What You’ll Need:

• 1 medium or large avocado
  
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
  
• 1/4 t. salt or to taste
  
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
  
• 1/4 C. vegetable oil

The Steps:

1. Wash the avocado and cut it in half. Scoop out the flesh and put it into the blender.
2. Add lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper and blend together.
3. With machine running, add vegetable oil slowly. You many have to stop the machine several times to redistribute ingredients. Puree to a smooth creamy mixture. Makes about 3/4 cup

NOTE: Store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. Keeps well without discoloration for 5 to 6 days.

Love,
Jodie

What You’ll Need:

• 4 cups of bird seed mix
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 tablespoons corn syrup
• 1 package of plain gelatin
• greased bundt pan or other mold with hole in the center

The Steps:

• In a large bowl put 1/2 warm water and gelatin mix together and let the gelatin dissolve.
• Create a paste by mixing in the corn syrup and flour to the gelatin and water.
• Stir in the bird seed.
• As evenly as possible, spread the mixture into the greased bundt pan. Pat it down tightly.
• Let sit for 24 hours.
• Gently turn pan over and let ring of seed fall out. Let sit on a plate/towel/paper towel for another 24-48 hours.
• Get a long piece of ribbon wide enough to be able to support your ring. Thread through hole, and tie around a tree branch, or wherever you would like to hang it.
• Let the birdies enjoy!

Love,
Jodie

What You’ll Need:

• Clear contact paper
• Silver metallic paint (or probably any other color metallic paint)
• Dish soap
• Your design, or the one Alison made available on her tutorial
• Scrapbook paper or cardstock to mount the card

Now head on over to the tutorial on Oopsey Daisy Blog.

Love,
Jodie

If you want to be like the MacGyver of dads, here is What You’ll Need:

• Sturdy cardboard
• Box-cutter or exacto blade
• Hot-glue gun
• Ruler
• Pencil or wooden dowel
• Jumbo sized rubber bands
• Paper clips

Now that you’ve gathered those up, head over to his wife’s blog, Make It and Love It, to follow the steps she so kindly laid out and photographed for the world.

PS. I think it would be neat to cover the outer pieces of cardboard with extra pretty paper you might have around the house. Or to let your kids draw all over them.

Enjoy rocking out.

Love,
Jodie

What You’ll Need:

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt or coarse Sea Salt

Head on over to the recipe and try it! (and maybe send some over to us while we argue)

Love,
Jodie

What You’ll Need:

• Clear plastic bottle. I think a Voss Water Bottle would be perfect.
• Uncooked white rice
• Small toys/trinkets
• Good, strong, glue.

Steps:

1. Lay out all of the small items you plan on hiding in the bottle and take a picture of them. Print (and laminate if you want/can) this picture as a guide.

2. Make sure bottle is clean and dry. Start filling the bottle with rice and small items, make sure to alternate so all of the toys don’t wind up in a big clump. Stop when the bottle is 3/4 full (you need room in it so you can shake it, moving the rice around and revealing/hiding toys)

3. Glue the lid onto the bottle. Make sure it is sufficiently sealed.

4. Give bottle and picture to your kiddies and tell them to find as many of the toys as they can!

Supplies:

• Old towels
• Scissors
• Rug Canvas Matting. Something like this. It can be found at practically any craft store.

Steps:

1. Wash and dry all of your soon-to-be scrapped towels.

2. Decide how big you want your new bath mat to be, and cut your gridded matting into the size and shape you want.

3. Cut your towels into strips that are about 5-6″ long and around 3/4″ wide. (The width may vary depending on the size of the openings in your gridded mat. You want the strips to be wider than the holes in the grid, but you still want to be able to pull them through the holes easily.)

3 1/2. I would recommend washing the strips again. Depending on the construction of the towels, when you cut a fabric like that up, it can/will shed. A second washing will get all of the shedding out of the way quickly.

4. Knot each strip along the grid, making sure the ends are all on the same side of the mat. For a super plushy mat, knot along every line. For a thinner one, knot along every other line.

Jodie’s Random Thoughts/Tips:

• If you’re using multiple colors of scrap towels, you can easily make a striped rug by using one color per line of knots. OR throw all the strips into a bag and pick blindly and see what awesome pattern chance makes for you.
• If you have a ton of old, ratty, t-shirts you can use them instead of towels and make cute, soft area rugs for your kids’ rooms, or any room in the house really.

Have fun!

Love,
Jodie

So even though Kyle isn’t celebrating her birthday today, I’m going to…and since this bad boy is so obviously the cake I would have attempted to make her, I’m going to do something in true Kyle-fashion, and purchase this hippo cake and hand it off to the next shopper I see (that doesn’t think I’m too insane).

In honor of Kyle’s birthday, I vote that you all go out and do some random, ridiculous act of kindness in her name. Maybe we can get Jan 25th turned into National Kyle Smitley Act-of-Kindness Day in the next 50 years. Kids will have the day off from school, it will be awesome.

Happy Birthday, Kyle!

Love,
Jodie

So a few weeks ago I was asked to give a little talk/webinar for the Powder Puff Guide to Starting a Business. Naturally, I was so honored and thrilled! So tonight from 8pm-9pm Eastern time I will be chatting about my story and aswering lots of questions.

You all get to read my goofiness here on the blog, so feel free to join in tonight to hear it for yourselves.  You can call in or join via computer. I would love to hear your voices and/or read your questions as well!!

This will be fun! You sign up here and they then e-mail you all the login information.

I can’t wait!

Ingredients:

• Apples
• Cinnamon

Steps:

• Thinly slice your apples. Or, if you feel like being fancy, core the apples, and slice them to make apple rings. (Note: if you use a mandolin slicer, please be careful! Mine apparently hates me and I’m always catching myself on it ….also, I’m clumsy)

• Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper, then lay out the slices on it making sure not to overlap them.

• Sprinkle the slices with cinnamon.

• Bake at 250 degrees for one hour, flip them, sprinkle with cinnamon again, and put back in for another hour. If they’re not crispy enough after the 2nd hour, leave in until you’re happy.

• Enjoy!