Christmas Cookie Pin-Win

I saw this idea on Pinterest, and since it fit in nicely with my "semi-homemade" baking abilities, I decided to give it a show for my Christmas cookie exchange last week. It turned out marvelously. So marvelously, I'm sharing the recipe with you :)

Candy Cane Christmas Cookies (whew, that's a lot of C's)

1 sugar cookie mix

1 stick of butter

2 eggs

1 packet of candy cane pudding, Jello brand

1 tsp vanilla

Approx. 2 cups of white chocolate chips (I always put a lot since we're big chocolate fans) 

Peppermint pieces

Not my picture, but this is very close to what mine looked like.

Mix together all ingredients except peppermint pieces. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. While still hot, sprinkle peppermint pieces on top. Eat.

See? Soooo simple, and they were scrumptious. Super easy to whip up for some unannounced Christmas carolers or a family gathering! :)

Pumpkin Muffins: Another Fall Pin-Win!

We've all seen this pin over the past month or so: 

Source Link

I have really wanted to try it, since recipes with more than 5-6 ingredients cause me to break out in hives. Pumpkin is also one of J's favorite flavors, so I wanted to make something yummy for him as well. These seemed to be the perfect, no-fail muffins. Even if I mess up, I've only spent about $2-3, so it's all good :)

First thing I did was read all the comments under the original post so I could get the best results possible, and I'm glad I did. I ended up subbing out Spice Cake mix for the regular vanilla, adding 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon of Mexican vanilla (which I add to everything anyways.) I also sprinkled brown sugar on top of the muffins before baking.

So here's the recipe and process:

1 Spice Cake mix

15 oz. of canned pumpkin

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Brown Sugar to taste

Mix the first 4 ingredients together. pre-heat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with .... liners. (Aren't they called something else? "Liners" seems redundant...) Fill muffin liners. Sprinkle brown sugar on top. Bake for 20 mins. Consume. I mean, seriously. Does it get easier than that?! 

Mmmm...you know you want some! :)

I kid you not, before the second batch was out of the oven, we had already eaten half of the first, they are that good. A-bug broke down into tears when I wouldn't give her more, after she ate a whole one and half of mine... they are SO GOOD. J added cream cheese frosting on top because he's a sugar addict, but that's not necessary if you're trying to save on calories or sugar or whatever. Oh, and did I mention these are only about 100 calories?! Seriously?! Which is probably why I didn't feel guilty about eating 4. Yes, 4. Don't judge me.

Note: these can also be made with Devil's food cake and chocolate chips, but per my mother, the chocolate ones aren't as good as the regular Spice Cake mix ones. You can also add raisins if you prefer, which I may do for J later. I see a lot of batches of these in our future. 

Decorating on a Budget: Fall Decor Edition

So, if you haven't figured out that I absolutely LOVE Autumn, you haven't read enough recent blog posts. There are so many beautiful ways to decorate for Fall, and another bonus is that you can leave it all up from September till Thanksgiving. That's almost 3 months of seasonal decor done in one fell swoop, which is awesome for busy moms like me.

Before, when we were living in the apartment, we were so cramped, the extent of my Fall decorating was hanging a scare crow on our door, switching out the fake flowers in my kitchen's vase and setting out the Fall edition Reese's. Kinda sad. But not this year! This year I have a house to decorate! And I am so excited about this fact! My hubby (and his wallet)? ....not so much. So here's part of what I did in my living room for Fall this year to stay on budget while appeasing my inner Candice Olson.

The pumpkins are slightly unbalanced in this pic because
Aria had been playing with them right before I snapped this.

First off, I have an automatic advantage when decorating for both Fall and Christmas because my living areas are already green with pops of red. This was not intentional, but I will say it makes giving off a seasonal  ambiance for both of these major decorating seasons a lot easier. I got the candle holders at Ikea for CHEAP and couldn't love them more. They have a ton to choose from, and you can see all their candle holder options here. Mine are the dark brown finish, but they also have a white option that could conceivably be spray painted any other color you need. I also got the candles at Ikea for an awesome price - $10 for a 3 pack of the red candles and the white block candle was $5, I believe. I have not found another place on the planet where you can get candle holders and candles for that cheap. I got my pumpkins and faux leaf garland at Hobby Lobby for 40% off...I think I paid a total of $30 for all 3 pumpkins and the garland. The awesome thing about this is that I can just take the pumpkins and garland down, and swap out snowmen and twinkle lights for Christmas/Winter with the same candles and holders.

A lot of times, the key to budget decorating is getting great pieces on sale that you can use for multiple seasons (like the candles and their holders), and then buying clearance for the strictly seasonal items at the end of the season (think Fall decor in December, Christmas in January etc.) Investing in some nice silk flowers that you can swap out for the different seasons is a nice way to go as well. I get mine at Hobby Lobby when they go on sale for 50% off, which is rather frequently. Something else to invest in for ALL seasons is a set of glass hurricanes. They can be used for every season, and always look classy. They can also easily be moved around to make a nice centerpiece for a dinner party, or up and out of the way when the kids are having a play date. Here are some great examples of glass hurricanes filled for Fall. You should also check out this lady's Pinterest board strictly for glass hurricane decor. It's awesome. 

 See? Super versatile, and there are different styles for everyone. You can get them for cheap at places like Michael's, Hobby Lobby and sometimes even Meijer.

How easy is this? Leaf placemats from
Walmart that were stuffed.
Easy-Peasy.
Source Link

I'm really loving this page from the Better Homes and Gardens online magazine - pretty much all their ideas can be done for relatively cheap, some even for free! (A glass vase and branches with colored leaves? Does it get easier than that?!) Acorns are free if you can track them down at the park with the help of your kids (turn it into a game, they'll love it.) Baby pumpkins can be bought for about a buck from a farmer's market, and those can even be spray painted to match any non-traditional colors you're decorating with. And while twine and burlap may not be free, they can be used over and over again, so they're worth spending some money on.

Here are some other great Autumn decorating ideas that I'm loving from Pinterest right now.

These candle holders are
GORGEOUS, and can be
used all year long. The pillar
candles are mounted
right into the baby pumpkins,
which have been spray painted.

Again with the glass hurricanes -
unpopped popcorn, silk leaves,
twine and pillar candles. Bam. 

Finally, switching out the pictures in your picture frames can actually make a big difference. (Mine aren't up on the wall, so I will try and explain to you what I mean.) If you're like me, and try to get family pictures during every season, you'll notice a trend in the coloring of your pictures. Fall pictures usually have lots of browns, reds and golds. This is perfect if you're sticking with traditional colors for Fall decor.  This also applies for Christmas and Spring time. Swapping out color coordinated family photos is a simple way to give more of that seasonal feel to your home. If you don't have any yet, take some this year, and you'll be set for next year :)

Remember, you can see my entire Pinterest board for learning to decorate on a budget here! 

Fall Dinner: Pin-Win!

As most of my "regular readers" out there know, I'm really not a big cook. I love food and trying new things, but I'm just not blessed with the talent that my mom has for baking, cooking, canning and all sorts of other food-making verbs. I have a few basic meals I stick with, and because my hubby is wonderful, he doesn't mind the same 10 meals or so.

One of my favorite things to do for dinner is to pop a pork tenderloin in the crockpot with whatever else suits my fancy. I've never really used a recipe, and sometimes that is very apparent. Well, yesterday, I decided to use a Pinterest recipe (more like a concept lol) with my pork tenderloin, and it turned out so good, I had to tell you all about it. I actually ended up using 2 crock pots, because I didn't want my carrots to have the same flavors I was using for the tenderloin. I'll post both "recipes."

My Best-Ever Pork Tenderloin

Any size pork tenderloin - I bought a big one this last time, so I could freeze the rest for meals after the baby comes. I've also used smaller ones that are one-mealers.
Applesauce

1 can of Dr. Pepper (or Mr. Pibb... my hubby actually prefers the latter, but it's not available up here in MI.)

Cinnamon 

Brown Sugar

I put the applesauce on top of the tenderloin and the Dr. Pepper all around it. I then added the cinnamon and  brown sugar to the Dr. Pepper. I don't really have an amount for these...I just dumped in what looked good to my eye. I left it in the crock pot on low for 6 hours, and it was seriously the best Pork Tenderloin I've ever  made. Even A-bug who doesn't really like meat ate quite a bit.


My Best-Ever Cooked Carrots (I know, my recipes have such original titles...)
1 pound of carrots

2 tablespoons fresh oregano

1/4 cup of brown sugar

3/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon of salt

I just dumped it all in the rock pot and put it on high for 3 hours, and they were perfect. Soft enough for A to eat without us cutting them up, but they didn't fall apart when you tried to stab them with a fork. They were delish.

So anyways, that's my super easy-peasy Fall-inspired dinner. Have I mentioned how much I love the flavors of Fall? Hopefully, I'll get some more yummy recipes to share later. I have a whole bunch of ingredients for more Pinterest recipes on my shopping list for this weekend, and I can't wait to try them. I'm sure J and A won't mind being my guinea pigs ;)

(I would like to note that neither of these pics were mine, but they look remarkably close what came out of my crock pot. Yes, the pork really was that tender. I'm seriously going to throw some BBQ sauce on the leftovers and turn them into pulled pork sandwiches, that's how tender it was.)

Kylar's Nursery Pictures.... Almost Done!

I can't believe we're almost done with Kylar's nursery. There were days right after we moved in when I would see the gigantic holes in the walls and the nasty floor and think, "This is never going to happen." But now, after hours and hours of hard work from countless friends who helped mud over the holes and paint over the nasty color, from my hubby and daddy who installed the gorgeous floor and my father-in-law who worked on the trim and sub-flooring .... after all that, it's finally looking like the picture I had in my mind.

All we have left to do is install his shelves, hang up the wall art and get the curtains up. His dresser is full of his newborn-sized clothing, his closet is also full of toys and clothes and his crib is all ready with bumper pads and sheets. I can't wait for this little guy to make his appearance :)

I'm waiting on the cushion for the rocker, still. It was out of
stock when I picked up the chair. As you can see, the curtain
rod is up, but it was the wrong size, so my mom is making a
new one out of a difference branch (Pinterest idea here!) so
I'm waiting to put the curtains up.

All of Kylar's little froggies I've been collecting since we found
out we were having a boy. I really love the eclectic look of them :)

This was Aria's wooden dresser that we re-painted and
added new nobs to. I love the way it turned out. I also
love the way the bright green rug looks with the dark floors :)

Let's not forget what it looked like before.... and this was
AFTER all the holes had been patched! lol

My inspiration picture.... not bad, if I say so myself! :)

Kylar's Nursery Project: Painted Stripes

A lot of the ideas I used for the kid's rooms in the new house came from Pinterest - I claim no originality. I really loved the clean, simple, calmness that gray stripes on a white wall provided, so I wanted to give it a shot on a couple walls for K's nursery. Here was my inspiration picture: 

Source Link

I loved how the walls remained neutral, and the pops of color came from the curtains and rug. I also loved the animal accents, but wanted to stick with a single animal. I chose frogs; they seemed like a great baby boy theme that he could also grow into as he got older. As you could see in my last post, it also made for a very cute shower theme :) I decided to keep all the furniture neutral as well with a white metal crib, a white wood changing table/dresser combo and a black chair. I'm still looking for another smaller side table to go next to the chair. At the time I'm writing this, the dresser is not completely re-assembled, so I don't have a completely updated picture. When we're done setting everything up, I'll post one. 

For this post, I just wanted to do a step by step of the painted gray stripes. If you've read any of my other posts, you know that all our walls had to painted about 5 times to get a decent starting surface. We used Kilz primer and Olympic Premium Ultra-White Zero-VOC paint, which I loved working with. The bright white gave it an extra clean feeling, which I was striving for.  

Painting one of the many coats of white onto the walls.

Next, came all the taping. This was the tricky part. I wanted exactly 12" stripes on the walls, so I had to be very careful how I taped everything off. When doing this, you need to measure 12" from inside the tape for the colored stripes, but only 10" from inside the tape for the white stripes if you're using 1" painter's tape. If you're using a different width for whatever reason, you'll have to take the extra width into account. This will make your stripes not look even when you're done taping, but the end result will be even.

I will also say that you should use either a ruler that's exactly 12" or a yardstick to measure the stripes. You'll also want to measure several times down the wall, not just at the top and bottom, or your stripes will most likely bow. This will be incredibly obvious after painting and even more difficult to fix. 

Next is a step I didn't actually do in this room, but I did in A's room, and I wished I had done it in K's as well. If you take your white (or base color of your choice) and paint the edges of your tape, it will keep the accent color from leaking under your tape. Because, let's face it, even the best painter's tape is going to leak through. We didn't have any major leaks that are in obvious places, but A's room's stripes ended up a lot cleaner. 

My wonderful hubby reaching the tops of the stripes.
I couldn't climb up the stool anymore with my
swollen ankles :) I also HIGHLY recommend this
paint pad kind of thing over a roller for this project.
Sorry I don't have a more specific name for it, but
you can get them at any major HI store.

Finally, don't wait too long to pull off the tape; you'll run the risk of peeling the paint off with the tape. I pulled the tape off the morning after I finished the touch-ups, and didn't have any peeling issues whatsoever. I really love the way it turned out :) Here's a pic in the daylight with the crib, and one with the trim I picked out as well as the finished laminate floors, which I LOVE. The lime green material in the first pic is going to be the curtains. Like I said, more pics will be uploaded as I finish putting everything together. 

My mom found this fabulous crib at
a garage sale for only $15. I'm thrilled :)

If you love this flooring as much as I
do, you can get it at Lowe's. The brand
is Swiftlock Plus. (The "plus" is very
important, I have been told.)
It's part of their in-stock inventory, and it's
called Hand Scraped Chestnut Hickory.

Baby Shower for Kylar

I will say up front that I can take exactly zero credit for all the adorable ideas and decorations that were at Kylar's shower. I have some truly wonderful friends who did a ton of work, and it was an adorable shower. I just wanted to post some pictures and give these wonderful people some credit. 

The adorable diaper cake made by Sarah

I loved these centerpieces, and the yummy candy in
 the cute little boxes was definitely a bonus :)

The cupcakes were beautiful AND yummy!
Thanks to Kara B for these :)

Katie made these adorable candle holders

I still don't know who did this, but if it was
you, please take credit. It's too cute to be anonymous.

I loved how even the punch was green.
All the green looked awesome with the
gray tablecloths. 

The food was straight up delicious.
Thanks to Carolyn A for the awesome
baked potato bar, AMAZING chili
and all the extras!

My amazing friends and family who planned this party:
Allie W, Me, Kara B, Katie S
(also thanks to Kristen J and Sand J, who sadly didn't make the picture)

Fashionista on a Budget

Ok, so I'm not exactly a "fashionista." I have never been one who can walk into a thrift store (or any sotre for that matter, honestly) and just put together a fabulous outfit. Unless it's already on the mannequin. Then I am all over that! But I do love fashion and I do love to decorate. A lot. Which is hard when you have nigh unto zero monies. I felt like I did an OK job with what I had when we moved into the apartment, but now we're moving into a bigger home. That means more walls, more rooms and a lot more money. Especially since we'll be replacing the Leopard print carpet immediately. Carpet and flooring aren't cheap, ya' know. 

So, I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest, looking for cheap ideas that look really nice. And since I'm pregnant and won't exactly be able to do a lot of painting or scaling the walls, I need to make it simple, or I'm going to freak out the hubby. I have never been so thankful for Pinterest than when I started looking at my decorating budget and everything that needed to be done. 

I thought I would share some of my "finds" on here for those of you in a similar predicament as myself. You can also find everything I've found and loved on my Pinterest board "Decorating on a Budget." Please note, I haven't tried these ideas yet, but plan to in the next couple of weeks. I'll update on which ones work well and which ones were a flop. (To see my post on "Productive Pinteresting" click here.) Another note, not all of these had working links on Pinterest, so I tried to add my own directions. We'll see how that goes lol.

What ideas from Pitnerest have you used to spruce up your home on a budget? Which ones were a bust? Which ones would you recommend? Would LOVE to hear feedback on any of these ideas that you've tried. 

I have posted this idea before and can't
wait to try it. She has a great tut on it so
so click here :)

This one didn't have a link or tut
attached, but the pin said it was simply
a piece of wood, padding, pretty fabric
and 4 chair legs you can get at Lowe's for
about $5 each. Sounds easy enough, right?

I'm so in love with this idea, and plan
to do it in our new living room.
Great tut here.

I'm hoping I can use the same concept
from the above large canvas idea
for this sheet music art to put above my piano.

Ikea lamp + sheet music = brilliance.

How to turn outdated laminate
counter tops into a chic granite alternative.
Step by step tut here.

More Decorating for Aria and Her Big Girl Room

It's been a few days since I've blogged, and it's because of all the insanity going on here. We're hopefully and FINALLY! moving this weekend, so I've been busy boxing up things and distracting Aria from the fact that her toys are mysteriously disappearing into boxes which she's not allowed to open. But today, my mom took Aria up to the water park by their house and I have the whole day to myself. I've been Pinteresting and lounging around all day. I know I should be doing laundry or packing up more stuff, but it's so nice to have a little alone time. Anyways, all that to say, I can find time to blog today :)

For Aria's birthday, I wanted to get her something she would actually use and not be just another cast-off toy. She has a lot of those, and I didn't feel like wasting my money on a 5 minute diversion. So when I saw this adorable chair at HomeGoods, I couldn't resist.

Aria's new chair. How cute, right?
And yes, it's a rocker!!

There are fewer things that Aria loves more than sitting in a chair, reading books and rocking. Oh, how she loves to rock. And this chair fits her perfectly, and it's just too cute. I got a good price on it, and knew she would fall in love with it - and she did. How could she not?!

Wall paint idea

But now, I had to rethink my original plans for her room. I posted a couple months ago some inspiration pictures for her "big girl room" and I still really love those. But the lime green didn't really fit in with the teal and pink I had planned. At first, I just decided to switch the color scheme; teal and hot pink are easy to turn to lime green and hot pink, right? Well, after that, a few other ideas started morphing, and now I'm thinking of going an entirely different direction. I have to be really careful, because the room she'll be staying in is quite small, and I don't want to over power it with too much color, or too much going on on her walls. I decided to stick to color on just one accent wall, and it will be a punch of color. What do you think?

Because that wall is quite saturated in color, I'm probably just going to paint her furniture white, although I've been toying with the idea of painting the drawers a different color than the base... maybe a white base with lime green drawer fronts? Still thinking. I'm also going to redo her lamp. It's a pretty lamp and worked perfectly in her nursery, but it will need a face-lift if it's going to fit into her big girl bed.

How cute is this print? It's a bed sheet,
but I'm sure I could turn it into a
lamp shade cover....

You can see the lamp in the background of this picture of her current nursery. >>

The lamp base is going to get a coat of lime green and I'm going to re-cover the lamp shade with some fun pattern in hot pink. Maybe a damask or chevron? We'll see what I can find for cheap :)

Lastly, I'm going to remove the backing of Aria's current white bookcase and Mod Podge some brightly colored scrapbook paper on the back to make it fun and add some more color to the room without overtaking it. I also really want to do a cute and fun window treatment, but since it's been a couple months since we've actually been in the house, I can't completely remember the size/shape of the window in there, so I'm going to wait to make a decision about that until we move in.

I'm thinking about adding some funky Parisian touches as well. 

Hobby Lobby's hot pink
Eiffel Tower. Love the airiness
and fun of it.

How cute would a spray-painted metal Eiffel Tower be sitting on a white dresser? Something like this from Hobby Lobby? >>

I may also put some mirrors on her closet doors to make the room lighter and feel a bit bigger. 

How do you make your kid's smaller rooms feel bigger while still fitting their personality? I still want her room to be fun for her and place she likes to be, even though it's small.

Birthday Party Recap

Well, it's now Tuesday after Aria's 2nd birthday party, which was Saturday, but I'm just not getting around to blogging about it. This is mostly because I couldn't stand my house being such a mess any longer, and I spent most of yesterday pulling everything back together.

The party was a success, for which I was glad. It's really the first party I've pulled off by myself, although I did get a LOT of help from my mom. She's definitely the party-thrower/entertainer of the family. I just wanted to give Aria a nice party, and had NO idea how much work it would be. But it was fun, and now I'm glad it's over :)

I loved the way the burlap and mason jars came out. We used a simple light aqua plastic table cloth and made burlap runner to go down the middle. We wrapped pieces of burlap around mason jars and tied them up with a pink gingham ribbon, then filled them with hot pink daisies. 

IBC Root Beer and candy sticks

I really loved the way those turned out. I had my husband tie the pink and blue candy sticks in groups of 3, and we put those all along the burlap runner at everyone's spot for their party favors. I also hung pastel pink, green and teal paper lanterns from the pavilion ceiling for some dimension, and liked how that looked.cf

The Pinterest idea I use to make
Aria's special vase. It looks great
but was WAY harder to do than I thought. 

For food, there were a few changes to the menu I had posted about earlier and wanted to do. We decided to nix the homemade cheese sticks, mostly because of time constraints, and put a veggie plate in it's place (although the day of, we actually forgot the veggies in the refrigerator, so I've been eating a lot of broccoli lol.) We still went with the homemade chicken nuggets, and I was glad we did. They ended up being pretty easy and tasty! I ended up going with a different recipe than I had posted before, because after experimenting, my mom found out those others didn't have quite enough flavor. The cinnamon sugar tortilla chips and fruit salsa were a big hit, and I will most definitely be making  those again for parties and family gatherings. And then there were the sweet potato fries. *sigh* They were tasty, although I could not for the life of me get them crispy. So they looked like limp little orange worms in the bowl. But again, they really were tasty.

Stewart's Orange soda, Cream soda and
IBC Root Beer in a big tin tub was a hit,
and I loved the way it looked.

Having the party at the park really was a great idea. The kids all had plenty of room to play and you really need that with a group of toddlers/early elementary-aged kids. And we had the perfect weather. It was sunny and warm, without being too hot - which was definitely a concern this summer. The guys brought a football and had a good time throwing that around while the moms and kids played on the playground. We also had one of our family favorite games, ladder gold, and that was a big hit as well. We had made a bunch of water balloons, but didn't actually use them until most of the younger kids had left. Aria and her friend Ellie had a great time with them, though, and all the "big kids" (my brothers, husband and dad) had a blast throwing them at each other.

Overall, we had a blast, and I hope our guests did too. I'll post a couple recipes below, as well as some pictures from the day.

Panko-Crusted Baked Chicken Nuggets

 (special thanks to my friend Margee for this alternative recipe. It turned out very tasty!)

Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Sugar Chips

(warning: it is not this pretty, but it really is DELICIOUS!)

A group of the adults chilling

My mom made this great sign for us to
take pictures with. This is a shot of all
the kids who came for the party.

Family Photo <3

Family Favorite Recipe: Spaghetti Carbonara

When I went to Europe in 2006, one of my favorite things as a foodie, was enjoying all the different flavors and dishes in European cuisine. My favorite dish ended up being one of the most simple things I ate there, Spaghetti Carbonara. I'm a huge pasta fan anyways, but when you add even more cheese and prosciutto (basically Italian bacon) it only gets better.

Recently my mom discovered a super easy recipe for this yummy dish and it's now a family favorite. It takes me no longer than 1/2 hour max to mix it all together. Because it's SOO easy that even I can make it, I thought I would share so maybe you and your family can enjoy a little bit of Italy :)
(Full Disclosure: this is not in any way a healthy dish. At all.)

You'll need Spaghetti, 1 lb of either prosciutto (if you want to be really authentic) or bacon (which is also yummy,) grated Parmesan cheese, a couple eggs and salt and pepper to taste. Yep, that's all. Like I said, super easy.

~ First, make up your spaghetti like normal. Nothing special there.

~ Next, fry up your bacon or prosciutto. This is easily done on a cookie sheet inside your oven, since 1lb is a lot to fry up all at once. Trust me on this one. SAVE YOUR BACON GREASE!
~ Chop your bacon up into bite-sized pieces.
~ Add about 1/2 cup, give or take, of the grated parm to your bacon grease and stir it together. Now slowly add your 2 eggs to the grease and cheese mixture. (If you do this in the wrong order or too quickly, you will scramble your eggs. Not yummy.)
~ Add your bacon and grease/cheese/egg mixture to the spaghetti and stir well.
~ Enjoy.

Seriously, that's it. If your family so desires, you can add saute'd mushrooms or peppers as well. I'm not a huge fan of either, but those in my family who are have enjoyed both variations.