I decided to recreate the taste at home but instead of a pretzel I went with a cinnamon sugar breadstick with cream cheese drizzle.  I like the yeasty softness of a breadstick over a pretzel although I love me a good pretzel too.

You start out with a nice batch of dough. Remember the trick to working with yeast is to make sure your water is the right temperature – not too hot and not too cold – just right.  About 105-110 degrees is perfect. It needs to raise about 30-40 minutes.  I speed up the process a bit by preheating my oven to 150 degrees and then turning it off.  I place my covered bowl of dough into the oven and it loves that nice warm environment.

Roll the dough out into a 8 x 14 rectangle or there about. 

I use my pizza cutter to cut the dough into about 8-10 even pieces, about 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 inches side.

Then roll them up like a snake.

I then drap it over my finger in the middle,  it will unroll but having done that helps to twist it together easier.

Twist the breadstick together in half.

Place on a greased cookie sheet and allow them to rise for about another 40 minutes or until about double in size. 

They are big! Bake them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. 

Brush them with some melted butter and give them a nice dusting of cinnamon sugar.

Mix up your cream cheese drizzle and put it into a ziploc bag and clip one of the corners off.  Drizzle the cream cheese down the breadstick.  The more the better!
Since the breadsticks aren’t quite as sturdy as a pretzel, they are not as easy to dip and the drizzle worked better. Enjoy!  For more pretty and delicious please come visit me over at Your Homebased Mom.

Cinnamon Sugar Breadstick with Cream Cheese Drizzle

Printable Recipe

yourhomebasedmom.com

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1/4 C sugar, divided

1 C warm water, divided

1 1/2 Tbsp oil

1 egg

1 /2 tsp salt

2 1/4 C flour

1/4 C butter, melted

Cinnamon Sugar mixture:  6 Tbsp sugar mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon

In mixer dissolve yeast, 1/2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 C warm water.  Allow yeast to proof.  Add in oil, egg salt, 1 1/2 C flour and remaining sugar and water.  Mix until smooth.  Stir in remaining flour to form a soft dough.   Knead until smooth and elastic.  Place into a greased bowl and cover.  Let rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes or until doubled.

Punch down the dough and put onto floured counter.  Roll into a 8 x 14 rectangle.  Using your pizza cutter cut into about 10 pieces.  Roll each strip like a snake.  Then hang the dough over your finger in the middle and twist the two ends together.  Place on a greased cookie sheet and allow to rise for another 20 minutes or until doubled.

Preheat oven to 400 and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  Drizzle with cream cheese glaze (see below)

Cream Cheese Drizzle:

4 ounces cream cheese

1 1/4 C powdered sugar

1 – 2 Tbsp whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla

Soften cream cheese and mix everything together.  Beat until a good consistency for drizzling.  Place in a ziploc bag and snip off the corner.  Drizzle over warm breadsticks.

Download your free school printable.
For 30days subscribers and personal use only.  Offered as is. Thank you!

This game is based off of “Don’t Eat Pete,” a game I learned at a friend’s house when I was little.  I know several people play it for family night.  When I told Josh about it, he thought I was nuts (he had never heard of Don’t Eat Pete).  Which just made me want to have our kids play it more! 
I created several printable cards that have all the Presidents of the United States with their names on them.  There are two presidents that are repeated to make the cards even. 
My hope is that they will get more familiar with the presidents of our country.  This could be taken several steps further with studying each one individually.  For now, let the games begin!

Object of the game: Eat as many small candies (cereal pieces/whatever you want to use) as you can, but don’t eat the Chief!

Directions:  Place one small candy (or cereal or whatever you want to use) on each of the nine squares.  Select a person to be the “candy monster” and send him/her out of the room.  The remaining players then select one square to be “the Chief”.   When the “monster” returns, he eats the small candies one at a time but as soon as s/he touches “the Chief” the group yells “Don’t Eat the Chief!” His/her turn is over and another person is selected to be the candy monster.  Play continues until all have had a turn.

Here’s a super short video of two of my kids playing. They played for an hour. I consider that a success! Warning- I scream at the end. ooops…

 These printables are for 30days subscribers and
for personal use only. They are offered as is. Thanks!

Download a Don’t Eat the Chief game card:
Don’t Eat the Chief Sheet 1
Don’t Eat the Chief Sheet 2
Don’t Eat the Chief Sheet 3
Don’t Eat the Chief Sheet 4
Don’t Eat the Chief Sheet 5

What do you do to celebrate Presidents day?

I’m linking this up to:
I’m Lovin’ It from Tidy Mom
Weekend Wrap Up
Wednesday Wowsers

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The Rules:

• Link to a specific post, not your blog in general.
• No links to shops, products or giveaways please. (They will be deleted)
• Be creative- a craft, tutorial, recipe, anything you want!
• To add your post please link to 30days somewhere on your post or grab a NEW Pity Party button- thanks!
• Visit other links and leave them some love.
• Join me on Twitter, Facebook & Pinterest as I share some of my favorites throughout the week.

CRAFTS

• Covered Button Projects from Tatertots & Jello
• Liberty Cross Stitch Project from little lovelies
• Alice in Bunterland from Elle and Lou

DIY

• Rustic Wreath from diy kinda girl
• Pallet Backed Bookshelf from Over the Big Moon

PHOTOGRAPHY

• Ferris Wheel Photography from Michelle Lea Designs
• Controlling Exposure in Manual Mode from Sweet C Designs

FOOD

• Puppy Love Pot Pies from Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons
• Peppermint Cream Cheese Brownies from Raising Oranges
• Grilled Smashed Potatoes with Garlic & Rosemary from Jennifer Cooks

This week’s post with the most views:

Tame the Bed Head (genius idea!) from Plumberry Pie
{I’d love for all of you to grab an I’ve Been Featured Button }

In our house he is known from:

Despicable Me is right up there with Tangled as my favorite animated movie ever. I even watch it when my kids aren’t around.  That says something, right? 

Taking a detour from his usual hilarious characters, Will Arnett plays Pod, Arrietty’s calm, serious dad on the Secret World of Arrietty.
I jumped at the chance to ask Will a question in a phone interview with other bloggers.  (my brother may not have forgiven me had I not.  He is a huge Arrested Development fan.  Anyone else?)
It was fun to hear Will’s take on playing Pod.  He talked about how he was flattered that Disney saw him as the right fit for the role of Pod even though he is best known for his comedy. 
I loved hearing him talk about how his perspective has changed since becoming a dad.  Will said, “I don’t think I would have been able to play this with the same perspective had I not been a parent – it definitely had an impact on me being a parent. Pod is very protective of his family and he takes it very seriously.”   
Though he recorded his part of Pod on his own, without his fellow co-stars, he got to discuss his role with his wife, Amy Poehler, who plays Arriety’s mom in the movie.
Someone beat me to asking a question about the validity to rumors of an Arrested Development movie.  And AD fans everywhere (my brother included) will be happy to know they are indeed working on a mini series and film. 
Towards the end of the interview I had my chance to ask a question:
Me: You mentioned that you’ve done lots of different voiceovers over the past few years.  And some of them have been our family favorites: Ratatouille, Despicable Me, and now Arrietty.  I was just wondering if you have a favorite of the voice overs that you’ve done?
Will Arnett:
Right now it’s Arrietty.
Me: That’s a nice politically correct answer. 
Will: It’s so hard to play favorites in that way. They each have their own thing about that I really really love.
I know that sounds kind of  like a cop out answer.  But it’s actually true.   Because if I said, “I like this the most I feel like I would be kind of short changing  others…then you could say well did you not like that one and then I’d feel kind of bad about that.

In fairness to Will, it kind of wasn’t a very nice question to ask….of course all of the movies he has been a part are his favorites. It would be someone asking me who my favorite kid is…..(depending on the day, I might tell ya ).

The Secret of Arrietty comes out tomorrow!! My ten year old declared it her favorite new movie.  I think it’s a movie perfect for a tweenager.  So tell me- do you have plans to see it?

I’m back {Andrea from Knitty Bitties} with an inspirational DIY. I hope today’s project will encourage you to think outside the box for what constitutes ‘material/fabric’ AND challenge you to add your signature to the rooms in your home {with what I call, “little pops of personality”}.

Last June {so excited it’s almost here again} I went on a girl’s trip to Spokane, WA to go to the annual Farm Chicks Show. It was so incredibly fun. So fun we’re headed back there in a few months {Hoo-rah!!}.

Picking through linens at one of the show booths, I came across this old cloth sugar sack. It was pretty faded and I didn’t really think twice about it until I saw IT … the “U and I, Sugar” or at least that’s how I read it. I instantly had a vision of turning it into something for our master bedroom. I mean come on, how cute is that?!? And it had Idaho {our home state} printed on it too. It was meant to be.

And then it sat in my sewing room … until last week when I decided to finally turn it into a pillow.

This is not really a tutorial so much, but more of an inspirational DIY. I’ll give you the basics on how I created the pillow and you can customize your own from there. There are many wonderful ‘how to’ tutorials on making your own pillows. You can find one with more detail on my blog, Spring Day Pillow Tutorial.

What you need::

• Cloth Sugar Sack {or accent piece}
•  Pillow Form {mine is 14×14}
• Front Fabric – 3/4 YD {I used natural cotton/Osnaburg for the sashing & ruffle}
• Back Fabric – 1/2 YD {I used a fun bright geometric print for a little ‘surprise’ when you see the back}

Cut accent piece to fit pillow form. I wanted to get the “U and I Sugar” and distribution printing at the bottom on the accent piece. I trimmed to 8×9.5″. Because this is OLD fabric and well LOVED fabric, I went ahead and ironed a piece of fusible interfacing to the back to give it a little more structure and hopefully a longer life.

Sew sashing pieces to your accent piece to create your pillow front. I like a SNUG fit for my pillow covers so I usually only add .5″ to the pillow form size. So, I created a 14.5×14.5″ front piece.

For the added ruffle {which is totally optional, but in this case added a bit of interest to a rather ‘dull’ color pallet} cut {3} 3″ strips of my front fabric, sewed the short ends together to make a continuous piece, folded it in half, serged the long edge and then ran a gathering/basting stitch. I attached the ruffle to the edge of the front using a 1/4″ SA.

I also added two lines of decorative stitching around my accent piece to make it pop a bit more. I had debated hand stitching around ‘U and I’ with embroidery floss, but decided to leave well enough alone .

For the back, I created an envelope closure. You’ll want one piece of your back fabric to be about 4″ wider than the other piece to account for a 1″ hem and overlap. {Mine were 12×14.5″ and 8×14.5″}. Finish one raw 14.5″ edge of each piece with either a serger or zig-zag stitch. On the wider piece, fold the finished edge, 1″ to the wrong side. Top stitch to create a hemmed edge.

With right sides together, pin your {2} back pieces to your front taking care to keep the ruffle tucked into the center, especially at the corners. You’ll want to first lay down your finished/hemmed edge piece and then overlap your additional piece. Stitch around the entire perimeter, back stitching at the front, at the overlap points and at the end.

Clip corner and turn right side out. Insert pillow form.

Smile and go add your creation to one of your rooms to give it a pop of personality!

For more Knitty Bitties, you can find me rambling on my Blog; trying to keep connected on Facebook; tweeting on Twitter and most assuredly pinning on Pinterest ! Or check out my previous 30days posts here.

Every six months I have been trying to get a hand print of Sawyer’s to keep and reminisce over as he grows up (so quickly!). There are the more traditional ways – clay or paint – but I wanted to incorporate my love of embroidery into this keepsake.

To make one of your own you will need:

• a traced hand print from your kid of choice
• two fabrics – the back fabric (I used white) and the hand print fabric (the yellow flowery fabric I used)
• needle and thread
• embroidery hoop
• water soluble pen to trace your pattern
• small, sharp scissors – needlework scissors are ideal

 I traced my son’s hand and then traced over that with a thick, black marker so I could see it better through the fabric while I traced.

See how you can still see the black marker through the fabric? Trace over it with a water soluble ink pen and you are almost ready to stitch.

 To get ready to stitch, you want to layer your two fabrics – white on bottom and yellow on top. You’ll see why I did it like this.

Back stitch around your traced hand pattern. You’ll be stitching through both layers of fabric at the same time.

Take your fabric out of the hoop and begin to cut away the excess yellow fabric. I cut away the majority to get it out of the way and then cut closely around the backstitching (about 1/4″) all the way around. Small, sharp scissors are key! I used my embroidery scissors to get the job done. Just be patient and careful while you cut away – you don’t want to accidentally snip a stitch.

I didn’t permanently finish the back of this piece. I didn’t want to use glue because I am not sure if I am going to want to take this out of the hoop and re-frame it, or maybe I would like to add a bit more stitching to it. For a temporary finishing job, sew a running stitch all the way around the perimeter of the hoop, pull the thread tight and tie a knot. 

This is what you will have when you are done. It looks neat and doesn’t do any permanent damage, just in case you ever want to take the work out.

I am so happy to have my 2 year old’s little hand print as a keepsake embroidery piece. Good for years of weepy mommy reminiscing.

As always you can find me all over the place: little lovelies / facebook / twitter / pinterest

Just like the Valentine’s day paper, I created this in Photoshop. But you could use Picnik, Photoshop Elements, or whatever floats your boat.  I used a custom shape for the birthday cakes, but have seen some cute dingbats that would work too. 

Julia had a stack of custom presents to open- it was pretty fun.  My 2′x3′ sheet of paper lasted through five small-ish presents.
What ended up being Julia’s favorite was this poster I created for her:

Hard to believe that a poster that big only cost me $4 at Kinko’s. Again, because it’s printed on the oversized blueprint machine, it can only be done in black and white.  Anything color is *way* expensive.  I created this in Photoshop as well.  Just used a picture I had of her and layered on the other elements.  It is now hanging on her bedroom wall- so it must have been a hit!
What do you do to make birthdays special?

I’m linking this post up to:

I’m Lovin’ It with Tidy Mom
the 36th Ave
Weekend Wrap Up with Tatertots and Jello

It’s been so fun reading comments on these posts. I’ve received emails about the projects you made for Valentine’s day from 30days. I love hearing from you!! I hope whatever you do for Valentine’s day that it’s full of love!