Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter Brunch :)

We had family over for an Easter brunch! It was so fun! Here is what we served:


 Carrots, celery, and ranch

Roast beef and turkey sandwiches
 
Raspberry Lemonade
 
Sweet potato fries and potato fries
 
 Silverware :)
 
 Deviled eggs
 
Strawberries


Saturday, March 30, 2013

DIY Easter Goodie Bags (Healthy Option Too!)

Looking for ideas for an Easter goodie bag or party favor? Here are the two cute ideas:

1)      Almost everyone likes Cadbury Eggs. Here is a fun way to put them into a little gift bags.
2)      Need a healthy option? This “carrot” is full of nutrition—dried apricots!

 Thanks to my friend for doorbell ditching these two adorable Easter treats! Have a happy Easter!

 

Friday, March 29, 2013

DIY Easter Rice Krispie Flowers

These treats are fun for Easter or any spring day. Here is the short list of ingredients:

1 pkg. mini marshmallows
6 cups Rice Krispies
¼ cup butter
Food coloring
Frosting (optional)


 So I could make two different colored rice krispies, I put half of the ingredients in one sauce pan and half in another. I made the rice krispie treats like usual (here is a link to directions: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/marshmallow-treats/) except that before I added the cereal I put yellow food coloring to one of the melted marshmallow mix and blue food coloring in the other. To cut out the flowers it would have been way easier to use a cookie cutter, but I didn’t have one so I had to use a different technique. I drew flowers on paper, cut them out and then traced my knife around the paper flowers.

To make it more aesthetically pleasing I put frosting in the middle of the flowers and drew stems and grass with the rest of the frosting.

It looks so cute we don’t want to eat it J

Sunday, March 24, 2013

DIY Easter Carrot Cupcakes

These cupcakes are an easy treat for Easter. I used a confetti cake mix because it has some great spring colors in it, but carrot cake mix would be fun too.

Because I had cream cheese, I decided to make my own frosting and it is super creamy! I’m all about convenience though so store bought frosting works great too. To make your own you only need…

4 oz. cream cheese
4 oz. butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Look here for directions: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cream-cheese-frosting-recipe/index.html

I got the M&M's at Zurcher's, a local party store, because they sell different colored M&M's. I just made cute little carrots with the M&M's. Hooray for Easter!





Friday, March 22, 2013

DIY Easter Bird Nests


I made these little bird nests last year and they were really cute, quick, and easy. You can get all of these ingredients at a local grocery store:

1 (12 oz.) pkg. chocolate chips
1 (12 oz.) pkg. butterscotch chips
1 lg. can chow mein noodles
Cadbury eggs or Jelly beans

I melted the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips over slow heat (stirring continuously). When that was melted I took it off of the heat and stirred in the chow mein noodles. Then, I covered a cookie sheet with waxed paper and put a spoonful of the chocolate-covered noodles on waxed paper. I shaped these into bird nests and let it cool in the fridge until they were firm. Then, I put three Cadbury eggs in each nest to look like bird eggs. Really fun treat for Easter!

Monday, March 18, 2013

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

I love card making, and one of my favorite cards to make is my apple card. It says, “An Apple a Day…” on the front and inside it says, “Keeps the Doctor Away.”
 
When someone is sick or not feeling well, it is fun to brighten their day by bringing them one of these cards. And of course to make it cuter, I also bring something to do with apples: an apple, apple juice, apple sauce, apple pie, apple flavored candy, etc. (The apple juice and apple sauce are especially good for someone who just got their wisdom teeth out.)

I got all of the supplies at a craft store. Try it out! This makes a great DIY Get Well Soon card.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

DIY Bird Pictures

Looking for something cute to take up empty wall space? Try this easy DIY craft. I stole this concept from a girl's apartment and decided to try it out for myself.

I got two identical picture frames at a dollar store, found an old book at a discount store, got two pieces of black paper and got to work!

1) The old book pages: I cut out some of the pages from the old book and tilted them this way and that for a scattered look. Then I pasted these onto the cardboard back that was already with the picture frame.

2) The branches and birds: To have a reference for my birds, I Googled "two birds sitting on branches" or something like that. I then put my two pieces of black paper right next to each other and drew my branches and birds onto the paper with pencil. (Note: put a bird on each page and be sure to give yourself some extra branch on the sides because some of it will be covered up by the frame.) I then cut out the branches and birds and pasted them onto the old book pages.

I spaced the pictures out a little bit but not too much to interrupt the eye's flow. I stuck them on top of my oven but they can go anywhere.



Valentine's Day Breakfast

Everyone knows the secret to a man's heart is through his stomach. So, for Valentine's Day I showed my husband just how much I love him. This post is a month late, but I just had to share my ideas for a heart shaped breakfast.

Heart shaped pancakes are super easy to make. If I had had red food coloring I would have turned them pink. By lining the pancakes with whipped cream, it hides the imperfections if you are pouring the batter free-handed. For sides I cut the tops of strawberries to turn them into hearts, cut hearts out of potato slices and fried them, and folded bacon strips into heart shapes and baked them in the oven. And of course, I served it with pink grapefruit juice. My husband loved it!


St. Patrick's Day

My mom used to always make us kids green Cream of Wheat for St. Patrick's Day. I decided to carry on the green tradition for breakfast and dinner!

For breakfast I made spinach scrambled eggs and avocado on toast. It was delicious!
Spinach Scrambled Eggs: sauteed half an onion (minced) and a garlic clove (minced) in a couple tablespoons of olive oil. When those were soft I added a huge handful of spinach (chopped small). After that cooked for a few minutes I added five eggs and some salt and pepper and scrambled.

During the day, a friend of mine brought over a cute St. Patrick's Day treat for me. She found a little plastic black pot from the grocery store and filled it with gold foil wrapped Rolos to look like a leprechaun's pot of gold! With this she added a no pinch sticker.

For dinner, I made corned beef and cabbage, an Irish classic, for the first time. It was really easy because I just stuck everything in the crock pot and let it cook itself all day. To go along with that main dish, I made green sides: pesto covered spinach ravioli and steamed broccoli. And to top it all off, we had green apple Jones soda.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sandra-lee/corned-beef-and-cabbage-with-herb-buttered-potatoes-recipe/index.html

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Ski Themed Party

For my husband's birthday, I planned a Ski Themed Party at the "Corkin Lodge". He loves skiing, and because we couldn't bring all of his friends onto the ski slopes, we invited them to a ski themed party.

Invitations
We did not have time to send out printed off invitations, but a cute idea would be to send out an invitation that resembles a ski pass.

Food
All of our food played off of skiing, ski lodges, or snow. In the kitchen we served hot dogs, hot chocolate, and pop. On the snack table I made little signs to put by the food to help people connect the food to the ski themed party. "Ski poles" were made from pretzel sticks, celery sticks, and carrot sticks.
"Snowballs" were powdered sugar donut holes.
 "Pow-pow" was white cheddar popcorn. (Pow-pow is ski slang for "powder" which refers to fresh, powder snow that hasn't been skied on yet.)
 "Bunny Slope" cupcakes were made from carrot cake mix (get it... bunny and carrots?). I used white cream cheese frosting and coconut flakes to look like snow. And the bunny slope is the beginner hill which is represented on the slopes by a green circle, so I put green gummy rings (peach-o's) on top.
 "Intermediate" represents the middle level ski slopes and is represented by a blue square on ski signs. Therefore, I used white cake mix and added blue food coloring to make the cake blue. I frosted the cake with white cream cheese frosting and again added blue food coloring to make it blue. I then cut the cake into squares and placed squares of blue candy (cut up Airheads) on top of each.
 The "Advanced" level is represented by a black diamond. Therefore, I made dark chocolate brownies, cut them into squares, and turned them to look like a diamond.
 "Pizzas" refer to the pizza wedge that skiers use to slow themselves down. This happens when skiers point their skies in a wedge shape that looks like a pizza, hence pizzas. We bought two large pizzas and cut the pieces into smaller triangular wedges.

Decorations
We had a sign on the front door that said, "Corkin Ski Lodge." I found a big roll of Scotch branded brown paper for a couple dollars at a local grocery store to make all of my signs.
In one corner of the living room we had a ski lodge lounge set up with chairs, natural colored throw blankets, candles, white Christmas lights, fur pillows, fur slippers, a basket of blankets, etc. Because we didn't have a real fireplace, we used a laptop to play a fireplace video on YouTube that played for over 3 hours. It was hard to capture this corner in a picture, but the lighting was really cool and made a soft, warm, lodge-like environment. We turned the lights off in the whole living room so that we could get warm light coming from all of our candles and white Christmas lights.
In the opposite corner of the living room we made a snow corner. This corner had the snack table and another table that held another laptop that played ski YouTube videos and music. I put white plastic tablecloths on these tables and then covered them in "snow"...white, silver, and blue confetti and white cotton balls and candles. From the ceiling I hung cut out snowflakes and hung white icicle Christmas lights. And of course I through in my husband's skis and one of his ski boots.
We turned the couch into "The Chair Lift" and draped the back of the couch with white Christmas lights. From the ceiling we hung paper snowflakes.
Above the entrance to our kitchen we hung a sign that said "The Alpine Grille" that sounds like a name you would find on any ski lodge grill/restaurant. 

The ski themed party was so fun! Our friends and family loved the decorations and food. It was a complete success!