4th of July was AWESOME!

I hope that you all had an absolutely wonderful Independence Day Weekend.  I know that our family did.  We had the pleasure of hosting my sister, Lisa, and my niece's, Abby and Maggie.  Oh, and I can't forget our furry little guest, Riley.

When I was planning the menu, I wanted something that could be easily made ahead and easily served.  I think my plans worked out just great.  Everyone had plenty to eat, with lots of flexibility and great taste.

Here's a shot of my bread while it was rising.

I mixed up several different salads: chicken salad; balsamic, feta pasta salad; marinated cucumber and tomato salad; and broccoli and raisin salad.  On Saturday, after everyone arrived, I baked a loaf of fresh bread and put all the salads out.  It was great and so simple.  Then on Sunday, we nibbled on left-over salads until dinner when we grilled out burgers and brats.

For dessert on Saturday, I had my super simple Chocolate Mousse.  For dessert on Sunday, I had Cheesecake Mousse Dessert Shots.  You can find that recipe here.

Glori's Super Easy Chocolate Mousse


6 cups mini marshmallows
1 stick butter, softened
18 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup hot water
1 large container Cool Whip
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Put the marshmallows, butter, chocolate and water in a heavy-based saucepan.  Put the saucepan on the stove, over heat, though keep it fairly gentle, to melt, stirring every now and again.  Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.  Let cool.

Fold the Cool Whip into the cooled chocolate mixture and gently mix until you have a smooth, cohesive mixture.

Pour or scoop into dessert glasses or small dishes and chill until you want to eat.


For breakfast, I wanted something that I could sit out and folks could just grab when they were hungry.  So, I made Whole Wheat Cinnamon Muffins, Whole Wheat Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins, and Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins; Homemade Granola; Homemade Vanilla Honey Yogurt; Fresh Cut Fruit and a big basket of Keurig Coffees to choose from.  My little coffee bar did look cute.  I have a "Glori's Goodies" Jar that held the muffins.  I used my Cricut Expression to cut out red vinyl for that jar.  I picked up a bunch of oil bottles to store my Sugar Free Coffee Syrups and used my Cricut to cut out the names of each syrup.  They turned out great.

Muffins fit perfectly into my Goodies Jar

Here are all of my syrup bottles lined up

The Coffee Bar with the Kuerig my two wonderful children gave me for Mother's Day/Birthday

Here is the Homemade Granola Recipe.  It is Yummy!

Glorified Granola

3/4 cup butter

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup agave

1/4 cup brown rice syrup

10 cups rolled oats, like Old Fashioned not Instant

1/2 cup sucant, which is natural, unrefined sugar, optional

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 tb cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 cup millet

1/2 cup amaranth

1/2 cup unsweetened, finely grated coconut

In a large bowl, mix the oats, millet, amaranth, sucant and coconut.  Set aside.

In a medium sauce pan mix the butter, coconut oil, salt, cinnamon, honey, agave, and brown rice syrup.  Heat over medium high heat until boiling.  Boil 1 minute.  Remove from heat and add the vanilla and almond extracts.

Pour the syrup over the oat mixture and mix well.

Pour into a greased slow cooker with the lid slightly ajar and cook on low for 3-4 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so.  I use a wooden spoon to keep the lid open so that the steam can escape and the granola can dry out.

Store in a cute container, just to make eating it that much more fun!

Be Blessed,

Kappa Delta Sorority Gifts

I wanted to share some images of a few other Kappa Delta gifts that my daughter made for her little sister.  They all turned out so wonderful.  I think you will agree.

This is a cute lime green bucket that I picked up.  We cut a white rose bud out of white vinyl and then the stem out of black vinyl.  We also cut the Kappa Delta out of black vinyl and then used the white for the word, "Elegance," which was the pledge class theme.  Then Dulce filled it with her little sisters favorite treats.  It was a hit!

Sarah, Dulce's little sister, loves bows, so we picked up this cute teal bow and I had an found an old half pearl button in my grandmother's button bag.  I used some teal vinyl, which matched the bow perfectly, to cut out an "S."  Sarah loved it!

These cute "cupcakes" are made out of fuzzy socks.  I saw a photo of these and thought they were just adorable, so we recreated them.

Take a pair of fuzzy socks and beginning at the toes roll them up tightly pulling the center up just slightly making it look like frosting on the top of a cupcake.  I used a clear rubber band at the bottom of the sock roll to secure it.


Then we cut a cupcake wrapper template to cut out a wrapper for the bottom of the sock roll.  Popped it into a clear bag and added ribbon on the top.

Such a great idea.  Kudos to the original creator of this idea.  I would love to give you credit, but don't know who you are.  Thanks.  Too Cute!!!!  These will make wonderful Christmas gifts.

Our next project was for a cute little Build-A-Bear.  Dulce picked up a few tshirts for the bear and we cut out this cute "My Big Loves Me!" and a KD for the other shirt.

We used a plain cotton material to cut the letters out with our cricut.  Before we cut the fabric we washed it, and ironed it and then applied a heavy duty "heat-n-tranfer" iron on fusible backing.

Once the letters were cut, we were able to iron them onto the little bear sized tshirts.  Oh my goodness, how very precious they are.

Everyone who saw these wanted one for their bear, too!

Great way to personalize a Build-A-Bear even more.



Our next task was to design a pillow, which is a tradition that the big sister's give to their little's for sweet dreams.  Well, Dulce's little sister likes shades of blue, so we found a navy pillow that we could use without having to start from scratch.

I didn't think that iron on backing would be the best to use since the letters would be just to small to stitch down.  So, I did a little research and we decided to try tshirt vinyl made to cut on your cricut.  It turned out GREAT!  For great tshirt vinyl CLICK HERE!  We used white on this navy pillow.  It was cut using Sure Cuts A Lot 2 and the font was AKA Dora.

Please see my gallery for many other photos of the craft projects that we did by CLICKING HERE!

The Happy Box! A Great Gift For A Crafter

The first gift that the girls in her sorority give their new littles is a "Happy Box," which is full of crafting supplies.  A very cute idea.  Dulce had picked up pens, glues, scissors, scrapbook papers, stickers, ribbons, beads and more over the holiday for the inside of the box.  Now we needed to decorate the outside.

As a note, we used our Cricut Create with 6 X 12 mats to cut the deigns and the Sure Cuts A Lot 2 (SCAL) software to design everything.

First we wanted the top to say, "Sarah's Happy Box."  I thought that it would be cute to add one of their symbols, as well.  Oh, and Sarah (Dulce's Little) loves pastel colors, so we chose our vinyl accordingly.

We used carnation pink vinyl and the Happy Days font for the top.  I cut it on a path using an oval so that the design would curve around the handle of the box.

We used the same carnation pink vinyl and an svg that I made of Kappa Delta's nautilus.  We used the shadow setting in SCAL  and cut the bottom layer out with a Shadow (rounded) of 1.0 in the pink vinyl and the cut the top layer Normal in a Maize color vinyl.  It turned out very cute.  We cut two of these shells to use on either side of the top.

Next, we started on the sides.  The first side simply said, "Kappa Delta."  We used the Happy Days font and a green vinyl for the top layer and a white vinyl for the bottom layer which we cut as a Shadow (rounded) at 1.0.



On another side of the box we added the name of this year's pledge class, Elegance.  We used the carnation pink vinyl for the word and the a light green vinyl for the flourish underneath.



I found a cute svg file of a diamond and cut 3 out in various sizes our of a silver vinyl.




On one the smaller sides we added a bow in teal and maize vinyl and AOT (It's a secret among KD's, they won't tell, so I don't even ask)

On the last side we added her little's monogram, which I don't have a photo of here.



After my daughter, Dulce, got all of the vinyl on the box this is the video that she made and sent me of the completed Happy Box.  This would be a great gift idea for any crafter that you know.

Fun Crafting With My Daughter

Right after Christmas my daughter and I decided to go into together and purchase a cricut cutting machine.  Dulce knew that when she got back to college, she would be very busy and wanted me to help her create many items that she would need for her  new little sister she would be getting soon in her sorority.  So we put our heads together and came up with some wonderful gifts.  Hope this gives some great ideas.