Christmas Wreath & Garland

Soooo my hubby  i just put up our Christmas wreath & garland.i really liked the garland from Pottery Barn, but the price $299 - auuuuuwww nauuuww. So i found one at hobby lobby, same size, with pines, berries & lights, at a better price. The wreath was $40 (with the 50% discound at hobby lobby) and i actually made the garland. Th garland, first off was still crazy expensive even with hobby lobby's "50% discount" (especially for the length that i needed) PLUS they didn't have one that matched my wreath. i bought the plain pine garland (which was about $3.50 per i believe it's 7' - don't quote me on this one - i bought 4 but only used 3) and i bought the red berries also from hobby lobby (they were about $0.60 a piece, i only used one bunch per garland piece since i just randomly placed them in the garland), the pine cones i bought from the dollar tree ($1 for a bag of about 8-10 of them), and the christmas lights we had from the year before. i twisted the berry pieces onto the garland with the same wire they came on, and the left over wire i twisted around the pine cones and then placed them in the garland. the hard part was twisting all the christmas lights around the garland (it's faster when you have someone helping). my husband then placed nails around the trim above the door and below the brick and then he placed the garland. i used the 40% discount coupons that HB has online to purchase the lanterns on the stairs and then added left over pine cones & berries in them and placed flameless candles that i purchased at the dollar tree in them. i had enough left over garland to place around my mailbox.

PB airplane knock off

there are a couple of versions of this PB planked airplane knock offs, but unfortunately when it comes to certain things, i can be super picky, and when it comes to copying/imitating things, i like to make it as realistic as possible. now don't get me wrong, i learned a lot from these other blogs too, but their outcome wasn't as close to the real thing for my liking. for my airplane, i bought 4 24" plywood squares from Home Depot (ab $16, thank you military discount aka hubby), i bought 1 bottle of antique white paint, 1 bottle of white paint, and 1 small bottle of burnt umber all from walmart and all acrylic. i also bought one of those sponge brush things that i used for the white paints and a SUPER OLD AND FRAYED brush for the actual plane. seriously, i looked everywhere for a brush bc i didn't want to spend money on brushes and was desperate enough to use a make up brush, so i looked for one under my sink when EUREKA! i found an old paintbrush that was stiff because the last person to use it didn't take the time to clean it off. i'm glad i used an old brush though, otherwise the lines would've been a little too perfect and i wanted to create the ragged/distressed/vintage look that PB has going on. (i have a lot of run-on sentences. ha. my english teacher would be ashamed). ok so this is what i did. i painted the planks of wood (on the knotted side bc i had messed up on the other side after trying to use mod podge to transfer an image using the directions from another blogger bc it added more character) with the plain white paint and allowed it to dry (one coat is enough, it doesn't matter if the wood can still be seen). next i used the antique white on top of it. now here comes the hard part. i looked at the different pictures PB has of their plane shot at different angles, and i drew the fuselage (i didn't even know what the crap that was until my hubby explained to me - 'it's where the people sit babe') first. the blog that does the knock off where she actually draws it on paper and then transfers it...well to me that 'fuselage' is a little too narrow, so i made mine fat. i think a little too fat, but i like 'em a little thick. hahaha. (btw the drawing was made in pencil directly on the painted wooden planks - you can erase). sooo then i started drawing the-thing-that-holds-the-propellers, i didn't want them perfect circles, so i sketched them out first and then used things around the house that were circular to make sure my circles weren't completely off. i drew the left part of the plane first, if you are facing the plane.after i finished painting the plane (i used one color - burnt umber- for the entire plane), i watered down some of the burnt umber paint and with a rag went over all the planks and then took the brush and dipped it in the paint and painted spots on the planks and then sanded those spots down a little. i took a lot of pictures and i think that's what helped the most bc it allowed me to look at my imperfections. also, i saved a picture of the actual PB plane on my iphone and then i would take pictures of my plane and just swipe back and forth between pictures to make sure they looked somewhat similar. there was A LOT of sketching. it does help if you are SOMEWHAT artistically inclined, BUT anyone can draw if they want. just look at the plane and divide it in shapes and don't look at is as a whole object. sketch it out...keep sketching until u get the shape you want. anyway, here is the finished project that will go in my eldest son's room:

this is PB:

 this one is mine:

Hello World!!

Ok so i have been absent for a few months...I gave birth to a healthy brown haired-blue-eyed boy July 8th. And yes, although it is exciting to have a new baby, it is also very very very TIRING, bc they apparently don't know how to appreciate sleeping time. Welcome back sleep deprivation. So anyways, all the crying plus lack of sleep plus constant breast feeding made me feel oh-so-tired (no time for blogging!), until a friend suggested putting baby on a routine. so i did, and oh has it worked WONDERS. at four weeks he was drinking 4oz of formula plus whatever from breast milk and eating every 3 hours and sleeping for about 4 hours. he just recently turned 10 weeks and i have changed his feeding schedule to every 4 hours with 6oz of formula (no more breast milk :( )...and the best part is...HE SLEEPS FROM 9PM UNTIL 6AM! and then he eats at 6 am, goes back to sleep and wakes up at 0930. HALLELUJAH!! in a nutshell, best thing to do with a baby - put them on a schedule. anyhoo, i worked on a little summin summin and finished today. i will post a blog on that in just a sec....

breakfast citrusy french toast & brown sugared turkey bacon

 i have a hard time with breakfast...coming up with ideas for lunch can be hard too, but breakfast poses more of a challenge, so when i saw this following recipe in a magazine (i can't remember which one), i copied it down. here it is:

citrusy french toast - serves 8
2 cups pancake mix
2 cups of water
4 teaspoons grated orange zest
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 c of butter, divided
16 slices of white sandwich bread
maple syrup
whisk first 4 ingredients and 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons butter in medium bowl until smooth. melt remaining 1 tablespoon in butter in a skillet over medium heat. dip bread slices in the batter, coating well. cook slices in skillet in batches 1-2 minutes on each side or until golden, turning with spatula. remove from pan; keep warm. serve w/maple syrup.

when i make that, i serve it with brown sugared turkey bacon,. i don't eat pork so i use turkey bacon, also it's less fattening.

1/2 cup of brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
8 slices of thick sliced bacon, halved
combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. dip each piece of bacon into mixture to coat. arrange each piece in an aluminum foil-lined broiler pan. bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until turkey bacon is crisp and sugar is bubbly. place on aluminum foil to cool, makes 16 pieces.

the turkey slices made that way is super delicious. if i don't have time to make the toast, i just buy the raisin/cinammon bread and toast that and spread butter over it and serve it with the turkey bacon and instant grits. hope u enjoy!

knock-off evelyn's favorite pasta recipe

if it's a recipe, is it considered a knock off? anyway, this is by far the best dish i've ever had at any restaurant. it comes from none other than the cheesecake factory. it's not completely exactly like it because i've added a few of my own favorite ingredients and taken out some that i didn't like of theirs, but it is still OH SO YUMMY!
SERVES:2-3 people
INGREDIENTS:
Penne Rigate Pasta---------------1 to 1-1/2 cup
Eggplant--------------------------1 chopped
Broccoli---------------------------1 cup chopped
Sun-dried Tomatoes--------------2 tbsp (i buy mine from kroger)
Green bell pepper-----------------1
Pine nuts--------------------------1 tsp (optional - i don't use those)
Olive oil----------------------------5-6 tbp
Garlic pods-------------------------4-5
Salt---------------------------------as required
Basil leaves-------------------------few chopped
Parmesean cheese-----------------1/2 cup grated (optional)
I really like capers and kalamata olives, so I usually add those at #5. You probably won't find the kalamata olives in walmart, but you will in Kroger. I use the entire small glass bottle of both capers and kalamata olives. The sun dried tomatoes taste better if they are in preserves rather than dry which is how walmart sells them, so you'll have to get the tomatoes from Kroger also. With those I usually use half the glass bottle. Also, so that the eggplant doesn't taste bitter, chop it up and let it soak in water with about a teaspoon of salt.
DIRECTIONS:
1.Keep all the vegetables(eggplants,broccoli,bell pepper) freshly chopped and set aside for frying.
2.Measure 1 to 1-1/2 cup of pasta and throw them into hot boiling water.
3.Add very little salt,tsp oil and boil until the instructed time on the pasta packet.
4.Do not drain out the water immediately.Do it prior to mixing with the fried vegetables to avoid drying.
5.Heat olive oil,add chopped garlic, pine nuts, green peppers. Then add the broccoli and lastly eggplant.
6.Maintain the heat on medium-low and cook till the veggies are 1/4 th done for 4-5 mins.
7.Drain out the pasta and add them to veggies along with some salt,basil leaves,sundried tomatoes and saute them for 5-6 mins.
8.Do not overcook them.The veggies should be slightly crunchy rather than soft.
9.Turn off transfer to serving plate and sprinkle with parmesan cheese for more flavor.

Enjoy!!

owl baby shower for boy

owls are SO flipping cute to me and i like how they're a symbol of wisdom. i knew i wanted to have a theme for my baby shower (for a boy) & i didn't want it to be the usual rubber duckies or noah's ark (i'm not knocking either one of those themes, i just wanted something different), so i surfed the web. the majority of the ideas for the decoration came from this website. here are the pictures & ideas for games:

i made these cupcakes out of white cake mix (is that what it's called? lol) from walmart and i used the cream cheese icing for the white and added blue food coloring to get the blue cupcakes (i only used a couple of drops) and of course used the chocolate icing for the brown cupcakes. i used a zip lock bag and snipped a VERY small piece from the corner to pipe out the designs onto the top of the cup cakes. (just place the icing into the zip lock bag, squeeze it all to the corner where you've made the hole, and start decorating!)

these owls were my favorite! all i did was follow the instructions on this site to make the felt owls and placed them as the center piece on the dessert table. i bought the felt at walmart and some of it was felt i had lying around from previous crafts. the styrofoam balls i also purchased at walmart. you can get all this also at a craft store, but walmart was cheaper for me. the nest was a little basket i found in the garage, but you can also get a lot of little twigs and super glue them together. i used an actual egg for the nest by poking a small hole at the bottom with the tip of a knife and shaking the inside of the egg out & then rinsing it. i super glued all of this to a tree branch from my back yard.

these are various shots of the dessert table. the place card for the dessert table read, 'chocolate, sugar, and sweets whooo my!' in one of the apothecary jars i placed chocolate malt balls & yogurt covered raisins. in the other i used hershey kisses and this new cookies and cream hershey kisses that looks like a tablet. i also made coconut macaroons (SO easy to make and SO delish, here's the recipe) and a pineapple dessert that is also delish but i'm not sure what i did with the recipe (shame on me!). i had some blue plastic safety pins i just scattered across the table and the place cards i made from left over paper from the owls (which you'll see in a bit) and left over blue tissue paper from the martha stewart inspired paper pom-poms, instructions here.

this was probably the 'most expensive' piece because of the owl hole puncher i bought at michael's (it's martha stewart, $19 i think). i got the little blue diamond jewels in the scrap booking section at walmart and used them as eyes on the owls. i took brown yarn, also from walmart, and i taped it to the wall and bought the clothes pins from family tree, super glued the owls to the pins, and pinned up the ultrasound pictures the tech had given me on my 5 month visit. 

 this was the blue drink. all i did was add one of those liters of ginger ale, two 64 oz white grape juice, and blue hawaiin punch. there wasn't a recipe i followed, i just added all these to taste. for example, if you don't want too much bubbly, use less of the ginger ale.

now for the game table. i made a place card that said, "life's a hoot." trying to find games that weren't the same games everyone knows by memory because they are always played at baby showers was really hard to me. these are the games:
1. Guess WHOOOO!: on the invitation, i told the guests to bring a picture of herself as a baby, so the basket you see is where the pictures went when the guests came in, but they were not to tell anyone that was them as a baby. the guests later had to guess who was who.
2. What's on the tray: the basket the guests had to put their pictures in was sitting next to several baby items (about 20 of them), so naturally, they looked at these items when placing their pictures in the basket but a lot of them probably didn't pay much attention to it. well, for the first game after everyone was sitting down, we put away all the items and had the guests write out as many items they could remember.
3. Rice/Safety pins: for this i had two bowls of rice and in the rice i put 20 small safety pins (make sure they're closed, you don't want them to poke your guests *snicker*). you get two guests and blind fold them and they have a minute to see who can dig out the most safety pins (trust me this game is hard bcz those little safety pins feel like rice).
4. Birthing Baby: for this game i bought a bunch of plastic easter eggs and small plastic babies that fit into the eggs that i found at hobby lobby. i placed a baby in the egg and filled it up with water, placed them in a bowl and let them freeze before the guests came in. when they came in, they were each given an egg and who ever 'birthed' the baby first (had the baby completely ice free) was the winner.
i must admit that i did do some of the typical shower games where you unscramble words. i used scrambled baby animal names (for example, oalf - foal). i also did another game where we had a bunch of plush babies (you can use potatoes) and divided up the guests in two teams and had buckets on one end. each team member had to place a potato between their legs and without dropping them quickly go across the room and drop them in their team bucket. my favorite game was one that i made from scrap paper and poster board was pin the sperm. i found this online but the poster cost $15 (not including shipping/handling), so i made it myself. you don't need to use scrap paper, i did because i didn't have all the markers (thanks to my three year old - lol). i made the little sperm out of black scrap paper, same with the ovule and just used scotch tape to stick them to the poster. i printed out a bunch of pictures of my husband's face and placed one on each sperm and a picture of my face to the ovule (or is it ovum??). this game is played just like 'pin the donkey.'

this is what it looked like after everyone was done trying to pin the sperm to the egg.

hope this gave someone ideas for their baby shower!

the awesome soon-to-be nursery drawer

ever have that feeling...where you went to a store and then all of a sudden you hear this glorious music and see a light beaming down from the sky, so you follow it...and there it is...something from your dreams. i've had that feeling. twice. once with my car. i knew i wanted it dark grey & stick shift and i had gone through the entire lot looking at cars when out of the corner of my eye the clouds rolled back and the sun beamed down directly on top of my car. well i had that feeling today. i was at the thrift store (it's called providence, and it's almost like a salvation army/goodwill) not looking for anything in particular when i saw a cluttered area filled with dressers and drawers and desks. but something caught my eye. the light beam was shining down in the middle of a cluster of old furniture directly on top of this super huge super awesome drawer. and it didn't have a price, but the other drawers and desks (smaller ones) around were priced around $100-$150. i quickly waddled around the store trying to find a worker. she came, looked at it, but didn't know the price so she called another lady. this lady came, looked at me, and then looked at it and said, "it's $40." REALLY?!?! $40?!?! i didn't wanna smile at her when she said that bcz i didn't wanna chance her increasing her price. i emailed a picture of it to the hubby to see if he approved (since i'll be needing his muscle work to sand it down). after what seemed an eternity, he emailed me back and said, "yes if you like it & there's nothing seriously wrong with it, get it." i checked it, wiggled all the drawers looked at the back - it couldn't be more perfect. after much adieu, here is a picture of it. i would've preferred to do a before & after, but i'm SO excited i found this FOR FOURTY BUCKS that i wanted to make a post about it. i plan on sanding it down, adding a dark stain, new knobs & removing the center drawer doors. it will go in the nursery.

it's massive and all real wood. this picture does not do it justice.

now this is a picture i found on the web, i can't remember if it was from another blog or what, otherwise i would link it, but i like what they've done to this drawer & i was planning on doing something similar to it.