My sister-in-law and I were driving home from our Uncle’s retirement party and decided that we should make an ice cream stop and she introduced my to Flapdoodles Homemade Ice Cream. It was the best ice cream treat I’ve had in years! Do you have a favorite ice cream parlor that you’ll be checking out this weekend?

Is this rainy weather causing you to pull out a few of your unfinished knitting projects? I would check out this Intermediate End Weaving tutorial to find out how to keep that tail hidden.

Your Digital To-Do from Project Eve on how to establish your company’s online presence.

Did you make it through the school year or learn something new in the past few months? Then embroider yourself a Merit Badge.

Just saw this recipe for Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies on Live with Kelly and Michael and can’t wait to making them this week.

A cheap way to keep your stuff safe.

Going camping this Summer? You may want to pick up this awesome tent!

If you have 30 minutes this weekend and are a granola fan you should make this recipe from Whole Living. I made it on Wednesday morning with sliced almonds, pepitas, flaxseed meal, agave syrup, cherries and golden raisins.

After a few days of hanging out with my niece I am heading back to Wisconsin today. I am bummed to be parting ways with my partner in crime, but I am super excited for next week and have a lot to get done before I hop on a plane to celebrate my cousin’s wedding!

Great Lake or Ocean? I thought I would be so good at this game because I’ve lived by two Great Lakes but I was not. Still a great “game” to play while sipping your coffee this morning.

I’m planning on making this Whole Wheat Blackberry Ricotta scone recipe for my early morning plane ride treat.

8 Signs You Are Actually A Cat. All eight apply to me.

Would you make or wear a craft apron?

Sue’s pizza blog post reminded me of when she made shaved asparagus pizza it was soooo good!

The Scientific 7-Minute Workout. This kicked my butt but it is hard to talk yourself out of spending 7 minutes on working out.

Next week, I’ll be sharing one sweet and one savory bread recipe.

If you are a Seth Godin fan, you’ll love this talk he did for CreativeMornings.

My niece and I have been jamming out to Jackson 5′s ABC, any song with clapping hands or cups.

p.s. i heart both these dudes.

image via a paper aeroplane

Sorry for missing Wednesday’s blog post but I was hanging out with my niece, Lady M. It is so exciting that she is walking but boy did it wipe me out!  Yeah, Moms and Dads you are amazing!

Now, aprons. I wear an apron pretty much every time that I bake. I like that I can throw it on if I want to whip something together and not have to worry about getting my pants covered in flour or chocolate on my shirt. So I thought I would share a few aprons that you can buy and make! Trust me once you throw an apron on, you’ll wonder why you didn’t use one every other time you were cooking, baking or grilling.

This great Ticking Apron from Mignon Kitchen Co is a great price and would be great for a guy or girl. Oh and it is handmade in Ellendale, Minnesota! I also like this Cuisine Couture Apron.

If you’d like to sew your own apron, you can get this Apron of Delight pattern or the Simple Sewing book from Lotta Jansdotter has a few smart apron patterns and can be found on Kollabora! Would you make your apron out of a print or solid fabric?

I was poking around Design Sponge and found an Embroidery 101 blog post by Jessica Marquez. The California-raised, Brooklyn-based maker behind Miniature Rhino recently released her first book, Stitched Gifts: 25 Simple and Sweet Embroidery Projects for Every Occasion with Chronicle Books.

While I haven’t read the book, the tutorial was great and I can’t wait to make the Running Stitch Summer Scarf for late Spring and early Summer birthday gifts.What are your favorite DIY gifts?

Three things you can do this weekend.

Take a plain old pillow and fabric glue felt lettering on it, like “Go Pack.”  Have a sewing machine, grab two colors of felt from the fabric store, stitch on the letters, sew together the pillowcase and cover an old/new pillow.

Birthday Cake Pancakes recipe from Pennies on a Platter. Great for birthday but even better for a Pre-game Saturday morning breakfast or think of it as a way to use all those leftover Christmas sprinkles.

I don’t suggest knitting this but it did give me some inspiration to finish some of my smaller projects, like this honey cowl from Madelinetosh. What do you all plan to do this weekend?

When holiday gift making gets to be a bit too much, I turn to giving some of my favorite beauty products as Christmas gifts, like Fresh’s Sugar Lip Treatment.  But even though I opt out of making something for the gift, it doesn’t mean I won’t try to make the packaging more creative/crafty.  Like using these embroidered gift boxes template from Etsy.

For hostess gifts I love giving a bottle of wine, an assortment of beer or their favorite liquor.  But again I love to add something a bit more personal, so I may be use Joy Ever After’s diy glitter creatures idea to make ornaments to place around the bottle instead of a bow. Do you add anything crafty to store bought gifts?

Father’s Day is this Sunday and what better way to celebrate then to make him his own monogrammed cuff links? Alright, they may not be the one thing every Dad is looking for, but it is a pretty cool project idea. You can find the instructions on how to create these bad boys on Purl Bee.

You could also make him one of these amazing Summer Desserts, like Ice Cream Pie from the Pioneer Woman and let him watch golf or Duck Dynasty. Personally my siblings and I went in on a gift together but I may try to make my dad a batch of cookies before he comes through Chicago to pick up a load of my stuff. What are you all doing for Father’s day?

In my world Summer = tote bags.  I need them to shopping at the farmer’s market, to bring necessities (food & drink) to a friend’s bbq, and to cart books and sunscreen to the lake. And even though I have about a dozen tote bags, I always need more and I love to give them as gifts, so I was pretty stoked when I saw today’s Purl Bee post with  directions on how to make a tote in Forty and Twenty Minutes. There are a lot of unsuspecting summer birthday friends who will be receiving these as gifts.

What do you think about wedding favors? I’ve been thinking about them lately and I’m not sold on the idea of spending a chunk of the wedding budget to give everyone a small gift that they may or may not take with them at the end of the night. However, I do like the idea of putting a lot of thought and little money, into something small that guests will certainly want to take with them, like a flower lollipop (pictured above).

Or maybe fill a simple paper bag with with the couple’s favorite cookies, made by their families and wrapped in wax paper.

My favorite idea is making a mixed cd and putting it into a sleeve made by the couple. Think about how easy it would be to put 12 songs together, order a personalized stamp and assemble these all in one evening. You may want to throw a glass of wine or a beer or two in there… to help things along.

After a long weekend visit with my parents, I realized that I hadn’t done anything over the weekend but go to out to eat and hangout with family. Even though it was a nice break from my busy crafting weekends, it was a little nerve racking because my niece or nephew’s due date is about two weeks away, and I haven’t put a dent into either of the baby blankets I started about three weeks ago.

I know that if I turn into a bit of a hermit crab/knitting machine, I’ll be able to finish at least one blanket before the little one arrives. But what if I couldn’t spend that kind of time on a project? What are some last-minute crafted baby gifts one can give? Well have no fear, I found a few knitting and sewing projects from PurlBee and one from projects past, that look like they can be made in about 5 hours or less.

Like this Flannel Receiving Blanket from PurlBee, perfect for someone born chilly time of year.

This is the Five Hour Baby Sweater pattern that a friend knit in a weekend. If you have parents that aren’t finding out the sex of the baby, you can make in a nice light green or yellow and then add more gender specific buttons once the baby is born.

These cute, comfortable and absorbent Liberty Bibs can be created from fabric from a local store or you can buy a kit (once they re-stock) and get everything to make 4 bibs.

Last but not least are the Baby Moccasins, or as my friend Jo Ann would say, “baby mocs.” I’ve been meaning to knit these for the last few years but for some reason they always get moved to the back burner, but I think that my niece or nephew will have to have a pair for bumming around the lake this summer.

I hope all the project ideas help, and let me know if you all have any other ideas!