Fun Stuff — Page 21

Cupcake Crafts!

How can you NOT love cupcakes?

I have a bit of a crush on cupcaked theme anything right now… I love finding new cupcake recipes, I love the little cupcake charm bracelets I’ve started making, I love the stuffed cupcake pillow’s I’m making for my little girls eventual transition to a “Big Girl” room… Love it all.

So if you’re a big cupcake fan too, check out this super cute collection of FREE cupcake themed crafty projects!

Get it FREE:

Free Craft eBook: 31 Cupcake Inspired Creations featuring 31 cupcake-themed craft projects to make, from home decor and jewelry to gifts and cards. {I love the cupcake soaps and bath bombs!} Click Here to see all of the adorable goodies for yourself!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on June 13, 2011 Filed Under: Freebies, Fun Stuff | No Comments

$40 worth of FREE printables!

I remember making these types of books with crayons and construction paper when I was little…

Get FREE Fathers Day Coupon Book Printables!

Sample...

How fun is this? Just go on over to Lettering Delights, and click the “Try Now” button in the corner by this set, and you can download and print the whole book! Free Fathers Day Coupons.

Want More Free Stuff Too?

And, if you’re a new visitor like I was, sign up for an account {super quick and easy} to get access to $40 worth of other printables like fonts, banners, and frames. Really cute stuff, and some are going to be PERFECT for my little ones first birthday decorations.

You get a total of 9 free {very cool} fonts, some printable paper packs, invitations, and more.

Super cool, right?

So check it out, and get your FREE STUFF too. If you love crafty freebies, then check out this one too: Free Craft Newsletter Subscription Offer, plus videos, free offers, ideas, and more! Click Here to check it out!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on June 13, 2011 Filed Under: Freebies, Fun Stuff | No Comments

Wake ’em Up Coffee Smoothie and More!

Summer Smoothies!

Smooth Banana Smoothie

Preparation Time: 5 min

Ingredients

2 cups lowfat milk
2 medium-sized ripe bananas, peeled and sliced
¹/3 cup chocolate-flavored syrup
2 large scoops frozen vanilla yogurt

Instructions

In a blender, combine all the ingredients and blend on medium speed until smooth. Pour into glasses and serve.

Or, try this one:

Wake ’em Up Coffee Smoothie!

Preperation Time: 5 min.

Ingredients

1 cup milk
¹/4 cup instant coffee granules
¹/3 cup sugar
1 envelope (1-1/4-ounces) chocolate or vanilla instant breakfast drink mix
3 cups ice cubes

Instructions

In a blender, blend all ingredients except the ice until well combined.
Add ice and blend until well combined and slushy. Serve immediately.

Yields about 1 quart, or 3 to 4 servings each.

They sound super yummy right? And super easy. That’s my favorite combination in the kitchen.

To get more simple recipes like this from Mr. Food, get some of his FREE e-books filled with recipes. I love ’em.

The Let’s Get Grilling guide has tons of great easy recipes and tips to help you plan some pretty awesome summer BBQ’s.

The Decadent Desserts free cookbook is filled with yummy goodies that are simple enough that you can try a new one each night. Seriously, super quick and easy.

Blue Ribbon Casseroles is honestly one of my favorites. I love being able to throw a bunch of good stuff into one big pan, bake, and serve. That’s my type of cookin’.

The Mr. Food Best Brunch recipes book is a really good one too. Find some really good make-ahead dishes, some super yummy sticky buns, and more!

What I do:

I went through all of these ebooks, printed off all of the recipes that I liked, and put them all in a big 3-ring binder, to have a new cookbook. I VERY seldom buy cookbooks anymore, since there are so many great recipes to be found online, and lots of great ebooks like this!

Another option is to just download the ebooks, and then check ’em out once a week and print out just a couple new recipes to try. These are such timesavers, and they’re great budget recipes too. They all use simple, but good, ingredients.

Which one is YOUR favorite??

Posted by Meagan Paullin on June 13, 2011 Filed Under: Fun Stuff, Freebies | No Comments

Random & Funny…

I saw this today in an email update from the super fun site Jam Hands, in a post about Flat Bread Taco Supreme. {Check her out, you’ll love her!} Tons of great ideas on her blog.

So funny, right?

I love it. The cartoon is originally from the site xkcd which I am a huge fan of, but had kinda forgotten about.

So check that site out too. And if you have any randomly funny stuff to share, post it on my Facebook page, I love funny.

Posted by Meagan Paullin on June 12, 2011 Filed Under: Fun Stuff | No Comments

{Summer Fun} Best Ice-Pop Molds, all $10 or less!

School’s Almost Out!

I was browsing Amazon this morning for some deals on summery, outdoor, type stuff for the kids to play with, since school is out starting at noon tomorrow!

To help me cut down on housework, I want those boys playing outside as much as possible! Lol. Our new house has a huge property, {and a pool, if we can ever figure out how to get it clean! The previous owner hadn’t opened it in a couple years, and we’re stuggling… But that’s another story…} so I want to get some fun stuff to help encourage them to play out there.

Super fun stuff!

I came across some of the cutest ice-pop molds ever- so many that I can’t even decide which ones to buy! We don’t have any, so I think a couple would be fun.

Check out my “cool” finds:

Super fun, right? The boys LOVE ring pops, so I think these would be a huge hit! And they’re on sale for less than $10 right now too.

How fun are these little sailboat pop molds?! You get a set of 8 for only $10!

Or, get the robot pop! My youngest nephew would LOVE this one, and I’m pretty sure I have to get it. It’s a 6 pack for $10.

These ice cream cone shaped ice pops are super cool too! See what I mean about too many choices??

And of course, you can’t buy an ice pops mold without getting a recipe book too, right? This one looks really good… You can browse some of the pages, and the ideas look amazing.

I Love Summer!

I’m so excited for summer, although I’m not looking forward to the “I’m bored” claims that are soon to come with school getting out.

I really do love spending most of my days outside when the weather is nice, {oh how I long for a laptop so I could work outside…} and hope I can get the kids excited about it too.

Share with me!

Starting Monday, I’ll be posting new ideas for kids activites every day throughout the summer! Crafts, games, recipes for snacks, cool stuff to buy or to do…. If you have some great ideas, I’d love to hear them! You can email me at sunshineandsippycups@gmail.com. Send me links to cool kids summer products you sell, or to some fun kids ideas on your blog. Or just tell me about your favorite things to do at YOUR house! I’ll credit you in the post if I use your idea :)

Posted by Meagan Paullin on June 12, 2011 Filed Under: Fun Stuff, Shopping | No Comments

A Wireless Color Printer With Multiple Personalities

This weeks Twirl…

If you thought Cybil had multiple personalities wait until you get a load of our latest must-have gadget–the HP Photosmart Premium e-Printer, one of the most interesting home printers we’ve seen yet. On the one hand it thinks it’s a high-quality wireless color printer that knows the difference between documents and photographs, on the other it believes it’s a computer whose touch screen interface (with apps!) allows you to order movie tickets, download recipes and print news articles without a computer in sight. It has delusions of being able to print anything emailed from anywhere and, if that weren’t enough, it claims to scan and copy too.

It’s madness. Madness we tell you. Well, watch this week’s session, uh we mean Twirl, to see if Carley can get to the root of the many personalities of this personal wireless home printer.

So, what do you guys think about the amazing product this week??

I’m not gonna lie. I’m in love. Is it weird to say that I’m in love with a printer? Of course not, not when it is clearly so super awesome, right?

Oh HP Photosmart Premium e-Printer, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways….

I love that you can send things to the printer while you’re away from home, and they’ll be printed and waiting for you!
I love that it knows the difference between photos and documents, and prints them on the correct paper.
Oh yeah, I love that it holds BOTH types of paper in one tray, so you don’t have to switch all of the time!
I love the modern design. Super cool. The touchscreen with the app’s? AWESOME.
AND, I even love the price!! $199 is a steal for this.

So there you have it. Another amazingly super rad product brought to your attention by the Digitwirl girls! They find the best products out there, and then show you how to use ’em. Why? Because they rock.

What do you think? Have you seen a better printer? {I haven’t!} What is your favorite feature? Leave some comments and lets chat!

Carley's Byline Pic

Digitwirl is the weekly web show that offers simple solutions to modern day problems. In 3-minutes, Digitwirl brings busy women the very best time, money, and sanity-saving technology, and then teaches them how to use it, step-by-step. Digitwirl was created by technology lifestyle expert Carley Knobloch, who uses lots of technology to manage her busy life as mom of two and entrepreneur. Become a subscriber to get weekly show alerts and exclusive deals at Digitwirl.com, or follow Digitwirl on Twitter at @digitwirl.

Posted by Meagan Paullin on June 10, 2011 Filed Under: Fun Stuff, Reviews | No Comments

A Girls Guide to Grilling!

One of my favorite sites, Learnvest, has another great daily tip today!

Wanna taste?

Tossing a low-carb spinach salad? Sure.
Preparing a healthy chicken meal? Sounds good.
Grilling meat out on an open fire? We’ll leave that to the men—or will we?

Let’s be frank: Cookouts are delicious. And grilling just so happens to be healthy and inexpensive. But almost 70% of grill buyers are male—and that’s not OK in our book.

We’re pretty confident that not all women are afraid of fire (or unable to flip items on a grill), so we’re chalking this phenomenon up to social stigmas.

HOW TO LOOK HOT WHILE SIZZLING YOUR STEAK. READ ON….

Yep, just a taste. A little tease of how great the daily tips at Learvest are. So go on over and check out the rest of the article!

It has some great tips: