, and not to mention, great for a small budget!

I’m also sharing these fun Thanksgiving tags that you can incorporate on your table by wrapping it around your napkins and holding it in place with string or raffia, add them to a treat bag, or on a take home box for your guests on Thanksgiving.

Download here

If you’re not feeling confident in your flower arranging ability, or don’t have the time to make one yourself, try using a flower delivery to save you time and choose from a variety of options to give your table that fall look you’re going for!

P.S. See where I got my inspiration for this centerpiece on my Pinterest board.

DIY Woody Costume

October 6, 2015

Ok, I’m so excited to share with you the what I call my “semi-homemade” Woody costume I put together for JD this Halloween. It was super simple, and fun to put together. Here’s what we did to get the look:

Yellow shirt. We got ours from Crazy8 on sale for $4.99! And, I love that he can just wear it anytime after Halloween is over.

Jeans. We already had these so that part was easy peasy!

Cowboy vest. I got the materials for $4.20 from Joann’s. Take advantage of their coupons! I used the tutorial for the vest from Simply Crafted.

Hat, belt & gun holder were 25% off at the Disney Store, so we paid just under $10 for these items.

Bandanna – We found this baby for a $1 at the Dollar Tree! I was going to use the leftover fabric from the vest, but saw the bandanna at the Dollar Tree and thought, “why not?”

Badge – you can make your own or just buy yours online at Amazon for $5.

Boots – Ok, these were the most expensive thing we had to buy for this costume, but I could not stand those foam boots they use for costumes, and even though I am not a fan of cow boy boots, we found these really awesome Toy Story boots that light up from Sears for $30. So, if you already own a pair, or can borrow some from a friend/cousin, then this will be the least of your worries. To justify this purchase, he will definitely be putting these to use when he helps out in our backyard with dad.

And that’s it! JD had fun going on a hunt for all of these items, and kept us busy on days where we needed to pass the time.

My absolute favorite part about this Halloween is how cute these two boys are in their Toy Story costumes! Stay tuned to see how my Jessie costume will turn out…