Super Easy French Bread Pizza

I am sure that most people know this one, but I was at the store yesterday trying to find easy lunches for the upcoming visit from the other CreativeMamma and I saw a sale on french bread. I first thought about all the recipes that I have been pinning off of Pinterest, but why not just make it really easy on everyone.

When my friends come to visit all I want to do is talk and hang out, not spend time searching on the Net for that one Pin I remember from 3 months ago. So I thought "Why not pizza?". I bought 2 french bread loafs, pepperoni, salami, cheese, and some sauce. I had plenty of veggies at home already from my garden so I was ready.

So here we go. Slice the loafs length wise and top with whatever you like. I broiled mine for about 1-2 minutes but I think next time I will bake it for a few minuets to warm all the way through.

Yummy!

DIY Frozen French Toast Sticks

I don't know about you but the mornings in my house are not fun and smiles like they are on TV. I wake up early because there is no way my hubby is going to get the baby up and ready to go. (Hubby is great, but mornings are not his thing either). So to make things easier on me, I am usually buying fast breakfast items for the toddler that I can throw at her while I am still getting ready for work. I know I am a horrible mother for not making her a healthy, from scratch meal....Wake up people, not everyone has that life.

So I was thinking, why not make my our frozen breakfast meals. I have to admit this trick was shown to me by a friends mom some time ago and I can't think of why I didn't do it before.

When bread is on sale I usually pick up a few loaves and freeze them. I went grocery shopping and noticed how pricey breakfast items are getting (and with the baby the only one in the house who eats breakfast, its getting to much), I thought of doing my own. I made my mom's French Toast recipe (see below) and then cut the slices into strips. I then "Flash Freeze" the strips, fancy term for sticking the sticks on a cookie sheet and putting them into the freezer for about 20 minutes.

Just pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute and you have great French Toast Sticks. Or leave them as slices and just pop them in the toaster!

My Mom's French Toast Recipe:

(This recipe did a whole loaf of bread)

1 loaf bread ( I like a lighter wheat bread)

6 eggs (scramble)

3 cups milk

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

a pinch of salt (important!)

2 tablespoons of vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients together (not the bread) and make sure that all the eggs are broken up.

Heat skillet or griddle on the stove and spray with a non-stick or use a tablespoon of butter.

Dip bread slices into mixture. Coat both sides and put onto griddle.

Cook about 1 minute on each side or until the middle of the slice is not mushy anymore.

Crock Pot Rotisserie Chicken

If you are anything like me, you are addicted to Pinterest. I can not stop searching for things that I want to try, but to be honest sometimes my results are not that great. But this tome is different! I found this recipe for rotisserie chicken in a crock pot. Now, I love crock pots and I would use them every day but I am hesitant on cooking things that don't require liquid in them. Cooking a chicken with nothing else was a bit weird for me.

The recipe I found was on the blog http://busy-mommy.com/2010/02/how-to-make-your-own-rotisserie-chicken.html . I altered the recipe a tad, mainly just the amounts of spices. But everything else I followed. And it was AMAZING!

The only thing that I regret was not buying more chicken's today at the store because they were on sale! Next time I am going to try a more Italian flavor!

YUMMY!

Summer Reading LIst

Just returned home from our week long camping trip in Idaho and I am really worn out! Not to mention that we are heading out this weekend for another family camping trip with the fellow Creative Mamma!

So one of the first things that I do when I get home....wash clothes- NO. Un-pack- NO. Of course I had to see if there was anything new on pinterest. Looking around I found a pin with a great website and their reading list from the show Gilmore Girls. I know that Rory Gilmore was a character on a show, but that girl was smart. She always had a book in her hands and a quote from somewhere that seemed to fit the conversation. The list on this website is 250 books....maybe one day I will read all of them, but for now I am surprise that I have already knocked a few off.

My new goal for this summer, try to read as many books off this list as I can! Lets see how many others had read or can read!

And the list is....

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Started not finished
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt- Read
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank- Read
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - Read
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père- In my book pile
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoevskyThe Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown -Read
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante- Read
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells- Read
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred UhrvDr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen -Read
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary KristFahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (TBR) –Read
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo - Read
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell- Read
Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling-Read
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling -Read
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (TBR)
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (TBR)
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Lpr)
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss- Read
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote- Read but not finished
Inferno by Dante- Read
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan -Read
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair- Read
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - In my book pile
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott -Read
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold -Read
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave FlaubertThe Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult - In my book pile
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – Read
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien (TBR) – Read
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Read
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – Read
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King- Read
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire – Read
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum-Started not finishedWuthering Heights by Emily Brontë- In book pileThe Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Slow Cooking

I love my slow cooker. Maybe love is not a strong enough word! I wish I could use it all the time. I love throwing things into one pot and just letting it cook and fill your house with all its yummy smells. I am always on the search for new recipes and I found this blog that is amazing! www.crockpot365.blogspot.com is about a women who took on the large task of cooking with her crock pot everyday for a YEAR!

This seems a bit to much for me but there are some great recipes on her site! I am definitely saying this site under my favorites. I have only read through to March and there about 15 recipes I must try!

Check it out!

My Veggie Garden

Summer time is calling our names! We are back! Sorry for the time off ( almost two months) but working and being mommy/wife is not an easy job, as many of you all know. Summer is here and fun has only begun. Camping trips and swimming with only be a tiny bit of our time spent in the sun. Take a look at my ever growing garden!

My loving Hubby let me dig up a part of the front yard (Gasp!) and plant our garden. Our backyard does not really get a large amount on morning sun and the afternoons here are too hot. I planted so many zucchini and squash.....I will probably be giving it to our neighbors. I also planted green peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes, basil, and more peppers....Salsa anyone?

My golden zucchini. I also planted green zucchini. I am currently on the look out for any good zucchini recipes since I have 10 plants...

My green peppers are finally coming out!

Lovely Anaheim Peppers.

My first large harvest! I can't believe it. I went to CA for a few days and came back to growing garden. I love it!

How is your gardens growing?

Kitchen Complete!

Just in time for Easter, I finished the Kitchen hutch that I bought our little girl...I know so may say "you only painted it, why did it take you so long". To that I reply....try being a mom, wife and working then lets see how much you want to do when you have a free moment. Anyways, enough ranting and on with the show.

So here is what it looked like:

I bought it at a second hand store for $15.00! I also had to fight a few people for it too... So after some sanding and a coat of paint here is what it looks like now.

Part of her Easter gift was also the felt food that I hand made her. I have seen them all over the Internet and thought that I could make them as well. She loves them.

What do you think???

Potato Soup

Wow, it had been a while since our last posting. I went back to work, :(.... No more lazy days in front of the TV eating bon-bons (at least that was what my Hubby thought I did all day). I am still working on projects, just at a slower pace. But seeing as I have a break from work, I thought I would try to get as much projects down ( or started) as I could.

Thanks to a great friend, I found a great recipe for potato soup. I switched it up a bit from her directions but it turned out great!

Potato Soup
3-4 large potatoes ( peeled and cut into large chunks)
1 cup of beer ( dark or pale ale )
2 cups of milk
1/2 medium onion
5 strips of bacon ( I used turkey bacon)
1 cup of cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
green onions to garnish

I started by boiling my potatoes in water until they were soft ( just like you would be making mashed potatoes). Drain potatoes and coarsely mash the potatoes, this is were you can leave the potatoes chunky or as small as you like. Add the beer and let the beer cook for a few minutes to let the alcohol cook out. Then add the milk and let simmer, stirring every few minutes.

In a separate pan, saute the bacon. Let cook and remove to drain off fat. In the same pan add onions and butter and saute until onions are soft. Add the flour to onions and cook on low heat until flour is light brown.

Add the flour mixture and half the bacon to the potatoes and stir. Keep mixing every few minutes until thick and then add 3/4 of a cup of the cheese. Let the cheese melt and then serve!

I topped my soup with some of the reserved bacon and cheese and added the green onions. If you want to add a kick, add a few shakes of hot sauce!

Enjoy

Stephanie

Baby Boy Gift

More babies on the way! I love babies and right now I know a few expecting mothers. And the best part is that they are having boys! Almost all the babies lately have been girls, and although I love my daughter, I really am bored with all the pink or girl material. I have been craving to do something in the cute boyish material that I keep seeing everywhere.

So for a baby shower later this month I decided to make a blanket, a diaper wipe case, and some burp clothes. I had on hand this cute robot material and hounds tooth in blue and green, perfect for a boy. I went to the fabric store to pick up some flannel for the backs of the burp clothes and they had the matching robot fleece! I couldn't help myself. I hope they like it as much as I do.

2 Valentine Project in 1 Day

So my Hubby is away for a few days for work and you know what that means....crafting without having to explain what you are doing or how much things cost! Love it! Well last night after the Bug went to bed I got the crafting itch and had to do something. I looked in our guest closet (aka my crafting center) and came up with an idea.

I am always looking for craft supplies on sale that I can pick up and I found a few wreaths at the thrift store for a buck each. I grabbed one of those, some Valentine material ( I bought on sale in the remnants pile at Joann's) and some extra tulle I had from the Bug's tutu last month and got to work!

Here is the finished project.

I got the sign from Ross years ago and it fit perfectly in the middle. I think I may make another for spring with some greens, tans and yellows.

My next project was really easy. All I needed was my trusty glue gun, some hearts that I picked up from the dollar store and ribbon. I made this tree for the Bird Baby Shower last spring.

The hearts were on sticks that I just removed then glued ribbon on to them to hang. Isn't the plate cute, Michale's for 2 bucks!

Remodel Done!...Well Almost

So yesterday was spent trying to finish our master bathroom remodel. It's only been 4 months to complete, and that's a good timeline with our crazy schedules. We would have had it finished about a month ago if a person ( how should be remain nameless....OK it was the hubby) didn't make a $60 cut mistake on the trim for the mirror. I really blame myself (and he also blames me) because I was not in the garage while he was cutting to make sure that he was cutting the correct angle on the trim.

Anyways, after the long awaited trim arrived yesterday (3 weeks is way to long for a piece of trim if you ask me!), we got to work. And some choice words and some yelling and the mirror, it finally came together. Its not a professional job, but its our first remodel on our home and I think we did a good job.

Here is the before shot of our master bath (I forgot to take the guest bath photo). Please excuse the mess.

Not sure if short people lived here before we bought the place but the sinks were entirely to short. As it turned out, the previous owners remodeled the bathroom to look like this! They took two stock vanities and added an extra kitchen cabinet as the middle to create counter space and storage. This kitchen cabinet is a typical corner unit with a lazy Susan inside. It is also 4 inches taller than the vanities. Now you know why this was my first request to remodel. I am also a matchy-matchy person, so if we remodeled the master, we had to remodel the guest to match!

Sorry for the photo being dark, but I wanted to show that we also had hideous light fixtures in both bathrooms. The stock dressing room bulbs, yuck! They looked something like this:

Again, YUCK! So of course I had to change those. Also, we decided at the last minute and I mean last minute. Hubby was doing demo and said "If you want to paint, you need to do it now before I put the cabinets in tomorrow. So off I run to Lowe's to find paint. I choose a color by Olympic paint color called Camel, the one on the Left. It turned out really nice.

Look at the Hubby working. It took forever to get the demo done and the new cabinets installed. Main issue was the previous owners had no clue how to do anything! We had planned on saving the old mirrors but they were too low for the cabinets, so they had to go to. That part was nice, a little stress reliever.

We still wanted two sinks in the master bath, so we had to go with and "L" shaped counter. Because of this we had to order custom cabinets, but they turned out great! We got the Thomasville line which are actually kitchen cabinets, but I still love them. Here is a photo of them in the store.

Love this color! It turned out to be almost a light Carmel color. We also ordered some window trim to frame out the new mirrors that we had mounted.We added granite counter tops and under mount sinks!

We ended up going with a brushed nickel finish on all the hardware and lights. We choose these light fixtures for both bathrooms.

And all the accessories for the bathrooms came from Martha Stewart's line at Home Depot, here is a shot of the towel bar.

So here is the finished product!

Our Guest Bath

I love the way they turned out! My Hubby did a great job. Can't wait to get started on the kitchen next.

Valentines Day Projects

I know its still January, but I love Valentines Day! My hubby hates it, maybe that's why I go out of my way to decorate the entire house. So there are a feel projects I still have in the workings, but I thought I would do a recap of what has been accomplished and what has inspired me so far!

Just finished this burlap wreath with some tulle to hang on the back door. Super easy and all from scraps I had laying around the house.

The Valentines Day felt garland ( tutorial found here).

And of course some projects and recipes that I would love to be starting....but may not get finished.

Cute X and O cupcakes with red hots from Martha Stewart

Painted wine bottles from Griffiths Rated

Cherry Marshmallow Crispy Treats...Yummy! From Inside Bru Crew Life

I love these blocks! From Bits Of Everything

Enjoy!

Hair Bow Frame Tutorial

So I finally found a frame that I liked for my daughters hair bow holder, not to mention I have had this on my to-do list for some time! I found the frame a few days ago ( it was shown here) and knew it was going to be great. I choose pink and some cute ribbon I picked up at a going out of business sale (wish I would have picked up a lot more too!). Total cost- about 3 dollars!

I painted 2 coats of pink onto the frame, I wanted a little bit of the dark wood color to show threw.

After the paint dried, flip the frame over and measure the size to determine how far apart your ribbons should be. Make sure to take the size of your bows into account. My daughter is still a baby so here bows are smaller. I measured about an inch between each ribbon. If your daughter is older ( and with bigger bows) maybe try 2 inches.

I hot glued the ribbons into place. Make sure you pull the ribbons tight, you don't want any slack.

I also had a bit of ribbon left over so I used it to hang the frame.

Enjoy!