TNT Licorice Treats

It is almost time for Halloween, which means that my pantry will be full of candy to give away to trick-or-treaters, and also for my family to enjoy.  If you remember from Brody's Minecraft party  HERE and HERE, I made little "TNT" bags for our guests to enjoy.  It is part of the printable Crafting a Cake Scavenger Hunt kit, but I wanted to make a quick tutorial to show you how easy it is to make!

All you need are:

 TWIZZLERS (or any red licorice)

Clear Cellophane Pretzel Bags

Tape

 TNT labels that you can print/download for free HERE

 Once you print the TNT labels on regular white paper, cut out each label individually.  Then fill the pretzel bags with Twizzlers and wrap the label around it.  Use tape to secure the label onto the bag and BOOM! you have cute treats for your Minecraft-themed party, or to give to trick-or-treaters or classmates, or anywhere that you might need some pretend dynamite!

Go get your free printable HERE or click on the photo below.

Need a Minecraft-themed banner for your party?  Go HERE.

Linking Up: Skip to My Lou,  I Heart Naptime, Tip Junkie

Fashion Friday - Scarves, Jackets, and Boots, Oh My!

On another one of our adventures in the United Kingdom, we were able to explore the beautiful Parade Gardens in the city of Bath. It was a perfect spot to take some photos and enjoy the beautiful flowers and the colonnade that was built early in the last century.

On this day, Skylar and I decided to wear similar bright-colored infinity scarves, cargo jackets, skinny jeans, and our tall boots.  While it wasn't a perfect match, I love how something as simple as bright-colored scarves can help bring our outfits together and make the photos pop!

Underneath our jackets we just wore simple long-sleeved shirts, perfect to pair with fun accessories, such as our infinity scarves.  My scarf was a Juicy Couture clearance-find from Kohls.  And Skylar's scarf was a clearance-find from Marshalls.

 The Parade Gardens was really beautiful, especially the grand entrance which included a statue and a staircase.  They do charge a small fee (adult admission was £1.50 and children admission was £.80 at that time).  There is a small cafe in the back and there are also deck chairs available that people would grab and relax in.  I wish I took a picture of all of the people just sitting on the bright green lawn, sitting on their deck chairs.

Overlooking the River Avon, the Parade Gardens also gave a perfect view of the famous Pulteney Bridge and the weir.

But most importantly for a mom with two kids ready to explore, it had lots of open grass areas for us to run around!  Thankfully we had brought Brody's soccer ball with us.  We had a great time smelling roses, and running around kicking the soccer ball, I mean, football!

If you like our outfits, you can get similar looks here:

Iris: scarf {similar}, jacket {exact}, boots {similar}

Skylar: scarf {similar}, jacket {similar}, boots {similar}

 

Brody's Minecraft Party & Free Printable Crafting a Cake Scavenger Hunt Kit (Part 2)

Last week I showed you a few details from Brody's Minecraft Party, including the free printable food labels I created for his dessert table. (If you missed that post and your free printables, go check it out HERE!)   Today, I want to share with you the details for the fun scavenger hunt we did during his party.  At the end of this post, you can download the Crafting a Cake Scavenger Hunt Kit for your own personal use!

This scavenger hunt was inspired by the activity I found from this adorable Minecraft Party.  For those of you who follow the game of Minecraft, whenever you need to "craft" a cake for food supply, you have to collect 3 milks, 2 sugars, 1 egg, and 3 wheats.  For our scavenger hunt, our guests needed to earn or find those same amount of ingredient cards before it was time to eat our cupcakes at the party.  Since the party was at a campsite, we had plenty of space to run around!

I found cute green baskets from Dollar Tree and bought one for each of the families that were coming.  I made a custom label for each family's basket and filled them with tools they would need to accomplish a list of tasks.  (You can purchase custom labels for your party in my Etsy Shop under "Pixel World Party".  Please note that the purchased files do not contain any Minecraft character images.)  

Below you can see the tools and supplies the families would use to finish the scavenger hunt (melon candies and red licorice were to be used as needed, or for some families, eaten immediately).

Along with their tools, I included an instruction sheet.  Here's what they had to do:

Activity #1: Crossing the Lava

I got this great idea for a lava obstacle course from this party.  Since I was too lazy to make a cool lava field, I bought a red table runner from Dollar Tree to use as our lava and used big rocks so that it wouldn't fly away or get tripped on. I made paper stone cutouts (part of the printable kit) and had them beside the lava for people to use and step on to cross to the other side, where I had a little treasure box containing 1 milk card.

Activity #2: Family Photo

For the second activity, every family had to make one person wear a cow headband and then text me their photo (I gave everyone my phone number before I sent them all off!)  Once they complete the task they collected 1 milk card.

What I love about this activity is that by the end of the party, I was guaranteed to have a family photo of all of my guests!  Here are some of the photos, don't they all look so cute?

Activity #3: Find a Cow

For the third activity,  I hid a mini-stuffed cow in a sandwich bag along with milk cards somewhere around our campsite.  Once they found the cow, the family can collect 1 milk card.

Activity #4: Shoot the Enemies

For this next activity, I got the idea from HERE to make targets and shoot Minecraft monsters!  The four monster heads are part of the printable kit.  Each family had to shoot four enemies using three Nerf bullets that were in their basket.  Once they shot all four targets, they can collect 1 sugar card.

Activity #5: Mine For Diamonds

For this activity I filled a pot full of sand and various shiny, colorful stones, aka diamonds (I used pretty-colored big rocks from our old fishtank).  When the family found 10 "diamonds" they could collect 1 sugar card from the treasure box I put beside the pot.

Activity #6: Egg Hunt

For this activity, I found a location near our campsite that had tall grass.  I filled plastic Easter eggs with 1 egg card each and scattered them around the field.  Once each family found one plastic Easter egg with 1 egg card inside, then this activity was completed.

The only remaining ingredients were 3 wheat cards.  For those cards, I had given instructions to the families before the hunt began on three different locations where they could find the wheat cards.  So depending on where your party is, you can customize the clues to locations perfect for your party!

Once each family found all of the 9 ingredient cards, then it was time for birthday cake (or in this case, cupcakes!)  Everyone had a great time!

Let me know what you think of this activity!  You can download the free printable kit with instructions HERE or click on the image below.  Have fun!

Linking Up: Skip to My Lou,  I Heart Naptime, Tip Junkie

Fashion Friday - Chambray Shirts

Hard to believe that I can actually feel cooler air here in Florida!  Fall is just around the corner and I am so excited to be able to wear long-sleeved shirts and sweaters soon!  When we visited London this past summer, we wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt every day.  I think if I could choose an outfit to wear every day, it would be jeans and a top.  I was not a big fan of button-up shirts, until I discovered chambray.  A button-up chambray shirt can be worn so many ways. It can be dressed up with a skirt, worn as a jacket over a dress, or you can just wear it with jeans like Skylar and I did.

Since it was a bit cooler in London, I added a Vera Wang cream infinity scarf and tall brown boots also by Vera Wang (both found on clearance from Kohls).   

 Skylar and I enjoyed walking around The National Gallery in London.  It was amazing to see such beautiful artwork.  And very old artwork. We saw works by Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet.  

 

I'm glad I was able to introduce the beautiful works by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci to my children so they know those names aren't only associated with turtle superheroes.  If you look closely below you can see Brody photo bombing us while I tried to look "intellectual".

My favorite painting was The Water-Lily Pond by Claude Monet.  It was pretty neat to be so close to such famous artwork.  If only I had a few million dollars...

If you have a chance to visit London, The National Gallery is a must-do.  And it's free to enter!

You can get our looks here:

Iris: top {similar}, boots {similar}

Skylar: top {similar}, {similar} boots {similar}

Brody's Minecraft Party & Free Printable (Part 1)

Brody and Skylar both absolutely LOVE playing Minecraft.  So when it was time to plan birthday parties, a Minecraft themed party became the front runner for Brody's birthday celebration.  Since Brody and Skylar's birthdays are only two weeks apart, I felt pretty bad that I had invested all of my time and energy on Skylar's Monster High themed party (more details on that party coming soon).  I had exactly one week to plan Brody's party right after Skylar's party.  I was in a bit of a panic mode...

We knew that Brody's party would be at a local campsite.  I just didn't know what exactly we would be eating or doing.  I also knew that this party needed to be simple and mobile, because we would be camping for two nights at the campsite, so I would not have the ability to bring a million party supplies and do my usual decked-out dessert table.  So I ended up putting all of the snacks and treats in plastic containers that I purchased at Dollar Tree.  Not only did it make setting up easy, but takedown and cleanup was super easy too!

 

To get more ideas on activities for the party, I did some quick research on Pinterest (thank goodness for Pinterest!), and I was inspired by this party.  She did a Crafting a Cake game that inspired me to create a longer, scavenger-hunt-type version that would fill up a big chunk of our party time.  I was also inspired to create my own Minecraft food labels, that you can download for free!

For the snacks, we used pretzel sticks for "Sticks", mini chocolate chip cookies for "Cookies", green M&Ms for "Emeralds", red M&Ms for "Redstone", Swedish Fish for "Fish", and mini carrots for "Carrots".  In the free download, I also created "Gold" that can be used for Rolos or mini Hershey nuggets in gold wrappers.  There is also a "TNT" label that can be used for Twizzlers!

Get you free labels HERE or click on the photo below:

 If you like the custom-made "Brody" banner hanging on the table, you can purchase one with your custom text on my Etsy site HERE.  {Update: The banner available in my Etsy store is categorized under "Pixel World Party" and does not contain any Minecraft character images.  It also includes the whole alphabet and numbers 0-9 so you can spell out whatever you like!}  The custom baskets behind the treats were given to our guests as part of our big scavenger hunt/game.  More details coming soon (get a sneak peek below...)

We had such a fun day celebrating our Brody!

Stay tuned for details on the Crafting a Cake scavenger hunt activity that involves the goodies below...
{UPDATE: Check out the post HERE and get the free printable kit for this fun scavenger hunt!)

Linking Up: Skip to My Lou,  I Heart Naptime, Tip Junkie

Fashion Friday - Maxi Dresses & Motorcyle Jackets

On a beautiful evening in the city of Bath in southwestern England, Skylar and I decided to wear long maxi dresses to go out for dinner and a walk around town.  What I love about these outfits is that we aren't too matchy-matchy, yet it looks like our outfits are definitely coordinated.

I love wearing maxi dresses because they look dressy and can be worn to a nice dinner, even though they are actually super comfortable!  Skylar absolutely loves her dress and wears it every time it is washed and hanging in her closet.

What really pulls the outfits together are the black motorcyle jackets.  I was fortunate enough to find Skylar's cute jacket on clearance at Target.  It is light enough to wear on cool summer evenings.

Skylar really enjoys being in front of the camera!  And she really enjoyed walking around the streets of Bath.

You can get the looks here:

Iris: Dress {similar} Jacket {exact} {similar}

Skylar: Dress {exact} {similar} {similar} Jacket {similar}

Mini Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

Even though the official first day of fall isn't until later this month, Labor Day usually helps remind us that summer is over.  For today's post, I wanted to share a recipe that will definitely bring fall flavors into your mouth!  I haven't made these in a while, but I remembered how much the kids loved these mini muffins when they were younger.  I feel like nowadays I just grab the mini muffins from the grocery stores and I throw them in their bookbags for snacktime.

Well, this recipe is definitely much healthier than the pre-packaged mini muffins from the store.  I found a great zucchini bread recipe from Food Network and altered it slightly to make these mini muffins.

Since I didn’t want the green speckles so obvious, I decided to puree the zucchini instead of leaving it grated.  I used 2 mini muffin pans to make 48 mini muffins and had enough batter to make an additional 2 mini loaves.   I hope you give it a try.  Enjoy!

  

Ingredients

3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½  teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 cups sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 cups grated zucchini

¾ cup vegetable oil

4 eggs, beaten

¼  cup water

1 ¼ cup chocolate chips 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar.  In a separate bowl, combine the lemon juice with the grated zucchini and then puree in a magic bullet or blender (the 2 cups grated zucchini turns into about 1 cup of pureed zucchini).  Combine pureed zucchini with oil, eggs, and water.  Mix wet ingredients into dry, add chocolate chips and fold in. Bake in mini muffin pans for 12-14 minutes per batch.

Free Printable - All About Grandparents

Happy Labor Day everybody!  

When I think of Labor Day, I think of hard workers, and when I think of hard workers, I think of my parents.  They did so much to move me and our family to America from the Philippines, including working multiple jobs so we can live our life here.

Well, Grandparents Day happens to be just around the corner.  It is coming up on Sunday, September 13th.  I know that my parents absolutely love their grandchildren and spending time with them.  I know many of you have grandparents in your lives and would like to do a little something special for them this weekend.

A few years ago, I created these fun cupcake toppers.  Check the blog post here to get your free printable or click on the photo below:

This year I created a fun questionnaire for your little ones to fill out and give to their grandparents.  They happen to match the cupcake toppers above, in case you wanted to make the cupcake toppers AND fill out the questionnaires (of course you have to color coordinate!!)

I made these little sheets for my parents on Mother's Day and Father's Day and my parents absolutely loved the honest answers from Brody and Skylar.  My mom especially loved that Skylar thinks she is 42 years old and weighs 120 pounds.  These would be great to give on their birthdays too.

Just click HERE or the photo below to get your free printable.  Print on white heavy cardstock (I get mine from HERE) and get ready to brighten up a grandparent's day!

We are so thankful for both sets of grandparents in our family.  We are blessed!