Caribou Cooler Wannabe

I had a little Thirty-One party a few Saturdays ago and made a pot of coffee for my lovely guests.  At the end of the party I had about 3/4 of a pot left.  Now I'm not a fan of drinking a plain ol' cup of coffee, but I love the smell of coffee and coffee flavored things.  So I couldn't throw away a perfectly good pot of coffee.  I knew I could figure out something to do with it.  And I did.  Enter the Caribou Cooler Wannabe.

I poured the leftover coffee into ice cube trays and popped them in the freezer.  (side note: is anyone else a fan of the Dorot frozen herbs?  They're little frozen herb cubes that are so easy to pop into a stir fry, soup, casserole.  And they never go bad!  I get mine at Trader Joe's.) 

Anyway, after the coffee was frozen, I popped out about five or six cubes and threw them in the blender.

I added some chocolate and caramel syrup...

...and some milk.

Then I blended it all up, put a straw in it and enjoyed my fake Caribou Cooler!  Now, this is not going to fool anyone into thinking they're drinking a real Cooler.  It's not like those purses you buy on Canal Street in New York where you have to look super close to realize they're not the real deal.  Or just look at the price tag.  If a "Kate Spade" purse costs $20, chances are it's not real.  There you go.  Enjoy that little kernel of wisdom.

It's a great little afternoon pick-me-up...which I seem to be needing every afternoon.  So I'm just accepting that and trying to make it as enjoyable as possible.  When I have the energy.  Other days it takes all I have just to open a can of Diet Coke. 

Another use for your coffee cubes - put them in a cup, pour cold coffee over them and enjoy an iced coffee without it getting all watered down!  That's what my mom would do in the summers when we were growing up.  :)

Caribou Cooler Wannabe
Ingredients:
- coffee cubes
- flavored syrups of your choice
- milk
Directions:
- Put all the ingredients in a blender, blend, and enjoy!

Quinoa Mac 'n Cheese

I recently bought a ginormous bag of quinoa at Costco.  It's awesome.  I love quinoa.  So a huge bag of it is spectacular. 

Because I have more quinoa than our family can eat in a year (which really means me, because the rest of the fam aren't huge fans), I scoured pinterest to find some fun recipes.  And find I did. 

The first one I've tried is Quinoa Mac 'n Cheese.  It's awesome.  I'm actually eating some leftovers of it right now. 

I didn't have any tomatoes or peppers on hand to throw in to the dish, but I did have bacon.  Can't go wrong with bacon, right?  Right.  Quinoa Mac 'n Cheese + bacon = awesome. 

Fill-age. For my shelves.

This is one of the items I put on my beautiful shelves.  It's a picture of Justin and me on our honey moon five and a half years ago.  (Don't we look like babies?)  It's nothing fancy, just a picture taped to a piece of card stock in a spray-painted frame.  It was a quick space filler at our old house.  But the picture wasn't centered and it was driving me crazy.

I got this bag from Hallmark around Christmas and have been saving it since then because I love the saying on it.  I decided Old Off-Center picture would be replaced by Fun Quote. 

So I cut off one side of the back and carefully took the handles off of it.  It still had a couple fold marks which I knew would really bug me.  So I ironed it.  That's right.  I ironed a paper bag.  I like to live on the edge.  I took the old picture out of the frame and then I used some good ol' Scotch tape loops and taped the bag to the other side of the card stock.  I left the picture on the back in case I ever change my mind and have a deep desire for an off-centered picture to be displayed in our home.  Okay, that's not true.  I was just lazy.

And here's the finished product on the shelf!  I love the pop of color it adds.

Isn't this such a good saying?  It reminds me not to save things for special occasions.  I should cook good, interesting food for my family all the time, not just when we're having people over.  I should make stuff out of the fun fabrics I've been accumulating instead of waiting for the "perfect" project.  I should enjoy and appreciate and celebrate life because that's just what it is - life!  And I'm so blessed to have Life.



Shelf Time

We have an awkwardly long wall in our family room.  Like really awkward.  Like when you're reading someone's graphic T-shirt and realize it looks like you're staring at their boobs.  The wall is awkward.  It's too big to put any art on and too small to make into two different areas. 

One day while wasting time researching on Pinterest, I came across this project from Ana White. 

Aren't these shelves great?  And they're SOOOO easy!  Each shelf is 2 1x4s and 1 1x2.  Throw on some white paint and screw in a few screws and you have yourself some fantastic shelves. 

True Confession:  From the date of pinning to the date of completion?  About 10 months...  Nothing like a one-year-old's birthday party to kick my buns into gear...

Here's how it went down.  I used blue painter's tape to mark where I wanted the shelves.  I lived with the tape on the wall for a couple days to make sure I liked where the were.  (I ended up moving them a little farther apart than I had originally planned.)

My amazing husband made the shelves for me - which means I don't have any pictures of the shelf construction.  But Ana does a great job and her pictures and instructions are WAY better than mine would have been anyway.

Here's my man hanging the bottom shelf.

Starting to fill up!

And here are my beautiful shelves all filled!

I love my shelves.  A lot.  I told them I love them.  More than once.  They're the mac to my cheese, the spice to my girls.

See those curtains in that picture?  I love them as well.  My mom made them for us.  She asked if I needed help with anything for Drew's party.  I think she was offering to bring a fruit platter.  But I asked her to make curtains.  And she did.  She's awesome like that.

So now it's looking like we actually like our house and like living in it.  Oh, and everything on those shelves?  Yeah, I already had all of it.  Holla for free accessories!

Stationery card

Sweet Little Chick Easter Card

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Spring Wreath

I've been seeing so many cute spring wreaths on Pinterest.  They're just so bright and cheerful!  I decided that I wanted needed one.  I also decided that I had to make it with things I had on hand (aka - for free). 

I have a ton of fabric, so I knew I'd use that.  But what to use for the form of the wreath was a little trickier.  And, low and behold, I saw a wire hanger from my husband's dry cleaning that told me it wanted to become a wreath.  Well, it didn't acutally say that.  But if it could talk, I'm sure that's what it would have said.

So after some bending and re-shaping, I had an almost-circular hanger like this:

It's a game - find the hanger on the ironing board.  Oh, you haven't heard of that game?  It's all the rage in Europe.

Then I cut strips of fabric 1 1/2" wide and 4", 5" and 5" inches long.  And then I tied, tied and tied some more.  Here it is in progress.  Tip: make sure you tie the same way every time so your fabric "tails" all point the same way.  It took me about forty minutes to tie them all on.

And then voila!  I had a cheerful spring wreath!  And for free!  And it was easy!  I love anything cute, cheap and easy!  (Uhhhh, I mean I love any craft that's cute, cheap and easy...)

Happy spring!

I'm baaack

Well hello again, Blog World.  It's been awhile (4+ months to be exact), but I'm done being lazy and will put more effort into our relationship.  :)

Anyway, the babe turned one at the end of February.  Crazy!  He's now a walking machine.  Within about a week and a half he became a full-fledged walker, learned to wave, learned to dance, learned to point and perfected his clapping.  It's been so much fun to watch!

My amazing cousin, Jill, took some great birthday photos of Drew.  Enjoy! 

PS - Thanks to Emily for kicking my blog-writing butt into gear!

Halloween

Here are some pictures from Drew's first Halloween.  He was a lumber jack.  :)

 With the beard...



 ...which didn't last long

Hope you had a fun Halloween!

Cook Top Cleaning

So my cook top gets gross.  Like really gross.  Like if you're looking at this picture you'll probably never want to eat at my house again gross. 

And no matter how much I scrubbed I could never get it very clean.  Especially those spots where something had boiled over and then burned onto the burner.  Those are the worst.  OK, I'll admit I didn't really try very many things to get it clean.  Basically I've tried an all-purpose cleaner, vinegar and water and soap.  So, maybe it doesn't bother me as much as I think it does (or as much as it should...).

Anyway, I came across this method while wasting time exploring on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a shot.  And it was super easy. 

Step 1: Generously sprinkle baking soda on your cook top.  (I put extra on the really nasty spots.)

Step 2: Fill a bowl or your sink with hot, soapy water.  Get some rags wet, wring them out so they're saturated but not dripping and lay them over the baking soda.

Step 3:  Wait 15 minutes.  Then use the rags to wipe off the baking soda - and baked on gunk. 

This is after one swipe, without any scrubbing.  Yuck.

Step 4: Use a clean rag with water to get the residue off the cook top.  Then enjoy your cleanliness!

There were still some spots left on my cook top after going through the process once, so I think I might do a little "spot treatment" to get them off.

Ahhh, the beauty of a clean cook top.  It's the little things, right?  And I'm pretty sure when my husband got home he thought I'd been scrubbing all day.  I didn't correct him.  :) 

Happy cleaning!

Homemade Crinkle Paper

The Drew-meister is loving things that make noise.  He has a few toys that have parts made out of that crinkley-paper-fabric stuff.  You know what I'm talking about. 

The other day I finished off a box of cereal and as I was going to throw away the bag from inside the box I thought, "This sounds just like that crinkle paper stuff."  And an idea was born.

Why not make the cereal bag into a baby toy?  I then evaluated this idea to see if it was the sleep deprivation/need to get out of the house talking (because it kind of sounds like it) and decided it was worth a shot.  So here's what I did:

1. Take the cereal bag out of the box.  I definitely did not even rinse it off.  I figured I'd wash the finished project before I gave it to Drew and there's no need for extra work.  Ever.  You could also use the packaging from wipes, or whatever else sounds nice and crinkley.

2.  Gather the rest of the supplies: fabric, ribbon, cutting mat, rotary cutter, sewing machine

3. Cut the bag to the desired size and then cut two pieces of fabric to the same size.

4. Layer your fabric in this order and then pin
       - fabric, face up
       - fabric, face down
       - cereal bag

5. Fold the ribbon in half, put it between the fabric layers (folded side pointing to the center of the fabric) and pin it in place. 

6. Sew around the edges, leaving a hole to turn it inside out.  It will bunch and move while you're sewing.  No big deal.  It's not a perfection-necessary project.  Which is why I like it.  I don't believe in perfection.  Well, unless you're hanging a picture or some art on my walls.  Then I definitely believe in perfection.  And a level.  But other than that...

7.  Turn the project right-side-out through the hole and then sew a 1/4 seam around all of the edges.

8.  That's it!  You're done!  The babe LOVES it!  The ribbon loop is great for attaching it to the links on his car seat.  I've washed his in the washing machine a couple times, but I hang it to dry.  I figured a melted cereal bag would probably be less than fun to clean out of the dryer...

Total price of this project?  A big ol' NADA!  It was made with all stuff I had on hand - love projects like this! 

Wedding gift, numero tres

The third and final installment in the "Wedding Gift" series.

I saw this picture on pinterest and fell in love.  (Picture from here.)

 I thought some sort of glass etching would be a really nice, personalized wedding gift.  Maybe a vase or a candle holder?  (Again, I didn't know the couple very well - what if she hates to bake?  Then a personalized casserole dish is a bad idea.)  Then I went to Michael's and realized the supplies for glass etching are a little on the spendy side.  And after reading the instructions, it seemed a little putzy for me.  So on to plan B.

I bought some Krylon Frosted Glass Finish spray paint.  Which, contrary to logic, is not located with the rest of the spray paint.  It's with the glass paint.  I also bought a cool vase from Goodwill.

For $2.99.  Holla!

Then I got out my trusty contact paper.  I printed off a "G" from the computer in a font and size I liked (their last name starts with G, in case you thought I just picked a random letter), cut it out and traced it on my contact paper.  Be sure you trace it on the top of the contact paper so you don't get a backward letter.  Unless that's the look you're going for.  Then trace however you darn well please.  Stick the letter wherever you want it.  Sorry I don't have pictures for this step.  My friend Emily and I were having a craft day and I got distracted by the cute stuff she was making.

Next I took the vase with the contact paper letter on it outside and sprayed away.  It took a couple coats to get the coverage I was looking for.  (Is it creepy that I was hearing Sherry from Young House Love saying "thin, even coats" in my head?  Stalker?)

Here's what it looked like after it dried.

After peeling off the "G" I filled the bottom with some rocks and them put a candle in it (both of which I had on hand.)  Ta-da!

I was super impressed with how it came out!  SOOO easy!

Here's the cost break down:

vase: $2.99

Krylon Frosted Glass Finish spray: $9.98 (and I didn't have a coupon :s)

contact paper: $0 (already owned)

candle: $0 (already owned)

rocks: $0 (already owned)

TOTAL: $12.97

On-Going Total for wedding gifts uno, dos and tres: $25.23

Not bad for a three piece, personalized wedding gift!