Adding a Little Lace to Life

We've been writing this blog for a little over six months and I would like to consider all of you friends. Can I call you friends? I feel like since I tell you random facts about my life at least twice a week, I am going to deem you as my friends - I hope you don't mind (and if you do mind, please don't tell me - thanks). Since we are now friends I feel like I can tell you about my addiction. It really is a problem. 

I am addicted to hairbands. I have one with me at all times... seriously, all times. I've been known to have mild melt downs when I am somehow left without one, or even worse - one breaks. What's that? You think I'm exaggerating? You think I'm just being dramatic? Let me show you something that I recently came across:

In case you can't tell, this is a picture of me on my wedding day. I am laughing at the very odd plan to stuff to me in a garbage bag (another story for another day), but more importantly you can see my hair is clearly done and it is clearly NOT the occasion for a hairband and yet there it is. I have a problem. 

Because of my problem, I've been trying to find new ways to keep my unruly hair out of my face. I've seen a bunch of pins for headbands and I am slowly working my way through them. I had seen a cute lace one forever ago and then I lost the pin (I hate when that happens). Yesterday I found it again - YAY!

I love a bunch of things from Elisa McLaughlin and this is no exception. She made her headband with some elastic but since I don't have some in the house for some reason, I used what I had --- a hairband. 

I recently picked up some lace from Mindy Mae's Market (go check them out...love.) and this was the perfect use for it. I measured my head and then cut the lace an inch and a half smaller than the measurement. This was to account for the hairband and stretch. I overlayed all the lace and then folded it over the hairband and sewed it down on itself. After doing that for both sides -- I put it on. Yup, that easy!!

Notice my hair is still pulled back in a hairband, but I think I'm making progess on my addiction by adding the headband. 

Maybe not.

Roses are Red...or sometimes they're yellow

I love accessories.  I love DIY accessories.  I'd seen this project a few months back and wanted to do it but was lacking felt.  FELT.  What kind of crafter doesn't have FELT?

*hangs head in shame*


And then I made at least 472 trips to JoAnn's, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, AC Moore...and kept forgetting to buy felt.  Finally, around Christmas time, I remembered and loaded up.

Then I came home, put my felt away in my craft room and completely forgot what projects that required felt had caught my eye to begin with.

Look, organization is NOT my strong suit.  Neither is remembering things, apparently.

But, all was not lost my friends.  Fortunately, my little sister pinned this pin recently and it reminded me that I had pinned it a long time ago!

Here is the cute Anthropologie flower necklace knock off, originally found at Little Miss Momma.

You'll need:

- fabric in a color of your choice - a good fat quarter is perfect for this!

- felt

- scissors

- hot glue gun

- a chain/necklace

This project takes a little bit of time so get everything together, sit down with a snack or a beverage and some DVR'd shows to catch up on and get to work.  I recently got sucked into Downton Abbey and have caught up on the first 2 seasons - I watched the season 2 finale while I made this necklace.  

Cut 5 circles from your felt that are approximately 1" in diameter.  Then you'll cut lotsandlotsandlotsandlots of circles the same size out of the fabric you want to use for your flowers.  As you can tell, the circles don't need to be even remotely close to perfect.  I used about 15 circles of fabric per flower.  

Take one fabric circle and scrunch it together, put a dab of hot glue on the bottom and press to the felt circle. Continue this process until the felt is covered.  Click HERE for a more detailed tutorial on the flowers.

Once you have all 5 flowers made, glue each flower on a big square of felt.  

Once the glue is dry, you can cut around the flowers, so there is a big piece of felt on the back holding them all together.  Then you can glue the felt onto your chain.  I had an old necklace that my little guy broke when he grabbed at it, so I just used that chain.

And that's it!  Pretty easy - and uses supplies you probably already have on hand.  And babies love it too!

Ok, I just wanted to post a picture of my cute baby...he was actually way more intrigued by the beeping, flashing camera than he was the necklace.

Also - Jamie and I were interviewed by Benny Evangelista, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle about Pinterest!  Yay for us!  You can find the article HERE.

AND - we are offering up 6 months of ad space to the highest bidder through an auction called Smiles for Christopher, run by RaeElle Photography.  Proceeds benefit the family of a one year old little boy who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma.  Please visit this site and bid: http://photos.raeelle.com/christopher#h16be81fd

Hit or Miss Monday

Something really exciting happened to us this week - we hit 1000 fans on Facebook!  We happen to think our fans are the best, and we couldn't be happier that we hit the 1k mark only 6 months after starting this little blog.  So, to celebrate, we are planning a fun little giveaway very soon so be on the look out!

Now, on to the good stuff -

Jamie's Hit:
i am a ninja when it comes to attacking the floor. a ninja.

And Miss:

i need someone to explain this one to me. why do i want to hide my phone so people can be even more confused and think i am talking to myself... or more importantly, think i'm sort of weirdo because i have a freaking ear on my phone!

And my Hit:

Yeah, I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way!!  It reminds me a little bit of the scene in Clueless where Cher is trying on clothes through that virtual closet type thing.  Wouldn't it be awesome?

Miss:

Ok, I have 5 tattoos and I really try hard not to draw attention to tattoos that I think are weird because I get the whole self expression thing, and usually tattoos are very personal to the person getting them.  But I just don't get this one, and honestly it weirds me out a little.  Where is this keyhole leading to?  Does it open her neck or head or something?  

What were some of your favorite hits or misses this week?

A Little Snack

I am always looking for snacks around the house. I love them and to say that Allen loves them is a major understatement. He is the king of snackers. When we first got married it used to make me insane that I would be making dinner and he would scavenger-ing in the pantry (is that even a word??) After a few years of marriage, I've gotten used to the snacking ... and he's gotten used to the eye roll that seems to involuntarily happen. Because of the inevitable snacking in this house, I've been looking for some new ones that could fall into the healthy but satisfying category. I started seeing lots of pins popping up for toasted/roasted/baked chickpeas and because I have a special place in my heart for chickpeas and their amazing ability to become hummus, I decided to give them a try!

After looking through a few pins, I settled on this one from Fat Girl Trapped In A Skinny Body (must be rough). I'm not going to lie, one of the biggest reasons I chose this one was well --- I had all of the basic ingredients. Always a plus.  

I need to tell you, be prepared for the smell in the house - these little babies smell SO good while they are cooking. I honestly had no plans to eat a bunch of these out of the oven. I really was making them for a snacking time to be determined later. I REALLY was. That didn't happen. After they came out of the oven, I HAD to taste them... and then taste them again... and again. I finally forced myself to stop eating them long enough to take a couple pictures for you and to let Allen taste them. He finished them off. They have spice, they have crunch, they have all the components of the perfect bar snack without the old drunk lady hitting on the bartender. Good times! 

Spicy Roasted Chickpeas -Adapted from Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body

Ingredients
1 can (14 oz ) Chickpeas
2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Drain and wash the chickpeas. Dry the chickpeas on a paper towel and rub them gently to get the skins off. You want to get the chickpeas as dry as possible.

While they are drying, mix all of the spices in a separate bowl. Add and subtract the spices to your taste. We like spice so I kicked up the cayenne.

Place the clean and dry chickpeas in a bowl and toss them with the olive oil. Once coated with oil, sprinkle on the spice mix to taste. If you don’t use it all, you can always save it for your next batch!

Place the seasoned chickpeas on a cookie sheet and put the sheet in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Mix them around about half way through. Make sure you check them frequently at the end of the cooking time because they will go from crunchy to burned in a hot minute. 

After all of this talking, I think I need to go make some more snacks!! 

Frame it Up

A new Goodwill just opened up near my house - which is totally exciting.  Yes, I said exciting.  Even though my son likes to remind me (a lot) that it's always junk and I rarely find anything good there, I STILL love my Goodwill.  Because honestly, a score is a score - even if it's a rare one, right?

I feel like I got a great Goodwill score recently - I was rolling through there just perusing the shelves of knick knacks and baskets and old kitchen appliances and BAM-O...there was this old, antique-y, ornate picture frame.  When I say old, I mean old.  A few small pieces of it were falling off in the corners, and the glass had come loose and was hanging there haphazardly...but I saw serious potential.

Isn't it pretty?  On the back - which is wood, by the way - is scrawled MADE IN HOLLAND.  I totally picture cute little old Holland-ish (ok...Dutch)  men building these great picture frames.  And no, I am not willing to admit that it's more likely that it came from some factory or something.  No, I prefer to think this was an amazing find at my local Goodwill for $5.99.  Ok?  Thanks.

I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to use this picture frame for, and to be totally honest with you - I can't promise I won't repurpose it later on.  It's just too awesome to be stuck doing one job for the rest of its life.  But, this pin got my creative juices flowing first so this is where the frame will begin it's new and fabulous journey:

I had to check out Two Girls Being Crafty for the lowdown on this cute project.  As soon as I read the post, I knew it was fate because she made a NKOTB reference.  Um hello?  Me + NKOTB go way back.  Jordan Knight still makes me swoon.  But, I digress...

I was glad I had rescued this frame from a life of dusty Goodwill shelves because I was about to make it even more AWESOME.  Here is where I am going to issue a warning though - if you think old, beautiful things should be left alone PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES.  Seriously, I'm telling you right now...if paint horrifies you, you better just close the blog window now and I promise not to be offended...

I happen to have some of the most glorious, glossy teal paint on hand that I am getting ready to use for another project (TBA in the very near future!) and I just KNEW this frame had to be bright teal.  It was screaming at me.  And who am I to say no to my newly rescued frame?  So I busted out the paint and got to work.

I looked at this frame and felt like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City did when she looked at a beautiful shoe.  Say it with me...

"Hello...lover..."

HOLY GORGEOUS, right??  Ahhh.  I mean, full disclosure - I am a tad bit obsessed with teal/aqua.  My wedding colors were aqua and red.  My living room is teal and yellow.  My bedroom is teal and yellow.  Today I wore a teal shirt and may or may not have had on teal argyle socks.  OOPS.  What can I say?  I'm a big fan.  

Once I had my frame painted, I couldn't wait to get it up on the wall.  I took out the glass (don't worry, I saved it...in case I want to use this gorgeous frame for another project) and hung it on the wall.  Then I pulled out my super awesome looking knobs that I got from Mindy Mae's Market.  I screwed the knobs into the wall (with anchors, people!) and look how cute!

I am so in love with this, I can't even begin to tell you how much.  Just know that I am very, very in love.  Well - at least until I find another cool use for this funky frame!

(I can even hang super cute wristlets on it too!)

Don't Drink the Kool Aid...

... use it to dye some yarn. I should preface this entire post by saying that I hate Kool Aid. It isn't personal, I just hate all fake drink mix drinks. They are sweet and smell funny and don't taste that great. All of those things combined with the fact that I'm pretty sure there isn't one ingredient in there that wasn't invented in a lab and well, it's not worth a thing to me... until now. 

I've dyed yarn a few times and it is super fun, but not a quick project and very very messy (I have a pair of converse that will never be the same). When I stumbled on this little pin from The Work is Getting to Me it got the wheels in my head turning - perhaps Kool Aid isn't useless after all. Apparently it can be used to dye ombre** yarn. After a little research (AKA googling) I found that there are a lot of people that have attempted different methods to dye yarn with Kool Aid, some were more successful than others. Of course this just made me want to do it more. I decided to get some good old grape Kool Aid and some wool yarn and give it a try. 

**Ombre- for those of you that are wondering - it's when color is shaded and graduated in tone, usually light to dark**

I started by balling up the yarn in a tight ball. Usually you would want it loose but this time, tight is better because the dye needs to penetrate through the ball. Put about an inch and a half of water in a small pot and heat it up. Add one packet of the Kool Aid and stir it up. Stick the ball of yarn in the pot and roll it around in the Kool Aid. It took about 10 minutes for the color to soak into the yarn. It's hard to tell when its done, but you will notice that there isn't much color left in the pot. Take the yarn out, run water over it and get it good and soaked. I let it hang out in the sink while I refilled the pot with about three inches of water. Heat that water up and you guessed it, add the second packet of Kool Aid. The soaking wet yarn goes back into the pot to be rolled around some more. I did this for about 5-7 minutes but honestly, I wasn't sure how long I should let it go since the color doesn't penetrate to the point of leaving the water this time. After the second time in the pot, rinse the yarn again with cold water and gently wring out the water from the ball. You are going to want to let it dry out a little before you unwind it and let it dry completely. I found that the color went about halfway through the skein. 

I'm not sure if the color change in the yarn was because I used grape/purple or if all the Kool Aid colors would end up with variations of the color. Either way though, I like the purple to blue to white. I let the yarn rest for about two days so I knew the color was set and completely dry. I was also hoping that the grape smell would leave a little bit --- no luck. 

You didn't think I was going to have an entire post without a bunch of pictures of Macie did you?? Of course I had to make her a little slouch hat with the yarn - you know, to test if it really did become ombre. I would give you a pattern, but I don't have one. I just sort of made it up as I went along. It really did variegate nicely. If I had made a bigger project it would have ended up completely white by the end. I love how the yarn looks - the smell is a whole other story. Macie doesn't seem to mind the smell, so I guess it's just me. 

I think I'm going to try this again, maybe with cherry next time. Don't get me wrong though, I still won't drink the stuff!

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

I feel like I can be honest here - we're all friends, right?

I have a problem, but since you're all Pinterest and DIY addicts too, I bet YOU have the same problem.  The problem is, I think that I can make everything.  I call it my superwoman complex.  I will see something in the store and decide not to buy it because I'm just SURE that I can make it myself at home.  This goes for anything from clothing to crafts to food.  Sometimes this superwoman complex serves me well, and I have great success.  Sometimes I make a total fool out of myself and fail miserably.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that today's post is one of the most simplest foods that almost EVERYONE loves, and I've never even thought about making it myself.  No, never.  I've heard other people who have done it themselves but it's just never occurred to me that I could do it too.

What is it?

Peanut Butter.

Yep.  Simple, creamy, delicious peanut butter.  WHY have I never thought about doing this myself?  If you're a regular reader you may remember me talking about how I decided to cut out sugar and flour way back in January.  Well, it turns out that peanut butter has a lot of dang sugar in it.  So it was one of the first things to get cut in my diet.  Even a lot of the "natural" peanut butters have sugar.  Imagine how excited I was to realize that I could make my OWN peanut butter with nothing but peanuts.  NOTHING BUT PEANUTS!!!  Are you guys as excited as I am?

(PS - THAT jar of peanut butter pictured is not homemade as you can clearly see by the label on the jar.  I'm not sure why that's the picture on the pin, but I'm not passing judgment...)

I love one ingredient foods!  I love them!  I wish I could fill my whole house with them!  We are definitely eating "cleaner" than ever, but it can be hard to stick to foods that only have a few ingredients, so this makes me so so so excited.

And it's ridiculously easy.  Like, embarrassingly easy.  I happened to have a big ol' jar of roasted peanuts in my pantry that was just sitting there - ready to be processed into peanut butter.  All I did was pull out my trusty ol' Ninja Master Pro (which, by the way, I love.  I can make anything in it.  From flour to almond milk and now peanut butter?  Not to mention all the smoothies we've been sucking down lately...)

I had a little less than a pound of peanuts that I poured into my Ninja.  Then?  I pressed the button.  Don't worry, you can use a food processor or a blender for this too...

I let it grind for a little while, then paused to let my Ninja rest.  Then I pressed the button again.  Pause to rest.  And again.  

That's pretty much it.  It took me less than 3 minutes.  I didn't add anything else to mine, but if you wanted your peanut butter a little more salty/sweet/oily(?) you can add salt, honey or peanut oil.  The best part of this whole thing is taste-testing the peanut butter right after you're finished.  It's all nice and warm from being processed in there and it is so yummy!

Slather it on toast!  Or an apple!  Or a BIG HUNK OF DARK CHOCOLATE.  Not that I would do that last one.  That picture down there is showcasing an anonymous hand model holding chocolate slathered in peanut butter.  Ahem.

Seriously, go try this.  I mean it.  Just try not to eat it by the spoonful right out of the jar in one sitting.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do...

Many of you know by now that Google is discontinuing Google Friend Connect.  (insert heavy sighs, sobs and wails of despair...)  If you are one of our valued followers that chooses to follow us through Google Friend Connect, DO NOT WORRY!  Just because Google is dumping Google Friend Connect doesn't mean we are dumping you!  We have other ways for you to follow us.  You can click on any of these options in this post and sign up right away...

 

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