Beachy Hostess Gift

Hi Friends!

Wow, here we are full-fledge into summer. I’ve missed you! I almost forgot I had a blog for a while. Does anyone else feel like summer is the most challenging busiest time of the year as a mom? {It’s camp mom around here!}  A good friend of mine recently said,

“Summer vacation was clearly not created by a mother of 3.”

Cheers to that! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been having TONS of fun with my kids…we’re in between road trips right now…we’ve celebrated the 4th of July:

visited The Happiest Place on Earth:

hit Southern California beaches:

celebrated turning 4:

Look who came to our party!

put the dog in a cone:

Had our obligatory trip to the ER {that’s a must with a 7 year old boy…but no cast this year, only a splint, whew!}
And celebrated 8 blissful years of marriage, topping the evening off with
 Robin Williams doing stand-up live at our local theater! 
What a summer it's been so far!

Next we head up to Oregon and will spend a week sight-seeing and then another week at a friend’s beach house…Ahhhhhhh.

I have been thinking for a while about an appropriate hostess gift to bring along with us to the beach house and it finally came to me:

My latest favorite Trader Joe’s find: Salt Water Taffy, in these gorgeous pastel colors {all colored with natural ingredients, like beet juice…no red dye #574 here}

Cute huh?  Little pink/white swirls, pint dot inside yellow, solid pink {dark and light}, solid white…does it get any sweeter? {pun intended!}   Oh and did I mention, they are NOT sweetened with high fructose corn syrup…2 more points for TJ’s.

Do you wanna make one? Super easy and pretty inexpensive, all things considered.

~1 gallon container {I got mine at Cost Plus…and like it ‘cause it has a rubber gasket under the lid so it doesn’t slam shut…a plus when you have little fingers reaching in all the time!} $10 with my coupon

~6 packages of Trader Joe’s Taffy, $1.99/package…$12 total

~homemade tag and ribbon {I had on hand}

I thought about adding some chalkboard paint on the side…would be super cute…but just ran out of time. Click here to see my chalkboard painted jars.

So off to the beach we head…with enough taffy to share!

Are you peeking at those hydrangeas in the background? Aren’t they amazing? The previous owners of our house planted them years ago and we enjoy them so much!

And if you are curious about my blue mason jars…be sure to check out my tutorial here! They are simply spaghetti sauce jars that I’ve painted!

I also used the hydrangeas to decorate for my little girls’ birthday party! {Notice the bowl of TJ’s taffy, too!}

You’re also getting a sneak peek of my {unfinished} gallery wall in the background.  All my frames are painted white and now just awaiting the perfect picture!

Well my friends, that’s all for today…the kids are screaming calling for me. Time to get back to summer!  Smile!!