2012

This year has already been flying by!! Aside from the usual work, eat, sleep, repeat routine not much has been going on! 

We got a new car. Its pretty fun :) 

I've been dieting since the new year started...I've been pretty good about it (sans exercise, agh!). I've lost about 20 lbs just from changing what I eat, but I've gotta step up my game-by game I mean cardio!!! Haha! 

I've been having a blast making low carb meals though, check out some of my creations:

 Not bad lookin' Eh?!

I've been working on crafts like crazy too!! Safe to say I spend a lot of time on Pinterest

I blinged out some shoes, a phone case, painted garden decor, painted vases....Its been a whirlwind of crafts scattered across the apartment! Here's my favorites: 

The strangest thing I've realized this year is my style taste is changing!! I'm now obsessed with zebra print, glitter AND rhinestones. How utterly girly! Lol

My newest craze is re-decorating the bedroom. I was inspired by Breaking Dawn pt 1. Cheesy, I know, but Isle Esme sparked some creativity in me. So far I have the bedding done

Well...I still need to sew the red pillows. I've been trying to keep track of some ideas for this tropical-esque theme on a board on Pinterest but let me tell you...Figuring out how to make the colors work without being ridiculous looking is hard! I'm tryin' though ... Hopefully I can get some more done this coming payday! 

Since work moved locations I've been getting up at 6am to be sure to get 'me' time, make up, coffee and hair all in before heading out. (even though I don't have to leave until 9:30-that just goes to show you how much of a morning person I'm NOT!) I've been watching the news, taking my time getting ready....I'm not sure if its this waking up early deal + diet but I feel like a whole new happier person. Like I love EVERY day that there's sunshine.  Thinking about each day brings a smile to my face. Its really a nice change of pace! 

Not much has been going on in terms of doing things but hopefully that will change. The weather's getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and my constant itching to get out of the house is growing!! Bring on the Baseball games, Random outings and fun summer time!

Twilight Movie Night

Upon the impending visit of my mother & sister we decided to plan out a few nights with themed festivities. 
Being Twi-hards (I really dont like that term but...) we figured it'd be a good idea to have a Twilight Movie Night filled with fangs, snacks and of course all 3 of the Twilight movies out right now! 


I must say, having a Halloween-esque night in July is a lot of fun and definitely has me amped up for the legitimate Halloween night!

Below is my favorite TwiNight creation! I found the inspiration for them here. The apple mouths got me thinking about how I could make these into vampire themed treats! 

I call them Vampples!!! Aren't they just the cutest?! And so easy to make, yet time consuming! 

Inside is a 'cheesecake' filling. Extremely easy:

Mix room temperature cream cheese with sugar. Add sugar until it tastes sweet and creamy! You can even add a dash of vanilla extract. (When I did this the color changed to a 'dirtier' cream and I got worried-but as you can see the filling still looks extremely white next to the apple's skin!)

Directions:

Cut an apple into thick wedges. Score out the center part (cut to resemble a triangle-Pointing inwards) then with a paring knife cut small triangles to make the fangs. (I made very shallow cuts meant to peel just the skin of the apple off) Then fill with cheesecake filling. I simply used a spoon and smushed it in (yes, its messy) then scraped off the excess filling that was on the skin and wiped down messy parts with a paper towel. 

In no time you'll have these adorable Vampples! 

*It is time consuming but you will want to make these at the latest possible time since the apple quickly begin to brown!!

If you're a Twilight (or True Blood...or Vampires in general) fan these will melt your heart!

I bought black and red cutlery/napkins to fit with the dark and sultry theme. But I had to add a little something extra:

Fangs!

Very simple to make-I cut printer paper into fang shapes, wrapped it around my rolled silverware set and used a small piece of tape to keep it all in place.

Here's a look at our small coffee table set up:

Almost everything here was bought at Party City. I got a basic black table cover and some red candy to add to the festivities. 

The only thing left to do is throw on your Twilight t-shirt and pop in some fangs! (fangs bought at Party City also, yes, in July!!!) Pull out the camera and take lots of pictures!!

(These pictures are from my phone, so they're a bit hazy)

And just for cuteness here is a picture of my mom and sister's dog-Bella-yes, named after the Twilight series! So it was fitting to capture a picture of her trying to eat an apple.

Caption- 'Edible Art, Bella?'

Planning this night was a lot of fun. Even getting ready for our impromptu photo shoot was a blast. We really nailed the dead and sunken eyes look! Matter of fact...that is probably all of our favorite part of the night!! 

So doll up the place next time you want to have a Twilight marathon and remember to have fun!!!

Preparing For A Busy Week

It has been an uneventful weekend-but I needed the down time to prepare for this coming week!!! 
I spent all day Saturday cleaning. And cleaning. Seriously, lots of cleaning. Sunday Tanner shampooed the carpets and I rearranged the bedroom a little bit. All because my FAMILY is visiting! Well, half of them anyway!
My mom and sister will be here on Thursday. But that's not all that's going on this week. My best friends all have stuff happening! 
I've been planning on my family's visit for the last month and have been coming up with ideas of things to do. I can't wait to take pictures and share on here! Christmas in July is gonna be a hit! We've been finding Christmas presents for each other and I plan to make Christmas cookies as well as other traditions. But that's just one day! We've got a lot planned so I'll be attached to my camera their entire visit.
Other than that nothing has new has been going on. I tried to learn to french braid my own hair. Check this out:

Its totally crappy-but I did it myself so I'm proud. Practice makes perfect...I just need the patience to practice! 

Tried rockin' the red lips also:

Not a very exciting or stylish weekend!

Well, I don't want to ramble on. This update is a lame one but I'll have more/better things in a couple of days! 

Cilantro Butter Cornish Hens

My weekend was a bit uneventful. No exciting 4th Of July plans. No family gatherings or grilling. Just an ordinary weekend!


I did, however, go on a culinary adventure. I made cornish hens. The first time I've had them since I was probably 17, when my mom made them for my birthday. I remember how fun it was for us to all have our own chicken. So I finally picked some up and decided to make them for dinner. 


Little did I know, but the entire experience turned into a flood of different emotions-which ended in me just praying they were worth the remorse I was feeling for these dear little chickens that I was prying apart and stuffing. Without all the nitty-gritty details of my mini breakdown brought on by thinking of the poor beheaded chickens in front of me, lets continue!!


I had scoured for some recipes that sounded good. This one worked out for me and there's not much I would do differently. The ingredients are simple:
Butter
Cilantro
Onion
Garlic
Cornish Hen


Really simple! And I didn't use measurements because everything could be adjusted to taste or was simply to add flavor to the dish! 
I sliced the onions, lined them in a 9x13 dish (if you have a roasting pan use it instead) I then minced up the cilantro and added it to a few spoonfuls of room temperature butter. Peel the garlic and slice into big chunks. Here's an idea of everything:

I then proceeded to unwrap the defrosted hens, season with salt and pepper and slowly separated the skin from the body. You can use a spoon handle or your fingers, I used a little of both. Then stuff the cilantro butter under the skin and rub in. See-Easy!! Using the leftover butter brush the outside of the skin and put some into the hen, along with a few chunks of garlic. Place on top of the onions and you're ready to bake!

Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour and 20 minutes! 

Wah-La! A simple recipe! You can add or take away whatever you like. Turns out the possibilities are endless! I would like to try a citrus chicken recipe-one where it rests on lemons while baking. I'll be trying out more ideas shortly! 

Well, that was my Saturday night! I finally had a chance to get to the store and buy some baskets for the vegetables in the fridge. I get SO tired of seeing tons of bags and twist ties in the veggie drawer so I went out and bought these:

I love them. And for only a dollar each at Dollar Tree! That's right, $2 for an organized looking vegetable drawer. Now if only it were that cheap to organize the rest of my apartment! 

Bookcase Decorating and The In Between

Yesterday evening I was in the kitchen starting dinner when my boyfriend got home from work. Out of no where I decided it was time to rearrange our apartment and started throwing ideas around. Within 5 minutes I had started stuffing the mushrooms and my boyfriend was clearing shelves and arranging furniture. It was very exciting! 
Now our apartment looks a lot more spacious. And it could be mainly due to the fact that we got rid of our huge, gaudy computer desk and downgraded to a mere table to hold everything. It was his suggestion and I was very skeptical-I liked having a lot of room for everything. However, the extreme downsize has now given me the opportunity to start looking for dining room tables and planning what to do with all of the extra space! 

 

Don't mind the Christmas decor in the 'Before'-it was obviously Christmas time!

Its definitely a smaller work zone...but I must admit, I like the challenge of getting ideas for the ample space we have now!

But the most exciting (and time consuming on my part) new arrangement of all was the bookshelf. Before it held our hamster's cage-but our beloved Cokey Smurf passed away earlier in the week. 

**We love and miss you Cokey Smurf**

Each shelf held its own chaos and I almost wish I had taken a before picture of it-however-I don't feel like embarrassing myself today!

Now, our shelf is not PERFECT and I am fervently searching for accessories/books and whatever else to keep getting it to where I want. But I must say I do love the way it looks as of now. Its by no means David Bromstad approved and won't be featured on HGTV anytime soon-but for a decorating-inept 24 year old designing on a whim I think its coming along nicely! 

Here is the shelf as a whole (strange angle and terrible Samsung Epic 4G pictures-apologies!)

The 'Twilight Shelf' is my favorite. I am a little biased considering I'm a huge fan and Team Edward, but I also like the red and black look. Here are our 'black spined' books. You'll notice the attempted color coordinating theme in each shelf.

Here is the maroons/browns/orange and the gray/white on the right. The brown box in the center holds my Twlight movie film reel snippets that I was given (told you I was a fan!) The photo on top is of my boyfriend's grandmother's first house. The picture is very nostalgic to him so I'm glad it fits nicely with the more 'rustic' theme on this shelf!

This is definitely more me. I like the transcending colors from greens and blue to purple and pinks. I was glad I could use my Rose Quartz candle holders as book ends. My feng shui game and crystals box adds to the sort of metaphysical feel of it all. Yep, definitely me!

As you can see at the bottom of the photo the last shelf is still chaotic and not as put together. It holds photo albums, binders and notebooks. (I'm sort of a notebook hoarder! But I prefer the term collector!) 

Which is why I'm still coming up with ideas and ways to put the bookcase together so it flows a bit better. But for now I'm quite satisfied! 

This has been my newest project. I'm thinking of which wall decals to create and put by the computer 'desk' or perhaps a cork board. Limitless options. But fun! 

Do you have any bookcase ideas or suggestions?! I always love hearing new DIY and decorating tips!

Cake Pops

Here is my mini tutorial on making Cake Pops. They're really quite easy to make once you get the hang of it and you can make do any shape/decoration that you want!! 


Cake Pop Ingredients:
Cake 
Frosting
Candy Melts 
Edible Decorations 
Sucker Sticks (found in the baking or craft aisle)
Cake Pop Holder (some people buy holders. I've yet to get my hands on one. I have used 8 oz glasses to hold my pops while they dry and more frequently buy the Styrofoam blocks used for arranging flowers)


Start out by baking a cake (homemade or from a box) as directed. Once it's done baking let it cool completely. In a large bowl and start separating into pieces. I've heard that you can put the cake in a blender or food processor to shred up, but I prefer to use my hands. Start to crumble the cake until its in tiny pieces, the smaller the better! The picture is from a cake that had been sitting out for a couple of days (covered) and I found that the extra days really helped with the crumbling. I have made many cake balls a couple of hours after pulling it out of the oven and it works just the same, but there may be a few bigger pieces left after crumbling. Either way works. 

I'm partial to funfetti cake so I used it in these cake pops

Next bring out your frosting. Any flavor you want, homemade, store bought. What ever your heart desires. Put a couple of hearty spoonfuls into the crumbs. Now its time to get dirty. Shove your hands in and start mixing the cake crumbs in with the frosting. Remember that you can always add more frosting if needed but you can't take any out!!

You can see in my picture that mine became like a dough. I had also put my frosting in the fridge so it was cold and while mixing it took over the crumbs!

This was an accident. I completely spaced that I hadn't let it sit out and become room temperature...but by that time it was too late to go back! Now, I wouldn't necessarily suggest this-however it made for VERY easily molded balls! The consistency on the inside is very mushy then. When I gave these cake pops to my coworkers they actually loved the texture-said it was more like cheesecake. Its FULLY cooked but to me seemed a bit too mushy. So when mixing the frosting and crumbs do so to your desired texture-but remember to make it moist enough to mold!!!

Pull out enough of the mixture to roll into balls. Remember you don't want them TOO big because they will be overly top heavy and fall or slide down the stick. I eyeballed the amount and size I needed for each. 

This next part is important not to skip! The cake balls NEED to cool to harden up a bit. You can put them in the fridge for a few hours-or if you're anxious like I am you can put them in the freezer for about a half hour. If the balls don't harden up a bit they will slide down the stick and it'll end up being a disaster! 

This does, however, give you time to get everything ready for decorating!! 

I used sprinkles and coconut shreds. I grabbed any thing I had in the kitchen for these cake pops since they I was making them for fun and to bring to work. 

Grab your bag of candy melts and a deep bowl. The deeper the easier it will be to dip the cake pops into. Spooning the melts over the pop has proved tedious so make sure you can get most of the ball in the melt and then you'll be able to spoon just a little over the bottom or roll the stick to get the bottom covered. Make sure to follow the directions on the candy melt package. You'll want to put your microwave on the defrost setting to melt these, otherwise the melts cook and become unusable. ALSO DO NOT mix liquid food coloring into the candy melts. It hardens it and will not remelt. That's how I ended up making green pops instead of yellow chicks for Easter!!! 

Get everything ready to put together. Pull out your hardened balls, decorations and sticks. Once the candy melt is melted down you'll want to move quickly so you have plenty of 'dip time' before it hardens and has to be remelted!

Place the tip of a candy stick into the candy melt and push into a cake ball. Then put the cake ball in the candy melt and cover the entire ball. Then very lightly tap off the excess candy melt. Spin slowly so it falls off evenly but not so hard that the entire ball falls off. If you're covering your cake pop in decorations now is the time to get them onto your cake pop. Put over your bowl filled with sprinkles (or whatever you have) and grab a handful. Rotate your stick while sprinkling over top of the pop. Then put in your cake pop holder and allow to dry! They dry relatively quick but be sure the pops don't touch any thing until they do. 

And there you have it! Cake Pops! Look online for fun ideas on how to decorate or new techniques! 

These are so much fun to make and people LOVE them! Here are some of the other cake pops I have done:

These two are my very first attempts! 

These were my favorite to make! I'm such a huge football fan that I had to try molding and making little footballs!

I had a blast making these! 

5 Months is FAR too long.

Ok...I won't go into detail about how TERRIBLE it is that it's been 5 months since I blogged last! SO much has happened. So, read the title of this blog and we'll leave it at that!!!!

So instead of writing a 20 page long blog with updates of everything I'm going to throw together a 'small' update blog with pictures and short descriptions! *insert gruff football coach voice here* Ok...BREAK!

Lest we forget...I will start this off with the BEST THING that has happened all year.
The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, Won...the championship. They are AH-mazing!
I decorated the entire apartment in Green & Yellow, Made a ton of snack food for everyone to enjoy (like mini burgers called Roethlis-BURGERS! -get it, the QB for the other team! Genius!) and my favorite part was I got to spend it with ALL my best friends. My mom, sister, Bre, Tanner & PAUL surprised me by coming down!!!!!!!!
Here are some pictures of the greatest day of my life:

 Notice the adorable football brownies and green/yellow cupcakes!

Tons of delicious food...

My adorably festive cutlery! 

Paul & I covered in green and yellow yarn, streamers, t-shirts...and Super Celebratory-ly drunk!

So that was amazing. I still get excited thinking about it!!!

Ok! Next up...

I started a mini porch garden in February after the Super Bowl. It has been happy, sad, easy, hard and all the in between. My basil THRIVES but my tomato plant is sad looking. Here is how it started out:

My seedlings began to sprout. It was such a happy day!!! These are my sunflowers...

And look at them now! The biggest one is about 3 feet already!!!

 This picture isn't TOO recent...My parsley is growing quickly and my Basil keeps getting better and bigger! Its getting harder with the warm weather but It is definitely a lot of fun to garden...when the plants don't die!!

At the end of April Paul, Tanner, Ben and I went to the Nascar race. It was a fun weekend...Paul and I had a blast partying throughout the weekend and the race wasn't too bad either! We gorged on strawberries on a stick, turkey legs, nachos...It was VERY cold though. Having Paul there to walk around aimlessly with was fun since he and I both went just to do something different. 

Here's Jimmie Johnson:

And Paul fitting in the with the crowd by double fisting food and holding onto his beer! If only he was in red plaid or a cowboy hat or something...he'd fit right in! 

In March Ben, Tanner and I went to a Spring Training Game. We sat in the grass which proved to be very entertaining for me! (Phoenician grass is hard to come by now a days so it's been a long time since I played in grass!) I don't remember who won or anything but I had a delicious margarita and hot dog...followed by Hooters with the guys post-game! 

The guys...posing.

Me and Grass! Yay

Yummy!

Bre insisted we FINALLY go to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant. I've been so scared but she said I'd love it. And you know what...she was absolutley right! I'm craving it right now even! I LOVE Greek food! 

We shared the lunch platter that was filled with AMAZING-ness! 

The fries were so good. Hell, EVERYthing was so good! I loved the tzatziki sauce so much that I even tried making it at home a week later. It turned out fine-not as good as MBFGreek...but I was starting a diet right then and couldn't finish it off-yogurt being off limits! 

But I did find my favorite diet ever....Atkins. Its relatively easy and I DON'T have to give up ranch...which is usually 1, maybe 2, carbs! Eating out on it is easy. And my favorite to eat at home is Tacos! 

My new craft fetish is wall vinyls! I made 2 for our apartment so far and 3 others for other people...including Paul for his birthday present.

This is my favorite one so far....Made for our kitchen obviously. Isn't it SO cute? And pretty easy, just a little time consuming!  

At the end of March Tanner and I went to the Renaissance Festival. It was a lot of fun! I haven't been in so long! We rode an elephant!!! It was scary and fun!

This is my view of the elephant...all big and scary! What a huge head!

This is us watching the jousting

On April 14th this beautiful creature was born: Abrielle-Tanner's Sister's baby

I held her when she was 3 hours old. It has been so amazing seeing a tiny human being! She'll be a month old tomorrow. It was definitely scary holding her and feeding/burping etc and all the baby stuff! It was hard getting used to it all but I am now and love taking care of her....for short periods of time! She was SO small...she's between premie and newborn clothes right now but we got her a lot of fun things to wear so I can't wait till she can fit in them! 

Here she is holding my finger and crashing out! How adorable and tiny is she?!?!

Also in April I got to surprise Paul by telling him I was going to his birthday party..and got to be there all weekend! And OH MAN did we have a great time!!!!! Such a good time that we only took a few pictures from the weekend...and that's so unlike us! 

This is one of our only pictures...from Sunday morning at 7am, hadn't been to bed yet, after we had invited the entire bar back to his house and had an after party, for the second time that weekend. Oh the good times!

                                    

Also...I'm not sure why it comes up sideways but...you get the idea. Drunk, tired and bored!

Tanner and I turned 24 this year. His birthday was a lot of fun and fell on easter, so I made him a Easter basket full of candies and some presents, Baseball cake pops and bacon roses! Yes, bacon roses. Insanely easy to make and really cute, for a guy that is. 

I also made green cake pops for his dad's family to take over on Easter. Then we BBQed at his sister's new apartment with her bf, baby and mom. Which was a lot of fun also. 

We went to the zoo for my lil' birthday getaway.

We pet stingrays.... Which was Tanner's favorite part:

And fed Giraffes! It was SO awesome to be close to these giant beautiful animals, but we couldn't pet them....and I really wanted to! Haha!

We were really close!!!

There are, of course, a lot more animal pictures but I'll just stick to the ones that we actually interacted with!!

Turns out I find the zoo extremely scary! We went into the reptile part and saw about 5 different kinds of rattlesnakes. Then we continued onto the 'Arizona Trail' which was AZ terrain. EVERY sound I heard made me jump. I was scared to death we were going to run into a non-caged rattlesnake!!! AND THEN as we neared the Oryx corrals (look them up...they're big and have scary horns!) we turned down the trail and hiding behind a brick wall was a lifesized Oryx statue that looked like an actual one and I got the crap scared out of me! So bad that I like flew backwards jumping away and gasping. Tanner laughed and I was SO ready to be done with that trail! Turns out all the crazy sounds from squirrels, chipmunks and birds are very frightening when you're looking at wild animals! We even had a squirrel chase us (adorable but scary) thinking that we would share some food! 

So that is the gist of my last 5 months. At least things that I can remember because I have photos of it all! The best of all being the Super Bowl! I need to have a Green Bay party, especially since I still have some supplies from the SB party! Maybe once its nearly football season! Anyway. And of course there's been a lot of this:

Paul may not be in every picture...but he was there for every drink! Haha! Us and our good times!

There's my 5 month update! Just doing random things and having fun. I'm glad we've already had some new adventures and fun highlights of they year!

• Packer's win the Super Bowl
• Went to the Renaissance Fair
• Went to the zoo
• Went to Nascar
• Went to a Spring Training game
• Rode an elephant
• Pet sting rays
• Fed giraffes
• Had a lil' niece born

Hopefully we'll be doing cool things and I'll remember to take pictures AND blog instead of just post them on Facebook! Tanner's been talking all day about going to a Dwight Yoakam concert (ick really, he's insisting I go. Gag) and a Diamondbacks game on the 21st! So hopefully I'll be back on here SOOOOON!

-xoxoxo-