It's time for a new challenge. I'm so excited about this one that I'm actually posting it now to give you a few extra days to think about it. This challenge is a little different from the other ones, so be sure to read through the whole post. Don't take an ice cream break or anything in the middle because you might miss something. Let's pretend I'm throwing an inexplicably large and expensive birthday party for my best friend in the whole world. It could also be for my cousin. That detail might not be as important. What IS important though, is that I put this inspiration board together for the whole extravagant affair. And now I need you to make some birthday cookies for me. Pretty please. This month's challenge is to use the inspiration board to make birthday cookies. I have also pinned all of the original images to a pinterest board in case you want to know more about them or get a larger view of them. (Click HERE to see the Be Inspired Board. )...

Did you know that you can MOVE your kitchen garbage from where it usually resides to where you are working? It's true. I tried it myself for the first time last week. It was fantastic. I was a little nervous at first. I just nudged it ever so slightly so I could pretend like it was an accident if it somehow changed the entire balance of time and destiny. I waited for my walls to cave in. Nothing happened. So I pushed it over to my cutting board (with my feet. I can't stand to touch it with my actual fingers. Especially if I'm thinking about food. It might get germs on my thoughts.) I propped the lid open and just threw my vegetables ends in there like... well, like someone who has spent their entire life piling up the sticky, slimy vegetable and fruit peels and ends and stems and seeds and then tried to take them all the way across the kitchen to the garbage without letting a single thing drop to the floor and NOW has the ability to just toss them lightly to the garbage ...

I have backyard neighbors for the first real time in my life. And by backyard "neighbors" I mean backyard "roomates." We both have split-level houses with small backyards. Our main floor windows look into their windows. We can see into each other's backyards when we come out of our own houses. I'm not really sure what the best course of action is. I've come up with two options. I could go over and introduce myself and become super good friends with them and get invited to all of their children's dance recitals and birthday parties and summer time barbecues with watermelon and probably a slip-n-slide and eventually put a gate between our yards so our children can enjoy a mutual friendship built on joy and popsicles. I'm worried that my level of productivity will go down though if I have to talk to them every time I go into my backyard. I've thought about having to sneak around from the front yard if I really need to get something d...

I know you guys probably think that I'm done talking about Korea and my move to America. But you would be wrong. It's been much harder for me to let go than I thought it would be. Sometimes I get a physical pain somewhere in my pain feeling center just thinking about those deep green rice paddies that I won't be walking through this summer while my children run ahead trying to scare sleepy herons out of their hiding places. And then comes the inevitable listening to Enya and feeling bad about everything in my life that I miss and wallowing in all sorts of regret and then kind of hoping it will rain so that my mood will be justified. And really, the only way to bring myself out of it is to go buy pretty striped kitchen twine and then visit the All-You-Can-Eat Mexican Buffet down the street. I mean, I could probably also just do something productive or exercise instead, but let's not get all judgey, okay? The point is... you've got at least 3 more Korea related po...

The winner is--   #27 -- Walaika Haskins who said --   THANK YOU to everyone who entered. You completely de-stre ssed my day!!  *******GIVEAWAY CLOSED******* My house is stressing me out. I just don't know where to put everything and how to make it all fit and look organized and still be able to remember where everything is. And the truth of the matter is that I would rather play outside IN AMERICA than stay inside and do work type things.  So...basically, what I am saying is that I just want to give away another copper cutter from Coppergifts.com instead of being actually productive. To enter to win -- leave me a comment. Tell me your best organization tip. Or your favorite thing to do outside in your country. Or what cutter you would choose if you won. Just... no mean comments, okay? They stress me out too. Leave your comment by midnight tonight (Thursday, May 9th) and I'll pick a random comment and send you a message tomo...

I'm guessing that after all this time...someone probably wants to know who actually won the free cutter from CopperGifts. I'll tell you. But first you have to take another look at some of my favorite entries from the Think Outside The Cutter Challenge . I can honestly say, nothing like this would have ever occurred to me. And this cutter is absolutely PERFECT for this design!! I can't believe how many little details Tami (from Tami Rena's Cookies ) was able to fit onto that tiny little house! You guys. Seriously... this happened. Take away the diamond rings and everything goes right down the... umm, well, the plumbing piece in the lavatory that you use to ... umm... gosh! These cookies by One Baked Broad are super creative, aren't they??!! I love this cookie by Gwen's Kitchen Creations . It's so simple and clean and absolutely fills the space of the cutter perfectly! I want a re-do of my mad science cookies just to use this design! What you...

  Who would have thought that a month could go by so quickly? Can I just tell you all the secret details of my life right now? Then we can be cozy friends and send each other Christmas cards and smelly candles and other random items we may or may not want. Also, cozy friends come with a super large "pretend you didn't notice" clause. You know, like royal icing on the jeans or the fact that I didn't post this month's challenge until nearly a week into the month. And in return... I'll make the challenge super easy and kind of fun. Deal? Okay, an update... I live in America. Really, truly live in America. I bought a house and everything. My son attends an actual school that I get to walk him to every day. And every day we have a discussion about whether or not the dirt plugs from someone's recently aerated lawn is in fact dirt or if it might be dog poo. And we talk about where worms come from. And why daffodils are called daffodils. And my husba...

I moved into my new house about a month ago. It may not have been the best decision of my life, since most of everything I own is currently on a boat from South Korea. I did leave a few things in America when I left 3 years ago though, so at least I have a folding table and some camp chairs. I also have a Ninja Turtles bath towel and some sidewalk chalk. You know.... just the basics. Unfortunately,"the basics" does not include internet access or a bed. I've been mooching internet access off my local library and any relative that will let me ignore them for an hour while my children shoot foam darts at the ceiling and wait for them to drop. The downside to this arrangement is that everyone I know now believes that I cannot function as a separate entity from my computer (This is not true. I *can* live without you. I just don't want to.) and that I panic every time I have internet access and forget all sorts of things to tell you. Like... how I made those flower b...

I was nervous for my 6 year old to change schools so close to the end of the year. I was worried that he wouldn't fit in.... that he would be the weird kid from South Korea and everyone would talk about him, but no one would sit by him. And that he would get lonely and then maybe a little angry and we all know where that leads....   listening to noise that he calls "music" and spray painting naughty words on local stop signs. I already had a plan to inspect under his bed at least occasionally for contraband items and enroll him in a Mozart appreciation class. As it turns out, I didn't need to. I was supposed to take him to school   on a Tuesday. You may remember that my entire family got some horrendous flu bug within hours of arriving in this country. So I   waited an extra day to enroll him in school.   A few children were already waiting at the kindergarten door upon our arrival. Immediately, they started asking my son if he was the new student they...

If I could give you just one piece of color advice it would be to mix your colors. What? You already   put your icing in a bowl and add food coloring and mix away? Great! Not what I'm talking about though.   And since I have a special talent for complicating the most simple of all things....   I took a bunch of pictures and even made some graphics to explain this incredibly easy and quick thing. Ready? Make your icing colors like you normally do.   You can make purple using left over blue and red icing. Or purple coloring straight out of the bottle. Using all natural beet dye to make that purple? Sounds weird... but I'm cool with that too.   Once you have your icing all mixed up and ready to go, you're going to mix your colors with each other .    You can drop little bits of each color into the other ones, or just mix your spoons around. You don't need a lot. In fact, if it is a light color, add very little of the dark colors. They go...