Teacups and Wedding Shower

This past Sunday was my future sister-in-law's wedding shower. I may have mentioned before that I am the second of five kids - three girls, then two boys. The sister younger than me was married 4 years ago, and she hosted this shower for our youngest brother's fiancé.
She planned an outside 'tea party' at her home - we could not have asked for more perfect weather!

My sister is an excellent planner, organizer, list-maker, etc. I do not have as much patience for that, but I wanted to help where I could. I volunteered to make the cake (which turned in to cupcakes) and to make some gift prizes for the games - candles or succulents in teacups - ideas that we had discovered on Pinterest. (Pinterest is such an amazing thing to have now for any kind of event planning. Just type in one word of what your theme is and you'll find thousands of ideas that other people have already used for a similar event - easy planning!)

First, I had to find some teacups! Thrift stores are wonderful for these kinds of purchases (although, I like a good thrift store find whatever it is). I found all of the pretty teacups for around 25¢ each.
The candles I started making a while before the shower, but the I waited for a couple days before the shower to make plant the succulents. While they are super pretty, I wasn't sure how well they would last in a teacup; and I didn't want to try to keep them alive for too long.
I bought a variety of small plants and most of them were the perfect size for one to a teacup; and the guests loved them too!
  
The candles were easy to make because I never throw away that extra wax that doesn't burn off from my candles. I already had some string and wood wicks and lots of wax to melt down. I also keep a few of the large glass jars for melting the wax in.
Do you have a candle warmer already? If not, I highly recommend one! They make melting wax so much simpler than other methods. I just break up the wax into a glass jar, put it on the warmer and wait.
Rather than pouring the melted wax in all at once to fill the jar, pour in a little at a time, allowing it to cool before adding more; otherwise, the center of the wax will sink in and you won't have a nice smooth surface.
I was very happy with how they turned out; they looked even better than I had expected! Can you tell that I tried to make candle colors to look like tea/coffee?
And of course, the teacups went perfectly with all the other decorations; thanks to Pinterest.

Congratulations to my baby brother and his bride to be!

Black Bear Sighting

This is not a DIY project, nor a food recipe, but something that just happened to me and I wanted to share.
How often does a person, who lives in a residential area, see a black bear in their back yard?
Click below to see the pictures. (And while you're there, check out more of my photography page on facebook.)

Post by SRD photography.

Homemade Fruit "Tart"

Need an easy dessert that looks and tastes like summer? This is a treat that is light and perfect for these hot days!

It's certainly not a recipe I thought of on my own - I'm not sure there's even an exact name for it - but here's what you'll need...

     instant vanilla pudding mix (or already made vanilla pudding!)

     cool whip

     nilla wafers

     your choice of fillings!

            (I recommend lots of fresh fruit: berries, kiwi, bananas, etc.; chocolate chips would be tasty too.)

Doesn't it look delicious?

Fold the pudding and cool whip together (about 50:50) to create a nice, light, fluffy mix. Then layer the ingredients. I like to start the bottom layer with wafers, then the pudding mix, fruit, more pudding mix (depending on the depth of your container you could do several layers), top it off with crushed wafers and sliced strawberries, or maybe chocolate chips if you have them!
Didn't I say easy? It's ready to eat! Enjoy and stay cool!

Do you have a name for this recipe?
Maybe for the holiday, you could create a "flag" top with blueberries and strawberries! Happy 4th of July!