Top Posts from 2011

I've seen a lot of my favorite bloggers post year end reviews that share their top projects/posts from 2011 and I thought I would join in!  Below are my top 5 most viewed posts from 2011.

1.  My post viewed post in 2011 was my Mini Monkey Bread recipe.  I can thank Pillsbury for most of these page views, they posted my recipe on their facebook page and I got over 10,000 visitors! 

2. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!  Jillian and I made a cute One Fish, Two Fish. Red Fish, Blue Fish snack for her to take to school to celebrate Read Across America week!

3.  At Home Gel Nails is my tutorial and information about doing your own shellac/gel nails at home! 

4.  Sprinkle Cookies!  Is my SUPER easy sprinkle cookie tutorial.  We make these cookies all the time, Jillian loves to make them by herself!

5.  Easter Egg Wreath tutorial. 

Thanks to everyone that visited my blog in 2011 and a special thanks to everyone that left me comments and feedback, I LOVE hearing from you! 

Hopefully 2012 will be a great blog year and I will get to share even more tutorials and recipes with you!



I'm still here.... I PROMISE!

Life has been CRAZY!  Since my last post I received TONS of wreath orders.  I was so slammed with making wreaths I didn't have much time for anything else. Then the first part of November I had about 10 orders for Thanksgiving shirts so I was busy with those. It was a blessing I got the orders, the money I made payed for all of our spending money at Disney!!!

The week before Thanksgiving Michael and I surprised Jillian with a trip to Disney World!  We all had a BLAST and we are already planning our next trip!  I joked with our travel agent that we have turned into "Disney people" and she said we must have drank the water!  Soon I'll share with you some of the cute outfits I made and ordered for Jillian to wear on the trip.

When we got back it I was in full Christmas mode and had a bunch of shirt orders and shopping to do. 

Two days after Christmas was Jillian's 4th Birthday!  I took the afternoon off work and Michael and I took her and her best friend Emma to a movie and out for frozen yogurt!  Tomorrow is the big party day and I can't wait to share the details with you.  I planned a CARNIVAL!  We have games, booths, cotton candy machine, popcorn..... the works!  My mom will be in town for a few days but after she leaves hopefully I'll have a little more time to blog and share the party details with you. 

I hope to spend a little more time over here in my little section of the www to share my recipes, crafts and random stuff with you all.  See ya soon!

Pampered Chef & a GIVEAWAY!!!!

Do you like Pampered Chef products???

I do!!! Pampered Chef has so many neat Kitchen gadgets that whenever I go to a party I have a hard time deciding what to buy!

I am currently hosting a Pampered Chef Catalog party and would really appreciate if you order something from the party! My party will be closing out this weekend so I want to offer something extra special to my blog readers if you order from the party!

If you order $40 or more (and have it shipped directly to you) I will put you in a drawing to win a custom shirt from me! I will work with the winner to come up with an applique shirt of your choice (I have HUNDREDS of design options). To order go to my Pampered Chef Consultant's site and you will enter my name as the hostess (Jamie Hardiman). Please make sure you select the shipping option as ship to you directly (unless you are one of my local friends).

Want to see some of my favorite products???

This red Deep Covered Baker is on my list of products to get from this party!  My consultant cooks full meals in the microwave with this baker!!!  If you purchase this she will send you a PDF cookbook FULL of recipes you can use the baker for!

 If you check out my recipes very often you know that I do most of my baking on my Stoneware from Pampered Chef.  I LOVE my large bar pan and muffin pans!

I went to a party a few weeks ago and I order this Salad Chopper and I am IN LOVE with it!  I have used it for salads and my favorite use is to cut up hot chicken!  I boiled some chicken the other day and didn't want to wait for it to cool to cut it up so I used this and it was AWESOME!  I was able to cut up a pound of chicken breast into bite size pieces in less than a minute!

From the party I also ordered this measuring cup and it is SOOOOO cool!!!! Measure liquids and solids up to 2 cups. A unique adjustable plunger design cleanly ejects solid ingredients. Includes standard and metric measures.

Now head on over and place your orders, I would REALLY appreciate it! 



Do you use Swagbucks?!?!?

I was at a wonderful coupon class tonight taught by Jennifer from The Coupon Centsation and the topic of Swagbucks came up.  Several people in the class had either never heard of swagbucks or didn't know how to use them so I told Jennifer I would share the information, I hope this is helpful!

Swagbucks.com is an online portal dedicated to helping you earn digital dollars called "Swag Bucks", which can be redeemed for exclusive Swagbucks.com merchandise.  Since I started using Swag Bucks I have made over $150 in Amazon gift cards!!! You redeem your bucks for so many different things but I found giftcards to be the best option for me! 

When you sign up for Swag Bucks I think installing the search tool on your task bar is the best way to earn the most bucks.  You will use their search engine for all of your online searches, I never use Google anymore!  Swag Bucks will randomly award you your "Bucks" for different searches.  Sometimes you won't get any bucks and other times you might get 10!  The 2nd way I earn my Swag Bucks is by doing surveys.  On the main Swagbuck site there are NUMEROUS surveys posted daily and some can earn you up to 200 Swagbucks.  One $5 Amazon gift card only costs 500 Swagbucks so you can see how you can EASILY earn big money! 

I hope this helps answer some of your questions about SwagBucks and how to use them.  If you have any questions about them let me know, I'll help you as best as I can!  Now head over to SwagBucks and sign up! 

How You Can Help

Thank you to everyone that sent their prayers our way, North Alabama is slowly on the mend.  The power at our home came back on yesterday (my birthday!) and as of right now 70% of our county has power.  Even though the power is coming back there is still a lot to be done.  There are so many people that have lost everything. 

Please, please, please take a minute to visit The Pioneer Woman's website and leave a comment, she will donate a quarter ($.25) for every entry/comment that’s left there this week, to an organization that will directly benefit victims of the recent tornadoes in the South.

Ree is also going to pick 4 four (4) winners and will give $500 donations to the charity of the winners’ choice!

You can also help by texting "REDCROSS" to 90999.  By texting the Red cross you will donate $10.00 to the Red Cross and the Alabama Relief Efforts.

***photo credit to Eric Schultz, The Huntsville Times and al.com .

Wildflowers & Whimsy: Skye Reve Fabrics Giveaway

Hey everyone!   I just wanted to pop in real quick and encourage you all to head over to Wildflowers and Whimsy and check out this wonderful giveaway!


I would LOVE to win this Sweet Nothings bundle from SkyeReve Fabrics and if I don't win it I want one of you to! 

Go check it out:  Wildflowers & Whimsy: Skye Reve Fabrics Giveaway

Welcome Pillsbury Visitors!

I wanted to take a minute to welcome all my visitors that have found me from Pillsbury's facebook page, I am so excited they shared my Mini Monkey Bread post with you!

I hope you enjoy my blog and visit again to check out my neat projects, designs and recipes. 

I also encourage you to check out the giveaway I am a part of, Wildflowers and Whimsy's Spring Fling Giveaway. 

Each day two wonderful bloggers will be giving away wonderful gifts to their readers and visitors, check back here on March 28 and I will be giving away a custom appliqued shirt!

Hoo Are you Tuesday

 Here are this week's questions!


1. Have you ever had a professional massage before? 
Yes, and it was wonderful!  I wish they weren't so pricey, I would get them every week!

2. When drinking bottled water do you have a preference on which brand you drink?
I don't drink bottled water, filtered from the refrigerator is just fine with me!

3. What is your favorite kind of soup?
My mom's Southwestern Chicken Corn Chowder

4. Do you have a preference on which Kleenex brand you use?
Nope, whatever is on sale.

5. What is your favorite breakfast food?
I'm not a big breakfast person but my favorite is probably pancakes.
Head over To Night Owl Crafting and check out the other Hoo Are You posts! 

Car Decals To Extreme

This morning on my way to work I was behind a van that had the cute little car decals taken to an extreme. I decided to do an artist rendering of the back of the minivan for you. Keep in mind this covered the ENTIRE back of the van, each child was probably 4 inches tall. Enjoy.

Summertime Giveaway

Melissa posted this giveaway on her blog so I decided to join in on the fun! Monogram Chick is giving away this super cool Pink Floral Market tote with monogramming included! Please mention that you heard about the giveaway from me because if you win I win one too! You must enter by Monday so get on it!!!!

Mouse in the house

Well, last night as we were cleaning up the kitchen and getting ready to go to bed a mouse ran from behind our refrigerator to under the stove. I, of course began screaming and Michael laughed at me. I think the mouse came in when I left the door to the house from the garage open for awhile earlier (let just hope he was alone)! The cat saw the mouse the same time we did and she was on high alert!

We began mouse extraction 2009 by pulling the stove drawer out to look for him. We saw him in the back but couldn't get him so Michael proceeded to spray in there with air freshener to try and get it him out. I told Michael he was just going to make the mouse pass out! Finally Michael decided to stick an old BBQ flipper thing under there and the mouse ran out... to under the refrigerator again!

I was standing guard making sure he didn't run into the living room or bedroom (I had a bowl) while Michael tried to pull out the refrigerator. Well the mouse then decided to make a run for the dishwasher...

This is where the action begins. I proceeded to "lunge" myself towards the mouse with my bowl. Michael likes to joke that both my feet were going different directions and I was screaming but I like to say I was saving the house from varmint. I basically fell on the mouse with the bowl. Luckily the bowl landed on our little friend and I didn't land on the mouse! In the process I skinned both of my knees on the wood floors, skinned (took a chunk of skin off) my hand and twisted my already busted up ankle.

We both had a good laugh about it all (as I'm sure you are) and I got made fun of!

The mouse did make it out of the ordeal alive (Michael wanted to kill it). We slid cardboard under the bowl and carried it outside. I made Michael toss it over the fence. He decided he would give Mr. Mouse to the weird neighbors who are always standing on their back porch watching us when we are outside.

It was a very eventful evening for sure!

Top Baby Names

The social security administration announced the lists of top baby names for 2008. You can go to their site and see where your name or your kids name ranked over the past several years. I'm not too surprised to see where Jillian's name falls on the charts.
Check it out!