Introducing CB2 & Novogratz's Brasil #CB2NovogratzBrasilSweepstakes

This post brought to you by CB2. All opinions are 100% mine.

I am a huge fan of Bob and Cortney Novogratz. Those of you in the design world probably know them for their quirky and colorful design elements, and you might recognize them from their HGTV hosting gig. Bob and Cortney always manage to incorporate playful elements while still keeping the design sophisticated and modern. When I heard that they had a new line out at CB2, I was super excited to check it out!

The CB2 and Novogratz Collection is full of fun pieces that you'd expect to come from the minds of Bob and Cortney.

This Figueira Indoor/Outdoor Swing Chair is totally going at the top of my wishlist - how awesome is this!?!

A few other pieces that I adore are the Breaker Chair, Rouge Coffe Table, Soneca Pendant Lamp & Dupla Credenza. 

To celebrate the release of the new line, CB2 is running an amazing sweepstakes where you and 3 friends could win the trip of a lifetime! Win a one week stay at the vacation home of CB2 collaborators Bob and Courtney Novogratz in beautiful Trancoso, Brazil. How awesome would it be to stay at their very own vacation home?! 10 other lucky winners will receive a CB2 giftcard worth $100 along with a personally signed copy of the book “Home by Novogratz”. Enter the CB2 and Novogratz Brasil Sweepstakes through June 3rd.

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{this moment}

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 {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 
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Let's Hear It For the Boy Thursday! #4

It's Let's Hear it for the Boy Thursday! A link party all for boys! Each week myself and 3 other Bloggers pick our favorite projects to highlight from the previous weeks party. If you have a blog, feel free to link up. If you don't, click around to find tons of inspiration for the boys (and men) in your life!
  On to last week's top picks:

 

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Raising Painted Lady Butterflies

This is our second year raising painted lady butterflies from caterpillars, and it was just as exciting and enthralling for the kids as it was the first time. We've also raised ladybugs, which is pretty interesting as well. I ordered a Live Butterfly Garden kit, and scheduled our caterpillar delivery for the week after I returned from SNAP! so that I wouldn't miss anything while I was gone. It's really nice that they have the option of pre-ordering and scheduling your delivery for later!

When we received our caterpillars they were initially much bigger than we expected (upper left). Last time they were only about half that size! After three days they were full grown (upper right), and by the sixth day they had all spun their cocoons (lower left). Two days later we moved the chrysalides to the mesh habitat (lower right), and a week later our painted lady butterflies emerged! 

The butterflies like to feed on orange slices and watermelon. The red liquid that you see all over the habitat isn't blood - it's meconium that is expelled when the butterflies emerge from the chrysalis. If you've never raised butterflies though, it can be kind of a shock to see all of that red liquid, so rest assured that it's completely normal!

We watched our butterflies for a few days, and then it was time to release them.

If you ask me, butterflies are actually pretty creepy looking up close!

Each butterfly waited a few minutes before they left the habitat, and all of them fluttered around our yard and patio for quite awhile before flying off into the sunset, but the last butterfly took an incredibly long time before he left us.

He would fly up to the very top of the mesh and crawl around before flying back down to feed on the orange slice once again.

The boys watched intently for about a half an hour as the last butterfly did his back-and-forth dance.

When he finally took flight, Simon was SO excited to watch it fly away!

...and then he stuck around and hung out in our yard and on our lawn for another five minutes or so.

Sawyer and Sutton were so proud of themselves for another successful year of butterfly raising, and they're already looking forward to our next round of caterpillars!

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Butterfly Wing Necklace

We spent the last two and a half weeks raising Painted Lady butterflies. Unfortunately, after our butterflies emerged from their cocoons, our curious kitten managed to knock their habitat off of the desk which smashed one of the poor little guys underneath the feeding bowl. My boys were pretty bummed about it, so I promised them that we would do something special with their dead butterfly.

The boys wanted to frame the butterfly as specimen artwork, but despite my best attempt and way too much Googling, it still wasn't working, and I ended up tearing the edges of the wings a bit. I decided that the only way I was going to salvage Mr. Butterfly was to try to preserve the wings another way. I had seen some lovely butterfly jewelry from Trinkets and Butterflies at the Queen Bee Market at SNAP, so I decided to use some supplies that I had on-hand to try to create my own.

I started by removing my wings from the butterfly and pouring a very thin layer of Diamond Glaze into a blank pendant tray.

I layered three of the wings into the tray, but I probably only needed to use two of them since the third one didn't actually show much.

I added a small amount of Diamond Glaze to the top and used a toothpick to gently spread it all around. I finished it off by topping it with a clear glass cabochon and adding a copper-toned chain. 

 Easy peasy! The entire project only took about 5 minutes + drying time!

It is SO hard to photograph the necklace with the glass cabochon on top - it reflects everything! It's really much brighter and vibrant than these photos show, and it's really pretty! The best part is that my boys think it's super cool too :)

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All Natural Strawberry Ice Cream Bars

We've been experiencing temperatures in the 90's here in California for the better part of three weeks, so I think it's the perfect time to kick off our new summer series - Hot Days, Cool Treats!

Each week we will be sharing a new recipe for popsicles, ice cream and frozen treats, and each week my boys will rate the recipe according to how much they enjoyed it. I can't wait to see which ones will end up being our favorites!

Flavor of the Week: All-Natural Strawberry Ice Cream Bars (non-dairy, sugar and gluten free)

What You'll Need:

• 2 cups of coconut cream
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries
• 1/4 cup honey
•  Popsicle molds: My favorite are Groovy Ice Pop Molds, Star Ice Pop Molds or Ostart Ice Lolly Molds (we used an older version for these ice cream bars). I also have my eye on the Norpro Ice Pop Maker because you can use regular wooden sticks in it (no more hunting down the plastic kind after my boys toss them aside somewhere!). 

Blend the coconut cream, strawberries and honey until it is smooth and creamy - the consistency will be that of a smoothie. Pour into the popsicle molds, freeze and enjoy!

The reviews are in...

SIMON RATING

SUTTON RATING

SAWYER RATING

The big boys each gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars, mostly because they were wishing it was a bit sweeter. They both agreed that they loved the creamy consistency and fresh strawberry flavor, but since neither of them are fans of coconut they weren't all that into it. Simon, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of it! His 4 star rating was given because he quickly devoured most of it, but he left about 1/3 of the popsicle on the stick. 

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{this moment}

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 {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Let's Hear It For the Boy Thursday! #3

Welcome to Let's Hear it for the Boy Thursday! Each week myself and 3 other Bloggers pick our favorites to highlight from the previous weeks party. If you have a blog, feel free to link up. If you don't, click around to find tons of inspiration for the boys (and men) in your life!

  With that, let's get this party started!  

 

Kim from seven thirty three's top pick:

PVC Bow & Arrow by Sugar Bee Crafts

Heidi from Mom's Crafty Space's picked:

Smackable Mini Pinatas by Craft, Interrupted

 Sara from Mom Endeavors top choice:

Stuffed Squid by Jengerbread Creations

Allison from All for the Boys chose:

How to make a Water Wheel by Making Boys Men
<center> <a href="http://www.733blog.com/"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dbIN8daCQjc/UYADPFxO0uI/AAAAAAABQ0M/bBYQ9RckmM0/s1600/BOY_PARTY.jpg" alt="seven thirty three"/></a></center>   PARTY GUIDELINE'S:  1) BOY related projects only (projects for grown boys are OK) 2) Link to your blog post, not your main page 3) Display our party button or link back to any of the 4 blogs to share the love 4) To make it even more fun, visit others that have linked up and leave comments  

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