drum roll please............

Thanks to the fans that played and entered!! Thanks for your support! I decided to do one for drawing since we reached 900!! Winners please email me at cupcakesandskulls@rocketmail.com with your address please!!


For a set of itty bitty clippies!   ABC on Line 

I am a fan on FB, I like everything... OK, that doesn't count, I'd go with the tuxedo bow.

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:4Powered by RANDOM.ORG

The winner of the flower is comment number...... Joanie 
Min: Max: Result:11



The winner of the rosette bow is........ Alejandrafr

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:13

700 and 800 fan giveaway!!

I can't believe we made it to 800 fans in the matter of a few days!! That's awesome!!
I am giving 2 things away! I will be drawing a winner for each item!! (please excuse pictures I'm waiting on my camera battery to show up!) The drawing goes from August 29 through September 5

first item is a tie dye daisy clip that won't be available in my shop until after my show in September!

The second item is a silver rosette bow measure 5 inches across and wrapped in rhinestone look a like mesh! There are no stone so no fear of the little on picking them out!

To enter for the drawings there are a couple requirements!

First you must be a fan of https://www.facebook.com/cupcakesandskullsbowtique so make sure you do that first!

Then go to our etsy here http://www.etsy.com/people/cupcakesandskullsbow and find your favorite item and make a comment with the item! The comment must be here on the blog NOT on the facebook page! No comment left there will count!

That's it!! I will announce the winner on the blog but I will link the blog on the facebook page for all to see!! 

Angry Birds Plush

This morning my boys woke up and started bugging me about the angry birds we seen at Wal-Mart yesterday and being the crafty and cheap mom I am I decided to just make our own! So we went to pinterest.com in search of a pattern....(don't know what pinterest is..http://pinterest.com/swolf/ that's me! Go look at the fun stuff I have pinned and sign up!) and I knew of course I would find what I was looking for and I did!! You can go here to get the instructions to make your very own angry birds plush! 

I don't know where my fleece is but I did know where my felt was so off I started making a felt bird! A lot of hand stitching later and a tiny amount of machine sewing later and it's done!! Now to start the red one! 

wordless wednesday

my thoughts on.....

I have a friend whose husband is a 30 yr old retired solider from the Army do to some major injures. He, like many other soldiers, suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (otherwise known as PTSD). How many of our soldiers are suffering PTSD? I have read anywhere from 8 out of 10 soldiers (that was from 2004 so 7 years have passed since then) to 8-30% of soldiers depending on where they were stationed. Did you also know the suicide rate for soldiers is slightly higher (20.2 per 100,000 persons compared to 19.5 per 100,00 persons) then civivilans.

These men and women leave as one person and are coming home as a completely different person. Sometimes they are so bad I have read many spouses getting a divorce because their spouse has changed so much. What is our government doing to help these soldiers out?! I don't know what they do now but not to long ago our troops came back from Vietman with PTSD and NOTHING was done for them. How do we send off our fellow Americans to fight for us and to help others but then when they come home with some serious mental issues we just turn our back and say not our problem.

I really hope that as we continue to send troops overseas to any war that our government will really take a step back and see that we need to have some kind of mental health system set up not just home but where the soldiers are located to help them not only when they come home but while they are in the thick of things. I'm not military nor is my family so maybe they do have a system set up but it's not good enough for me. I hate to read about these men and women coming home and then they can't function normally without being scared of something haunting them from over there at everything they seen and heard. I couldn't imagine.

Thanks to all the soldiers that have fought for us.

A better healthier me

I decided last week that I was going to give up drinking pop........more importantly my Mt. Dew. I love that can of energy but I really hate how much crap I am putting into my body. I am an oxymoron for sure. I live a pretty green lifestyle. I try to eat grass fed beef, free range chicken, I cloth diaper, I don't use chemicals for cleaning, and I try to eat organic fruits and veggies.

 That being said what sense did it make to eat all that good food if all I'm going to do is shove a bunch of high fructose corn syrup ,which I HATE I don't buy other foods with it so why pop? Didn't make much sense to me so I have slowly been cutting back.  I normally drink 6+ cans of soda a day and the last few days have gotten to the point I can't finish 1 can.

So today is my first day I will not be giving in to the temptations of my yummy energy in a can but instead to a nice glass of water or maybe some kool-aid if I feel I need that sugar rush.

Is today the start of a new healthier you? If so share what your doing different today!

homemade butter

I decided to give homemade butter a whirl because it sounded easy and really yummy!!

All that you need to make this is
Heavy whipping cream
Salt (optional if you want salty butter)
A jar (baby food jars are the perfect size if the littles are helping you out)
And about 10-20 minutes!

Fill your jar with however much whipping cream you want, I used about 6 oz, put the lid on and SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE!!! Once those fat starts sticking it will start to make the butter part and the liquid in there is buttermilk, great for using in your baked goods recipes so don't throw it out save it!!

Once it's done I drained the liquid to save until later and put the butter in a empty yogurt container!

I tried some straight away on my Udi's gluten free white sandhich bread toasted...YUMMMMMM!! I am a major butter lover and this was good!

One year ago my life shattered.........

We are about to be upon my daughter 1 year anniversary of being diagnosed with Retinoblastoma (cancer of the retina). We had noticed she had a "lazy" eye so we took her to the Dr. We were lucky enough that our NP found something in her eye otherwise we never would have known. We should have taken her to the eye Dr. instead. She was just a little shy of turning 5 months old when we got the news that a tumor had wrapped itself around her optic nerve. To be told that your tiny baby had this tumor in it's eye is the most heartbreaking thing to hear. Our options where systemic chemo, intra-arterial chemo, or enucleation. The tumor had ruined most of her sight and we couldn't put this tiny baby through chemo to save an eye that would never work so we chose to have it taken out. The next week was the hardest week knowing your baby had this cancer in its eye and that she would also be losing an eye!

I would never wish cancer upon anybody. The only good thing about retinoblastoma is that of all the cancer the cure rate if caught early is in the high 90%. That being said one thing I want people to know is that it's never OK for a kid to have WHITE eyes in pictures. You want to have that red eye look, the light bounces off the retina that's why it's red, if it's white you need to get your child into an EYE dr. right away.....not a pediatrician but an eye doctor. They will do an dilated eye exam and make sure things are ok. Also if you see your kids eye being "lazy" bring it up to an eye dr also. Attached is a picture of what the eye looks like. Please turn the red eye reducer off your camera and take a picture in a dark room of your baby.

process my emotions

As a mother of 2 kids going through cancer treatment I need a way to process my emotions and the first thing that came to mind was scrap it. So this is the start of my journey. Not really going in any order just doing what feels right. I thought I would share our story in case anybody else is going through the same thing.