Photo Coasters!!

Okay, so I'm a Pinterest addict (who isn't). I was on the beloved website one day when I found Fabric Envy's photo tile tutorial. The heaven's aligned and I could hear the angels singing MOTHER'S DAY! WAHOOO! My Mom is a huge photo junkie, always taking photos of flowers, animals, other people's children, seriously if you see a creepy lady in the corner with a camera it's my Mom! Love you Mom!!

Anyways, I thought this would be PERFECT for her since this is a total new way to give photo presents THANK GOD for Modge Podge!! I decided I wanted to make photo coasters with 4x4 ceramic tiles as well as the 6x6 larger photo tile which I decided to use a photo of the night my Mom got engaged! So sweet!

**And yes, I used my son's Lego table for this since I sold my kitchen table on Craigslist and the new one is in our new house we are trying to move into** LOL

What you need for the coasters:

 4 or 5 - 4x4 ceramic tiles (I got for about $1 a piece at Home Depot)

Matte Photo Paper (if you are printing the photos yourself)

Modge Podge

Foam or normal paint brushes

Exacto knife 

Super sliders (I bought at Wal Mart) to keep the back of the tile from scratching the table

Scissors

As Fabric Envy taught me on her blog, you cannot use glossy photo paper for this project because the photos will smear, you must have a matte photo.I wound up printing the photos for the coasters myself since I couldn't find a single place that could print a 4x4 matte photo! I heard Costco is great for this stuff but I don't have a membership so I just purchased some matte photo paper from Wal Mart and used my HP Photosmart printer and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!!! 

I did not take step by step photos, but it's super easy....

1. Paint a thin layer of Modge Podge on the tile

2. Center your 4x4 photo on the tile (my coasters had about 1/4 in.of tile showing all around which I liked better than what I did with the larger tile because it bubbled less.

3. Let it dry 10 minutes or so

4. Apply thin layer of Modge Podge on top of the photo (do not worry it will dry clear)

5. Let dry 20 minutes (if you have bubbling occur, just work it out WHILE IT'S WET with your fingers and lightly paint over it to blend so there aren't finger prints on the photo)

6. I repeated this 2 more times (3 total coats) on top of the photo just to make sure that the photo is actually sealed since I'm sure they will be getting wet with cups being placed on them. 

7. Once it is dry just stick the rubber bumpers on the back and you're done! Wahoo!

I think they turned out great!!

Valentine's Dinner Idea for the Kiddos

So this year my husband has a meeting on Valentines Day. Altough we were planning on celebrating on Friday so that there will be babysitters available to watch our three kids (or as my husband refers to them "our litter") I wanted to make sure that the kids got into the V-Day spirit. Since it's just us for dinner, I decided to make it fun!

On the menu is a heart shaped crock pot meatloaf, heart shaped squash and zucchini, and heart shaped mini red velvet cakes with vanilla icing and red sprinkles. I got the meatloaf recipe from Recipe Vegetables. Instead of cooking it in the oven, I decided to make it into a heart shape and cook it in the slow cooker on high for about 4-5 hours just so it can cook throughout the day while I did housework and prepared the other things. You can also cook it on low for 8-9 hours.

I also found a fun way to get my little ones to eat their vegetables. I got a set of 6 heart shaped cookie cutters at my local grocery store and had the brilliant idea of cutting out heart shaped zucchini and squash! I wrapped these in foil and set the oven to 400 degrees and cooked them about 30 minutes. You can cook them less time if you like them more al dente. I seasoned them with butter, oregano, salt, and pepper. I cooked the hearts and the outer layers as well so I didn't waste anything!

This last idea will probably work out better for those of you who know how to bake (NOT I). All I did was go to the store and buy a box of red velvet cake and baked it in a 13 x 9 in. pan for about 40 mins. Once the cake was cooled I used a heart shaped metal pancake shaper thing (I have no idea what it's really called lol) and cut out 4 mini heart cakes from the larger cake. I topped it with white vanilla icing (couldn't find pink!) and red sprinkles. I'm sure even though they aren't perfect, the kids will still love them.

I hope I sparked some ideas for all you mommas out there!