Irish Blessing Printable

Around St. Patrick's Day, I think that we all wish we were a little bit Irish, don't we? I know that I dreamed of being Maureen O'Hara after watching her in The Quiet Man. She was such a lady and I loved the lilt of her voice.

Another bit of the Irish that we all love are Irish Blessings.  I found this one on Pinterest (of course) -

"May your troubles be less, your blessings be more and nothing but happiness come through your door."

I turned it into a printable and added a Dollar Tree foam glitter shamrock to it.

Here's the printable that you can add a foam shamrock to - 

And here it is with the shamrock added to it - 

I love how it looks with my favorite owl vase and some vintage St. Patty's Day postcards.  Here are some of my favorite postcards - 

As you can tell, from some of our other holiday posts, I have a very real addiction to vintage postcard images and my cute little owl has turned out to be a great way to display them.

Check back in a couple of days to see our Luck O' the Irish Banner and our complete St. Patrick's day mantelscape.

Hope you all are staying warm this winter! I know that we have pretty easy winters here in South Texas, but I sure will be glad when it is over!

We are linking to parties at Embracing Change, Posed Perfection, and Katherine's Corner, just to name a few! Thanks to all the ladies that take time to invite us over to their house!

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St. Patrick's Day Lucky Wreath

This St. Patrick's Day is a special one for us.  Leigh's brother Ty, will be 30 years old!!! I'm simply ancient, no other way around it.

Since it's a really big day for us, we decided to decorate the mantel for St. Patty's day and of course we had to have a new wreath.

It took all of about 20 minutes to make.  I used burlap ribbon to cover a styrofoam wreath form and to make the banner. The ribbon and the banner are pinned to the wreath form with straight pins and the letters on the banner were cut with my Cricut. A couple of sparkly shamrocks from Dollar Tree were the perfect finishing touch.

I love this wreath because it reminds me just how lucky I am to have such an amazing son and incredible family!

We will be sharing our complete mantel and Four Leaf Clover Banner later this week, so make sure to stop back by.

Wishing you all have a wonderfully lucky week!

We are linking to parties at Embracing Change and Posed Perfection, just to name a few! Thanks to all the ladies that take time to invite us over to their house!

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Happy Valentines Day

     Happy Valentines Day from Crafty In Crosby and Jib Jab

                    

This brought a smile to my Hubby's face and just makes me happy too! Hope you are having a wonderful Valentines Day!

XOXOXO

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Halfway Homemade Chicken & Dumplings

Once upon a time, Leigh was surfing the wonderful world of Pinterest and stumbled upon a metric ton of Chicken & Dumpling recipes. She had never made them on her own, but decided that she wanted to try. Leigh saw a lot of recipes where the magical dumplings were made of canned biscuits and thought, "I can do that!" She experimented greatly and came up with her very own recipe, Halfway Homemade Chicken & Dumplings. Leigh let her mother eat the magical soup and she was cured of all of her woes and strife. And the mother and daughter lived in harmony, happily ever after! The End.

But in all seriousness, I'm pretty sure she drools when I tell her that I'm even thinking about making Chicken & Dumplings. It's adorable and hilarious.

Ingredients:

2 Stalks Celery Chopped
2 Carrots Peeled & Chopped
1/4 Cup Yellow Onion Chopped
2 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
1 1/2 Tbsp Flour
8 Cups Water
2 Tbsp "Better Than Bouillon" Chicken Base
1 Tsp Sage
1 Tsp Thyme
1/4 Tsp Poultry Seasoning
1/2 Tsp Ginger
4 Chicken Breasts
1 Can Biscuits
S & P to Taste

Steps:

1. Add chopped vegetables and butter to large stock pot. Cook on medium-high heat until onion begin to become transparent.
2. Add flour to the vegetables/butter mixture and stir thoroughly to create roux. Immediately add water.
3. Stir in sage, thyme, poultry seasoning, ginger, and the chicken base. Add chicken and cook over medium-high heat for 15-20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

4. Pull chicken out and cut into bite size chunks. Add back to the soup.
5. Take biscuits and pull each one apart into fifths and ball them up tightly. Drop into the soup as you make them. (This would go much faster with a helper!)
6. Place lid almost completely covering the soup and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to get the dumpling cooked evenly. (When you completely cover the soup, it boils over, but if you don't, the dumpling don't get enough steam to cook thoroughly!)
7. Add S&P to taste and enjoy!

So, you're probably thinking, "Ginger?" Yes, ginger. You can't tell overtly that it's in the soup, but I swear that it adds a bit of warmth and depth to the flavor that you'll miss if you don't put in. And, by all means, if you love ginger, add more!

I hope that you enjoyed story time! Enjoy the soup!

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Lost and Found in the Laundry Room

I don't think there is a person alive that truly likes to do laundry - is there? So you might as well make your laundry space as pleasant as possible.  Our laundry room all started with a metal sign that I got from Hobby Lobby.  The paint color came from the trim on the sign and it inspired the vintage feel to the room.

I finally got around to putting a Lost & Found sign together for all the lost socks that we seem to find. Can anyone really tell me how that happens???? Let me tell you, the sock monster at our house is living fat and happy, that's for sure!

I saw a similar one at Hobby Lobby, but it was painted blue and just wouldn't go with our brick red walls.  This whole project took less than an hour and I only spent about $6 if you don't count the wax and vinyl, which I already had.  The sign base is a cabinet door that I picked up for $3 from the Habitat for Humanity store. It was already painted in a cream so all I did was put a coat of dark wax on it to age it a bit.  The clips came from Hobby Lobby in the scrapbook section and I used my Cricut to cut out the vinyl.

It really works well with the vintage metal signs that I already had.

And my favorite part of the laundry - our "Laundry Today or Naked Tomorrow" vinyl on the wall.

Feels good to finally get some crafting done! Especially since this is one of those projects that I've been meaning to do forever.  Better late than never I always say!

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend! See you soon!

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